He didn’t allude to the bear, and she didn’t follow up. Instead, she followed him into the forest.
To her surprise he reached out and took her hand. Warmth radiated up her arm, back down to her core. She probably didn’t need a lean-to to feel safe.
He found branches from a shaggy white pine and cut off the boughs, leaving only the bare poles, and angled them onto the ridgepole, lashing them with more spruce roots. Then he piled on the boughs to make a bushy layer of thatch.
“If we had more light, I’d spread down a layer of moss, then the boughs,” he said in a weird sort of apology.
“That’ll do, pig,” she said quietly.
He looked at her, frowning.
“It’s a movie reference.”
“I know. Babe,” he said, and walked over to the fire. “My kid brother loved that movie.” He sat down, held his hands out.
For a moment, as the fire flickered against his face, it grooved out lines of fatigue, the wear of fighting for their lives, the sense that so much hung on his shoulders.
Somehow, despite the fact that they’d crash-landed, without food, water, or supplies, on some remote outlet of river in the massive, overgrown Kootenai forest, he’d crafted them a snug, warm homestead.
And she’d nearly forgotten about the bear.
She sat down next to him, her leg bumping against his strong thigh, his shoulder against hers. “Can I borrow your knife?”
He unsheathed the knife and handed it over.
She got up, went over to a nearby birch tree, and cut away another swath of birch bark.
Then she returned to sit beside him, spread out the birch bark, and began to carve away the thin top layer of white.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t only make pots from clay,” she said. “My mom was a folk artist—she used to work with birch bark. It was one of the first skills I learned.” After removing the top layer, she flattened it on the rock and traced out a pattern with the tip of his knife.
“Birch bark is a bit like leather,” she said. “And it’s waterproof.” She began cutting out the pattern—round in the center, with a T-flap on the top and the bottom.
Conner watched her work in silence.
“Do you have spruce root left?”
He retrieved a small coil.
“Clean it off for me.”
He used his fingers to smooth off the length.
She folded the top and bottom of the T together and used the knife to cut a hole through both ends, then she cut holes all the way down. She twined the spruce root through the holes, sewing it together, then folded the rounded edge inside at the bottom and sewed that shut.
She repeated the work on the other side.
It made a sort of flat-bottomed, part-rectangular, part-oval basket.
“Can you cut me a sapling about the size of your finger?”
He regarded her with a strange, enigmatic look, then got up. A few moments later, he returned and she sewed the sapling along the rim of the basket to give it structure.
“You amaze me.”
Liza looked up, saw him sitting across from her, his eyes shining. “I can make a fire, but you made us dishes.”
She grinned at that. “Now if only we had food. Or water.”
“Food I can’t do, yet...but water?” He took the container and went over to the river, set the container in to soak. Then he walked past her, into the forest, and in a few moments returned with a handful of rocks. He washed them in the river and set them in the fire. “We’ll get the bowl wet, fill it with water, and then add the coals, bring the water to a boil, and it’ll be safe to drink.”
“With amenities like this, I’ll never go home.”
She drew up her knees, wrapping her arms around them.
The forest was alive around them, the wind washing through the trees, carrying with it the hoot of an owl, the river at a hush just beyond their alcove. She sat under the cover of the lean-to, her clothing nearly dry.
Finally Liza let her brain settle into the reason they were here. “Do you think Esther survived the falls?”
Conner sat down next to her. He held a stick in his hand, broke it in half. “I don’t know, but I think we probably need to head back to camp tomorrow. We’re in no shape to keep looking for her, and hopefully Pete will have returned with my drone. I can get a birds-eye view of the river, see if we can spot anything.”
“Is it the same drone you showed me in Arizona?”
He tossed the sticks into the fire. “An upgraded prototype, but yes. I made five of them over the past year, but they all have some sort of glitch. I’ve lost all but one—Pete’s retrieving that one. The NFS seems to think that when they crashed, they started fires, but—” He shook his head, the fire casting shadow across his face. “I don’t know.”
He leaned back on his hands, his forearms bare, sinewed. “I just know that I can’t hand over my last drone to the government...”
Something about the way he said it, an edge at the end of his tone— “You never found out what happened to your brother, did you?”
He breathed in, swallowed, and looked away from her, jaw tight. “The worst part about it is that I promised my grandfather—I gave him my word I’d find out. I had high-level security clearance, and still the government slammed the door on my face. Grandfather said it didn’t matter, but...” He sighed, ran his thumb over his cheekbone. “It mattered. I should have never promised him something I couldn’t deliver. It just got his hopes up.”
“It’s not your fault, Conner. Sometimes promises get broken. It happens, and it’s okay.”
His mouth tightened. He looked away from her, the flames flickering against his dark eyes. Then, abruptly, he got up, retrieved the pot from the river, and brought it back, dripping, filled with water. He set it down then picked out the rocks with a couple of sticks and dropped them into the water, one after another.
The water began to steam.
“That’s why you left the military, isn’t it? To find your brother’s killer.”
He picked up a stick, began to clean off the bark with his knife. “I just thought, after everything, my grandfather deserved answers. First my parents, then my brother—it just wasn’t fair to him.”
“Or to you.”
Conner glanced over at her, lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “It doesn’t matter if it’s fair—it’s what happened. If I believed in fairness, then—”
“Then you could trust God to work it out.”
He frowned at her. “No. I know God’s not fair. He’s just—but He’s not fair. If He were, we’d all be doomed. He wasn’t fair to Jesus to have Him die for our sins, and yet we benefit. It’s because God’s not fair that we have a chance at salvation.”
“All true, but you still want a God you can count on to be fair. And if not that, to at least be on your side. If you knew that God had your back, then it wouldn’t be so hard for you to see beyond today and...make a promise to someone.”
He sighed. “Liza. I don’t make promises not because I don’t trust God, but because I know they don’t matter. A promise doesn’t guarantee that everything will work out. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Believe me, if I could have kept my promise to my grandfather, I would have.”
“But a promise means you have hope—and that hope comes from the fact you believe God hears you and is on your side.”
“I know God is on my side. That He loves me.”
“But you don’t believe that He is going to work everything out for good.”
He stared at her, and for a second, a rawness entered his eyes. He looked away as the water in the pot began to bubble. “Of course I do.”
“No. You don’t. You think that somehow you failed God by not keeping your promise to your grandfather. And then there’s the fact that your parents died right before your eyes, and you couldn’t save them.”
Yes, she went there. Saw her words land in his flinch, the rawness of his expression.
> “The result is that you’re still trying to find a Romans 8:28 ending, something good that will come out of it, and justify your grief. So you say you believe in a good God, one who loves you, one who is on your side. Problem is, you don’t act like it.”
“That’s not fair, Liza. Just because I didn’t tell you that I loved you, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, doesn’t mean that I’m a spiritual cripple.”
She recoiled. If he had slapped her, it would have hurt less.
Her voice fell, sharpened. “I didn’t need you to drop to your knees and propose, Conner. And no one is saying you’re a spiritual cripple.”
She took a breath, dug around to find compassion behind the ache, the fresh wound. “It’s not even about the fact you can’t make a promise—frankly, Conner, when you say you’ll show up, you do. You’re great in the moment.”
His jaw tightened. “Then why is it so important?”
“Because a promise, or a vow, means that you hope in something good beyond this moment. That you believe whatever you are promising—and to whom you are promising—is worth that hope.”
He reached over, stirred the water with his cleaned stick, releasing more heat.
“But the fact is, deep down inside, you don’t believe that God will work things out for good. You’re so afraid that God won’t keep His own promises toward you and He’ll let you down that you’ve stopped hoping. Stopped having faith. Stopped believing in happy endings.”
With someone like me.
But she left that part off because her eyes smarted.
He added another stone from the fire to the pot, then stared at the boiling steam.
“I don’t make promises, Liza, because I know I can’t keep them.” He got up, stalked to the edge of the river. She traced his outline against the blue-black of the night, the fire illuminating his shoulders, the way he struggled with some unnamed emotion.
Then, suddenly, he turned, a fierceness in his eyes. “But I want to.” He took a step toward her. “You have to know that I wanted to believe in us. Like I said, I liked you—I didn’t want you to leave. But if I’d started talking about tomorrow, then you would have, too.”
She got to her feet, stared at him, stymied. “So?”
“So—what if you couldn’t keep them? It goes both ways, Liza. You never acted like I was anything more than a friend. Ever. As if you were afraid to hold on. And after today’s story, I get it. You’re afraid of getting too close, afraid of getting hurt.”
His voice fell, wretchedly thin. “Don’t you think I feel the same thing? You walked out of my life without a word. You didn’t take my calls. You cut me off.”
And the broken edge of his voice told her just how much that had hurt him.
“I’m sorry, Conner.”
He said nothing.
“I thought it was the best for both of us.”
His mouth tightened. “It wasn’t. You always made everything around me brighter, and...and it got pretty dark after you left. I had an entire team of friends die, and I...”
“Oh, Conner, I’m so sorry—”
“I don’t want your pity, Liza. And I don’t want your promises, either. Because if you do make me a promise, then you’re right—I’m liable to believe it, to depend on you, to hope, and then if—when—you walk away, it will kill me.” His voice dropped, his shoulders rising and falling with his breathing. “Again. It’ll kill me again.”
He stared at her, his eyes dark, riddled with emotion.
Again. A knot formed in her chest, her throat thickening. She hadn’t known, had thought—
A root snapped.
Conner stiffened.
A rustling in the woods.
He reached for his knife, crossed over to her.
Then, in one swift move, he pushed her behind him, holding her there with his hand on her hip.
“Whatever happens, stay behind me. And if you have to, run for the river.”
#
Conner planned to go down swinging. Grizzly or no, his fear of tomorrows notwithstanding, he intended to live through this night. Or at least for Liza to live through this night.
Because he wasn’t going to let someone he loved die when he could stand in the way, give her a chance to survive.
The wind sifted through the trees, and Conner stilled, hoping for a scent, something grimy and foul, but the air only lifted the smoky haze from the fire, the earthy loam from the forest.
Maybe he’d imagined—
A high-pitched scream echoed through the darkness.
Liza’s grip tightened on his arm.
“It’s a fox,” he said.
“Really?”
“I think so.”
More snapping, and behind it, the guttural hoots of an owl.
“Something’s out there,” she hissed.
The blood rushed in his ears.
Then, “Conner!” Light flickered across their camp.
Conner tightened his hold on Liza and searched for the source. “Who’s out there?”
“It’s CJ! And Skye.”
Liza’s grip loosened, but Conner didn’t release her until he saw the light flash again and this time made out the shadowed outline of CJ St. John entering the ring of firelight.
He looked intact, if not soggy, his green pants grimy and plastered to his body, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up.
Skye came behind him, similarly doused in her cargo pants and T-shirt. She rushed forward toward Liza. “Oh my gosh—we saw you in the water! Did you go over the falls?”
Liza stepped from behind Conner, and he released her to be caught in Skye’s embrace. “Yeah,” she said. “But Conner saved us.”
Then she gave him a look that reached in, twisted his insides. You’re great in the moment.
Yeah, well that was his superpower. But don’t depend on anything beyond that, apparently.
“We lost sight of you and were trying to figure out a way to get to you when we saw the fire from across the river—we were hoping it belonged to you guys,” CJ said.
“Did you swim across?” Conner sheathed his knife.
“Sorta. The river flattens out about five hundred yards downstream. We took boulders across, but—”
“I went in,” Skye finished for him. “It wasn’t very deep, but CJ went in, too, to pull me out.” She grinned at CJ, something extra in it.
Conner noted an accompanying, aw-shucks grin from his rookie smokejumper. Oh boy.
“The bear found us,” Liza said. “So we jumped off the cliff, into the river.”
“And went over the falls,” Conner added.
“You made quite the digs here,” CJ said, hunkering down by the fire, holding out his hands. “Hotel accommodations, romantic fire...” He leaned over, peered into the bowl. “Stone soup?”
“Drinking water,” Conner said. He fished out the rocks with his stick and knife, then set them back in the fire to sizzle. “Please tell me you have dinner in there.”
“Soggy granola bars and some beef jerky,” CJ said as he peeled off his backpack. “But I have better news that that.” He gestured with his chin to Skye.
“We found this.” She held out a soggy, knit blue cap—no, a backpack with thin straps and a drawstring. “I think it’s Esther’s.”
Liza took it, opened it, and pulled out waterlogged paper, pencils. “Maybe she was going to meet me. Draw the sunrise.”
“Or do some writing,” Conner said. “Or maybe it was simply a decoy for their great escape—it doesn’t matter. It’s hers. Where did you find it?”
“Downstream, near where we forded the river. But it wasn’t caught in the river—we found it onshore, hanging from the branches of a willow.”
Liza pulled out the papers, flipped through the tablet. “Did that mean she made it over the falls?”
Conner stood up, walked over to the pack, took it from Liza, testing the weight. “I don’t think it would have floated. She must have shucked it off when she climbed ashore.�
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“Or it might have gotten caught as she climbed out,” CJ said.
“Which means she’s here somewhere,” Skye said, plunking down her backpack. She pulled out the granola bars and passed them out.
Conner took his, opened it. Not soggy at all. And his stomach roared to life. He watched Liza dive into hers, clearly ravenous. Standing there in the dim light of the fire, she looked wrung out, her beautiful long brown hair in tangles, a scrape on her cheek, her clothes filthy, albeit mostly dry. And so much hope lit her eyes from CJ’s backpack discovery, it made him hurt.
If Esther were in the woods, cold, wet, hungry—
Along with a bear hunting for prey...
This was why he shouldn’t make promises. It had nothing to do with not believing in hope but everything to do with reality. And maybe he didn’t believe that God worked things out for good—but sometimes, yeah, He didn’t.
And that thought filled Conner’s throat with a slow, aching burn.
He walked over to the fire, knelt by the water bowl. “CJ, do you have your water bottle?”
“Yeah, but I drank it all.” CJ handed him the empty bottle.
Conner filled it with the distilled river water. Took a drink of the hot water then passed it to Liza. “It’ll warm you up.”
She took it without meeting his eyes.
“Tomorrow morning CJ and I will keep looking. Skye, you and Liza will head back to camp.”
“Wait a doggone moment. I’m not going back until we find Esther,” Liza said, her eyes flashing. “I can’t just sit around and wait.”
And he got that, really he did. Because it felt like he’d been sitting around and waiting for his life to restart after his brother died. But with her back at the camp, she wouldn’t be jumping into any rivers, being chased by a rogue bear.
Conner sighed, not wanting to fight with her, but, “Yeah, actually, you are going to. I told you I couldn’t keep you safe. And apparently, I was right. I can’t have you getting hurt when I need all of my attention on finding Esther. It’ll be easier without my worrying about you.”
He ignored her expression, the fury in her eyes, the way her mouth tightened.
Playing With Fire: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 2) Page 15