Retreat Again (The Retreat Series Book 2)

by Christina Benjamin

  “It’s kinda hard to explain.”

  Olivia sighed deeply. “It’s a long drive. Try me.”

  Alex’s spine stiffened. He hated talking about his art. It always turned into talking about synesthesia. And admitting his brain wasn’t wired right wasn’t exactly a great conversation to have with a girl he was already intimidated by. It’s not that he was ashamed of it. Alex quite enjoyed his unique view of the world, but what he didn’t like, were all the intrusive questions into his personal life that always followed.

  “I don’t really like talking about myself,” he muttered.

  “Okaaay. . .” Olivia drawled. “Are you sure you’re an artist? All the one’s I’ve ever met never shut up about themselves.”

  Alex laughed. “I guess I’m still an aspiring artist. What about you?” he asked hoping to change the subject. “Tell me about the cello. Do you play in an orchestra or something?”

  “No.”

  “Well you should. You’re amazingly talented.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean it. That song you played gave me goose bumps. I never would have guessed you were playing it live. I thought it was a recording or something.”

  Olivia arched an eyebrow as she glanced at him skeptically.

  “Honestly. I respect musicians so much. I never would have barged in on you if I knew you were playing.”

  “I don’t really play for people anymore,” Olivia said quietly. After a moment she added, “You know . . . I think it’s only fair that I see you paint since you saw me play.”

  Alex’s face paled. Olivia wasn’t going to let this go.

  Chapter 15

  Olivia

  Olivia was beginning to worry about what kind of artist Alex was. He clammed up every time she asked him about his art. It was more than a bit suspicious.

  Christ, what the hell did he paint?

  Whatever it was, Alex wasn’t doing anything to ease Olivia’s worry about being trapped with him until the flood subsided. She kept trying to catch glimpses of him without him noticing. His face was like a magnet. He was devastatingly good looking. The kind of guy who you kept staring at trying to figure out what his secret was. It was maddening. Was it his deep green eyes and thick lashes that made him so unusually gorgeous? Or was it the perfect line of his broad jaw? Maybe the sharpness of the Cupid’s bow on his heavenly lips? Or the perfect tan of his skin? Or his interesting tattoos? Maybe it was the perfect amount of stubble along his jaw?

  Stop it, Olivia!

  She decided she didn’t care how cute Alex Tine was. Or that Gran liked him. She couldn’t trust someone who was so secretive. She didn’t need any more of that from the men in her life.

  Olivia’s thoughts were barreling down the dark path of her misguided trust when Alex’s voice startled her.

  “Stop!” he shouted.

  She saw what startled him and slammed on the brakes, barely stopping before plowing into the giant tree that lay across the road. She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts she nearly hit it. The downed tree blended in with the scenery around them—camouflaged in the rain soaked green and brown forest.

  Olivia put the car in park and gripped the wheel silently in disbelief.

  “You okay?” Alex asked after a moment.

  She was shaking and definitely far from okay. They were now trapped on the switchbacks during a downpour, miles from civilization on a road that could flood at any moment. She wanted to cry. But the last thing she needed to do was break down in front of a stranger. Olivia had been holding so much at bay the last few days and no matter how hard she tried to fight it, she was finally at her breaking point.

  She sucked in a rattling breath and a sob leaked out. Tears exploded from her eyes and she was in a full-blown ugly cry in a matter of seconds. She heard Alex mutter something that sounded a lot like, “Shit.” But she couldn’t be positive because of the loud blubbering sobs she was unable to control. She felt Alex slide a tentative hand around her shoulders and give her a reassuring squeeze.

  “It’s okay, Olivia. No one’s hurt. We’re going to be fine.”

  “We’re not going to be fine! We’re stuck here and this road could flood at any second during a storm like this. We don’t have food or water. And how long do you think the gas will last. It gets freezing here at night.”

  “All right, calm down.”

  Calm down? Calm down!

  Olivia hated it when people told her to calm down. It only made her more spastic.

  “Let’s go have a look,” Alex suggested. “Maybe we can move the tree somehow.”

  “Oh, did you bring your chainsaw, because I forgot mine,” Olivia snapped.

  Alex ignored her sarcasm and got out of the car. Olivia watched him survey the tree. He moved around it until she couldn’t see him anymore. The massive branches seemed to swallow him up and her heart pounded frantically as the feeling of being alone began to devour her. Being left alone was always Olivia’s biggest irrational fear.

  She rolled the window down and shouted into the rain. “Alex?”

  Olivia heard his muffled voice on the other side of the tree. After the sound of snapping twigs and rustling leaves, he finally reappeared by her side of the car.

  “You’re right. We’re not moving that thing. It’s a beast!”

  He almost sounded impressed. “You don’t get out of the city much, do you?” she asked.

  Alex laughed. “It’s that obvious?”

  She nodded. “Trees bigger than this one will start coming down all around us in this kind of weather. The ground’s too saturated for the roots to hold. It’s dangerous to stay here.”

  “Okay. Well we can’t be that far from the house. Let’s hike back.”

  Olivia nodded and rolled the window back up before shutting the car off. She grabbed her purse and cell phone and locked the doors behind her.

  Alex held out his hand, and despite Olivia’s stubborn streak, she reached out and took it. He hadn’t killed her yet and she’d rather think of him as a friend when facing such an unpleasant hike home.

  “Come on,” she said. “I know a short cut.”

  They’d been hiking up the slick mountainside for forty minutes without much conversation. Piles of wet leaves made each footstep impossibly perilous and Olivia was too busy concentrating on not falling to bother talking. Her muscles trembled, wound tight from exertion. She wasn’t used to this much exercise and it showed. She was soaked to the bone and shivering like the last leaf clinging to a dead branch. She sorely regretted passing on Alex’s offer for his sweatshirt before they’d left the house. Alex must have noticed her trembling, because the next thing she knew he told her to stop moving and was offering his jacket.

  She started to protest but he cut her off. “Your teeth are chattering so loud I can’t concentrate,” he teased. “Just put it on. Besides, I can’t get you safely home if you freeze to death.”

  “Thanks,” she said sheepishly shrugging into the jacket.

  It was still warm and smelled like him. Olivia felt her skin flush as Alex tugged her closer so he could zip the jacket all the way up to her chin. He pushed the hair clinging to her face away gently and pulled the hood of the jacket up.

  “Better?” he asked.

  Her knees felt weak and she didn’t trust her voice, so she nodded.

  What the hell was wrong with her?

  She should be concentrating on not getting lost, not drooling over how absurdly gorgeous Alex looked with his white t-shirt plastered to his perfect body.

  Thankfully, Alex interrupted her dirty thoughts. “So you said you don’t play the cello for people anymore. Does that mean you used to?”

  “Yeah. I’ve pretty much played my whole life. Performed with orchestras and ensembles.”

  “But not anymore?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Why’d you stop?”

  “It’s kinda hard to explain.”

  Alex changed his voice to the girly version he’d m
ocked her with earlier. “It’s a long walk. Try me.”

  “Do you have a photographic memory or something?” she asked.

  He smirked. “Seriously. It’s a long walk, right? We need something to pass the time. Plus, I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”

  Olivia frowned. She wanted to shout, “new bar!” Talking about her music was her least favorite topic lately. And she supposed that’s why people had finally stopped asking. But Alex didn’t know better. And maybe that made him precisely the person to talk to.

  Chapter 16

  Alex

  When Olivia finally spoke again, Alex was surprised by her words.

  “It’s not that it’s hard to explain,” Olivia paused. “I guess, it’s more that it’s hard for me to talk about.”

  She’d been silent for so long Alex had assumed he’d upset her and she’d gone back to ignoring him. But it seemed her ever-changing moods had shifted again and she was offering him a real conversation. He didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so he stayed silent. He kept an eye trained on her as they hiked side-by-side in the pouring rain, making sure he was always an arm’s reach away in case she slipped.

  “I guess the answer is pretty simple actually,” she said. “I lost someone and it broke the part of me that loved to play the cello.”

  Alex thought back to the gloomy melody he’d awoken to that morning. “I didn’t think you sounded broken when I heard you playing. Just honest, and a little sad, maybe.”

  Olivia smiled. “You are a good listener.”

  “Who did you lose?” Alex asked.

  “My mother.”

  Alex reached out to grab Olivia’s hand. He pulled her to a stop and stared into her bright blue eyes. His breath hitched as the full power of her gorgeous blue glow hit him. “I lost my mother too,” he murmured.

  “Then you know,” Olivia said simply.

  Alex nodded.

  He did know.

  They both stood in the rain, staring at each other in an eerie moment of clarity.

  Was this why he felt such a connection to her?

  Alex had read that loss like this could bond people who’d never even met.

  Had fate brought them together—two lost souls looking for something to hold on to?

  Before Alex could say anything he heard a strange groaning nearby. He edged closer to Olivia and tented a hand over his eyes in the rain, searching the horizon. There was movement to their right. Two black shapes the size of dogs ambled toward him making nervous grunts.

  “Are those bears?” Alex asked in disbelief.

  Olivia whirled. “Where?”

  He pointed in the direction of the lumbering black shapes. They were closer now and he was certain they were bears. He’d never seen a bear in real life before. They were smaller than he’d imagined.

  “Shit! Those are cubs! We have to get out of here, now,” Olivia whispered, clutching Alex’s hand and pulling him with her up the ridge.

  “They’re so small. Are they really dangerous?” he asked.

  “No, but their mother is.”

  Just as she said the words, a deep roar ripped through the forest and the cubs retreated toward the sound. Realizing the noise was coming from above them, Olivia stopped moving. The sound of thrashing brush left no doubt in Alex’s mind that something large was just a few yards away from him. And he didn’t want to come face-to-face with whatever was making the low growls that echoed through the forest.

  “What do we do?” he whispered.

  “Run!”

  As Alex turned to follow Olivia back down the steep slope they’d just climbed, the imposing silhouette of a black bear came out of the brush. He saw it stand on its hind legs and sniff the air before it roared again and that was all Alex needed to witness. He grabbed Olivia’s hand and ran like he’d never run before, pulling her with him as he pounded down the mountain.

  The good thing about their journey back to the car was that it only took them a fraction of the time it had to hike away from it. The bad part was Alex wasn’t sure how to stop their momentum. They were sliding and skidding as much as they were running. Just staying upright and trying to avoid branches and rocks wasn’t the biggest of his worries. He could still hear the angry rumbling of the bear behind them. Alex held onto Olivia’s hand like a lifeline. She’d fallen twice but she got back up without complaint and trekked after him, determination shining in her eyes.

  He’d known it about her the instant they’d met—Olivia was a survivor.

  Just like him.

  The Range Rover was finally in sight.

  “Unlock it!” Alex yelled.

  Olivia let go of his hand to reach into her purse. She fumbled for a moment before he heard the faint clicking of the door locks and the headlights flashed. Relief flooded his body as he flung the back door open and shoved Olivia inside. He jumped in behind her and slammed the door. Olivia clicked the key fob and Alex heard all the door locks engage. His heart was pounding so loud it drowned out the sound of the rain. He could scarcely take a steady breath. He thanked God he was a runner, or he might not have made it through that downhill sprint.

  He turned his attention to Olivia. “Are you okay?”

  She was shaking from head to toe and her chest heaved, but she appeared to be in one piece. Alex raised his hand to touch a smear of blood on her cheek. She flinched and when he pulled away his hand with blood on it, her eyes widened.

  “It’s just a scratch,” he assured her. “You must have caught a branch.”

  She nodded and gave an involuntary shiver.

  “Let’s turn the heat on,” he suggested, taking the keys from her. He stretched into the front seat, pushed the ignition and the car purred to life. Alex cranked the heat before returning to the backseat and pulling his drenched shirt off over his head.

  “What are you doing?” Olivia asked incredulously.

  “Listen, I may not know anything about bears, but I know a thing or two about being cold. We need to get out of our wet clothes or we’ll get hypothermia.”

  Olivia nodded and started to unzip her borrowed jacket. Alex politely averted his eyes, kicked off his shoes and concentrated on peeling off his soaked jeans. When he looked back at Olivia his mouth went dry. She was in nothing but a lacey white bra and panties.

  Shit!

  His pulse thrummed and he instinctively put a hand over his cock. There was no way to hide how Olivia affected him while wearing nothing but boxer briefs.

  Color blossomed in her cheeks as well. If Alex didn’t know better, he would have thought Olivia was thinking what he was thinking.

  That he wanted her—badly.

  He reached a hand out and took hold of Olivia’s fingers. They were near blue and freezing. Cupping both her hands he pulled them to his mouth and blew to try to warm them up.

  “We’ve gotta warm you up,” he whispered.

  “I think there’s a blanket in the back,” she said between chattering teeth.

  Alex leaned over the back seat and found a neatly folded tan and black plaid blanket. It was absurdly soft and its pattern reminded him of the scarves he always saw swanky people in the city wearing. He shook the blanket out and wrapped it around Olivia’s shoulders. “There we go. Much better, right?”

  Olivia smiled up at him, her big blue eyes burning up his resolve not to kiss her. She bit her lip as she nodded and he caved.

  Alex inched closer, his hand brushing her dripping wet hair from her face. His thumb slowly stroked her cheek wiping away the watery trail of blood from her scratch. Olivia’s breath caught and all Alex could think about was crushing her perfect grapefruit colored lips with his own.

  Chapter 17

  Olivia

  Olivia’s heart was in her throat.

  Alex was going to kiss her!

  And it terrified her how much she wanted him to.

  The rough pad of his thumb moved lower to caress the corner of her mouth. She leaned into his touch, her li
ps parting open of their own accord. She could feel the heat from his breath on her lips and closed her eyes in anticipation. But suddenly, the whole car rocked and Alex nearly fell on top of her.

  He caught himself, caging her in with his strong arms on either side of her face. He braced himself against the car door behind Olivia, his shirtless chest blocking her view. Alex’s rigid muscles were close enough to lick. Olivia swallowed hard and tried to concentrate. The car lurched again, this time followed by a bellow that could come from only one thing. Olivia’s heart slammed into her throat choking off her scream as Alex rolled off of her and she locked eyes with the enraged black bear outside the Range Rover.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.

  Olivia was supposed to have time to figure out her life—to fix things. She couldn’t die like this. Not with all these secrets. But she was at her wit’s end. So far she’d been keeping it together.

  Hell, she’d done more than that.

  She’d taken charge when the car got stuck. She’d known what to do when she saw the bear cubs. She’d gotten them back to the car safely. But that was apparently all she could handle. She was supposed to be safe now.

  Lesson learned.

  Life is short and fragile—don’t waste it.

  Olivia didn’t need to be mauled by a bear for the message to sink in. This was too much. Terrified sobs leaked from Olivia in short bursts as she pressed herself against the car door wishing she could just dissolve into it and disappear. Her breath came fast and shallow.

  “Olivia, look at me,” Alex demanded, his beautiful face cutting off her terrifying view of the bear. “Take slow, deep breaths.”

  “We’re going to die,” she gasped.

  “No we’re not,” he whispered, stroking her wet hair soothingly.

  In protest, the bear gave the SUV another angry shove as it paced around the outside, sniffing and grunting.

  Olivia screamed.

  Alex pulled her close and placed a swift kiss on her forehead. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”