by Addison Cole
They hiked for another few hours, and when the afternoon sun fell from the sky and the clouds rolled in, they headed back toward their campsite.
“Aiden, how many poisonous plants are in this forest?” Jack asked.
“Seven,” Aiden said proudly.
“Excellent. Why are you so good at remembering things?” Jack asked.
“My mom homeschools me, and she says I’m a book boy not a TV boy and that’s what makes me so smart.” Aiden reached for Jack’s hand.
Jack furrowed his brow and looked at him, then looked back at Elizabeth and Lou. Elizabeth mouthed, Sorry. Jack’s enormous paw engulfed Aiden’s tiny hand, and Aiden looked up at Jack as they walked.
“Watch your feet, not me,” Jack said.
“Okay,” Aiden replied.
“Do you remember what any of the poisonous plants look like?” Jack asked them.
Savannah watched him from behind, and she swore the muscles in his shoulders had settled down an inch or two, and he moved with a little less rigidity in his limbs as he walked hand in hand with Aiden.
“Three leaves let it be,” Aiden said.
Jack flashed a bright smile over his shoulder at Elizabeth and Lou. It was the first time Savannah had seen him look happy. The smile lightened his dark eyes and brightened his skin, as if he were looking into the sun. It instantly stole his serious, grumbly facade, changing his entire persona without a single word spoken. He looked approachable, likable. He looked like someone Savannah might like to get to know better.
“Three leaves, green, shiny sometimes, sometimes they have notches like cutouts and sometimes they’re smooth, right?” Aiden looked up at Jack again.
Jack nodded. “Perfect.”
“Someday I’m gonna live in the woods just like you, Jack. My dad said I can do that if I want to after I’m all grown up,” Aiden said.
Savannah couldn’t see Jack’s face from her position a few feet behind him, but she noticed the way he kept glancing at Aiden, and the attentiveness struck her. The word dangerous didn’t seem to fit him any longer. When he was with Aiden, the words interested and sweet came to mind.
Aiden described the other poisonous plants that he remembered, and then he went through a list of which plants were not poisonous. By the time they reached the camp, the temperature had dipped another ten degrees. Savannah grabbed a hoodie from her tent and then offered to get water from the stream with the help of Elizabeth and Josie. She couldn’t take another minute of being treated as if she didn’t exist.
“ARE WE HAVING fun yet?” Josie asked as they reached the water’s edge. She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her jet-black hair and dunked the pot in the water.
“What’s up with Pratt?” Savannah asked. She and Elizabeth sat on a boulder a few feet from the water’s edge. Streaks of sun cut through the center of the trees and cast long, active shadows across the water. Savannah watched Josie flip her black hair over her shoulder as she set the pot on the ground and began pacing.
“He’s complicated, I guess. Geez, I always do this. I came here to sort of find myself, you know?” Her blue eyes shifted between Savannah and Elizabeth. She pulled forward a lock of hair and ran her finger and thumb over the ends, first with the right hand, then the left, in a quick, repetitive pattern. “I always hook up with the wrong guys. Then, when things go bad—which they always do—I swear off men and end up doing the same thing over again,” Josie said.
“Welcome to the club.” Savannah gathered her hair over one shoulder and pulled her hood up, too.
Elizabeth took Savannah’s hand. “You girls just haven’t found the right men yet. You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince.”
“I’ve kissed enough frogs for both of us,” Savannah said. “You and Lou seem happy and compatible, and Aiden is too cute for words, but I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t miss my window of opportunity. I’m thirty…something…and most guys are married by the time they’re in their mid-thirties. Well, my brothers weren’t, and one is still way too single, but he’s younger than the rest of us. I think in general, by the time you hit your mid-thirties, you’re either unattached for a reason, which is usually not good, or you’ve already been married and divorced, and that’s not always great, either.”
“So I only have five more years to find the man I’ll fall in love with forever? What if I never do?” Josie sat on the other side of Elizabeth, leaned her elbows on her knees, and rested her face in her hands. She stared at the ground, the corners of her mouth turned down.
“What about Jack?” Elizabeth asked.
“You keep acting like there’s something there. There’s not; trust me,” Savannah said.
Elizabeth shook her head. “I still have the feeling there’s something between you two. He’s going to way too much trouble not to look at you.”
“She’s right,” Josie said. “When we were getting ready to leave the campsite this morning, I saw him sneaking glances at you every time you looked away.”
Last night, Savannah had felt something between them—a long, hard something—but for someone else to notice the connection meant that she wasn’t just making it up in her lonely little head.
“I’m here to get over a bad relationship, not to jump into a complicated one,” Savannah said.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Josie said emphatically. “I don’t know how I ended up in bed with Pratt. He’s a nice guy, you know. He’s just a little lost right now. Did you know that he’s an artist? He’s a sculptor. He has a degree in engineering, but he’s passionate about sculpting.”
“A moody artist. His personality fits him perfectly,” Savannah said.
“I don’t think he’s just moody. I think he really feels stuck. His parents are all over him to stop messing around with art and get a real job. I mean, he lives on his own, he has a studio, but he’s barely making it by each day, so they’re pushing him to give up,” Josie explained. “He came here to get away from them and to try to make a decision on his own.”
“What kind of parents would do that to their child? He’s not even a child. He’s a man.” Elizabeth took the bandanna off and tied it around her dreadlocks, creating a thick, snaky ponytail.
“Can I touch your hair?” Savannah asked.
“Of course. Go ahead.” Elizabeth turned around.
Savannah ran her hands over the dreadlocks. “I thought they’d feel prickly or overly dry, but they don’t. They’re like soft ropes of hair.” Touching them brought her back to Jack, who looked like he was made of hard edges and rough plateaus, but he was soft, his muscles strong yet tender. Remembering the way he’d cupped his palm around the back of her neck sent a chill up her spine.
She couldn’t think about Jack. It only made his ignoring her that much harder. She turned her focus back to Elizabeth. “My father would never do things that way. He’d give me an opinion but leave the decision up to me in the end,” Savannah said.
Josie jumped to her feet. “What I can’t figure out is what Pratt might be like if his parents weren’t doing this to him.”
“You’ve only known him a day. Give it time,” Elizabeth said. “Maybe he’s a really sweet guy.”
Savannah thought of Jack. “Or maybe he’s too broken to ever heal.”
“Thanks, Savannah,” Josie teased.
Savannah rose to her feet. “Don’t mind me. I’m just in my own little world today. We should probably bring the water back up or Les Stroud will come looking for us.”
Josie picked up the pot of water and they began their walk back up the hill. “So you guys don’t think I’m a slut?”
She said it so quietly that Savannah almost missed the question. She put her arm over Josie’s shoulder. “You’re no more of a slut than I am. You’re young and free. Why not enjoy it? As long as no one is getting hurt, why shouldn’t you enjoy each other? Even if it’s only for a few days.”
“Thanks, Savannah.” She looked at Elizabeth and grabbed that lock of hair a
nd began fiddling with it again. “Elizabeth?” she asked tentatively.
Elizabeth turned to face her with a wide smile. “I’m all for sharing yourself with whoever you feel will bring you pleasure, until you find the one whose pleasure you could never live without. I get a feeling about these things, and I don’t think either of those two men are broken beyond repair.” She held Savannah’s gaze.
“Are you Jack’s personal dating consultant or something?” Savannah asked.
“No,” Elizabeth said. “I just see something between you guys. I don’t know why, but…” She shrugged. When the campsite came into view, Elizabeth grabbed their arms and stopped walking. She lifted her chin toward Jack and Aiden, sitting side by side. Lou and Pratt sat across from them by the fire, each manipulating a length of rope. It looked like Jack was teaching them how to tie a knot.
“Those do not look like broken men to me,” Elizabeth said.
Jack put his arm around Aiden and pulled him close. His deep voice boomed into the evening. “Great job! You’ll be a master survivalist soon.”
Aiden wrapped his arms around Jack’s waist and hugged him. Savannah wasn’t surprised to see Jack’s body stiffen. His arm hung in the air above the boy, as if the hug were a giant leap from his arm on the boy’s shoulder. He lowered it slowly toward Aiden’s back, as if he were almost afraid to hug him, and in the next moment, he pulled the little boy close. The sweetness of the moment in the dimming sunlight brought Savannah’s hand to her heart. Jack rested his head on the top of Aiden’s hair and caught all three women staring at him.
Chapter Seven
JACK HAD BEEN dreading the night since he’d woken up that morning. He knew that the minute he lay down he’d be barraged with memories of kissing Savannah, and those images would be chased by Linda’s trusting and disappointed face. He’d never cheated on her when she was alive—and now, two years after her death, he was nearly paralyzed with guilt over a single kiss. A kiss that had him thinking about plenty of other dirty things besides Savannah’s lips. He couldn’t push past the thought that he had carelessly crushed his wedding vows. Thinking of Linda brought his mind to Aiden and how good it felt to spend time with a child.
He sat on the boulder beside the camp with his knees pulled up, his hands steepled together in front of his mouth, and his chin resting on the pads of his thumbs. He wondered what he would be like if he had a normal life. Normal. Jack wasn’t sure he even knew what normal looked like anymore. Was normal two adults with dreadlocks and an awesome son? Or was it a single career woman hiding out in the woods to heal whatever ache she had at the moment? Or was normal two kids searching for answers? Maybe there was no normal. Will I ever find my normal again—whatever that is—and have the family I always wanted?
Jack lay back on the rock and looked up at the stars, thinking of his brothers and sister. He was the eldest of six. Before Linda died, he’d seen his four younger brothers and his sister often. Now he was lucky to see them once a year. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Elizabeth and Lou singing to Aiden, and their voices silencing when, he was sure, Aiden had finally closed his eyes and fallen asleep. A few minutes later, the metallic scratch of the zipper on Pratt and Josie’s tent broke through the silence. Josie’s hushed giggles brought a smile to Jack’s lips despite his internal conflict. He wondered what it would be like to camp with a woman who truly enjoyed the outdoors. Linda never had, and now, as he lay beneath the stars, he wondered if Savannah ever would. He draped his arm over his eyes to block out the moonlight and wondered if he might fall asleep right there with the cold, hard rock at his back.
He didn’t hear her footsteps as she walked by, and he didn’t feel a brush of wind or hear the swish-swish of her pants legs. It was her scent that brought Jack’s arm away from his eyes and pushed him up onto his elbow. She stood with her back to him at the edge of the woods. He could barely make out her silhouette in the darkness, but he didn’t think he’d ever forget the alluring curves he’d seen earlier that morning. He didn’t want to be accused of spying again, but wasn’t he? No, he hadn’t been looking for her. She’d appeared unexpectedly. Had she? Or was I waiting for her? Hoping she’d appear? Or perhaps she’d been hoping he’d find her.
If he closed his eyes and acted like he was asleep, he couldn’t be accused of spying, but there was no way he was going to allow her to go into the woods alone after what happened the previous night. Should he call her name? Pretend he was just walking around. When did taking students to the woods become so complicated?
He’d never considered himself a hider, but isn’t that just what he’d been doing for two years? Hiding from the world? Hiding from himself? Jack pushed himself off the rock. What the heck have I got to lose. Here goes.
“Savannah?”
Savannah whipped her head around. “Jack?” She leaned forward, squinting into the darkness.
He closed the distance between them. “Are you going bobcat hunting?” That was a lame joke.
“Ha-ha. I wanted to go to the bathroom, but then I remembered…”
“I’ll take you, but let’s not push our luck by going to the same place that bobcat was before. Come on.” He put his hand on her lower back, and just that slight graze of her body against him made his stomach feel funny, like he was going downhill on a roller coaster. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. It was safer that way.
Savannah stopped walking.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You confuse the heck out of me, that’s what,” Savannah said. They were standing about twenty feet from the edge of the camp. The little moonlight that had been visible by the boulder was now blocked by the taller trees.
Jack stepped closer to her, bringing her face into focus. “If it’s any consolation, you do the same to me.” If there was one thing Jack knew about himself, it was that between his height and his brawn, the inflection of his voice determined how people reacted to him. He knew how to come across stern and aggressive. It had become a way of life in recent years. And he used to know how to allow his sensual, flirtatious side to turn on with each breath. But that part of him had been hidden for so long, Jack wasn’t sure it still existed at all. Tonight, for the first time in forever, he wanted that harsh edge to slip away. The recognition of that desire alerted the guilt and self-loathing that he’d harbored for two years and had been trying to ignore for the past twenty-four hours. I shouldn’t want her.
“Great. Now that that’s established, why is it that every time I’m alone, you show up?” Savannah crossed her arms.
“Do you ever not think like an attorney?” She tweaked every nerve in his body, and in the three minutes they’d been standing there, his pulse had already kicked up to the point where he was breathing heavily.
“Do you ever talk nicely to women?”
He looked away and smiled. She was tough…and he liked it. “I’m not a very nice man,” he said.
Savannah arched a brow. “You know what I think?”
She took a step closer to him, and the stirring in Jack’s stomach traveled south, bringing rise to the heat that had erupted between them the night before.
She put her cheek a breath away from his and whispered, “I think you need to walk me into the woods.”
His sexual urges begged to be fed, and as he contemplated doing just that, she leaned in again and said, “I have to pee.”
Chapter Eight
SAVANNAH COULDN’T PINPOINT the exact moment when Jack went from being a surly jerk to someone she wanted to figure out, but she was pretty sure it was when she’d seen him holding Aiden’s hand on the trail earlier that afternoon—and maybe the thought had been driven home when he’d put his arm around Aiden by the fire that evening. In those small actions, she’d seen his angry armor chipping away, exposing a taste of emotion that seemed to scare him as much as it seemed to soften him. And even though she was on the rebound from Connor, she couldn’t stop Elizabeth’s words from playing in her mind over the
last few hours. I’m all for sharing yourself with whoever you feel will bring you pleasure, until you find the one whose pleasure you could never live without. The more she observed Jack, the more open she became. She thought of her older brother Rex and how he’d always been gruff around women—until he’d fallen in love with Jade Johnson, the daughter of her father’s nemesis—the man Hal Braden had been feuding with for the past forty years. The relationship between Rex and Jade had been contentious at first, and from what Rex had described, they’d both fought it every step of the way. She’d never seen Rex happier, more content, and less guarded than he’d been since falling in love with Jade.
Savannah smiled at the surprise in Jack’s eyes. She supposed it had been cruel to tease him the way she had, but as she’d seen with her brother, she thought perhaps there was a kinder, gentler man who lay beneath the anger. She wasn’t Jade Johnson, and there was no family feud to contend with. The only thing holding her back from wrapping her hands around his beautiful, hard body and kissing him until she cracked that armor away was the memory of what it felt like to be hurt by Connor. Savannah had to believe that just because Connor hurt her didn’t mean all men would.
Jack cleared his throat. “Right.” They crossed the campsite and entered the forest on the other side. Savannah was aware of every breath as she walked just behind Jack, a little embarrassed that she had to pee at all, much less that she needed a babysitter while she went.
“See that rock over there?” Jack pointed to a large boulder. “I’m going to scope it out. Stay put.”