by April Hill
Cameron smiled. “She’ll still be one of the most beautiful five hundred pound females on earth.”
Anne sighed. “It makes you wonder about people, doesn’t it? What kind of moron would want to shoot such a wonderful creature?”
He turned to her and smiled, again. “I believe there may be hope for you, yet, Miss Wilson.”
“If the females are that large, how big do the males get?“ she asked.
“Up to eight hundred pounds, and nine feet tall.”
“Do you think he’s around, somewhere, too? The father bear, I mean?”
Cameron shook his head. “Not if she can help it. That may be why she seems nervous. There may be a male around somewhere.”
“Don’t the females stay with the males, for protection?”
“The male grizzly makes a very poor husband, I’m afraid, and a worse father. His family duties appear to last only as long as his erection does.”
“I never thought of a bear having an erection,” she mused. “Have you ever seen…”
“No, I haven’t. And in any case, I wouldn’t think that would be the ideal moment to investigate, would you?”
They watched for close to an hour, while the mother grizzly and her cubs essentially decimated their remaining food supply, even ripping open a few of the expired cans.
“So much for breakfast,” she sighed. “Maybe there’s a few fish left in the lake?”
“I’ll try for a rabbit, later. I’ve seen a few tracks up on the ridge.”
“Rabbits are too cute,” she said miserably. “I don’t think I could eat a rabbit.”
He grinned. “You didn’t think you could eat fish, either.”
She groaned. “I know. And before I got here, I was a vegetarian.”
* * * * *
When rescue didn’t come after almost two weeks, and the weather kept getting colder, Anne’s anxiety got worse by the day. She could tell that Cameron was trying to remain cheerful in order to keep her spirits up, but with the canned food almost gone, the fish apparently a thing of the past, and rabbits rarer than he’d hoped for, she knew it was becoming harder for him every day.
“Look at the bright side,” she quipped on the thirteenth afternoon, while they were finishing off the last of the small rabbit he’d bagged the day before. “For the first time in my life, I’m actually losing weight without spending money on a gym. Roasted rabbit must be very low in calories, and I’m even beginning to like it.”
He pointed to the rabbit’s picked-over skeleton, and tried to smile “There certainly weren’t many calories in that one. I probably used more getting the fire going than we took in. I hope you’ll like raw rabbit as well as you do cooked rabbit. The two sticks thing is harder than it sounds, especially when you don’t have sticks. Wouldn’t you think with all the junk we found in the plane, there’d have been at least one box of matches?”
“Actually, I’ve read that raw food is better for you,” Anne suggested. “Even the meat is better raw. More vitamins, or something. And it tastes better, too.”
“Another lie like that, Miss Wilson, and I may have to waste some of my waning energy on spanking you. It’s been four days since you stepped out of line or called me something grossly obscene. It would be a shame to break what’s probably a record for you.”
“You told me I was a slow learner,” she said. “Maybe I’m improving.”
He chuckled. “Let’s not get our hopes up too high, shall we? It’s more likely the lack of protein that’s making you too tired to argue about every single thing.”
She hesitated, then asked the question she’d been wanting to ask.
“We could still try walking out of here, you know.”
“I’m beginning to think you want that spanking,” he said quietly.
“Is it really that hopeless?”
When he didn’t answer immediately, she watched his face for a moment, and asked her second question.
“It is possible, isn’t it? If we leave right away, while we’re still not too weak?”
“No, it’s not possible. Not both of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I can lay in enough food for you to survive on ‘til I can get back with help, I might make it on foot. With luck. And decent weather, of course.”
“Without me?”
“I can move faster alone, and hunt as I go. I’ll take the rifle, and leave my sidearm with you, in case you need it. But you’ll have to promise me that you’ll stay in the plane, or within a few feet of it, at most. If we’re this short of food, the bears will be, too. They’ll probably be denning up, soon, but there’s still a risk of another visit. They tend to come back to anyplace they’ve found food.”
“I won’t let you go alone,” she said firmly. “What if something happens to you?”
“It won’t.”
“Now, you’re just being arrogant,” she said. “And stupid. You’re not as young as you used to be, you know.”
He grinned. “Thank you.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but it’s true. Besides, you know perfectly well how accident-prone I am. What if I shoot myself in the foot, or something?”
“You’re too smart for that. And if you do anything that foolish, after I’ve taught you how to handle a loaded weapon, you’ll get the mother of all spankings— even with your foot in a cast.”
She smiled. “Just what I’ve always said. You’re a bully and a brute.”
He stood up, and looked up at the sky. “In any case, we don’t have to decide that, now. We’ve got a couple of days, yet, before it gets to that point. Right now, though, it looks like we’re in for another snow. Late tonight, probably.” He glanced down at the campfire.
“Why don’t you clear up here, and rinse out the dishes, while I reorganize in the cabin. We may be stuck inside for a day or so.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I did the dishes last night,” she said.
“Nice try, but I did the dishes last night. And the night before that, as I recall.”
“You know what I read?” she asked. “I read that when you get close to forty, you start losing more than 400,000 brain cells a day. Isn’t that shocking?”
“Shocking,” he agreed, as he walked away toward the plane. “Now, wash the damned dishes.”
“What about the bears?” she asked sweetly.
“They can wash their own dishes.”
* * * * *
It was more than a half an hour by the time she carried water from the lake, scoured the dishes as clean as could get them with nothing but sand, and walked back to the plane.
As she came closer, she heard noises from inside, and a moment later, several items sailed out the rear window into the snow.
Curious and mildly alarmed, she flung open the cockpit door, and stared.
There had been a miraculous transformation in their primitive living quarters.
The two damaged rear seats that had forced them to sleep in fetal positions had been pulled up from the floor and rearranged against the right side of the plane, with the wooden crate that had held the canned goods between them. In the space the seats had once occupied, Cameron had fashioned a larger sleeping area, with their sleeping bags spread out on top of eight or ten inches of the ubiquitous moss. One of the tattered wool blankets served as a cover for what looked like a very serviceable, even comfortable bed.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” she said.
He smiled. “I’m glad you approve. I’ve begun to explore my inner domestic.”
“Actually, it looks a lot like my apartment,” she observed. “If my apartment were bigger. And cleaner. An empty pizza box or two would add to the illusion, and maybe a few diet Coke cans thrown around, here and there, but otherwise, looking at all this is like déjà vu.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to volunteer a couple of clothing items for curtains?” he asked.” I was thinking about some nice flo
rals. Sort of pastelish, and summery.”
“I’ll check my luggage, but I’m not a big fan of flowers. How about a pale blue pinstripe, and some tiny white polka dots, on a beige background?”
He nodded. “That works for me. I’m sorry about the double bed, though. I was going for twins, with a discreet space between, but…Well, you know. The drastic shortage of bedding, and all that. Plus," he glanced away quickly, and Anne realized he was blushing a little, "it will be warmer."
Anne felt her face flush in return. “I understand," she mumbled. "I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
He pulled the top cover back and Anne saw he'd unzipped both sleeping bags, putting one below them and the other - his heavy-duty arctic number - on top. Over that was one of the tattered blankets, almost like a bed spread. "Come on," he said softly. "I'm getting cold."
Stripping to her long johns, Anne climbed in next to him. She stretched out languorously, or at least as languorously as one could on sleeping-bag-covered moss.
"Remember," he joked. "No snoring."
Anne snorted. “More insults? Where I come from, Sergeant Cameron, voluptuous is a polite way of saying fat. And I do not snore.”
He smiled. “Of course, you don’t. And you don’t snuggle up to me at night, either, when you think I’m asleep.”
“Extreme cold does strange things to women, too,” she explained coolly. “Which reminds me. I’m freezing my butt. Move over. You’re on my side of the bed.”
They lay there for a while, enjoying the added warmth and comfort of the new sleeping arrangements— and watching the snow begin to fall.
“Well, it’s nice to know that you’re not perfect, after all,” she said wearily “You were wrong about what time the snow would start.”
“I wish that were funny,” he said quietly. “The problem is, if it keeps snowing like this all night, there’ll be no getting out of here, on foot. Our one snowshoe won’t be a lot of help.”
Anne closed her eyes—gratefully. “Will you get mad at me if I say I’m relieved that you won’t be able to go?” she asked softly.
“No. But it’s going to mean half-rations from here on out.”
“So, what were they before?”
He didn’t answer, but drew her closer, and pulled the top sleeping bag over both of their heads. “Stop squirming around, and keep your head covered.”
“I can’t talk with my head covered,” she protested.
Cameron chuckled. “I know.”
“Do you mind I ask you something?” she asked. “Something really personal?”
“If you want to know if I’m getting turned on, as you put it, the answer is yes. Now, stop kicking me in the shins, and go to sleep, if you can. We’re going to have to dig out of here in the morning.”
She moved closer, and stretched her arms over her head, in an attempt to display her breasts to their best advantage possible, under three layers of clothing.
“I’m sorry if I kicked you,” she said, turning slightly, so that their thighs touched. He froze; she could feel him holding his breath.
"Anne," he said softly. "Once I start, I'm not going to be able to stop."
She slipped her hand between their bodies, and finally satisfied herself that the bulge was real. "Once you start, I'm not going to want you to stop," she responded just as softly.
Groaning, pushing his hips against her hand, he skimmed his hands down her body and somehow - somehow got them under the long-john shirt. First his fingers found her nipples and then his mouth - that soft mouth she'd been eyeing for so many days. His beard had gone beyond stubble after more than two weeks with no razor, and when he caught her sensitive tip in a long soothing bite, she though she was going to climax without him ever going below her waist.
Not that she had to wait long for that. Before she could catch her breath, he was skimming the long-john bottoms down, and not being particularly gentle about it. "I've wanted to do this since the first time I laid eyes on you, Annie," he breathed in her ear. "I wanted to bend you over O'Brien's desk and blister your ass for being such a brat, and then fuck you right then and there. Fuck you until you screamed."
"O'Brien would have loved that."
"Should have done it anyway…" Somehow - Anne didn't know how - he'd managed to get his own long johns down. The bulge was a full-fledged erection, hot, hard, smooth against her hand and her belly, and before she knew it he was on top of her, separating her thighs with his own hard ones. "Baby, I'm sorry, I can't…"
He didn't elaborate about just what he couldn't do, but he didn't need to. With one long fluid stroke, he slid into Anne hard. She was so wet for him, it was embarrassing, but he didn't seem to mind.
For the first time in her life, Anne knew what it was like to have a man who was literally out of his mind with lust. She realized in some dimly aware part of her brain that Cameron must have been on the verge of exploding for days, and she marveled at his control. She'd picked up on a few moments of sexual tension - seen his eyes on her when he thought she wasn't looking - but the level of raw lust that was pouring from his thrusting body into hers… she hadn't seen this coming, not by a long shot.
He locked his mouth onto hers and simultaneously thrust both of his hands under her bare ass, drawing her body into him. She felt possessed… taken… like she'd never felt before, and then, although she would not have thought it possible, he slammed into even harder than before. And the man who didn't swear, who didn't use four letter words, was groaning out every obscenity she'd ever heard and a few that she hadn't.
He collapsed on her, whispering "Oh God, Oh God," over and over again.
"I think I'm smothering," she croaked out.
"Oh God," he said again, but managed to roll off of her. "I'm so sorry, Annie."
"For what?"
"For… being so… fast."
Anne laughed. "It was fine."
He rolled into her and bit her ear. "I'll make it up to you."
"No…," she started, but his hand had already skimmed down her body to her slick thighs. "Spread your legs."
She blushed in the darkness. "No, it's too…"
"Spread your legs, or I'll spank you, and then you'll spread 'em anyway."
Gasping with her own lust, she parted her thighs, and learned very quickly that there was another thing that Staff Sergeant Geoffrey Cameron, RCMP was good at. Those long fingers she'd admired for so many days deftly parted her wide, and the rough pad of his thumb found her hard clit… just so. And when she came in his arms, she started to cry.
* * * * *
She awoke before he did the next morning. It was actually quite a miracle that she woke at all because Staff Sergeant Cameron, although apparently a slow-starter, once let loose, was no slouch in the sex department. They'd made love twice more in the night, and the second and third time, he'd taken his own sweet time about it. Anne had learned several new positions, as well as some dirty words in Gaelic and, when she'd finally fallen asleep after the third go-round, she'd been so exhausted and sated and sore, her final thought had been she'd never wake again.
But she did, and discovered that the snow must have stopped not long after it started, as there were no more than three or four additional inches on the ground. She knew that the stable weather meant he’d be packing up to leave camp, after all. And to leave her. That was why he’d fixed up the cabin. So she’d be warmer, and safer, not to seduce her. Had that been an accident? Something he never intended?
Trying not to cry, she crawled into the front seat of the cockpit, and began sorting through the pile of bags he’d stored on the floor during the “redecorating.” She was rummaging through her smaller suitcase, hoping to find her makeup bag, when her fingers touched an unexpected item that brought a smile to her tear-streaked face. It was a minute cardboard box, labeled Top Notch Grille, Good Food, Great Booze. A tiny, completely-full box of matches.
Breakfast! Maybe nothing but outdated canned bacon and
applesauce, but hot. And hot tea, from slightly mildewed teabags. A feast fit for a king and queen.
Under the belly of the plane, and beneath the ripped tarpaulin, she found some of the junk Geoff had removed from the back. Dry firewood, without the risk of running into Mama bear and her kids.
She had the fire going and the bacon already sizzling when he stepped out of the plane and into the fresh snow. He looked around, then stomped his feet to test the depth, and her heart sank. He was going to leave. Today.
When he approached the fire, he was smiling, but she knew the smile was for her benefit. He was doing his best to put a good face on a rotten situation.
“All right, what’s your secret?” he asked, pointing to the fire. “Or have you been practicing rubbing two sticks together?
She reached into the pocket of her parka and pulled out the little box of matches.
“Merry Christmas! Oh, do you say Merry Christmas in Canada?”
“We do, but we usually start saying it three months from now.” He took the box she handed him. “What’s this?”
“A very early Christmas present.”
He slid the box open, and grinned. “Well, that answers my first question. Next question, and be careful about what you say. How far did you have to go from the plane to find the wood?”
“It was under the plane,” she said brightly. “With all the crap you tossed out. It burns great, too.”
“Yes, I should think it would, but in the future, would you mind not using the furniture to cook with?”
“What?”
“That box you’re burning was going to be our new dining table. Now, we’ll have no table, and only one chair.”
She frowned. “Chair? Are you talking about that other old box? The broken one, with the?”
He rolled his eyes heavenward. “So much for gracious living." He reached down and selected a wooden slat from the small pile that remained.
“I’m getting spanked for this?” she asked innocently.
“No, I suppose not. It was an accident. Besides, if that should become necessary, the canoe paddle will probably do a much better job.”
Anne gulped. “You don’t mean the short paddle, do you? That crummy old thing that went with the inflatable boat? With all those patches? That leaked?”