Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
CLAY
A lly ignored my advice.
“This guy was in his tent—or not even a tent, it was more like a tarp hanging from a tree branch—and some animal starts heavy breathing right next to him, and then touches him through the tarp!”
I shook my head, accepting the steep pitch that lay ahead of me: convincing her we’d be safe on a two-mile trail to a campsite tended by park rangers.
“Which one did you watch?” It didn’t matter. One episode of either wilderness survival show would have terrified anyone planning to go camping for the first time.
“Both of them.”
I held my face in my hands. This woman...so stubborn. “Ally, why?”
She shrugged and dropped her overnight bag at my feet. “I don’t know. Curiosity, I guess.” To her credit, she’d packed in a nylon duffel, not some roller bag that would be impractical on a camping trip. I’d told her I’d lend her a backpack for the retreat, and she didn’t seem put off by the idea of carrying everything on her back.
“They ate beetles. Lots of them. And one guy was trying to catch a fish and ended up eating leeches. We’re not eating beetles, are we?” Ally stood on my front porch, arms crossed, crease between her brows. At first, I was delighted that she’d shown up fifteen minutes early because I mistook it for enthusiasm. But it was something else.
“We won’t be eating beetles. These are high school kids, remember? We’ll be eating things like GORP.”
“What the hell’s that? Is it a type of insect? A weird plant?” She looked legitimately terrified, and I fought the urge to pull her against my chest and wrap her in my arms. Her fear was kind of adorable, mainly because I had years of camping experience that made me feel like sleeping outside was no big deal.
She was a puzzle. So capable and badass in every way—unwilling to back down when it came to refusing Pindich and his smarmy lunch invitations, feisty as hell when it came to creating an art program that none of the other public schools had, and giving me a hard time about...everything. But this one thing scared the hell out of her.
I needed to understand why. And my ego wanted to be the superhero that got her over her fears. Not to mention that I loved the outdoors, and we happened to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. It would be a shame for Ally to live here and not get to experience all the wonders in nature.
Escorting her into my house, I tried to talk her down. “It’s an acronym. Good old raisins and peanuts. GORP is basically trail mix, though we don’t actually use peanuts because kids are allergic.”
She exhaled a breath I didn’t know she was holding and looked around my kitchen, where I’d gathered our food supplies for the night. “Here, let’s bring these out back and I’ll show you the setup.”
We wouldn’t have a cooler on the camping trip because we’d be hiking a couple miles with backpacks, but for tonight’s purposes, there was no need to rough it.
“You sure you wouldn’t rather cook in here? This is a pretty nice kitchen setup you’ve got.” She ran a hand over the dark gray stone countertop and admired the cabinets. I felt a sense of pride as she looked around. “Did you do a lot of work when you moved in?”
“I did a few things recently. Mostly in here.” I pointed to where a big center island separated the kitchen from the den. I’d painted the cabinets a deep shade of green that matched the trees visible beyond the deck. It wasn’t fancy, but the rustic charm suited me.
Other than the island marking the division between kitchen and den, it was one large room leading out to the deck. “It was two smaller spaces, but the wall between these rooms wasn’t weight-bearing so we were able to take it out. And Shane and I worked on the deck a bit, installed those sliders.” I pointed to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlapped each other when they slid open, giving the room an indoor-outdoor feeling.
“And in answer to your question, yes, it would be nice to eat in here, but we’re going camping. Come.” I grabbed the cooler and beckoned her to follow me outside. She looked wistfully at the comfy blue couch in the den, touched the soft gray throw blanket on the end, and wordlessly followed me to the sliding door. When her large blue eyes landed on me, I gave in and went back for the throw blanket, handing it to her to carry.
“Fine. This is not an officially sanctioned camping blanket, but I suppose it won’t kill us to have a few comforts while we’re in the wilderness.”
“The wilderness?”
“The yard. My yard. Nothing scary out there, except maybe an overly sharp blade of grass.”
She swatted my shoulder. “Don’t make fun of me. I’m here, aren’t I?” She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and shivered.
“You cold?”
“Tiny bit. I brought jackets though.” She pointed at the overstuffed duffle bag which I was carrying over my shoulder along with the cooler.
“Jackets?” I emphasized the plural. We were only going to be out here for one night, and I’d promised a roaring campfire.
“Four or five, just in case.”
I surveyed her large duffel. The size made more sense now. I wondered what else she’d packed. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she had an inflatable mattress in there, though I sensed the issue with camping wasn’t so much the lack of creature comforts as more a fear of the wilderness. Whichever it turned out to be, I’d get her past it. I was determined.
My yard was a small flat patch of grass overlooked by my back porch. In the early spring weather, cool air blew off the lake, and the trees exploded with young green leaves. The dahlia bulbs that had lain dormant all winter long had sprouted tall stems and leaves beneath tight purple buds ready to burst. Twin wooden feeders hung from low branches, where the birds would land in the morning and peck at the piles of seed.
“Wow. This is so pretty,” Ally said, taking in the herb garden sprouting with purple chive blossoms, low-growing oregano, and some hardy winter lettuces.
“Thanks. It’s fun to experiment.”
I’d spent my childhood visiting my grandparents here, hiking in the surrounding woods, and messing around on the lake. I hadn’t shared this place with people outside of my family, never invited friends over for parties. That wasn’t the point of the place. I understood the good fortune of having a house on undisturbed parkland. Bandit Lake had some of the cleanest water in the state due to the restrictions over who could use it. Not taking the responsibility lightly, I felt more like a steward of a borrowed treasure than an outright owner. I was a tenant until the house moved into the next person’s hands, and I wanted to leave it better than I’d found it.
Ally inhaled a deep, satisfying breath. “Mmm, I love that smell. If you can transport this to wherever we’re going next weekend, I just might get on board.” Ally blinked up at the cloudless blue sky and inhaled another large breath. She held it in her lungs before closing her eyes and blowing it out slowly.
“Great, isn’t it? The lake has its own little microclimate.” I took my own deep breath, envious of someone experiencing it for the first time.
The patch of grass was just large enough to give us space to practice putting up the tents in a row of three, just like what we’d do at the campsite. I had them laid out, along with wood for the fire we’d build and the camping supplies we’d need for some other camping practice activities.
Ally inhaled another deep breath, and I watched her shoulders drop an inch. “I’ve only known one other person who lived on the lake, so it’s been years since I’ve been up here. How did I not know you had a place here?”
I shrugged. “I inherited it seven years ago when my grandmother passed. We don’t exactly talk at school,” I reminded her, guiding her over to the three tents. “How could you have known?” She followed me but didn’t look down or acknowledge the tents in any way.
“Sure we do. I rib you about your pristine leftovers and you tell me to stop teaching my students to memorize facts about master painters.”
“I’ve never said that. Kids don’t memorize enough facts these days. They ask Siri for everything and don’t have to recall anything they’ve learned. It’s a travesty.” Finally, she glanced down and squinted at the neat beige and orange nylon sacks.
“Mini parachutes?” she guessed.
“No, but that would be fun.”
“It would be fun. Have you ever jumped out of a plane?” Her eyes danced, casting toward the sky as though looking for parachutes.
“Let me get this straight. You’re afraid to spend a night in my yard, but you’d jump out of a plane at fourteen thousand feet?” Mind blown. But mind also confused.
Her eyebrows bounced, and she shed the blanket from around her shoulders, looking for a place to put it. She settled on a pair of camp chairs I’d set up near where I’d planned to make our firepit. “Sounds like someone knows exactly how high the planes fly before they let you jump out.”
“I may have done some research. Then I came to my senses and realized I was not meant to free-fall through the sky while having a panic attack.”
She laughed and picked up the orange tent, then twirled it from its string. “Yeah, kind of the same conclusion I came to.” She watched the tent spin from her fingers. “If I ever decide to do it though, I’ll be sure and call you. We can panic together.”
I felt a wellspring of hope at the idea of plummeting to the earth with her if it meant spending more time together outside of school. But I dismissed the idea and the feeling just as quickly because she and I couldn’t happen.
“These are tents, since you asked.” I picked up the darker of the beige bundles and slipped the fastener up the string so I could take the folded tent and poles out. “These are two-person tents just like the ones the kids will use on the retreat.”
“Okay,” she said, opening the tent in her hands and taking out the folded nylon before the poles clattered to the ground in a noisy heap. She looked down at them accusingly, then up at me. “You made that look easier.”
Tossing my bundle aside, I helped her unfurl the orange tent and turn it, so its zippered opening faced the lake. Two tarps sat on top of the mass of nylon, and I handed them to Ally to inspect.
“What are these, capes?” She waved them open to their full size.
“Yes. Once you put up your tent, you put on the cape and fly around a bit to make sure it looks okay from above.”
Pressing her lips together in a smirk, she flicked my shoulder. “You’re just lucky I like your magical little campground, or you’d be wearing your cape alone, greyhound.”
It was magical. To a lot of people, my square of grass wouldn’t look like much. Patchy with clusters of clovers that intermingled with the rye and fescue. The occasional dandelion. Stone flies swirling in the air, crickets singing in the distance. But I sensed she understood it on a deeper level. My heart tugged in my chest, wanting more from her than I had a right to expect.
“Okay, let’s get these tents put up and build that fire. Then we can eat,” I said, nearly shoving her aside to grab the folded poles from where I’d tossed them on the ground. “These are easy. They unfold and snap to full size.”
I demonstrated lengthening one tent pole and let Ally straighten the other one. Then I showed her how to thread them through the clips and bend them into a bow shape to lift up the roof of the tent.
“That’s it?” she asked, holding the ends of two poles in her hands. We had the tent stretched to its full size and height, but the tricky part was inserting the pole ends into the pockets where they always seemed too stubborn to fit.
“Not quite. Every kid on this trip is going to claim there’s something wrong with their tent because they can’t fit their poles in the holes.”
“Sounds like a humblebrag to me.” She smirked. Despite my attempt to ignore the innuendo, my body responded with a flare of heat across my skin, rushing straight down to my dick.
“Alexandra...,” I warned, my voice gravelly and strained like I’d run up a desert mountain.
“Sorry.” Her clear blue eyes flashed with mischief and those pretty plump lips twisted into a grin.
I leaned my forehead on my fingertips and shook my head. She was going to test every last strand of my self-restraint until it frayed into dust. And a part of me wanted to reciprocate, to tease and provoke, to see if she was held back by those same flimsy, self-imposed ties.
Handing her the tent pole, I went around to the other side and held the other end. “Give it a good bend and do the thing.”
She chuckled at my words and grunted as she tried to bend the pole. “It’s stubborn.” She pulled the nylon pocket as close to the end of the pole as she could, but they weren’t anywhere near each other. “Why is this so hard?”
“There’s a trick. Walk toward me.” She did as instructed, causing the pole to bend. Coming a little closer, she bent it enough to slip it into the pocket. “Voila, we have ourselves a tent.”
It listed to the side but we secured the second pole and righted it. Then we put the rain fly on top and began hammering in the stakes that anchored the tent in place. As we crouched side by side over the task, Ally’s arm brushed against my down puffer jacket. A ripple of electricity surged under my skin, even though it was impossible for me to feel her touch through two layers of clothing.
I stretched one of the nylon strings taut and Ally used a rubber mallet to tap the stake into the grass. When she looked over at me and smiled, I had a split second to warn, “Careful,” before she missed the stake entirely and smacked my fingers with the mallet.
“Oh, no! Clay, I’m so sorry!”
It was more of a thump than anything dire, but the look of horror on her face made me feel so much worse than any pain in my fingers. “It’s fine. You barely touched me.”
She raised my hand to her face, placing a soft, barely there kiss on my knuckles where the mallet struck. Almost like she was kissing away the hurt. Followed by a dawning look of embarrassment that flashed across her face before she dropped my hand and backed up.
But all I could think about was how it felt to have her breath dancing over the skin of my hand. I wanted to feel it along the skin of my neck. Her breath teasing my ear. Coming in shaky exhales as I worked over every inch of her body with my hands.
My chest ached at the feel of Ally rubbing circles on the skin of my wounded hand. I wanted so much more from her, and it was getting harder to deny it.
Ally backed up to admire our work. “Looks like a tent. Mission accomplished.” Then her smile faded. “But it’s pretty small for two people. Are we...sharing this tent?”
Her eyes wandered to the other two tents and her expression clouded. I hated her look of consternation because it confirmed what I feared—she didn’t want to share a tent or anything else with me. Why should she?
I quickly reassured her, “Yeah, you’d be glad for the body heat of another person in the winter, trust me. But I planned to give you your own tent tonight, don’t worry.”
Her expression relaxed and she sighed. “Okay. Let me put up these other tents by myself, make sure I’m a pro now.”
“You sure? It’s much faster with two people.”
“Nah.” She ushered me toward one of the two camp chairs and gestured to it with a gameshow host’s flourish. “Take a load off and watch your teaching skills at work.”
The well-mannered, hat-tipping gentleman in me wanted to argue some more, insist on helping. But the enthusiastic little devil on my shoulder overrode my desire to fight her on it when she unwrapped the fleece pullover she’d had tied around her waist and bent over to pick up the first beige tent. My eyes stayed riveted to her curves under a snug long-sleeved shirt. Then they roamed lower, appreciating the nip of her waist, the sway of her hips, and the seductive roundness of her ass, which was in full, perfect view and clad only in yoga pants.
My mind spun wild, a kaleidoscope of thoughts that coalesced into a line from Shakespeare: “And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
Her movements halted, and she looked over her shoulder at me. “What?”
Her sparkling blue eyes seemed to see right through me, caressing even the most shadowed corners I kept locked down tight. A long, curling strand of blond had escaped her hair tie, catching the light of the afternoon sun. Springy, golden, and so soft. I swore I could feel the strands falling through my hands. She was the perfect contrast of light to all the dark I held inside.
“Um, Shakespeare. From As You Like It. We’re reading it now in my honors seminar. It’s nothing. Just the ramblings of a guy with his head in a book,” I stammered, my brain still fixated on her physical form, which only became more beautiful when her eyes caressed my face with inquisitive delight.
She stared at me a moment too long for it to feel comfortable, and I felt the prickle of heat on the back of my neck. Here was where it would begin, the realization that the odd products of my brain didn’t match my packaging.
Then she nodded. “It’s perfect. And . . . so true.”
Exhaling a shaky breath, I realized she wasn’t repelled by where my mind naturally drifted. Most people accepted my propensity to quote novels or poetry as a quaint personality quirk, something to be endured or ignored. Not appreciated.
Did Ally actually find my Shakespearean blunder acceptable? Even . . . endearing?
I didn’t get more time to ponder because Ally had moved on to tent assembly in earnest. She shook the nylon fabric into a billowing cloud of beige and placed it on the ground, then began unfolding the sticks and snapping them into full size. So far, so good.
But I wasn’t lying when I said it was a two-person job. As soon as she slipped the pole into one side of the tent and went around to insert the other, the first side popped out. She tried it several times, moving back and forth as her frustration mounted.
A few more strands of hair slipped from her tangle of a bun and fell into her eyes. My muscles fired and I bounced on my toes, wanting to step closer so I could tuck the wayward curls behind her ear and free up her line of sight. Before I could move, she shoved a lock of hair out of her face and glared at the tent.
Cheeks flushed, eyes like shipwrecking seas, teeth sinking into her bottom lip. I couldn’t stop staring. But she remained oblivious, refusing to give up without a fight.
“This infernal thing...,” she muttered, devising a weight from a rock she found beneath the deck and using it to anchor the pole on one side. But as soon as she started bending the other side to fit the end into the pocket, the first side popped out and the rock rolled away. “Seriously?” she spat at the tent.
“Two-person tent, two-person job. I’m here to help. Why fight it?”
“Guess I wanted to prove something.”
“You already did.”
Her eyes closed for a beat longer than necessary, enough to tell me she appreciated the compliment. She gestured to the loose end of the tent pole, and I held it in place while she anchored the other side.
In under a minute, we had the second tent pitched, and in under five, the third stood next to its brethren.
Ally and I stood shoulder to shoulder and observed the little family of tents like proud parents.
“Good work,” I told her. “Now let’s cook dinner.”