by K. K. Allen
When the keys to the palace got handed to me, I wanted to have a plan for a new future, one that could evolve with the times. Climate change, for instance, was something my papa dismissed almost as if it would all magically work out if we were greeted with an early winter or tested with the quickly intensifying heat. I wanted to bring back preventative solutions for anything that could threaten what I loved most in the world.
“My parents have always wanted me to have a good education first before I finally take over the vineyard.” A smile lifted my cheeks. “Besides, I’ll be in California. What’s not to love? Beaches, cute guys, movie stars. It sounds like a dream.” Excitement must have been lighting up my face. “It won’t hurt to get away for a bit and experience new cultures.”
Trip coughed out a laugh, though his expression appeared far from amused. “I’d hardly call cute boys something you can add to your resume under the topic of Cultural Experiences.”
Josie laughed before I even said another word. “Good thing I won’t be needing that resume, then, huh?”
Trip almost looked as annoyed as Raven, and I couldn’t entirely grasp why. Their family very much had a stake in our family business, since my papa held Trip’s father to such high standards. I’d often sworn that if I weren’t the promised heir, then Thomas Bradshaw would be at the helm and set for taking over the Bells’ lives’ work. It made me sick to think that if anything were to happen to me, that was exactly what would happen.
The conversation shifted to Raven and her post-graduation dreams, and I wasn’t surprised to hear that she wanted to do something in event planning or hospitality. She was always the social director of our little group, setting up parties and outings just like the hike.
I stared back at her as she laughed about how awesome it was that Ridge worked where he did, since the other camps around town were booked, and it hit me like a blow to the stomach.
“Wait. You knew Ridge worked here?”
Raven’s eyes widened because I failed to keep the shock out of my voice. My mind was officially blown, and the shrapnel was freely attacking my heart.
“Well, yeah.” She shot a look at him then turned back to me with a soft smile. “We’ve kept in contact.”
My stomach churned, and it wasn’t from lack of food. The tortillas had done their job of filling me up, but I wasn’t sure how long dinner would stay down. Ridge had left without even a goodbye to me, yet he’d stayed in contact with Raven—of all people. She was the one he’d allowed into his life. I was happy that the sun was in the midst of setting, because it was the perfect excuse to retreat to my tent for an early bedtime.
Tomorrow was a new day, and I was intent on moving forward, metaphorically and physically. I was going to hike the next leg of the trail up the mountain to our second camping destination. And I would do it while leaving my past right where it belonged.
22
Ridge
Camila and Josie’s tent was already packed up by the time I started making rounds the next morning. I, on the other hand, was in no hurry to leave the comfort of my tent after a night of restless sleep. After seeing the look on Camila’s face when she realized how she’d ended up on my tour, I tossed and turned. She looked as if I’d betrayed her, and in a way, I had.
A group of campers was already suited in hiking gear with their bags strapped to their backs, waiting for me near the water’s edge. We would take the next uphill hike up to the middle lake and camp out there for the night before making our way to the very top. The entire point of the backpacking trip wasn’t the strenuous hike but the quiet experience of staying still, getting lost inside a world that didn’t consist of deadlines and watching the clock, and posting everything you ate on social media. The stillness was our destination and where we learned to live.
I scoped out the empty campsite behind me as I approached the group at the water. “Well, this is a first. Usually, I’m the one waiting on everyone else.” I scanned their faces to see if Camila and Josie were among them and quickly confirmed that they were not. “I see we have a couple of ambitious hikers. Camila and Josie already took off?” I looked straight at Trip.
“Yup. Left before dawn. I told them to wait, but of course they didn’t listen to me.” Trip’s jaw hardened as he looked up the hill at his back. “That’s a steep incline.”
“The girls will be fine.” I waved off Trip’s worry. He knew just as well as I did that Camila was more than capable of venturing off on her own. He just didn’t like that he couldn’t watch her like a hawk. “Let’s get going, shall we?”
The group all agreed, and with me in the lead, we took off toward on the next leg of the hike. It consisted mostly of small rocks and a narrower trail, one I’d always managed to navigate with no problem. Unfortunately, I’d figured out the day before that the majority of the group with me wasn’t experienced enough to manage the trails with the same confidence.
When I heard a high-pitched scream and the sound of sliding rocks, I flipped around to find Raven on the ground, her face twisted in pain and a howl bursting from her throat. Shit.
I walked down the hill, careful to not make the same mistake as Raven, and got to her at the same time as her brother. She was holding out her leg and clutching it as she stared at it in shock. “I heard it pop.” She looked more terrified than in pain. “I swear, I heard it break.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Raven? How could you be so clumsy?”
I ignored Trip while internalizing the fact that he hadn’t changed, not even after graduating from high school. He was still the prick he’d always been. “Where did you hear it break? Where does it hurt?”
Raven pointed at her ankle while tears sprang to her eyes. “It hurts so much. I’m afraid to move anything.”
“Don’t move it,” I warned her. “I’m going to slowly remove your boot so that I can take a look, okay?”
She nodded, her lids pinching together.
After her boot and sock were off, her quickly swelling ankle showed that she’d broken it somehow. I didn’t know whether it was a non-weight-bearing break, but she wouldn’t be able to walk on it for at least a few weeks. I’d seen injuries just as small before, but though it was a little bone that wouldn’t cause any long-term damage, it was a break no less, and it probably hurt like hell.
After doing everything I knew how to do for her—helping her stand to test her ability to walk then taping up her ankle—I sighed and looked up at Trip. “She won’t be able to walk on it, but she needs to get back to Camp Lachey. I can have Jason send someone to meet you on the trail with a stretcher, but you’ll need to help her back.”
“Are you kidding me? We’ve walked like three miles!”
I shrugged, letting him know there was no other choice.
Trip’s expression was a mix between crestfallen and furious as he assessed his sister’s ankle, then he cursed under his breath.
“W-Why can’t you take me?” Raven asked, looking up at me while batting her lashes.
“I’ve got to stay with the group. I’ll alert Jason to meet you, but you might want to take some of your friends with you to help.” I nodded to the four pot smokers, who were taking up the tail end of the group and looked miserable. “Maybe them.”
After Trip talked to the guys, he hauled Raven up into his arms, then they started down the hill, successfully cutting my hiking group in half.
It definitely felt like I was carrying a lighter load for the rest of the hike up. The hikers with me kept up easily, and they reined in their chatter. When we reached the top, I waved them over to the edge of the cliff, where they would get a view of why we’d really came on the trip.
“Unreal,” one camper said breathily.
“Holy shit, this is beautiful,” another said.
I smiled.
The lake below us looked better than any filter on any image I’d ever seen in my life. The water was a crisp turquoise, its surface smooth, and patches of snow were still evident in sections of the land and hills around it.
I backed away from the edge to give the group some space and made my way over to the campsite, where Camila’s tent was already set up. The girls were nowhere to be found.
I trekked around the outskirts of the woods to see if I could spot any sign of them, when I heard a faint giggle past the woods and in another clearing private from where hikers traveled. Never in the hundreds of hiking groups I’d taken up there had any of them found that clearing. Of course, Camila and Josie had. Jason had told me about it the first time we went up there but warned me that if I told one person about it, the beauty would be ruined fast. After seeing it, I knew he was right.
Shaking my head, I walked down the unmarked trail and circled a section of the mountain that was all rock. I reached a small landing that led to a natural hot spring that overlooked another section of the mountains. It could almost be mistaken for a hot tub, from the way someone had built up the rock formation. The girls were there, only their heads visible from where I stood.
“Why does it not surprise me that you found this place?”
Camila and Josie’s heads snapped in my direction, their eyes wide, and I laughed. Their expressions eased, and they started to laugh too.
“Jesus, Ridge, you almost gave us a heart attack.”
“But I didn’t.”
They giggled.
“Is this some sort of secret or something?” Josie grinned at me.
“It is. Top secret. Think we can keep it between us?” I was responding to Josie’s question, but my eyes were on Camila, who seemed to be avoiding eye contact. She was still pissed at me for our conversation from the previous night.
“No can do,” Josie said with a shrug. “Franklin was the one who told us, and I’m sure we weren’t the only ones he spouted off to.”
Franklin was one of the guys who’d walked back with Raven and Trip. “Franklin took off, so maybe he took his secret with him.”
The girls eyed me, confused.
“Raven broke her ankle on the way up here. At least, I think she broke it. Trip, Franklin, Ryker, and one other guy helped take her back to base camp so that she could get it looked at.”
Josie’s jaw dropped. “You’re shitting me.”
“I am not shitting you.”
Camila appeared relieved until she looked over at her best friend and noticed how sad she was. “Aw, I’m sorry, Jo. Maybe Ryker will come back once they get Raven settled.”
Josie shook her head and stood up in the water. “I’m going to see if I have any cell reception.”
“You won’t,” Camila and I said at the same time.
Josie shrugged us off and stepped out of the hot springs, looking dejected. When I noticed what she was wearing—a black bikini—I averted my eyes to give her some privacy. I waited until she walked off to turn back to the water, where Camila was already looking at me.
“It was just a bikini, Ridge. It’s not like she was naked.”
Camila giggled, bringing me back to the days of us running through the fields with her laughter enveloping me in all the ways I knew were bad. I had resisted my growing feelings for her for so long that I hadn’t even recognized them until it was too late. Seeing her again was like being blasted with a hose that had been pinched off for so long that its bursting was inevitable. After I tossed and turned in anguish last night at how hurt Camila had looked, my thoughts had betrayed me and drifted to less innocent destinations. I’d failed to fight off the most inappropriate erection stemming from thoughts that far surpassed what our friendship had entailed. I had even tried to picture someone else, but it was useless. I wanted Camila. And the image of her, soft and strong and beautiful, had greeted me at my climax.
“You’re staring at me.”
I blinked, clearing my mind of the memories, which were making my heart race—another inappropriate reaction to the girl I’d vowed to stay away from. Clearly, her presence had effects on me that were impossible to ignore.
“I was just thinking.”
She smiled, but even the tilt of her lips couldn’t erase the pain that was so clearly written in her eyes. I’d hurt her, when I was only trying to protect us both.
“Always thinking, aren’t you, Ridge? You must have been sad to see Raven go. What with your close friendship and all.”
I ground my teeth to combat the beast inside me that wanted to unleash at her. There was so much she didn’t know and I would never dare say. “You know that’s not what we share.” My voice was quiet, but Camila could hear me.
Hurt flashed across her features again. “Do I? I’m afraid I don’t know as much as I thought I did.”
“You know more than anyone.”
She let out a sarcastic laugh. “But I’m too young to understand. Isn’t that right? That was why it was so easy for you to leave while I waited for you to come home. While I waited for you to miss me the way I missed you.”
Her tone, her expression, and her deep, impenetrable innocence combined lashed angrily against my heart. I deserved it, but I didn’t know of any other way after what Harold had told me that night.
“I didn’t leave you, Camila. I was saving you. From my father, from yours…”
“Oh yeah? Well, who’s going to save me from myself?”
She stood from the water, and I could have sworn my heart jolted so strongly that I could feel my demise. My Wild One, untamed and boldly herself, unlike anyone I’d ever known, was naked before me. Her breasts were full and heaving with each breath. Water rolled down her skin, beading on dark nipples that were firmly pointed from the cold, and goose bumps rose on her caramel skin. She walked forward, focused on me, while I struggled to pull my eyes away.
Camila had always been a rare beauty, even when disguised with dirt and scratches from her cravings for adventure. I’d always seen her, but the beauty walking toward me with the water steaming around her and rippling as she moved was a sort of beauty that owned me at the very root of my soul. Camila Bell was a figment of my every desire, both past and present, and I knew hell existed wherever she didn’t. I’d been living in it since I left her.
She reached the edge of the water and started to pull herself over the rocks. After catching a glimpse of her light-pink underwear, I looked away, cursing myself for not averting my eyes sooner the way I’d done with Josie. The girls were my responsibility to look after, not gawk at while fighting off the urge to jerk off at the first pair of breasts that caught my eye.
I was deeply punishing myself when I felt Camila’s presence mere inches from mine. The crisp air had to be biting into her skin after she’d stepped out of the hot water, but she still didn’t reach for a towel.
“Look at me.”
I rolled my eyes up to the blue early-afternoon sky and blew out a breath. “I refuse.”
“I demand.”
Shaking my head, I squeezed my lids together and felt for the rock to my right to find her towel. I grasped the fabric and wrapped it around her shoulders without even looking. “You need to cover up.”
“Not until you look at me.” Her voice was quieter, but the firmness was still there. “It’s not wrong, you know. To want me.” She stepped closer so that her head was right under my chin while her hand slid up my chest. “I’m not a little girl anymore, Ridge. Look at me and you’ll see.”
“I saw enough,” I bit out, keeping my eyes on the sky.
She let out a light laugh. “So much willpower. It’s admirable, really.” Her hand slid back down my abdomen as it rose and deflated with each quickened breath. When she reached the waistband of my shorts, she froze. “Or maybe not so much willpower.”
My eyes snapped open, and I looked down to find her staring at the bulge in my shorts.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
I followed a bead of water as it fell down the center of her chest, between her perfect breasts, to her soft stomach, and finally dipping into her belly button. At nineteen years old, I’d never seen a naked woman in person. I didn’t know how I’d expected to feel about i
t—excited, sure, but Camila had so much more to her than the way she looked. She was boldly confident and thirsty for knowledge, and the way she stood her ground had captured me from the beginning. But I couldn’t deny her natural beauty in all ways that surpassed innocent thought or intention. The fact that she knew she was beautiful made everything harder—everything.
I greedily drank her in a second longer before our eyes locked again. Sucking in a deep, controlled breath, I pulled the towel tighter around her shoulders and closed it in the front. “Get dressed. Now is not the time to be daring, Wild One.”
“Daring with my body or my truth?” she challenged me. “You seem to be frightened by all of it.”
A flame licked through me as I frowned. “You don’t scare me.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s not. You don’t scare me, Camila. You have never scared me. I scare myself when I’m with you. These thoughts—” I shook my head to try to clear every vision that had entered my mind. “They’re wrong.”
Her eyebrows knitted as she glared back let me. “What’s so wrong about me? It’s not like you’re living on Harold’s farm anymore. No one’s telling you to stay away from me.”
“I am telling me to stay away from you. You’re beautiful, Camila. I’d be lying to us both if I denied it. And you may not be a little girl anymore, but you’re still too young.”
“And Raven isn’t? I’m the same age as her, but you had no trouble staying in contact with her.”
The accusation in her tone was too much. The same flame that had lashed me earlier started spreading at a ferocious speed. “That’s because I have no interest in Raven. With you, it’s different. With you, I lose every battle of will, as you seem to have noticed.”
She searched my face like she was trying to grasp something while confusion danced across hers. “My papa wants me to be with Trip. Trip’s father too. He’s the same age as you, so obviously, age doesn’t matter.”
Her words were a punch in the gut. Trip was interested in Camila, and he had never tried to hide it. That their fathers were cheering them on from the sidelines stung. I ignored the comment about her age.