She ran full tilt into him as he arose from lighting the camp stove. With a grunt, he caught her in his arms.
“What happened?” he asked. When she could only gasp and point back into the bush, he shook her. “What happened?”
“Bear!” she gasped.
“Did you see it?” His hand went to the knife at his belt.
“No…no. I heard it…in the bush.”
“Oh.” He released her and turned back to the stove.
“Oh, right!” She began to get her breath back enough to be angry. “Silly city girl wouldn’t know a bear if she fell over it.”
“If it were a bear, you wouldn’t have heard it.” He adjusted the gas as a flame leaped up. “I’ve seen a four-hundred-pounder move as silently as a shadow.”
“But no birds were singing!”
“What?” He snapped around to face her.
“No birds were singing. Gramps always said that meant a predator was near.”
“I’m glad you remember one of Jack’s lessons. What did you do after you decided it was a bear? Run?”
“Of course not. Not until I threw my hat in his direction to give him something to sniff and me a head start.”
“You did listen to Jack.” Satisfaction brightened his tone.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Exasperation overpowered fear. “Aren’t you going to investigate? Aren’t you going to…”
“Take on a bear with a knife, a hatchet, and a can of pepper spray? They’re the only weapons I have. I’m not that heroic. I’ll go back and get your hat after we eat. You’ll be needing it. By that time, whatever you heard will be gone.”
“Ahhhhh!” She plunked herself down on the shore and clasped her hands on top of her head. He was the most frustrating creature she’d ever met. And that included several green-broke horses.
“Those clothes fit pretty good.” He glanced over at her as he put coffee on to brew. “For only having met you once, Jess did a great job of sizing you up. You smell nice, too. Guess she has good taste in whatever that stuff is.”
“You arranged all this yesterday when you went to town, didn’t you? The roses were only a ploy to soften me up, to get me to trust you, and drink that Harvey Wallbanger of a wine.”
“Elderberry.” A smirk curled one corner of his mouth. “If you had been familiar with wine made from local berries, you might have taken it a little easier.”
“Oh, and that fact lessens your culpability?” She rested her back against a log and stretched her legs out in front of her.
“No.” He took a couple of sandwiches out of a plastic container, put them into a frying pan, and set it on the stove’s second burner. “But it does explain why I had only a couple of glasses and managed to stay awake. Careful, that’s hot.” He stopped her as she reached for the coffeepot.
“I’m so thirsty and hungry I could swallow molten lava,” she said but drew back and waited for him to serve her the coffee in a tin mug, along with the toasted ham-and-cheese sandwich on a plastic plate. She took a sip of the steaming brew, bit into the sandwich, then closed her eyes and munched in ecstasy.
“Mmmmmm,” she moaned with pleasure. “Food from the gods couldn’t taste any better.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” He joined her against the log, his own coffee and sandwich in hand. “But there is a special something about food cooked and eaten in the outdoors. Especially after a fifteen-hour fast.”
“Fifteen hours? What time it is? How long did I sleep?”
“It’s shortly after noon. You only slept a few hours, Rip Van Winkle. Don’t worry. You haven’t aged perceptibly.”
“Clever, aren’t you?” She paused in wolfing down her lunch and glared at him. “As soon as I’ve finished eating, I plan to start walking back to the Lodge. All I have to do is follow the river.”‘
“And cross two ravines with freshet-flooded streams and temperatures so cold they will kill anyone foolish enough to try to cross them at this time of year.” He replenished his cup and hers. “Hypothermia isn’t a pleasant way to go.”
“So I’m trapped here…with you?”
“Looks like it.” He sipped his coffee, watching her over the rim of his mug.
“Well, don’t expect any romantic moments, buddy!” She stacked her cup and plate beside him and leaned back against the log. “Not if you were the last man on earth and the human race were about to become extinct.”
“Fine by me.” He gathered her dishes with his and stood. “All I want you to do is enjoy the ride, drink in the ambience, and allow yourself to develop an appreciation for the surroundings. You can get started while I pack up our gear.”
Allison drew a deep breath of clear, cool spring air lightly flavored with the scents of burgeoning greenery. Just this once it wouldn’t hurt to do as he instructed.
Maples and birches, their buds already beginning to fan out with the promise of new leaves, surrounded their landing site. Riverside ferns and grasses, too, were becoming verdant with rebirth. Even the alders along the riverbank in places still flooded with the freshet showed promise of renewed life. Swinging with cavalier devil-may-care joy from a nearby branch white-furred with pussywillows, a red-winged blackbird burst into song.
The May sun warmed her, the utter peace of her surroundings lulled her. High-rise offices, pressure-cooker meetings, heels, tailored business suits, spa and hair appointments, and incessantly ringing phones slid from her mind. She relaxed and dozed.
****
She jerked awake to see Heath had unpacked the canoe and set up a tent. A fire crackled inside a circle of rocks near the river’s edge. As she scrambled to her feet, he straightened from adding a log to it.
In the twilight, silhouetted against the primitive force of the river’s wild rush, he was an imposing figure, tall, muscular, and lithe, a true man of the wilderness. He made her pulses speed, her solar plexus tighten.
“We’re staying here?” She suppressed a shiver. The sun had disappeared behind the trees across the river, leaving a distinct chill in the air.
“It’s as good a place as any we’ll find for a few miles,” he said. “And since you slept most of the day away…”
“You could have awakened me!” she snapped, rubbing her arms. “Now it will take us even longer to get to the end of this miserable voyage.”
“The longer I keep you out here, the better the chances you’ll start to appreciate all this. You’re cold and cranky. Come over by the fire. It will help the first part.”
“I am not crank…” Allison caught herself. How childish can I sound?
“Fine. Stay where you are.” He hunkered down beside the fire and stirred it to new heights with a stick.
She hesitated, shivered again, then, feeling a strange moth-to-the-flame apprehension, moved to join him.
“It’s peaceful here.” She sat down beside him. “Even with the river at full flood.”
“Glad you noticed.” He quirked her a grin, and this time it wasn’t sardonic.
“It’s been years since I’ve seen a bonfire.” With a sigh, she rested her chin on arms braced against her bent knees as she gazed into the flames. Serenity slid over her.
“Damn it!” She snapped out of it and rounded on him. “Did you slip something into my coffee at noon?”
“If you have to attribute your pleasure in the moment to drugs, I’m wasting my time.”
He stood and strode toward the trees into the deepening shadows. When he vanished from sight, Allison felt a surge of panic. Where is he going? What if he never comes back? What if he’s leaving me to die in the wilderness? Have I insulted him once too often? Oh, God, what have I done?
Breathe, breathe. If he’d been planning to leave me, he could have done it while I was asleep. She glanced at the dark outline of the canoe and realized leaving her wasn’t in his plans. He wouldn’t desert her without taking the canoe.
What was that? She swung toward the place where he’d vanished into the forest.
He emerged out
of the shadows, a package of wieners, a bag of rolls, a tube of mustard, a sack of marshmallows, and two bottles of lime soda in his arms.
“I put our coolers up in the trees a few yards away.” He squatted by the fire and spread out the food. “They’ve got tight covers and shouldn’t attract bears. Still, there’s no point in inviting them up to our tent.”
“Lime?” She gazed at the bottles of her favorite soda.
“You loved the stuff. I couldn’t understand why. After you left, I’d drink a bottle every once in a while to see what there was to like about it. Eventually, I acquired a taste.”
“Really?” The man was nothing if not full of surprises.
“Yeah, really.” There was no warmth in his tone. When he pulled the knife from its scabbard at his belt, she gasped.
“Look, what I said earlier about your drugging my lunch…” She fell back, away from him.
“Take it easy.” He checked its blade against his finger. “I’m going to cut a couple of dogwood branches to use as roasting sticks. Hell, you really do have a sick opinion of me.”
“You did get me drunk, you did kidnap me…”
“Shanghaied. There’s a difference, remember. You’ll be free to do whatever you wish at the end of the voyage, no ransom required.”
“Whatever. Furthermore, you’re the last person to see my grandfather alive, you’ve profited handsomely from his death, and you’d be only too happy to get rid of a business partner who doesn’t share your future plans for that inheritance. My mother will be furious when she finds out what you’ve done!”
“She knows.” Satisfied with the knife’s sharpness, he returned it to its sheath.
“Mom knows…that you filled me full of wine, that you’re taking me on this voyage of the damned against my will?” Allison was appalled.
“She knows we’re running the river.” He faced her squarely. “I told her what I planned to do when I spoke to her on the telephone yesterday. She thought it was a good idea to jog your memory of all your grandfather held dear. She also thought I’d be able to convince you verbally to come along. When that failed, I had to resort to other methods. She doesn’t know about that last part.”
“Do you think she’ll condone what you actually did? Do you honestly think—”
“No,” he said. “If you were my daughter, I’d be ready to beat the living daylights out of any man who ‘spirited’ away my child. But you’re not my child, and I’m confident the end will justify the means.”
He turned and once more strode off into the darkness. Allison sank back down on the riverbank gravel. This entire mess read like something out of a cliché adventure novel. Heroine captured by handsome savage and carried away into the wilderness to become his adoring mate.
She drew her knees up in front of her, folded her arms on top of them once again, and watched the flames diminishing into coals—red-hot, glowing coals perfect for roasting wieners and marshmallows. She remembered her last meal cooked over a bonfire.
Gramps had been there. And her mother and Heath and his mother. It had been the second to last night she’d spent at the Chance, and after they’d eaten she and Heath had wandered down by the boathouse, a full summer moon lighting their way. She’d been fourteen, that age when boys are an endless fascination, and Heath, at sixteen, had seemed very much a man of the world, a romantic rebel full of inner-city toughness and street savvy.
She recalled leaning back against the rounded logs of the boathouse, the moonlight on her face, her waist-length wavy hair falling in cascades over her shoulders. Heath had come to stand close in front of her, a dark silhouette between the wild river and the romantic light of the moon. Feet planted apart, he’d towered above her, his shadow enveloping her, the planes of his face strong and handsome in the shadows.
The soft summer night filled with silvery magic. From the riverbanks, frogs raised a chorus to the young lovers. A tender breeze rippled sensuous music through the pines. And when Heath took her into his arms and touched his lips to hers, all her naive fantasies burst into full bloom. She remembered the way her heartbeat had gone into a wild flurry, the butterflies that had danced in her stomach, and, below, an overwhelming feeling of ecstasy she’d never before experienced. It had whirled her out of reality.
Heath was in love with her! Wild joy burst over her in an enchanted wave. Nothing could have been more wonderful, more perfect.
But suddenly his embrace tightened. She was pinned against the boathouse by his taut body. His mouth came down on hers again, but this time it was hard and brutal. He forced her lips apart, his tongue into her mouth. One hand went under her T-shirt, sliding up her back, working at her bra clasp. His body forced against hers was hard, shocking, demanding more than she could have imagined.
“What are you doing? Let me go!” She struggled, but somehow he pinned her hands behind her back with one of his.
“Come on, baby. I know the signs. You’ve been inviting this all night.” His arms became steel bands, his chest a brick wall. He bent his head to kiss her again, but this time she was ready. She clamped her teeth down on his lower lip.
He howled and staggered back from her.
“Bitch!” he snarled, scrubbing at the blood seeping down his chin. “Snotty rich bitch! Get away from me. Go on, run back to your fancy house and clothes!”
For a moment she stood staring at him. He was no longer handsome, no longer exciting and romantic. His features, in the shifting shadows, took on the threatening sneer of a wolf. He was a beast—a horrible, nasty beast.
With a stifled sob, she turned and ran toward the Lodge, stumbling over roots, tears streaming down her face. She was relieved to find her family and Mrs. Oakes hadn’t yet returned. Rushing to her room, she slammed the door, locked it, and fell face down onto her bed.
“I’ll never, ever feel romantic about any man as long as I live,” she sobbed into her pillow. “Falling in love is just something stupid people write about in books, stupid, stupid books!”
She’d never told anyone what had happened. She’d been too ashamed.
****
The howl of a coyote startled her back to the present, and Allison glanced over her shoulder into the darkness. A form emerged, a form that was Heath.
“Here.” He handed her a pointed stick. “The coals look ready.”
“Sure…okay.” She took the slender branch and reached for the package of wieners.
Her fingers fumbled with the plastic packaging, and suddenly he was squatting in front of her, covering her trembling hands with his.
“Allie, what’s wrong?”
In the glow of the dying fire she couldn’t see his face distinctly, but his use of her grandfather’s pet name softened her to the heart.
“Nothing… A coyote howled.”
“Level with me…for once.” His tone brooked no denial.
“I was…remembering.” She let the package drop from her hands and allowed her gaze to rest on his hands clasped over hers. “Our last wiener roast.”
“Allie…” The word came in a soft, aching breath. “God, Allie, I’m sorry.”
“W…what?”
“For what I did that night. I was fresh out of a tough juvenile facility where forcing yourself on a girl was considered the macho thing to do, and, after Jennifer, I was out to take my revenge on the first rich girl who crossed my path.”
Allison felt his fingers beneath her chin. When he raised her face to a level with his, she hated the tears she felt brimming in her eyes.
“You…you destroyed my spirit of romance,” she choked. “You took away all the mystery and magic. You were the reason I never came back to the Chance. I couldn’t stand the sight of you!”
“You’re telling me I’m the reason you never came back to visit Jack? Sweet Jesus, Allie!” His eyes stared deep into hers, so deep he might be looking down into her soul.
“It doesn’t matter now. There’s no going back. I can’t undo the loneliness Gramps suffered. I can’t get t
hat magic back in my heart.” Those damn tears slid down her cheeks.
“Don’t.” He leaned forward to touch his lips to hers. “Please, Allie, don’t. I can’t watch you hurt any more.”
Astonished by his tenderness for a moment, she didn’t speak. Then she shrugged away, wiped the tears with the back of her hand, and looked down at the package of wieners on the gravel between them.
“Just forget it, okay? Open the wieners. I assume your knife is still sharp?” She sniffed herself back into control.
“Right.” He picked up the celluloid pack in one hand, pulled his knife from its scabbard with the other, and, in a single, swift gesture, slit it open. “Here.” He handed it back to her. “Eat.”
Their second pair of wieners were browning over the coals before he spoke again.
“Dogwood,” he said.
“What?” Surprised, she looked over at him as he squatted across the fire pit from her.
“These sticks we’re using, they’re dogwood, probably the hardest wood of all time. Their branches were once used to make daggers and were known as dagger wood. Time corrupted it to dogwood.”
“Interesting,” she replied vaguely, returning her gaze to the roasting wiener.
“Another legend states it was named dogwood because it proved effective in curing mange in dogs.”
“Charming.” She glanced over at him and, even in the flickering light, caught the gleam of mischief in his eyes.
He removed the cooked wiener from its skewer, plunked in into a roll, and applied mustard. Then he picked up the half-empty bottle of lime soda beside him and took a drink. “Hard to believe I like this stuff.”
“Given time, I suppose a person can develop a taste for almost anything.” She bit into her hot dog. “I’d forgotten how good these can be.”
“Nothing like food cooked in the outdoors. There’s a lot more you’ll discover you’ve been missing, if you’ll give yourself a chance to experience it.”
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