Now that the hour was upon her, though, doubts crumbled the logic of her decision. She checked the GPS in her car. He had sent instructions to meet him at a ranger station on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp. She’d hoped it had gained the name like a big man earned the nickname Tiny, but the farther she traveled on the two-lane road, the denser the trees grew, lending a sinister feel.
Or maybe that was her guilt over the deception. No doubt Bennett was not going to be happy to see her. His last words to her couldn’t be interpreted as anything but a warning. Yet here she was.
The small brown cabin blended into the backdrop of forest, and she almost missed it. Braking hard, she took the turn too fast, fishtailing in the gravel. She recognized the black truck as the one in front of his log cabin survival school. Judgment was minutes away.
She’d spent a small fortune on her evil plans. Not only paying Bennett for his services but also outfitting herself. “Outdoorsy” wasn’t a word that described her wardrobe. Lying out on the beach had never held any allure, and while the inlets were pretty, she’d never had the urge to explore farther than the dock. She preferred to hole up in her room for hours with stacks of books. The hazard of being a librarian’s kid.
She parked next to his truck and gathered her courage. With the car off, it didn’t take long for the cold to seep through cracks, driven by the whistling wind. Spending the night outside might not be bad if there was a fire to huddle next to. Or would it be like the one miserable camping trip she went on in Girl Scouts? Cookies be damned, she’d dropped out after the trip.
Her new water-resistant hiking boots squeaked as she got out of the car, pulled a backpack over the console, and swung it over one shoulder. His email—to her mom’s email address, which had been fun to explain—had laid out exactly what she’d needed to bring. A tent hadn’t been included.
The wind cut through her layers of clothes in the short walk to the door. She debated the merits of turning around. A woof at the window ruined her retreat. The door opened and a stranger in a brown park ranger uniform greeted her warmly.
“You must be Gail Frazier. I’m Seth. Bennett will be right out. Come on in.”
A smile was difficult in the face of her mom’s name. Denials and excuses would be upon her soon enough, so she took Seth’s hand in a shake.
“Hey, Jack.” The dog’s tail whipped back and forth as he bumped her hand for a pat. The dog was way friendlier than his owner, that’s for sure.
“Ah, you’ve met the beast.” Seth gestured toward a small kitchen. “Can I get you some hot tea or coffee before you head out into the wilderness?”
“Coffee would be great. Black is fine.”
He poured from a stained pot into a chipped mug with The Great Dismal Swamp written across the side in fancy script. She thanked him on the handoff. “Have you been the ranger here long?”
“Two years.” He had a thick beard a few shades darker than his hair, which made it difficult to pin an age to him, but unlike Bennett, no gray hairs peeked out. The twinkling good humor in his eyes landed him in his midtwenties at a guess. “I couldn’t ask for a better gig. It’s less about public relations and more about science collection. Marshes and swamps like the Dismal have amazingly diverse ecosystems. Big predators and—”
“How big?” Her hand tightened on the mug.
“Black bears are common. And then there’s the—”
“Common?” She riffled through what she knew about bears, which was dominated by Ben’s Winnie-the-Pooh bedtime stories and Goldilocks’s encounter. “But it’s winter. They’re in hibernation, right?”
The excitement of a zealot vibrated Seth’s voice. “Black bears don’t hibernate; they enter torpor. They’re lethargic and sleep more than usual but will come out and snack.”
“Snack on people?”
Seth’s laugh reverberated through the room. “I doubt it.”
A door in the back opened, and Bennett backed into the room, maneuvering his pack. It was considerably bigger than hers. A black toboggan covered his head, but the ends of his hair flipped up at the bottom. A dark-green Henley stretched across his broad shoulder and was half-tucked into black pants with more pockets than any reasonable person could fill. But, damn, they fit him well. The heartbeat before he turned, she forced her gaze off his butt to meet his eyes.
She wasn’t worried about a black bear eating her like a fruit roll-up anymore. She was worried about the very real Grizzly making the room feel small.
“Ms. Frazier, I hope the drive was—” The smile on his face morphed into a grimace. “What are you doing here? You’re not Gail Frazier.”
“Gail is my mom. I’m here in her place.”
Bennett stared her down. The anger roiling through the silence generated its own energy. All directed at her. Seth glanced between them, then shuffled to the nearest window and pressed his nose to the glass like a kid trying to spot Bigfoot.
She made a sweeping gesture between them. “I realize how this looks—”
“You lied.”
“No.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Okay, well, I sort of misled you—”
“Lied.” He barked the word like an epitaph.
“You wouldn’t have seen me otherwise, would you?” She set her mug on the counter with a small clatter. Damn her shaking hands. He was trained to exploit weaknesses.
“No. Because I have nothing else to say to you.”
“Fine.” Obviously, a direct assault was impossible, but she could flank him. “That’s not why I’m here anyway. I’m here because I need to learn survival skills.”
“Why?”
“Because…” She bobbed her head and harrumphed. “You know, the apocalypse is coming. The end is nigh and all that.”
“When did you turn into a bible-thumper?”
“I’ve always thumped the Bible. It’s how I was raised.” If her mom could hear the nonsense coming out of her mouth, she would have taken Harper over her knee for a different kind of thumping.
“No, it wasn’t.” His absolute confidence stoked a flame of anger in her chest.
“You don’t know—” The realization that he might indeed know hit her like a punch to the throat. “How do you know that?”
He’d already admitted Noah had talked about her. How much had he shared with this bear of a man who had been undeniably kind but refused to give her what she wanted the most—the truth?
“It doesn’t matter how. This”—he waved his finger between them—“is not happening.”
“Wait. I’ve already paid. And … and … if you don’t take me then I’ll be forced to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.” It was an empty threat, but he didn’t need to know that. Throwing more fuel on her pretend outrage, she added, “Is this because I’m a woman? Are you discriminating against me?”
“For the love of…” His eye roll was epic. He shuffled his feet farther apart and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s going to drop below freezing tonight with a chance of snow. The night will be bleak unless you can get a fire started.”
“But you’re the guide.”
“Instructor, not guide. The first thing you need to learn about survival is that there are consequences when you can’t get the basics done. You have to put the work in. It’s what you paid for. And you’ll need the skills to survive the apocalypse, right?”
A teeny-tiny spark of humor in his face threatened to set off an explosion of maniacal laughter in her. She’d won the skirmish.
“When do we get started?” She tried not to look smug.
“Right now.” He glanced toward the door. “That your pack?”
“Stuffed full of everything on your list.” Plus the makings for s’mores, which in retrospect might have been a tad optimistic. Or delusional.
He examined her head to foot, shook his head, but didn’t say anything. “Let’s hit it. Thanks, Seth. Will you be around on Sunday?”
Seth had turned and was half-sit
ting on the windowsill, watching them. “If the weather clears I’m scheduled to inventory the geese population. You two take care out there. If the front moves farther south than predicted, it’s likely to be a rough couple of days.”
“You can still cancel and get a full refund.” Bennett shot her a side-eye.
“I can handle a couple of days in the great outdoors. I’m not a total wimp.” Physically, she was in good shape. She ran and worked out regularly. It was the cold and unknown she feared. And the possibility of finally finding out how Noah had died. Did she really want to know if he’d been in pain or if he’d said her name at the end? Uncertainty washed over her, but if she bailed now, it was over. Bennett wouldn’t be fooled again.
He pulled on a plaid flannel shirt that seemed to be his uniform and a lightweight jacket and then swung his pack over his shoulders without any indication of strain. Trying to imitate his level of casualness, she flung her own on. The weight tipped her balance and she stumbled backward until he caught her pack and shoved her upright.
“You sure about this?” he murmured so close his beard hair tickled her ear.
Like sticking her finger in an electrical socket, a jolt passed through her. It was vaguely familiar even though she hadn’t felt anything like it for years. Since Noah. It was attraction. Lust. Basic and primal and damned inconvenient.
“I’m sure,” she said even though she was nothing of the sort.
Bennett led the way out the door, but instead of heading toward his truck, he made for the tree line behind Seth’s ranger station. She followed, glancing over her shoulder at her car. It was her last chance to make a run for it. Forcing her eyes back to Bennett’s pack, she put one foot in front of the other, and when she looked again the forest blocked any view of civilization.
They trudged in silence. The gray sky peeked every so often through the trees but offered no hint as to how much time passed. She wasn’t in the habit of wearing a watch and her phone was stashed in her pack.
The ground was spongy. Pine needles littered the trail, and the going was easy, the pace brisk enough to generate enough body heat to stay comfortable.
A slight clearing opened in the trees with a circle of stones containing the charred remnants of a fire. She stopped, slipped her pack off, and stretched. That hadn’t been bad at all. He’d tried and failed to scare her away.
“Do you need a bathroom break already?”
She whipped around. He was on the opposite side of the clearing where no path cut through the thick brush. Jack London was sitting on his haunches at Bennett’s feet.
“Are we not setting up camp here?” She pointed at the fire ring.
A slow smile that was as chilly as the wind snaking down the collar of her shirt spread over his face. “This is for day hikers and Boy Scouts. We’re still on the refuge’s land.”
“Where are we headed?”
“Deeper. Off trail. Onto my land.”
“Out of the park?”
“Yep. Liability issues. I use Seth’s place as a jumping-off point, but your training will take place on my land.”
His tone skittered like crawly bugs down her spine. She would be at his mercy. Holding his gaze, she swung her backpack on and joined him.
He paused with his hand on a low branch and faced her. “What direction are we headed?”
“Uh…” She looked to the sky, but the cloud-obscured sun offered no hints. Noah used to joke she could get lost in their tiny town house. “West?”
His eyes narrowed.
“East?”
He made a huffy sound.
“North?”
“Ding-ding-ding. You got a compass?”
“On my phone.” She reached for the zipper pocket on the side.
“In a survival situation you might not have a phone. It might have broken. Or it might have lost its charge. What then?”
“I guess I need a real compass.”
He stared at her long enough to ignite nerves in her stomach. “Last chance. You should turn around.”
“No.” She cursed the questioning lilt in the denial.
“You can’t handle this. Admit it.” His voice contained equal amounts exasperation and anger.
“The hell I can’t.” She had no idea if she could actually handle it, but not even with her last breath would she admit that to him. She could handle anything for a weekend. As long as she didn’t freeze to death, and she had enough faith in Bennett not allowing that unfortunate event to occur. At the very least, it would be terrible for his business.
“I know why you’re doing this, and it’s not going to work.” His voice was soft but barbed with menace.
All right, their cards were on the table. Good. She didn’t like deception. “Answer my questions right here, right now, and we can turn around.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Then, lead on, Macduff.”
“You’re going to be miserable.”
“I’ll survive.”
She held his narrowed gaze until he shook his head and led them through the heavy undergrowth. The determination in his eyes made her fear it would take more than an overnight trip to wear him down to the truth.
A brambly bush grabbed at her jeans, and she stopped to unstick herself. Whatever his pants were made of repelled the thorns like Teflon. Somewhere along the makeshift path, she quit admiring the fabric of his pants and ended up admiring what was in them. He’d been out of the service for years, but he was solid, with thick, ropey muscles. Admiration on a purely physical level made for an excellent distraction.
However, the longer she trudged behind him, the further her admiration nose-dived. In fact, she started to entertain fantasies about kicking his butt. Except putting one foot in front of the other became a study in determination. Her new hiking boots were rubbing blisters on both heels and a few toes. Damn if she would admit it or ask him to stop, though.
Another hour or more of hiking through scrub and soft ground led them to a canal of stagnant-looking water that smelled of decomposing earth. Bennett stopped and gestured. “We have to get across this ditch. Have any ideas?”
The ditch was too wide to jump and continued as far as she could see in either direction with no sign of a man-made bridge. That would have been too easy for Bennett the Torturer.
“Tree catapult?” The pain in her feet revved up her snarkiness. “I’ve seen Wile E. Coyote make one.”
His lips twitched. “Inventive, but doesn’t he usually make a coyote-sized crater?”
About fifty yards downstream, she could see a downed tree. “Shimmy over on a tree?”
He gave a small nod. “Go for it.”
When she reached the fallen tree, it was obvious it had been used as a crossing many times, but it was too narrow for comfort and the water was murky, with a pungent, unpleasant odor. She could only imagine how cold it was. Dare she tackle the trunk like a balance beam? She glanced over her shoulder.
“Or if you want to head back rather than risk hypothermia after falling in the water, we can. No telling how deep the muck goes.” He tutted. “Might take weeks to get the stench out.”
He was attempting to get in her head. And succeeding. A nervous shudder had her knees going gelatinous.
“Ass,” she hissed under her breath.
“What was that?”
The way to extract information from him was with honey, not vinegar. She fought her tongue and, as usual, lost. “I said, you’re an ass.” She enunciated every word.
“’Bout time you caught on.”
The combination of his smirking Southern accent and the light of triumph in his eyes cinched the decision. Stepping onto the end of the tree, she did her best to ignore the heat of his gaze on her back and concentrated on her feet. A few steps from solid land, she looked up and lost her balance. Her heart accelerated like a car leaving the starting line. Flailing her arms, she scampered the last few feet and landed on her hands and knees on the bank.
She stood and wiped her
hands on her jeans, the knees muddy and wet but not the rest of her. Bennett walked across with his thumbs tucked into the straps of his pack like he was taking a Sunday stroll. He hopped off the end and landed next to her. Jack was the last to cross, bounding over with no problems.
“I did it.” Her heart was beating with the shot of adrenaline.
She wasn’t sure what she expected. A pat on the head? A high five? The spilling of secrets in the face of her meager accomplishment?
“Barely. Jack made it over with more grace.”
Sadly, she couldn’t dispute the facts. “Yeah, well. Yay for me.”
His lips pinched together, but she almost swore his eyes danced with laughter. He cleared his throat. “From here, we need to head northwest. Use my compass.”
The face of the metal compass he handed her was elaborately drawn with fancy script and embellishments. She rubbed her thumb over the back and could feel an engraving, but with his attention boring into her, she didn’t flip it over.
She lined up the needle with north and pointed northwest. “This way?”
“Your lead. Make sure we stay on track. It’s easy to drift off or even circle back on yourself in the woods.”
She did as he instructed. They continued in single file, the dog in the back. The going was slower because instead of following in Bennett’s wake, she was forced to push through the brush. A brief clearing allowed her to catch her breath. And flip the compass over. She rubbed over the inscription as if that would somehow help her decipher it.
Honor … something, something … Laurence.
His father? An uncle or brother? Or maybe he’d picked it up in an antiques store.
She became hyperaware of him a few feet behind her. More than his footsteps or the rustle of his clothing, it was as if his aura expanded to include her. It was the sort of hippie crap her mother tried to sell, but she’d never bought into.
The Military Wife Page 8