Chapter 20
NASH
Raven was gently stroking my face, looking at me with such love in her eyes, my heart nearly exploded. A vision only, but I welcomed it. Her face glowed like an angel. My angel. I laughed to myself, imagining what she’d do if she heard me call her that.
Smack!
A sharp sting crossed my cheek.
“Wake up, you stubborn ox!”
My eyes fluttered open, and I found Raven crouched over me, her brows pinched with worry. Her hand was in the air, ready to hit me again. So much for my angel.
“H—Hey. What was that for?” I mumbled, my voice dry and raspy. My head throbbed in pain, like it was ready to explode. She hadn’t slapped me that hard. Why did my head feel like it was cleaved in two?
She quickly lowered her hand. “Just trying to get your attention. You’re harder to wake up than a dormant volcano.” She raised her shoulder to brush a tear from her cheek and pretended she was simply checking my head wound. But the streaks of dried tears on her cheeks told me how much she cared.
“Been waking up a lot of volcanos, have you?” I croaked.
“Oh, shut up,” she snapped. She wore her usual attitude like armor to hide something I’d not seen from her before—concern. And the armor wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding it. “How’s your head feeling?”
I brought my hand to my head to ease the pain and stop the spinning. A moan escaped my lips, and I had to close my eyes. “Like I’ve gone nine rounds with a prizefighter.”
Munch hopped up and began licking my face. I pushed him away and stroked the top of his head instead. His tail thumped against the floor with joy.
“Not exactly a prizefighter, but that’s about the way of it. How many fingers am I holding up?” She held up three fingers in front of my face. “What year is it? Who is the current president?”
I answered every one of her questions correctly, knowing her only experience with head injuries was probably limited to what she’d seen in movies. “I’m fine, Tweet. Really.”
“But you were unconscious for quite a while. We need to get you to a doctor.”
Thunder boomed once again, and Munch cowered and rushed to her side. The sound of rain pounding on the roof once again made me grateful we were all safe inside.
“Going to a hospital is not really an option. Not in this weather. Tell me what happened. I remember a bear. Did the bear attack me?”
Raven’s face scrunched. “Not exactly.”
“Then what happened, exactly ?” I lifted my head to look at her, but the pain forced me to lie back down. “Stop beating around the bush. Just tell me.”
“Don’t get up.” She placed a hand on my chest to keep me still. “Well, the bear was ready to attack, like you said. So I wanted to protect us both. I grabbed the nearest thing I could find to ward it off. That happened to be a long stick. More like a medium-sized tree. I was swinging it around toward the bear when you stepped in front of me and got hit in the head.”
“You knocked me out with a log?”
“It sounds so much worse when you say it like that.”
I opened my mouth to argue but closed it again and took a deep breath. “If you knocked me out in the woods, how did I get here?”
She shrugged. “Well, I couldn’t leave you there to become bear bait. So I brought you back to the cabin.”
“I appreciate that. But I outweigh you by probably a hundred pounds. How did you manage to get me here? All that way? Through the woods?”
She shrugged and gave me a coy smile. “You really do need to lay off the cookies. I’m just sayin’.”
“You couldn’t possibly have carried me.”
“I might be small, but I’m mighty. And stronger than I look.” She stood up and flexed her biceps with pride. When I didn’t respond, she huffed and waved her hand at me, brushing me off. “It doesn’t matter how I did it. I’m just glad we made it back in one piece. Safe and sound.” She stretched her back and arms. “I don’t know which one of us is in worse shape, though. I’m definitely going to need a massage when we get out of here.”
“Are you okay, Tweet? Did you get hurt?” If she got hurt saving me, I’d never forgive myself.
“I’m fine. Just some sore muscles. I haven’t had this strenuous of a workout in I don’t know how long.” She rubbed her upper arms and then rolled her shoulders.
Thinking I could massage her shoulders for her, I tried to sit up, and winced at the stab of pain in my head. The room started to spin, forcing me to lie back down. “Are you sure the bear didn’t beat me up? I feel like I’m bruised from head to toe.”
“If the bear had gotten to you, you’d have had more than a gash on your head and a few bruises.”
“So what happened to the bear?”
“I was so concerned with your injury that I kind of forgot about the bear until I looked up and saw it slowly walking away. It must have gotten bored. Once it was gone, I didn’t want to wait around to see if it was coming back. Or bringing friends.”
Looking at her, I saw what she tried to hide. Her face was streaked with dried tears, and her eyes revealed more than friendly concern. The emotions she usually covered up with jokes or snark were right there on the surface. How could I have been so blind?
“Well, Tweet. The way you’re talking right now, if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think you cared about me. I’m surprised you didn’t feed me to the bear yourself.”
“Pfft. Don’t flatter yourself. He wouldn’t want your tough old hide. Everyone knows bears prefer sweet things. He’d have left you in the dirt and come after me.”
“Ha—Oh, don’t make me laugh. It hurts my head.” I closed my eyes for a moment, waiting for the pain to dull. “I can’t believe you just called yourself sweet. Though, I have to admit, your concern for me is touching. Maybe there is sweetness under your salty exterior.” I knew for a fact she was a lot softer than she let on.
I still couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that Raven, at five foot two and weighing about a buck twenty, somehow got me through those thick woods and back to the cabin by herself. We had to have been over a half a mile away. I shifted my position on the mattress and felt the grittiness of mud chafing in unmentionable places. My kingdom for a shower.
Raven held out her hand. “Here. Take this. Your head must be killing you.” Two pain pills rested in the palm of her hand. She held a water bottle in her other hand.
“Oh, I could kiss you right now.”
We both froze with the words hanging in the air between us. Her eyes widened in shock, and then her gaze shifted to my lips. The heat in her eyes sent a surge of warmth through me that melted my resistance. The concern and tenderness I thought I saw when I woke up was nothing compared to the love I saw in her eyes then. A look I’d been dreaming about for years and would give anything to see for the rest of my life. I wanted to kiss her more than anything else in this world. But was that emotion real, or the result of surviving a traumatic event? Could I take that chance?
Afraid I’d gotten it wrong, I backpedaled. “I mean, this is exactly what I needed. Thanks.” Our fingers touched as I took the meds and water from her, causing a zap of electricity to zing up my arm. No mistaking that.
And no deny what I wanted anymore. I wanted to kiss her, and I would. I leaned in, curving my hand around hers, pulling her gently closer, and?—
Raven yanked her hand back, then abruptly turned and fled across the room to where Munch was curled up on the floor. She sat against the wall next to him, clearly trying to put some distance between us. She pulled out her sketchbook and began to draw.
What was wrong with me? She saved my life, and instead of thanking her, I had to go and make it all weird between us. And now she’ll be back to the usual hostility and cold shoulder for the rest of our confinement.
Even though I knew I should stay away from Raven and just let things go back to the way they were. I couldn’t. She’d risked her life to save me, and God only knew what she’d gone through to get me back to the cabin. My previous feelings for her paled in comparison to what I experienced now.
Ignoring or hiding my feelings from her was no longer an option. It was time to do something about it. I had to tell her the truth. If only I could figure out how.