Chapter Sixteen
Gabe
“Give him time,” I said to Mitch as he tracked Leo’s departure.
“Why do I feel so bad when I think I’ve upset him?” he asked. “When it’s you, I don’t feel anywhere near as guilty.”
“Wow, thanks, man.”
“You know what I mean.”
Yeah, I did. When the two of us argued, we urged the other on, pushing our boundaries as far as we could, a relief to get out what we’d been holding in. The dynamic worked well enough for us to hash out our issues and clear the air.
But Leo had taken on the role of peacemaker, and upsetting him felt genuinely wrong, so this must be something big for him to withdraw from us instead of talking the issue through.
“You want to explain to me what happened?” I asked Mitch. “Because so far, I’ve no clue.” Which may not be necessarily true. I had a pretty good suspicion but was interested in what Mitch would say, if he said anything at all. He shifted in his seat a couple of times and focused on the mug of coffee in front of him, the one with the words Plaid Prince printed along the side. The slogan was pretty apt, as I’d not seen him wear any other type of shirt the whole time I’d been here.
He took a sip of the steaming coffee before placing his mug on the kitchen table.
“Mitch?”
He shrugged and wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“Mitch,” I repeated, more firmly this time.
“Fine,” he huffed. “I might have gotten…” He shifted again.
“Gotten?”
He stared hard at me.
“Now where have I seen that look before?” I tapped my chin a few times. “Oh yeah, it’s the same one you gave Leo. C’mon, spill.”
He let out a tortured groan, his body slumping in his chair. “I got jealous, okay? There. Are you happy now?” Seemingly uncomfortable with his admission, he hastily stood, and taking his mug, tipped the contents into the sink, before turning on the tap to rinse it out.
Well, I’ll be damned.
I got up and walked around the table to stand against his shoulder, making sure to see his face. Clearly, a battle raged inside his head, but I had no idea how to help him.
“Why were you jealous?” I asked gently, resting my hand at the base of his spine. He straightened at my touch, but a moment later he relaxed against me.
“I’m not sure.” And from his tone, I realized he wasn’t.
“Of him or me?”
He swallowed, and his breathing sped up. “What?”
“I asked if you were jealous of him—” I turned sideways to lean against the countertop, so I remained looking into his face. “—Or me?”
His mouth worked but no words came out. This was big. Monumentally big. Him and Leo had gotten on so well, I’d felt left out on more than one occasion. I hadn’t enjoyed being on my own while they’d been together, exercising the horses or working in the stables. The scenario, far too reminiscent of the times Karl and David wouldn’t be at our apartment when I got home late from work, only to find they’d gone out to dinner and … didn’t want to bother me as they knew I’d be busy.
I should have seen my breakup coming a long time before I had, but I’d shrugged my doubts off, deliberately ignoring the signs staring me in the face. A lot of the time I had been busy and probably wouldn’t have been able to go, but they could have at least asked me, giving me a chance to alter my plans, rather than dismissing me as if I didn’t matter.
But whichever one of us Mitch said now would throw a huge wrench in the works. We’d almost kissed last night, and I’d been so eager to have his mouth on mine, but he hadn’t followed through, the inner battle he constantly waged with himself winning out for a second time, much to my frustration.
Mitch closed his eyes. “Him,” he admitted, turning to me, the haunted expression on his face piercing right into my heart. “I was jealous of him.”
It took a huge effort to not react to his confession as I grappled with what his answer meant. “Why?”
Mitch scrubbed his hand over his face. “Why do you think? After last night, when we…when we almost…”
“Kissed?”
He nodded. “I thought we, well, that we…but the way you were acting with Leo this morning made me feel like what almost happened didn’t matter, and you’d already moved on…” He lowered his hands to re-rinse his already clean mug, more, I suspected, for something to occupy him now he’d admitted his worries than anything else.
I needed to be extra careful with my response to his confession. I sometimes forgot not everyone was as much of a player as me. Flirting was second nature and as easy as breathing. I loved the excitement of the chase and tried to stack the odds in my favor every chance I got; in this case, trying it on with both Mitch and Leo. Which would be fine in New York, where everybody played by the same rules, but I should probably try to rein in my impulses while in the country, before I stomped on too many feelings, especially as the three of us were stuck in this pressure cooker of a cabin with no feasible way out.
I needed to diffuse the situation, before things got out of hand, and maybe push Mitch and Leo closer while edging myself farther away. And the best way to deflect their attention away from me…sarcasm.
I stepped away from Mitch and gave a dismissive shrug. “Well, you know me, any port in a storm.”
For a second Mitch looked aggrieved, but then he must have figured out my plan, as his eyes narrowed, and he set his jaw. “Don’t,” he snapped. “Don’t try and play this off as some kind of game.”
I chuckled and cast a disparaging glance at our surroundings. “I don’t see much else to do around here, do you? So I may as well create my own bit of fun while I can.”
“Gabe,” he warned me. “You weren’t only in it for the fun.”
“Says who?”
Mitch maneuvered around until he stood in front of me, hands on either side of the countertop, trapping me in place. My pulse sped up, and I automatically licked my lips in anticipation of what I hoped was a mauling kiss. He closed the distance between us, enough for me to feel the heat emanating from his body, but not close enough to make contact, and goddamn it, I so wanted him to touch me. The instinct to grind my rapidly hardening dick against his crotch became overwhelming, but I daren’t move a muscle, as the moment I did, I’d show my hand, and he’d know—he’d fucking know I wanted him more than I let on.
He leaned his head in closer and at my small, sharp inhalation, a smug expression spread across his face. “Says me .”
“I—I don’t…” My words dried up when his intense gaze dropped to my lips for a beat, two, before lifting to spear me to the spot.
Time stood still as we stared into each other’s eyes. “Says me,” he repeated firmer, rougher.
I broke first, swallowing loudly in the silence, before looking down, acknowledging defeat, because yeah, it wasn't a game, and for reasons I still hadn’t deciphered, I did, in fact, want him far more than I felt comfortable with.
But the same as yesterday, he abruptly stepped away, allowing me to finally gulp in some air. His gaze suddenly flicked toward the living area, a frown creasing his brow. “Leo’s been in the bedroom a long time.”
“Huh?” My brain had fogged over, and my body ached so damn bad from being close to him again, I failed to grasp the rapid change in conversation. “Maybe he wants some time out,” I rasped, my throat dry.
Mitch pondered my answer. “Something doesn’t feel right.” He stalked away and disappeared around the corner, leaving me irritatingly bereft. After getting my shaky legs to cooperate, I hurried after him as he headed toward the bedroom.
“Leo?” Mitch shouted and knocked on the closed bedroom door. Nothing. He opened it and, finding the room empty, checked the attached bathroom.
“Not in there either,” he confirmed, as a look of horror bloomed in his eyes at the same time the blood drained from his face. “Shit, you don’t think he heard me, do you?”
I regarded him helplessly, unable to offer up an answer.
“Shit. Fuck.” I followed him into the living area as he moved to the window. “I can’t see him,” he said, before turning toward me. “We need to find him. I need to find him.”
Grabbing our outerwear, we rapidly pulled them on, then went outside, taking the dogs with us, in the hope they’d pick up Leo’s scent. They were bloodhounds, after all. Maybe we were being irrational, but if Leo had heard Mitch’s confession, going off in anger was a distinct possibility. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and the snow lay thick on the ground. The heavy flakes fell all around us, cutting our field of vision to no more than thirty or so feet in any direction.
“I’ll check the stables,” Mitch threw over his shoulder as he ran toward them, the dogs at his heels. Twisting around I walked to the end of the porch and peered around the side of the cabin, thinking Leo might have wanted some time alone but didn’t want to go too far, but I found no sign of him.
The fast-falling flakes easily covered any tracks he might have made. Hell, Mitch’s were already fading in the short time he’d been gone.
“Nothing,” he shouted across to me as he went to search the barns. “Both empty.”
“You don’t think he’d have gone into the forest, do you?” I asked Mitch. “Or tried to go down to the lake?”
He shook his head, studying the swirling white. “In this weather? He’d be out of his mind to attempt such a thing.”
“Or pissed.”
“Fuck.” Mitch turned almost as white as our surroundings. “Wait here while I get the GPS phone and my gear.” He hurried inside, returning a few moments later, his face as white as a sheet. “He’s taken his bag, as well as his coat and hat.”
“Perhaps he’s thinking of staying in one of the guest cabins?” I reasoned, but as soon as the words came out, I recognized how ridiculous they sounded. After working on them yesterday, I knew they were totally uninhabitable. With no water or heat, there’s no way he’d think of staying in one alone.
“So there’s no other route into town other than the road out front?”
He shook his head. “Not by truck.”
“And by foot?”
Mitch’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “There’s an old hunting trail to the east, leading into town—a fork off the main trail into the mountains. I’ve used it a few times over the years, but the path is narrow and steep in places. I pointed it out to Leo while we were exercising the horses. It’s a difficult enough route in the summer, but in winter, in all this snow…” he trailed off and took in a shaky breath. “We need to find him in case he does something foolish.” If Mitch was nervous about venturing out into the forest, it didn’t bode well for Leo being out there on his own.
“This is solid and dependable Leo we’re talking about. He’d never attempt anything so reckless,” I reassured him, while also trying to reassure myself. I hoped to hell I was right, and Leo wouldn’t be so blinded by fury as to try to follow the trail, but anger made a man do unusual things sometimes, even when he knew rationally, he shouldn’t.
“We need to go now,” Mitch ordered and stomped out of the cabin. He did a check of the single-track road we’d driven in on forty-eight hours ago to satisfy himself Leo hadn’t walked in that direction, before heading back the way we came. This time he walked down the side of his home toward the trail located behind the cabin that led into the forest.
We didn’t speak, each of us scanning the area, hoping to spot Leo in the distance. He must have at least a half-hour head start on us by now, and may well be more than a mile away, despite the heavy snow hindering his progress.
As we walked, I wondered how on earth we’d gotten ourselves into this mess. Had it really only been a couple days since our arrival? It felt more like a couple of weeks since we’d been marooned here. So much had happened in such a short space of time my head spun. My original reason for coming here in the first place, to get Mitch to sign the contract, seemed like a hazy memory. Plus, the longer I stayed, the further from my mind the idea of him selling became. On paper, I owned 50 percent of everything around me, but in truth, this was Mitch’s home, and always would be, plain and simple.
Chuck and Norris loped off ahead of us, alternating between their noses being close to the ground, twitching, or up sniffing the air. I reasoned if anyone could find Leo, those two would.
Underneath the shelter of the trees, the snowfall lessened somewhat, and the cold white blobs floated lazily through the branches to land in our path.
After ten minutes of following the trail we both stopped. “Is that footprints?” I asked.
Mitch crouched down to get a better look. “Yep, and I’ve only taken this route on horseback, so it’s got to be him.”
“That’s a good sign, right? At least we know he came this way.”
Mitch nodded, straightened up, and took off at a faster pace. In my efforts to keep up with his long strides, I skidded and slipped on patches of ice more than once as we traipsed through the compacted snow. Almost jogging while wearing a thick jacket didn’t help either. The sweat poured off me, drenching my T-shirt until the material clung to my skin, but I gritted my teeth and kept pushing on. Luckily, Leo’s steps remained true, and the faster along the track we traveled, the more visible they became. We were gaining on him!
The forest abutted the meandering path on either side, getting thicker and denser the farther into the distance we went, until the landscape merged into a mass of brown and green and white in every direction, the scent of pine hanging sweet and heavy in the air. In any other circumstances, I might have enjoyed the scenery, but instead, I kept replaying the conversation I’d had with Mitch in the kitchen as I scanned the way ahead for any signs of Leo.
What on earth was I doing? I’d already flirted with Leo yesterday morning and had hardly begun kissing him when the dogs had interrupted us. And now, all kinds of alarm bells should be sounding after nearly kissing Mitch last night. Did I really want to risk getting involved with him too?
Had I not learned my lesson already?
Leo was supposed to be a fast and quick hookup once we’d gotten out of here and nothing more, yet now, I worried like crazy something may have happened to him. Add in that he undoubtedly heard Mitch say he was jealous of him, and my gut churned with anxiety. What if Leo was also jealous of me? What if he wanted Mitch as much as I was beginning to?
Things were getting way too fucked up, and if I didn’t rein in my impulses soon, they’d get completely out of hand, and I refused to make the return journey into the negative headspace I found myself in after being double dumped. If the three of us started something, I knew all too well how it would end, with me being rejected as the awkward third they didn’t really want. But, annoyingly, I also couldn’t shake loose the idea of having them both. Thinking of them taking turns to fuck me into the mattress made my body heat up and shiver with need at the same time. I shouldn’t want them, certain how things would turn out, but dammit I did.
We rounded a corner and Mitch’s strong arm suddenly swung out across my chest, pulling me up short and stopping me in my tracks.
“What is it?”
He tilted his head for me to look and I noted we’d reached a more dangerous section of the path, which narrowed considerably, clinging to the side of the rock, with a steep drop on the other side. If I’d have carried on walking, I’d likely have slipped, and the idea of falling over the side scared the living daylights out of me. I turned to look at Mitch, his breath streaming in the cold air from the exertion of trekking in the snow for the last hour.
“Look.” He pointed at a section of snow with a chunk missing, leaving a gap on the edge of the trail near a shiny patch of ice. The dogs crisscrossed the area in front of us, pacing and sniffing all around the rim where the path dropped off into the gorge below.
“Shit. You don’t think he slipped and fell, do you?
“Wait here,” he ordered, tentatively stepping closer to the precipice to peer over. He cupped his mouth with his hands and hollered, “Leo.” It felt an age as I waited for him to finish his search, his eagle eyes sweeping back and forth. “I can’t see— No, wait. Leo,” he hollered again. “Leo.”
I caught a faint sound in response, but wanting to be sure, I stepped forward to look over the edge as well. “Careful,” Mitch warned. “I don’t want to lose you too.” His gentle words hit me hard beneath the ribs. I got that he meant losing me to the gorge, but the way he phrased it, the slight hint of emotion in his voice, had me longingly thinking he might have implied something more.
“Help!” There! The voice sounded faint and scared but must be Leo. He continued to shout “Help” over and over until his voice must have given out.
“Leo, we hear you,” Mitch shouted. “Hold on. I’m coming to get you.”
Dropping his backpack on the ground, he unzipped the main compartment and pulled out a couple of climbing ropes and some metal equipment I had no idea what to do with.
“What are you going to do with that?” I asked him warily.
“I need to go over the edge. He’s down there. I heard him.”
“What?” I screeched at his ridiculous plan. “No fucking way. It’s too risky.” I ran my hand roughly through my sweat-dampened hair. “Can’t we call someone? We must be able to call someone. Mountain rescue or the fire department or somebody?”
“He might be hurt, Gabe, and we don’t have time to wait around. Plus, how would they get here with the bridge out? We don’t have a choice. I need to go get him now before the freezing weather gets to him first.”
I couldn’t fault his logic and grudgingly agreed with him. If Leo had injured himself, he’d need help right away to prevent his predicament from getting any worse. Panic curled in my stomach at the thought of something bad happening to him if we didn’t act now. If he blacked out or something, the weather was so cold he may never wake up. “What do you need me to do?” I asked, placing myself in Mitch’s hands.
“We need to secure these ropes to a tree so I can lower myself over the side.”
Jesus.
He pulled out a harness and placed his feet in the loops, pulled it on like one would underwear, then secured the buckle. The action cinched the straps around his crotch, cradling his package, giving him a healthy bulge in his jeans. I felt like a pervert for noticing, considering the situation we were in and the danger to Leo. Even worse, my cock twitched its approval, making me feel like a total douchebag.
“Where’d you get all this equipment?”
“I volunteer for the Park Rangers, and I’m trained in mountain rescue.”
He was full of surprises today. He had become such a recluse I didn’t think he ever socialized at all, so his answer came as quite the revelation.
Mitch thrust a couple of ropes in my hands and continued to pull more stuff out of the never-ending depths of his backpack. “I need an anchor, so we need to tie these to a couple of trees,” he pointed ten or twelve feet up the rock at the two closest to the edge.
“I wouldn’t even know where to start to tie the rope correctly.”
“I’ll do it,” he replied calmly. “We need to double back around the turn to get to the level above, then we can wrap them around the trees a few times.” I started up the slope, as he said, while he added some metal clips to his belt. Following behind me, we retraced our steps about sixty feet and scrambled our way up the snowy hill. Mitch efficiently tied the knot around the first tree, before tying a couple fancier knots in the rope and hooking two of the metal clips through the loops. Next, he took the second rope, and tied this one to the first before securing it around the second tree.
“Why tie around two trees?” I asked him, curious.
“Because I want to be as safe as possible, and evenly distributing the weight over two trees ensures there’s less pressure on a single one. Plus, if one tree does shift, or whatever, the other should still hold.” After tugging on them to satisfy himself they were solid, he next wove the rope through the clips.
His explanation helped relieve some of my anguish, and I had to reassess my conception of the man again, my admiration for him going up another couple of notches.
After securing the ropes around the trees, he threw them over the side to the path below us, before we quickly returned to the point where Leo had gone over the side. “Here.” He handed me another harness. “Put this on and I’ll make sure you’re secured.” I gawped at him, as he rolled his eyes. “You’re not going down there with me, but you will need to get close to the edge and help me with Leo when I bring him up. I want you to be safe while you do it.”
Thank fuck. “Oh, okay.”
He got me ready. The straps of the harness emphasized my crotch, too, though wearing one felt way too tight and a lot more uncomfortable than snug and sexy. Next, he made a few more knots to clip himself to the rope.
“You ready?”
I gave a quick nod. “Ready.”
“Let’s go.” He wasted no time in walking to the edge. He then turned around so he faced the wall of rock and snow, tugged on the ropes a few more times until satisfied they would hold his weight, and without any further hesitation lowered himself over the side of the gorge.