Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Ivy
I t's all so overwhelming. There's a fire engine and an ambulance parked outside the office at the hot springs resort.
The parking lot is a huge, open area that's currently filled with vehicles-- mostly four wheel drive trucks with winches on the front bumpers.
A few that have magnets or bumper stickers labeling them as part of the Moonshine Ridge rescue and recovery crew.
It looks like the entire town is crammed into the space, and they're all here because of me.
People keep coming up to me, introducing themselves, shaking my hand and telling me how glad they are that I'm all right.
A couple of paramedics check me over for injuries any more serious than the scrapes and bruises I'm already aware of.
If I'd been flirting with hypothermia overnight, my body temperature is back up.
They tell me I'm "shocky" but otherwise fine and, after my cuts have been documented and sanitized, a woman who introduces herself as Sparrow tells me the resort here at the hot springs has a room set aside for me to stay in for a few days if I need a place to rest and recover. Free of charge, she's quick to clarify.
I don't know how to answer her. There must be something written in my expression that she understands because Sparrow takes my hand and smiles when she sees me frantically searching the crowd of people for Jake.
"The room is yours if you need it." She tells me in a tone that suggests she gets exactly how I'm feeling. "I know what it's like to need time to process."
"Thanks, but--" I return the light squeeze that Sparrow gives my hand, but I'm suddenly desperate to find Jake.
"Jake's just talking to the deputy, let me get him for you."
Something tells me Sparrow understands more about what I'm feeling than just processing time.
The other woman winks at me and heads toward a truck where a group of men are huddled around the back of a pick-up truck.
Jake's standing beside a man dressed in a sheriff's uniform, looking over a map spread out on the open trail gate with a few other men also intently paying attention to whatever they're talking about.
When Sparrow taps Jake's shoulder and points back at me, however, he immediately heads my way.
"You ready to go?" He moves in close, creating a barrier between me and the rest of the commotion.
Jake makes it easy to feel safe. I like the way he leans into me when I reach for his hand.
His other hand brushes over my hair, reminding me of the dirt and sticks and pine needles in it.
"Sparrow says I can stay up here. I was going to stay in town a few days when I was done camping, but I didn't set anything up before I went."
"You're staying with me."
Jake says it like it's a done deal. I don't want to argue. I want to fall into his arms in gratitude.
Instead, I enthusiastically nod in agreement and let Jake pull me to my feet. He guides me through the lingering crowd and helps me into his truck.
"Let's come back for your car after you've had a chance to rest." He tells me as he passes the turn-off for the trailhead parking where my car is still parked. "I don't want you driving down the mountain in this state."
"Thank you."
I like the way Jake's hand lays across my thigh as he drives.
"I can have someone else take me back to get it tomorrow." I let my hand wrap around his and his fingers curl against mine.
"I'll take you. When you're ready," he says. "No hurry, Ivy."
"Aren't you with the logging crew though?" I was under the impression that Jake works up there in that dense stretch of woods that I officially agree are creepy as fuck now. He probably has to go back to work soon.
Jake makes a sound beside me that's part grunt, part laugh. He squeezes my hand again before letting go to turn the wheel up a gravel drive near town.
"Yeah, I lead a crew up there. We're working on thinning some of the dead trees out of the forest, hoping to prevent another fire."
Speaking of trees, the dirt road winds through a thick section of forest before opening up on a modern house built with its back to a meadow with a view of the mountains rising just beyond that.
"The company owes me some time," he continues, as he parks in front of the house. "Adam will cover for me."
"Welcome home, baby," Jake tells me as he holds my door open and helps me down from his lifted truck.
He says "home" like he's expecting me to stay.
Jake
S he's gorgeous with the forest scrubbed off of her, even prettier than I remember her from back in the bakery when I got my first look at her.
While I found us something to eat, Ivy took a long shower. While she ate, I checked on the cuts and scratches, coated them all with a new layer of antibiotic cream and bandaged anything that looked like it needed it.
Somehow, we both fell asleep on the couch after that.
Ivy was telling me about her work as a folklorist, which she admits isn't the most lucrative career field to go into.
Most people end up in teaching fields, but Ivy's had success with a handful of books and a podcast she started a couple of years ago that keeps her bills paid and funds her research into things that interest her; like linking the modern dogman lore that recently edged out Bigfoot for the Ridge's most popular cryptid to other canid hybrid and shape shifter mythology around the world and across history.
Even my buddy's wife, Phoenix, now says that she's sure what she saw was just a bear, but it was the story she posted online over the winter that got Moonshine Ridge linked to one more legend.
Ivy says she doesn't believe in the monsters she researches, she's just fascinated by how many other people do, and the fact that people keep reporting seeing them.
I told her about working with the logging company, and why me and my buddies stay with the Murdock brothers, even though they're a bunch of grumpy sons of bitches that are pain in the ass to deal with.
I love the work. When I was young, I liked spending days in the rigging-- roped to the top of a tree thirty feet off the ground with a saw in my hands. These days, I'm fine keeping my feet on the ground most of the time, leaving the worst of the work to the new guys.
The Murdock family has been logging this area for over a hundred years, going back almost as far as the town itself.
And there's still timber to log in the region.
Which says a lot about their ethics and business practices compared to some of the other outfits I spent a season with when I was starting out.
What I don't love is what Ivy told me about the men going through her camp.
I don't like the Deputy Hawkins' suggestion that it could have been men from my crew.
I don't like that what she told me sounds like unhinged men hunting for something specific.
It sounds like we have predators in those woods and not the kind that science hasn't been able to prove.
Her story has me wondering what really happened to all the women who went missing on that old road a hundred years back; and hoping the guys Ivy encountered aren't out there looking to be copy cats.
Ivy stirs against me, brushing my dick. I've been hard for her since before I woke up with her curvy body pressed against me.
When I groan at the contact, she moves again.
There's nothing I can do to hide what she does to me. We're wrapped up together on my leather sofa. Ivy's been sleeping with her head resting on my chest, her soft body wedged between my legs.
I've probably been staring at her for twenty minutes already, mapping every curve of her that I'm dying to explore.
The t-shirt I gave her to wear after her shower is long and loose on her. During our nap, it's managed to ride up and get bunched around her waist. She's not wearing shorts under it, just a pair of panties in a lilac color that look like they'd be soft to the touch. But not as soft as her skin.
I haven't dared touch her while she sleeps, not even to move the hem of the shirt down so it covers her. Not that I mind the view, but I didn't want to wake her up and I sure as hell didn't want her getting the wrong idea.
I've just been lying here suffering in sweet agony, stroking the soft blonde hair that's dried into ringlets that curl around my fingers, watching her sleep while I think about how glad I am she's safe and wondering how I'm going to convince her to stay with me forever.
"You're awake?"
Ivy's emerald eyes peer up at me through dusty blonde lashes.
"Yeah," I answer her, letting my fingers drop from the strand of hair I've been playing with to the hint of bare skin where the neck of the shirt has slid off her shoulder.
"You didn't have to stay here, you should have shoved me over so you could get up."
Then she feels it, my hard dick pressing into her stomach as she shifts and rolls to sit up.
Ivy's eyes go wide with comprehension as the press of her against me has me closing my eyes on an oath.
"I really didn't want to," I confess.