by Teagan Kade
His face has slowly turned from demanding to desperate. Beneath it, there is vulnerability I have a sense he doesn’t show people often. But it doesn’t change the fact I can’t be what he wants.
He wants calm and I’m not even sure I know what that is. I need the hunt, the chase, the excitement of a hot case and that means not letting myself get leashed to someone else’s control. I’ve been fighting since the moment I was born and I don’t think I know how to stop.
“There’s nothing to do,” I answer, a fat, hot tear rolling down my cheek.
“The fuck there is,” he mutters before grabbing my hips and pulling me towards him, crushing his mouth down on mine.
He tastes so good and so wrong.
Damn it, why? Why can’t I just draw the line and walk away? I’ve done it plenty of times before when men have tried to corral me. What is it about him that makes me turn to indecisive, needy mush?
Our kiss is hot and the sounds of our moving lips bounce off the rocky walls around us, echoing and replaying it for me, on a kind of sensual loop.
One of his hands is cupping the back of my head and the other creeps under my shirt before planting fully over my breast. The sensation of his rough hand against the sensitive skin, made even more sensitive by the intensity of my feelings, is simply exquisite.
It would be so easy to just melt into his hands, to let them work their magic and surrender.
And that’s the thought that breaks through. No matter how vulnerable this moment feels, I can’t surrender. I will not lose myself and everything I’ve worked so hard for.
“I can’t do this.” I pull away, bracing myself against his big shoulders and stepping backwards. “Please, just… let me go.”
Before he can say anything, I jog away from him, further into the cave. A minute later I stop, listening behind me, but I don’t hear him coming.
I’m not sure if I’m more relieved or sad. Either way, I can’t go back.
Instead, I march forward, pulling my little flashlight out to light the black. There’s a small channel of water funneling further down the cave. I’m careful to watch where I go, who knows if it drops off.
A wind rips through the space suddenly. It’s a brief blast but it doesn’t smell dank like a cave, it smells like rain and moss. I keep walking.
Slowly, I start to hear sounds. Birds singing, small mammals chirping.
Sunlight makes a faint sliver on the ground by my shoe. Ahead of me is a tumble of lichen-coated boulders. A rock fall, perhaps.
I scramble up them and find an opening just wide enough to barely squeeze through. Slightly bruised from the effort, I make my way out and get pelted by rain again.
I could wait, but that’d give Deric time to realize I’m not coming back. And if there is one thing I’m certain of, it’s that I’m not going back.
As I walk away, guilt eats at my stomach, but I know he’ll just hold me back and I can’t afford to be tempted again, because I might just let him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
DERIC
I’ve been sitting alone way too long. What the hell is Edie doing back there? I scrub a hand over my face, noticing for the first time how scruffy my chin has gotten.
This fucking sucks.
I love being out here in the woods, but not like this, holed up somewhere with a woman who can’t decide if she wants to kiss me or slug me, an empty growling stomach, and a rock-hard erection that is starting to piss me off.
It’s been twenty minutes at least and it still won’t go away because every time I think about Edie, my dick is suddenly at full attention. This hot and cold is going to make my balls fall off, I’m pretty sure. I adjust myself as best as I can and climb the few feet up to the opening to check on the weather.
Still raining.
Of course it is. This is the Pacific Northwest. It could be fucking ninety degrees in July and there’ll still be a seventy percent chance of showers. But at least the rainfall has slowed and the inversion fog that forms around the higher rocky elevations on the mountain has passed.
I glance over my shoulder for the hundredth time wondering if I should go find Edie. I just want her in my arms, in my bed wearing the pair of edible chocolate panties I promised.
Screw this.
Why am I sitting here wringing my hands like some chick watching The Notebook? At the very least, if she’s going to pout and bite her lip and act like I’m some kind of monster, she can do it over here.
I haven’t been in here before and I don’t know how deep this thing goes. She wants her space, fine, but for all I know she’s fallen and broken an arm or gotten a concussion.
I start walking back and the darkness swallows up any remaining filtered light. I find the rock wall and feel my way further back, saying her name and hearing only the awkward echo of my own voice.
I don’t like this. Not at all. My throat starts to constrict. How far does this fucking crevice go?
And then I see it—a strip of sunlight. I follow it, my heart thumping with a growing fear.
She wouldn’t…
Uh, the fuck she would and you know it.
My face grows hot as I climb my way up the rock pile and find the narrow opening. The moss has been freshly marked up, disturbed by someone squeezing through.
Edie…
It’s a slap in the face. How could she just take off and why do I feel like such shit right now? In the back of my mind, I know why. I acted like an asshole and I don’t even regret it because it kept her safe, but I do feel guilty.
She’s out there now on the opposite side of the cliff, with no fucking clue where she’s at and nothing to protect herself with. Just. Fucking. Wonderful.
Hurt and fear and guilt… they’re all jockeying for position until anger joins the race.
Maybe I fucked up, but I didn’t leave her alone in a fucking cave without a clue.
Yes, anger is coming out in full force, pushing everything else out of the picture for now. Anger is good. Anger I can channel.
I square my jaw and set to work, pushing one of the smaller rocks out, making a wider opening for me to get through. My hands are getting torn up, the knuckles rubbing raw as they scrape against rock.
I don’t care. I’m getting her back, even if it means breaking my body in the process.
The rain is trickling through the opening, making the moss-coated stones slick, but I finally manage to scramble out. I glance around, getting my bearings. It’s not a part of the forest I’ve come to often, but I have a pretty fair idea of where I am, orienting myself from the summit and the rise behind me.
I glance around trying to imagine where Edie would have gone. I’m having a hard time deciding if she’d have headed the actual direction of the camp we found or if she’d be disoriented by the nearby creek which looks like the first one but is actually different.
She’s smart, that much I can’t argue with, even if she doesn’t like thinking things through when it comes to her own safety.
I trust my gut and go with the correct direction. A short while later, I spot a boot track that looks like Edie’s and my heart gives a small leap. I guessed right.
That’s reassuring, especially since I can’t seem to penetrate that mind of hers. Damn I wish I understood what she wants.
To be away from you, dumbass.
The thought stings, but I can’t blame her. From the moment I met her, she’s made it clear she’s not looking for a hand to hold hers. Normally, I would never press someone. There’s nothing fun or interesting about a woman who isn’t into it.
Fuck, I probably should have run in the opposite direction the minute she cut me down at the Ranger Station. I have no business getting tangled up with a woman like her, headstrong and defiant to a fault.
Dex was right, a lay is a lay is a lay. I should have stuck to the casual hook-ups I know. Look at me! Fucking chasing this damned woman through the woods, trying to protect her even though she’s determined to hate my guts.
But t
hen there’s the way she looks at me—like she can see all the dirty things I want to do to her and she wants them too. Like she’s too freaking stubborn to admit she wants me and, fuck it all, I want her too.
Like it or not, I’m all kinds of tangled up with Edie. I just wish I wasn’t hashing all this shit out with her while bullets are flying at us.
I want to see her running around my house in my shirt and nothing else. No, ditch the shirt. A body like hers shouldn’t be covered up.
I want to see her in my house when I come home, to hear her voice after I’ve had a shitty argument with Dex about the business. I want to make breakfast with her in the morning, laugh about my shitty cooking over coffee, and then have a quickie on the kitchen table before we leave for the day.
I’m tired of ending every day alone. Even when my bed wasn’t empty, I was still, in every real sense, alone.
And yet, here I am, ding ding, alone.
Damn it, where is she? She must be covering ground fast, which, given the terrain is riddled with fallen logs, mossy rocks, and dense, tall ferns, make it hard to guess the elevation of the ground beneath them.
I’m in a light jog, following the traces and signs of disturbed plants. The occasional boot print gives me reassurance, but at any point I could veer off in the wrong direction. There is a growing sense of unease coming over me.
If I can follow her trail, so could someone else, especially the closer we get to this camp and those shit-swilling poachers.
I’ve never been a violent person. Angry when it comes to the people I care about, sure, but otherwise, I’m a laid-back kind of guy. But, so help me I get a hand on one of these fuckers, I’ve got no faith I won’t crush their windpipe with my bare hands.
It pisses me off enough knowing they’re the reason all this shit’s been going down out here. These losers who can’t get their floppy dicks hard unless they’re killing something are the ones who’ve been disturbing the peace, causing the changes in animal movements.
My blood gets even hotter as I realize they’re likely the reason that bear went after Dean and Ava. It worked out okay for them, I guess, but the fact this group is out here putting the people and the places I love in jeopardy is enough for me to smash their faces in.
I’ve circled around and the sound of a bubbling creek hits my ears.
It’s the same one Edie and I followed to the punchbowl. I’m close to the camp… and there’s still no Edie.
Damn it, the thought of her going in there alone has me panicking. I’d give anything to just be with her, even if it means helping her on this insane She-Rambo mission of hers. At least I’d know if she was okay.
Right now, I have no idea where she is except that she’s closer to the guys with guns than I am and that’s not particularly reassuring.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Edie!
My heart jumps into my throat as I listen. There’s silence after the gunshots, no ATVs, nothing yet.
It didn’t sound close, but that doesn’t mean anything. I haven’t seen one of her boot tracks in a while and I assumed she got this far.
What if she veered off? my head asks.
The thoughts and possibilities cloud my eyes and I can barely see straight. So I do what I do best.
I climb.
I run to the nearest tree and start climbing, hoping to get a vantage point. I don’t know what I’ll be able to see, but anything is better than sitting here listening to the silence and letting every possible godawful scenario play out in my mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EDIE
This should be getting easier. It’s not. Every step makes me feel even worse.
Deric is back there somewhere waiting for me, probably. Or maybe not, maybe he figured it out. He’s not entirely patient and he hasn’t exactly been great at giving me space.
Whatever. I push through the guilt. The second he felt like he had leverage, he tried to pin me down. Just like Pop, just like my brothers, just like all the men I’ve dated. I can’t trust him or anyone else. I have myself and that’s it.
I’ll be doing him a favor, really. He won’t have to worry about me busting up his easy-going little life. When the inevitable happens, he can return to his happy man-whoring ways without any hassle of a clingy girlfriend. Not that I was that… what were we?
Ugh, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I really, really don’t.
Still, I hope he isn’t waiting in there too long. I’m still fairly wet and I know he was too. I know I shouldn’t be spending time worrying over it, but I’m hoping he gets out of there and dries off soon before he gets sick from the chill. It’s stopped raining and the sky is a steel grey-blue as the sun peeks out behind passing clouds. He’s probably freezing in that cave still.
Cripes!
Why am I thinking about him? Deric is an adult, even if he doesn’t always act like it.
I know I’m not being totally fair to him. He sleeps around, but he’s also running a business, he built his house, and from the sounds of it, he helps look after his widowed mother. All marks in Deric’s favor, but to what end? I didn’t come here looking for anything more than a case to boost my resume and get me back to a better office assignment.
The fact I met him and can’t seem to drive him from my mind doesn’t change that. Somewhere in these woods is that camp and I am going to find it. I am not a dainty little princess who can’t get dirty or banged up and I’m going to make sure there is no question left in Deric or anyone else’s mind about it.
Judging from the position of the sun, it’s not more than an hour or two past noon. What I wouldn’t kill for another granola bar. Or another piece of Jana’s casserole. I can feel my energy wane every hour I’m out here.
I’ve gone without eating for stretches while on the job, but not when I’ve had to undergo such a physical toll. Just the task of stabilizing my body temperature is a massive effort for my body. It spurs me on even more. I need to get to those campers soon, before I’m too weak to hold my own in a fight.
My boots splash through puddles and I tear my pants as I slide over a fallen log, a broken branch catching the fabric and ripping. A small drip of warm blood trickles down the back of my thigh, but I don’t have time to stop and look at it. The pain isn’t bad, so I keep moving.
A hawk screams overhead as I race through the trees. It really is like a secret paradise, so lush and green. I can see why now so many people would come out here to experience it. It’s peaceful and calm, but there is still vibrancy all around.
The fact that these dickface poachers are out here trying to ruin that beauty, to destroy the delicate balance of life and death, prey and predator fills me with anger.
I’ve always been drawn to animals. They never underestimate you. Quite the opposite. They know that the secret to survival is heeding every threat like it could be the one that ends their life. I respect that.
Since I wasn’t allowed to go riding bikes or play football with my brothers, I often ended up spending a lot of time in the sprawling backyard of our property that extended into the undisturbed woods behind the house.
I still remember the first time I saw a deer up close. It’s stuck with me all these years, motivated me to push past every roadblock in my career.
I was seven, maybe eight and full of innocence. Pop put salt blocks out for the deer herd and we’d see them in the yard sometimes first thing in the morning as the sun came up, trampling through the neighbor’s garden and hanging out on the winding road to our ranch.
In the spring, we’d see the little fawns with their fading spots trailing behind their mothers. I was always jealous. What would it be like to have a mother to show you things? I’d wonder from the window, feeling a sadness I wouldn’t be able to articulate for many years.
This time was different, though. I could have reached out and touched the buck if I’d wanted.
I didn’t want to, though.
His coat was darkened by the dried brown trails of blood
and his legs were rigid in an awkward position on the ground where he lay. I didn’t know enough then to know it was a male, but the evidence would be pointed out later. I remember looking at it and the flies swarming around in an eerie cloud. My stomach churned. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t.
I took in the full horror of seeing an animal with no head.
It’d been cut off by someone who killed it for the rack. I didn’t know that at the time, but when I went home shaking uncontrollably from the shock and brought Pop out to see, he’d explained it to me.
He explained how some people could be so heartless to kill a beautiful creature like that just to decorate their wall. Not to feed their families, not even to help keep the local population healthy by thinning. No, they mutilated that poor animal just because they could.
I’d known before that I was going to go into law enforcement. I’d always known that. But that was the moment I knew I was going to protect animals. These beautiful, majestic creatures who were truly powerless against the people hunting them. They have no say in whether we encroach their habitat or put up fences in the places they’ve always roamed.
The wildlife I work to protect doesn’t judge me for my size, my gender, or my perceived lack of ability. They just want to be free, and so do I.
I hear gun shots in the distance. The poachers are at it again, apparently. I run forward with a renewed sense of purpose.
The hawk screams again. I’ll be sad to leave this place, when the time comes, I realize. Sadder still after everything with Deric. But stuffing down my sadness is something I’ve had plenty of practice at, and if I can break up this ring of poachers, I’ll feel like I’ve done something positive to preserve this gorgeous, untainted place.
Ahead of me, I see something through the trees. I sink down low and creep forward, taking my time and being silent as I can.