Badd Medicine

by Jasinda Wilder

  “Three days,” I mumbled.

  “THREE DAYS?” they both asked in very loud unison.

  “Yes,” I hissed. “Now stop being weird.”

  They exchanged yet another meaningful look.

  “And…you’re going with Ramsey?” Kitty asked.

  I nodded.

  “Alone?”

  I nodded again.

  “Just you and him? Alone, for three days? Hiking together?”

  I nodded a third time.

  Kitty bit her lip. “Um, honey?”

  I groaned, tipping my head back. “What?”

  “There’s no tent here,” she said, gesturing at the pile of gear.

  “Nope.”

  Kitty’s eyes lifted. “So…you’re sharing a tent with him?”

  “It’ll be totally platonic.” I knew I was lying to her and myself, but hell, I had to keep up appearances at this point. “It’s fine.”

  Juneau was snickering, now. “Izz, honey, have you ever been in a tent?”

  “Nope.”

  “A sleeping bag?”

  “Nope.”

  She was restraining her laughter. “You realize the tent he has is probably barely big enough for two people? As in, it’ll be a tight fit for him because he’s a Badd and he’s fucking enormous.” She bit her lip to hold back another burst of laughter. “There will be absolutely nothing platonic about the sleeping arrangements in that tent, trust me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “When was the last time you went hiking or camping, Juneau?”

  She stared. “Izz—I’m Native Alaskan, sweetheart. I grew up in the bush. I didn’t have running water or electricity for the first ten years of my life. I slept in a tent in the summer and in a camper in the winter and, more often than not, I didn’t even sleep in the tent, I just wrapped up in a blanket on the ground.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that,” I said.

  She shrugged. “We all have our secrets, I guess.”

  Kitty was fiddling with different pieces of equipment. “One question, Izzy.”

  I had my boots on and laced, and I stood up. “Okay?”

  “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How did you manage to get yourself into this?”

  I sighed. “Because I’m a big fat idiot, that’s how. Because I have a huge ego and a temper, and that GUY OUT THERE—” I shouted this so Ram would hear, “makes me mad…crazy even. He doesn’t think I can do this.” I eyed them. “You two don’t think I can do this. And that, my dear disbelieving best friends, is why I am doing this. To prove him, and you, and everyone, wrong. I am not a spoiled city girl.”

  “I—” Kitty started, and then bit her lip. “Okay. But Izzy, it’s not that I don’t think you can, I’m just surprised…you’ve never shown the least bit of interest in nature, or being outdoors, or anything of the sort. And this just seems a little…”

  “Rash?” Juneau said.

  I shrugged. “It’s totally rash, reckless, and idiotic. But I’m not backing out now. I just spent over five hundred dollars on this gear, and I’m going to use it.” I stomp a foot in irritation. “That was my Longchamp purse fund, goddammit.”

  “He’s getting to you,” Kitty said.

  I nodded. “Yes, he is.”

  Juneau and Kitty pulled me in for a group hug, and then let me go.

  “Well, if nothing else, at least we know Ram won’t let anything happen to you,” Juneau said.

  “Why do we know that?” I asked.

  “Because Ramsey Badd strikes me as the most capable outdoorsman in the entire extended Badd clan,” she said. “From what Remington says about him, Ramsey would live in a hut in the woods like a mountain man hermit if he didn’t have his brothers to keep him close.”

  Kitty nodded. “You’re in the best possible hands.”

  I stared at her, wondering if she meant that as a double entendre. And, judging by the delayed snorts and guffaws, she didn’t mean it and was only catching on from my glare.

  “Not like that,” she protested. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “But that’s also true,” Juneau said, snickering.

  “Shut up,” I snarled. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

  Juneau patted me on the head. “Ohhhh sweetheart. Keep telling yourself that.” She went to my bedside table, opened the top drawer, and pulled out my small pink silk drawstring bag full of…umm, personal supplies—my clitoral stimulator, lube, and condoms. She wrapped the bag inside a T-shirt, which then blended in with the rest of my supplies. “Just in case.”

  Kitty examined my stock of condoms. “Um, problem, Izz.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “And that would be…what?”

  “These condoms are going to be too small.”

  Juneau took a look, and winced. “Oooh, yeah. Way too small.”

  I frowned. “Oh, knock it off.”

  She held up a square foil packet. “Izz—these are not going to fit Ramsey Badd.”

  I huffed. “So? It doesn’t matter. He’s not going need it. Nothing is going to happen.”

  Kitty held me by the shoulders again. “Isadora Styles, quit lying to yourself.” She tossed the condom back in my drawer. “I know you messed around with him, so I know you know regular condoms aren’t going to fit. He’s a magnum and you damn well know it.”

  I wiped my face with both hands; if I let myself go back and remember, he was rather incredibly well-endowed. As in, huge.

  “I don’t need condoms,” I snapped. “We’re not going to fuck.”

  Juneau wrapped her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder. “Sure, I believe you. But just please, please…bring some just in case?”

  I groaned, rubbing my face with both hands again, and then went to my bedside table. I tugged open the bottom drawer, rifled through to the bottom, and pulled out the string of magnums I’d stuffed down in there after the last guy, well-endowed enough to use them, had been here. I unrolled the T-shirt, loosened the opening of my bag of goodies, stuffed the string of magnum condoms into the bag, re-cinched it, and rerolled it in the T-shirt.

  “There. Just in case.” I rolled my eyes at them. “But nothing is going to happen. I don’t even like him. He’s arrogant and annoying and disgusting.”

  “Yep,” Kitty said. “And sexy, and charming, and funny, and weirdly addicting.”

  “Shut up. He is none of those things.”

  “Which is why you’re going on a three-day hike with him,” Juneau said, a sly grin on her face.

  A knock on the door startled us all. “Izzy—time to go. You ready to pack yet?”

  I shooed Kitty and Izzy. “Enough of the intervention. I’ll be fine.”

  “There’s no quitting once you’re out there,” Juneau said, “so just…be really, really sure you’re ready for this. There’s no shame in not going.”

  “Yes, there is,” I grumped. “I’m not quitting. I don’t quit. Now go away—I have to pack.”

  Kitty and Juneau exited my room, leaving my door open.

  “All yours, champ,” Juneau said, patting Ram on the chest. “Be nice, okay?”

  Ramsey eyed her curiously. “Okay…sure. The nicest.” He entered my room, glancing at me as Kitty and Juneau vanished into the living room. “What was that about?”

  I shrugged. “Just them being weird.”

  His gaze went to my open bedside table drawers—the top drawer being open is an issue, because the number of dildos and vibrators is, frankly, embarrassing.

  He blinked, and covered a grin with a hand. “Looking for something in particular in there?”

  I turned away, refusing to let him see me blush. “Yeah. Phone charger.”

  “In your dildo drawer?”

  I reached into the open drawer and lifted out the three extension outlets built into the drawer, one of which did indeed have a cell phone charger plugged into it. “Yep. See?”

  I unplugged the charger and tossed it on my bed, and slammed the drawers shut, hoping th
at was the end of it.

  Alas, it wasn’t.

  “Nice try, but, uh…you know there’s nowhere to plug that in out in the forest, right?” He grinned. “And also, there’s no signal even if you did have a fully charged phone.”

  I sighed. “Whatever.”

  He held out a hand. “Phone.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Give me your phone.”

  Warily, I took my phone from my purse and handed it to him. He powered it off, stuffed it back into my purse, and then reached into my purse and withdrew my wallet.

  “ID in here?”

  I nodded. “Yeah…why?”

  He opened my wallet, found my ID, slid it out, withdrew my debit card and a wad of cash and tossed the wallet back into my purse. Then, he moved to stand in front of me and shoved the ID, debit card, and cash into my hip pocket, his fingers barely making contact with any part of me except the outer edge of the pocket.

  “There,” he said. “That’s all you need to bring. Leave the purse, leave the phone, leave it all. This shit is just for emergencies—I doubt you’ll even look at it the whole time we’re gone, but it’s always good to be prepared for emergencies.”

  “What kind of emergencies?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno—anything is possible. We could get separated and you may need to find a ride home. One of us could be injured and we’d need identification at the hospital. I could be attacked by a bear and hideously mangled and they’d need to ID me.”

  “That’s not funny,” I snapped.

  He chuckled. “It is, a little. There are bears out there so there’s a decent likelihood we’ll see one, but I know how to handle them.”

  I rolled my eyes at his braggadocio. “You know how to handle bears.”

  He nodded seriously. “Absolutely.”

  “And you snuggle them and dance with them, too, I imagine?”

  “Yep. I’m a bear dancing and snuggling expert.” He chuckled. “I just mean I know what to do if we encounter a bear, Izzy, that’s all.”

  “And that would be what?”

  “Make noise, and don’t try to run.”

  “That’s it?”

  He nodded. “Basically. We keep our food up out of reach or in a locker at night, and we make sure we don’t surprise them. If they hear us, they’ll run before we even see them. Usually. They don’t like people. What they say is cliché but true: they’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

  “Have you ever encountered a bear?” I asked.

  He shrugged and nodded. “Sure, several times. Only one close call, though.”

  “Why don’t you run? And what was the close call?”

  “Your brain bounces around a lot, you know that? So, I was up in the Sierra Nevadas in the early spring on a two-week hike. I was way, way up near the peak of…god, I don’t remember which mountain now, just that I was up high and coming around a bend in the trail—although where I was, it wasn’t really a trail so much as an old deer track I’d found. Anyway, I came around a pretty blind corner and there were these two little cubs right on the track, eating berries off a bush. I was less than twenty feet away from them, and they just stood up on their little legs and stared at me, making that funny snuffling noise bears make.”

  “Awww. Were they as cute as I want to imagine baby bears being?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Oh man, probably at least ten times cuter in person. The problem was, their mama came out of the woods right behind me.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  He laughed even harder. “Yeah, that’s a real oh-shit moment, let me tell you. A seven-foot-tall angry mama grizzly bear standing on her hind legs, snarling at you? Yeah.”

  “Oh my god, what’d you do?” I asked, laughing myself now.

  “Pissed my pants,” he said, still laughing. “No lie, I actually did pee a little. And then I started shouting. She took a swipe at me, got me with a claw right here.” He lifted his T-shirt and showed me a long, thin, ropy scar running from his left nipple straight down to his hipbone. “Gave me that. I whipped out my bear spray, still yelling as loud as I could, and sprayed her with it. She made an awful goddamn amount of noise, but she took off with her cubs behind her, growling the whole way. If she’d gotten any more of that claw on me, I’d have been split open like a sack of sausages. As it was, I got a really bad infection from the bacteria on her claw. By the time I made it back to civilization, I was sick as a dog.”

  “Bacteria on her claw?”

  “Oh yeah, bears are omnivores, you know, so they’ll eat carrion if they have to, which means their teeth and claws almost always have all kinds of nasty shit on them that’ll infect you if they get ahold of you.” He let his shirt fall, hiding his deliciously ripped abs. “Reason you don’t run from bears is because they’re faster’n fuck. Big as they are, you’d think they’d be slow, but they’re not. Even the biggest, fattest, slowest bear can easily outrun a human. You run, they’ll think you’re prey and take off after you, and they will get you. You make noise; they’ll get scared and run off. Even that mama grizzly that pawed at me was just protecting her cubs. I don’t hold it against her. Plus, I got a cool story and a badass scar out of it.”

  “So you’ve actually survived a bear attack?” I asked, trying not to be impressed and failing.

  “Nah, I wouldn’t call it an attack. It was more of a warning, like ‘hey, asshole, get away from my babies or I’ll really fuck you up.’ I’d accidentally gotten between her and them, which is why she went after me in the first place.” He grinned. “But, if calling it a bear attack will win me more points, then yeah, it was a bear attack.”

  I rolled my eyes. “There are no points. I don’t play the ratings game.”

  “No?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. It’s pass or fail with me.”

  He sat down on the floor and began gathering items. “Time to pack. Even distribution of weight is vital, so packing everything in here is kind of an art and a science at the same time.” He began putting things into the pack, and I watched carefully, quickly picking up on the method. He glanced at me as he packed. “So. What’s the criteria for pass or fail?”

  I snorted. “Ha—wouldn’t you like to know?”

  He was quiet a moment, continuing to pack gear into my backpack. Finally, before he began packing my clothing in near the top, he glanced at me.

  “Yeah, I would.” There was no humor in his voice, which was unnerving, somehow.

  I fought the temptation to answer the question straight—that would be stupid and dangerous, and courting drama I didn’t need. So, instead, I opted for snark.

  “It’s pretty simple—don’t be an obnoxious, arrogant asshole.” I sat on the floor beside him and took the backpack from him. “Move aside, you big lunk. I don’t want your grubby paws on my unmentionables.”

  He laughed, but it sounded a little forced, and he slid aside to let me pack my own clothes—which was good, because the T-shirt that had my emergency sex kit wrapped up in it was right on top, and he’d have felt it and gotten curious. With my clothes packed, all that was left were a few items that Ram strapped down to the outside. And then there was only a compass and a small box I hadn’t noticed him add to the pile of gear.

  I picked it up. “What’s this?” I asked, opening it. Inside was a Browning folding knife, the handle made of pink camo, the blade four inches of shiny metal. “I thought you said I didn’t need a knife.”

  He shrugged. “I said you didn’t need a Bowie knife.” He tapped the knife on his belt, which was basically like a small sword. “You go hiking, you should have at least a little knife. They always end up being useful.”

  “Ah.” I folded the knife and slid it into the black scabbard or whatever it was called. “So, should I put it on my belt?”

  He rolled a shoulder. “Sure. Easier to get to when you need it.” He nudged the compass toward me, which also came with a case that could be attached to a belt. “That too. If you have a good knife, som
e fishing line, and a compass, you can survive in the wild indefinitely.”

  I unstrapped my belt a few loops, slid the knife and compass on, and rethreaded and re-buckled it. “I see. I don’t know how to use a compass, though.”

  He slapped his knees as he stood up. “I’ll teach you.” He indicated my backpack with a toe. “Try that on.”

  I got to my feet and hefted the bag…or tried to. “Holy fuck, that’s heavy!”

  He chuckled. “Yep. It won’t feel as heavy once you get it on, though.”

  I tried again to lift it and put it on like I would a normal backpack, but it was just too heavy. I eyed him with annoyance. “Am I missing something?”

  He jutted his chin at the bed. “Get it up onto the bed, back up to it, squat and buckle it on, and then stand up.”

  I did as he suggested, and did manage to get it on and stand up with it. “It’s still heavy.”

  He tilted his head to one side. “Yep. But remember, you are carrying three-days worth of supplies on your back.”

  I refused to complain any more, or even let myself voice out loud the thought that was running through my head: how the hell am I going to survive carrying this thing around for three days? I’m going to die.

  I glanced at Ram. “How the hell do you carry two weeks worth of supplies, if three days is this heavy?”

  He stood in front of me and adjusted straps so the pack settled lower on my back, and then tightened the hip belt so the weight sat on my hips more and my shoulders less, and just like that, it felt magically lighter.

  “Well, for one thing, I’m stronger than you, and I just mean that as a simple statement of fact, not as a brag or some kind of macho posturing bullshit.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re a monster, Ram—of course you’re stronger than me.”

  He smirked as he fiddled with other straps—he was close to me, so close I could smell him: a woodsy pine scent from his beard, and that indefinable deeper, muskier scent of man. “Well, you get kind of easily offended by shit like that, so I was covering my bases.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You think I’m easily offended?”

  He chortled. “Um, yeah, babe. You’ve called me an asshole at least twenty times since we got here.”

  “That’s a ridiculous exaggeration.”