The Billionaire's Heart: The Complete Series (Romance, Contemporary Romance, Billionaire Romance, The Billionaire's Heart Book 7)

by Nancy Adams

  “If they're that bad,” Nate said, “we can go for a dip in the stream. It'll help a little.”

  I shook my head. “Nuh-uh, that water is cold! I felt it last night, and it sure isn't gonna be any warmer first thing in the morning. Maybe we'll get rescued today, and we can get some clean clothes.”

  He smiled at me. “That's the spirit!” We went out and took care of morning necessities behind some nearby trees—okay, it's gonna take a while to get used to not having to be modest, so shut up. After, Nate went to where he'd hidden the leftovers of our fish the night before and got it down, and I was surprised that no bugs had gotten into it. We ate it cold and drank some of the purified water, and it was a wonderful breakfast for our first one as man and wife.

  I think we need to start walking along the stream,” Nate said. “If we follow it downstream, we'll come to a place where it meets a river, or to a bridge or some other sign of civilization. I'm not sure that staying here is smart, because we can't count on the wreckage of the plane being found, so no one will know to look for us the way we've come. Better we start working to make our way out of this, and hopefully we'll be spotted along the way.”

  I swallowed my last bite and nodded. “Okay. I'm ready whenever you are.” We began gathering everything up, and Nate made a backpack out of one of the blankets to carry it all, then put it on himself. We'd actually awakened pretty early, and were on our way by seven-thirty. I know, because I tried my cell phone as we started off—no signal, but I saw the time. I shut it down and stuck it back into my pocket. We started off along the stream, walking right along the edge where there wasn't quite so much brush, but now and then we were forced to step on rocks and logs, or even into the water.

  “When we get out of here,” I said, “I want to get a honeymoon suite somewhere and just forget the whole world exists for a while.”

  Nate chuckled. “That might raise a few eyebrows,” he said.

  “Tough! No one has to know what we do in there, it's nobody's business but ours! I just want to be able to snuggle close to you and show you just how much I love you, and not even think about anything else for a day or two.”

  He stopped and looked at the ground ahead, trying to plan the best route for us. “I can't argue with that,” he said, “and I wouldn't if I could! It sounds like Heaven, after being in this mess, although I can't really complain about last night.”

  I threw a mud ball at him. “You'd better not! That was the best night of my entire life, and it better have been yours, too!”

  The mud ball went splat against the backpack, and he smiled. “Trust me, babe, it was even better than that! Have I mentioned today that I love you?”

  “Only twice, so you’re behind schedule. Fifteen times before lunch, remember?”

  “Yes, My Lady,” he said, and turned to bow to me. We both started laughing, then, and had to stop and let it pass before we could keep our balance well enough to go on.

  I couldn't help but marvel at this wonderful man who was now my husband. Here we were, in a life-or-death situation, and he was doing everything he could to not only protect me, but to keep my spirits up. I whispered a prayer of thanks as I followed him along the bank.

  We'd been walking for several hours, and the sun was high overhead when Nate suddenly halted, then held up a hand to tell me to stop and wait. I froze on the spot and watched him for any more clues as to what was going on. He bent down and looked closely at something, but I couldn't see what until he suddenly lunged forward into the water and came up with a huge fish in his hands.

  “How in the world did you do that?” I said, as he turned to show it to me with a big grin on his face. The fish was at least twice the size of the one I'd caught the night before, and was fighting to get loose, but he held on.

  “There's a spot here where the bank is undercut by the current, and I saw this big boy's tail waving out from under it, so I knew he was there. I waited until he started backing out and grabbed, and he's decided to invite us to have lunch on him!”

  He carried the fish back toward me, and we moved to a small clearing not far from the bank. There was a small spot where the ground was fairly bare, and we scraped it a bit wider with our feet. Nate found a big flat rock and laid the fish on the ground while he took the rock to the stream and washed it off, then brought it back and used it like a cutting board as he cleaned and gutted the fish.

  Meanwhile I was gathering dry branches that were laying around, and quickly had a fire going, then got out the cooking rack and set it up. Nathanael sliced the fish into some nice big filets, and we sat on a log as we listened to it sizzle while it cooked.

  He flipped the filets over after a bit, and it wasn't long before it was done. He dragged the rack away from the fire, and it tasted good as we ate it right off the wire mesh.

  We had filled our water bottles that morning from the purified jug, and so we had plenty to drink with lunch. I would never have believed that fish cooked over an open fire could be such a delicious meal, though I imagined it would get old if we were out here for too long. That day, though, I enjoyed its clean, fresh taste. It was a lot better than the fish you get frozen and breaded, that was for sure.

  There was a large stand of raspberries nearby, and we picked a big handful each to finish off lunch. We started on the way again, and I had to admit that eating a bite of lunch and taking a break was nice. I had been getting tired, but now I was refreshed and ready to go again.

  “We've probably come about three miles,” Nate said after a bit. “The stream is getting wider and shallower, so we're probably getting fairly close to where it meets another one, maybe even a smaller river. If we don't come to it by the time the sun starts to go below the treetops, we'll stop and make camp again.”

  “Okay, Babe,” I said, and I'll confess that the thought of spending another night out here with him wasn't one that upset me at that moment. I had been letting my mind drift to our lovemaking all day, and was certainly looking forward to it.

  We kept walking, the tress overhead blocking out most of the harsh sun. I thought I heard an airplane a couple of times, but it was always too far off to see, or have any hope the pilot could see us. Besides, even if it had been close by, Nate said it wasn't likely that the flare gun would shoot through the branches above us. It didn't have a lot of power for getting through obstacles.

  The stream was definitely getting wider, and since it was flowing south, Nate began to wonder if we shouldn't get onto the other side of it.

  “The bank on the far side looks a lot clearer, and I've seen more wide open spaces there. I'm thinking that we should try to get over to that side, since we're probably going to need to make camp again soon. I'd prefer to be in a clearing of some sort for that, and not right here on the edge of the bank.”

  I looked at the stream. It was crystal clear and didn't look like it was more than a couple of feet deep, but it was a good forty feet from one bank to the other.

  “We can wade across,” I said, and he agreed. We sat down on a rock and took off our shoes and socks, and rolled our pants legs up to our knees. They'd get wet, but they wouldn't drag on us in the current. Out in the center, the water was moving pretty fast, and we didn’t want to risk being knocked down.

  Nate went in first, then held a hand out for me as I stepped into the water. It was cold, all right, just as I'd known it would be.

  “Brrr,” I said, and Nate laughed at me.

  “The cold is because this water is probably coming from the higher elevations, where the snow is already falling. It melts during the day, and runs down the mountains until it finds gulleys and streams to follow.”

  “Well, it could slow down a bit and pick up some heat on its way!” I walked carefully, trying to put my feet right where he had already put his. The rocks and mud were indistinguishable, so it wasn't the easiest going, but we made it across in about three or four minutes. The only reason it took so long is because we had to go slow and be careful; Nate almost went down more
than once, and I fell to my knees twice, but he kept me from going any further.

  When we got out of the water, I was so cold I was shivering, and Nate held me to try to warm me up. When he pulled me close, we both leaned in for a kiss, and our walk got delayed for a while. As honeymoons go, being lost in the wilds of nature isn't the worst one I could imagine.

  We got warmer, of course, and by the time we got dressed again, our jeans were mostly dry. We set out once more, and when we came to a clearing, Nate pointed up at the sky.

  “It's going to get dark again, soon,” he said. “I think we might as well try to make camp here. Let's refill the water jug and add tablets, then I'll see what I can do about something for dinner.”

  I got out the jug and took care of that, setting it in the water at the edge of the stream to keep it cold, then started gathering the makings of a fire. Nate was looking around the area, and I saw him smile. He took out his knife and cut several sticks from a tree, each about two feet long, and then began sharpening both ends of each one.

  “What are those?” I asked, and he smiled.

  “Indians called them 'throwing sticks,' so I guess that's what they are. They're primitive hunting weapons. You can use them to throw at a rabbit or other small animal, and if it hits them, there's a good chance it will be killed or stunned, whether by one of the points, or by the weight of the stick itself. Either way, you've got meat. There are abundant rabbit tracks and spoor all around here, so I shouldn't have too much trouble scaring one up. If I can make it run and throw one of these close enough, a rabbit can actually collapse and die of fright. Then we get dinner.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “We're going to eat rabbit?” I asked.

  “We are if I can get us one. Want to try hunting?”

  I thought about it. As much as I hated the thought, there was always the possibility that one of us could die or be injured, meaning the other would have to try to get help alone. If it were me, I should know as much about survival as I could.

  “Yeah, I'll try. How do I do it?”

  He showed me how to hold the sticks, and how to throw them. We practiced by throwing them at a tree that stood all by itself at the edge of the clearing, and it turned out I was pretty good at hitting it nine times out of ten. Of course, the sharp ends were getting damaged, so we sharpened them again, whittling them back to points, and then Nate and Katelynn, the great white hunters, went into the forest following what looked like a small game trail.

  We had gone about fifty feet when the first rabbit spooked, right in front of me. I stood there and watched it run away, startled into absolutely freezing in my tracks! Nate threw a stick at it, but it missed, and the rabbit apparently didn’t want to oblige us by dying of fright, so it lived to run another day.

  I smiled sheepishly at Nate, and he leaned over to kiss me. “Get the next one,” he whispered, and I nodded.

  Not five minutes later, another rabbit spooked, and I flung my stick without even thinking about it. I saw it go right over the critter's head, so I went to retrieve it—and there lay the rabbit, stock still.

  “Nate? I think I got one,” I said, and then realized he was looking over my shoulder.

  “Yep,” he said. “That's what I meant about them dying of fright; you didn't hit it, but the stick got close enough to make it fall out and die from the fear.” He reached down and rolled it over with his stick, like he was testing to make sure it was dead.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for any sign of tularemia. It's a disease that rabbits often get, and can be transmitted to humans. It's late enough in the year that any sick ones should have died off, and they're usually slow and not easy to spook, so this one was probably pretty healthy. He looks okay.” He reached down and picked it up by the back of its neck, and I kept expecting it to start kicking and trying to get away, but it didn't.

  He did something then that I thought was odd, but very interesting. He held it just behind its front legs, then grabbed it right around the rib cage and squeezed, sliding his hand down toward its rear end. All of its guts suddenly came right out, splitting its butt end wide open!

  “Wow,” I said. “I hope I never have to do that,” I said, “but at least I know how if I ever do.”

  He laughed, then took out his knife and cut off its head. He made a couple of cuts in its skin, sliced around its legs just above the lowest joints and between the two front legs, then held onto them while he tugged the skin off like peeling a sock off his foot. When he was done, he handed the rabbit to me—okay, I made a face, but I took it—then used his knife to dig a small pit and buried the guts and skin, piling some good sized rocks on top.

  “That's so we don't advertise that fresh rabbit is on the menu, tonight. We don't have enough to share with the neighbors.”

  He took the rabbit back from me and carried it back to our campsite, and I went to wash my hands in the stream. I wished I had soap, but Nate said if I rubbed some of the sandy mud into them and then rinsed them thoroughly, it would be almost as good. I tired it and it worked, and when I was done I got the fire started and took out our cooking rack. Nate cut the rabbit into quarters, then foraged for some things to go with it. He came back less than fifteen minutes later with some of the little onions and four big mushrooms. I looked at those nervously.

  “Aren't wild mushrooms poisonous?” I asked.

  “Some are, but I studied them in scouts, and this is one that I know is safe. It's called a Porcini, and they taste great. A gourmet restaurant would pay up to a hundred dollars a pound for these babies. I was lucky to find them this late in the year, but they look good.” He sat down beside a flat stone and sliced off the big caps, which were about the size of a big hamburger bun, and then cut the stems into thin strips. “Wish I had some oil or butter, but we'll make do.”

  He took the rabbit and set it over the fire, then put the stem strips and little onions on top of each piece. The caps he left on the rock while the rabbit began to cook. I sat down beside him on the ground and we watched our dinner.

  Nate put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him, then kissed me. I would have been willing to forget dinner at that moment, but he was too determined to make sure his bride didn't go hungry. He made me stop, and we went back to watching the fire and the roasting rabbit.

  We'd had fish for breakfast, fish for lunch, and I'd figured it was going to be fish for dinner, as well, so the smell of the cooking rabbit was wonderful, instead. It's not that I don't like fish, but I think we all want some variety in our diets, right?

  When the rabbit was done on one side, Nate flipped it over, mushroom pieces, onions and all, and let it cook on that side. Then he took the mushroom caps and set them on top of the pieces of meat. I got up to go visit the bathroom tree, and spotted a stand of the raspberries, so I came back with my shirt full of them, just in time for the meat to be done cooking.

  “Awesome,” Nate said when I showed him the berries, and he made a clean spot for them on the rock. We pulled the rack from over the fire and let the meat cool for a few moments, while I got our water bottles and filled them from the purified water in the jug.

  Roast rabbit is good, I can say that. It reminded me of chicken in some ways, but with more flavor, and the mushroom strips had cooked to a crisp right on it, adding a rich, sort of nutty flavor. The combination was actually quite delicious.

  I ate a couple of the smaller pieces, while Nate ate the bigger ones, and soon there was nothing left but the bones. Nate carried those off and buried them, as well.

  “Ready for a treat?” he asked when he came back.

  “More lovin'?” I asked, and he burst out laughing.

  “Not yet, Babe,” he said with a smile. “I had something more like dessert in mind.” He reached over and grabbed a big handful of the raspberries, and squeezed them tightly, so that their juice and pulp was beginning to run from between his fingers. He grabbed a mushroom cap with his other hand, and let the squeezed mash fall into it, th
en handed it to me while he made himself another one.

  “Oh, my—oh, this is wonderful!” I said, and Nate nodded his agreement. The caps tasted a lot like those nutty cookies that look like windmills, and the raspberries made the perfect complement to that taste! It was like eating a gourmet treat in some fancy, big-city restaurant, and I was blown away!

  This was proving to be a honeymoon to remember!

  Norman

  Chapter Eight

  I'll Be There

  * * * * *

  When your son and his fiance go missing, the hardest thing about dealing with it is knowing what you should do at that moment. That was the dilemma I faced when word came to us that our Lear had gone down with Nathanael and Katelynn in it. In the two days that had passed since then, we'd had no word of any kind, which didn't look good.

  Nate was a Marine, however, and if there's one thing the Corps taught him, it was how to survive. His boy scout training would help with things like making fire, fishing, hunting and foraging for food, but it was his experiences in the Marine Corps that would prove to be his strength in this situation. He would not give up, of that I was certain; not only was he a Marine, but he was also my son! One thing a Simmons never does is give up.

  Katelynn's parents were on their way to Denver within a couple of hours after they learned about the crash, and I'd spoken to him a few times already. He'd chartered a barnstormer in a biplane to take him up three times, already, joining in the search, but so far to no avail. I wanted so badly to go and join him, but that would only meant that two fathers were up in the air, looking for a sign that they were alive. There were other things I could do, and I was on them.

  My first act was to call Washington and remind certain senators and congressmen of just how much our company had helped to put them in office. I wanted them to get the military involved, but that turned out to be impossible. However, one senator had a seat on the defense intelligence committee, and after threatening to pull all of our support and have all of our California stores campaign actively against him in the next election, he told me he would see what he could do, and I was growing more and more impatient to hear something from him. I'd called his office twice, but he'd been out both times and his secretary had only said he would call me when he had something to report.