Chapter 30 Bennett
BENNETT
Despite Charlie’s declarations that she was ready to kiss, she threw herself into stuffing the chinks in our shelter with moss like a woman on a mission.
I’d worked on our shelter every daylight moment I wasn’t hunting, and I was proud of it.
It was shaped like a triangle, with one side against a huge boulder and the other two sides made from logs that I’d painstakingly sawed and fitted together in log-cabin style.
I’d done a rough A-frame roof but hadn’t found the energy yet to fill in the frame with logs, so for now, we’d tied the tarp over it.
It didn’t do much to keep the cold out but protected us from the rain and the worst of the wind.
I tried not to think about my dad with every log I’d placed, but it was hard not to.
He was the one who taught me how to make a shelter like this.
Why couldn’t he have stayed that kind of dad?
Why had he turned into someone who left?
Jules claimed our dad was always the kind of person who left, but that wasn’t how I remembered him.
I never should have brought you. You ruined the hunt. Dad’s cruel, distant voice came to me across the fault lines of my memory, along with the image of him stomping on my bow and breaking it in half, then walking away so fast, I had to run to keep from losing sight of him in the thick forest.
What had I done to make him react that way?
I reached back further, recalling ten-year-old me, with the wild cowlick and eager excitement to be with my dad, but not what precipitated his anger. Had I talked too much? Walked too loud and scared an animal away? Unease settled under my skin. Maybe I didn’t want to remember.
I joined Charlie to finish filling in the cracks, our arms brushing as we worked to fill the spaces, happy for the distraction from my dark thoughts.
She’d shed her coat and sweater and tucked her shirt up to reveal her cut.
It was an inch long and still seeping a little blood.
At this point, though, even if we went back to base camp, it was too late for stitches.
Her cheeks and lips were paler than they’d been this morning.
“Don’t overdo it. This doesn’t have to be done today.”
“I won’t.” She skittered away like a scared rabbit.
I followed her around the shelter to where she was stuffing more moss. “I think you should rest.”
“I want to help,” she insisted as she turned to pick up more moss, but I saw her wince at the movement.
“You know what would help?” I strode to her side and swept her into my arms.
“Ben!” She wound her arms around my neck, the moss she’d been clutching dropping behind my back. Her eyes were wide with surprise.
I set her on the ground, her back leaning against a huge boulder. I bent over her, both of my hands resting on the boulder behind her, and brought my head close. “You resting would help me.”
“I can’t sit here and watch you work while I do nothing.”
“You watch me work?” I lifted a cocky brow.
She huffed, but I caught the edges of a smile. “You know what I mean. We’re in this together. I don’t want to be needy.”
I clenched my jaw, but at her worried expression, I forced myself to relax the muscle. I was angry at Greg, not her, but she wouldn’t see it that way.
“You’re not needy. You’re injured. It’s different. Besides, I’m ready for a rest too.” I sat beside her, our shoulders pressed together, both of our legs spread out in front of us. “If only there was something else we could do.”
“We could work on the fishing net.”
“Something a little more … fun.” I turned my head to face her, and she finally looked at me, her eyebrows drawn low in confusion.
“Like …”
I slid my fingers into her hair, past her ear, and behind her head. Her eyes widened even more, and I was glad the camera was angled so it wouldn’t see her shocked expression as I slowly lowered my face toward hers.
She pushed forward, meeting me more than halfway, and pressed her lips to mine.
The kiss was over before I could even process it was happening.
It was our wedding day all over again—only this time, I knew what to expect.
Or at least, I thought I knew what to expect. Sparks. Friction. Blood-rushing excitement. And I had experienced it, for point two seconds before cool air had replaced her lips on mine.
Maybe I’d read this wrong. I thought she was into me.
She was at night, when I’d wake up with her wrapped around me like a bow on a present.
I’d breathe in her nearness and let her sleeping heartbeat synch with mine.
But in the daytime, she’d pretend like nothing happened, so I took my cues from her.
I moved my thumb down her neck where her heart fluttered rapidly, and her breathing hitched. I slid my lips across her racing pulse, tasted her salty skin. A shiver went through her, but she otherwise held completely still.
Her body wanted me, but something held her back. I pressed my forehead to hers, recalling Greg’s violent accusation.
You’re hard to love.
I’d hoped she’d ignored him. That she’d realized he was a snake, striking out in his dying moment to land one last venomous bite.
But what if she believed it, when it was the furthest thing from the truth?
When she was so easy to love, I couldn’t remember why we were keeping this marriage fake anymore.
So easy to love, I couldn’t imagine my life without her.
I knew Charlie, though. I could tell her over and over again that she was easy to love, and she’d smile and nod like she was listening, but she wouldn’t believe me.
Greg had shown her in so many ways over the years that he believed she was a difficult person and that it took hard work for him to love her.
I needed to show her the opposite. Loving her felt like blinking, breathing, eating, drinking.
Loving Charlie was instinct.
It was so instinctual, it scared me. I hadn’t felt half this strong for Lily, and when she’d left, she’d destroyed me.
The thought of Charlie leaving made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.
And we weren’t even together. I was traversing dangerous territory.
Entering a torrential gale at sea without a life jacket. I knew better than this.
Yet I didn’t know how to stop it.
“Are you okay?” She worried her lip with her teeth.
I answered her worry with another gentle kiss that she leaned forward for … and she pulled away from just as quickly. Charlie was the queen of mixed signals, and I didn’t think she even knew it.
Our quick kisses over the next week did nothing but make me hungry for more. It was like smelling Thanksgiving dinner cooking all day and sneaking a taste here and there. It was a delicious preview, but I wanted the entire feast.
I held a grouse at my side, one I had just shot with the bow and arrow for dinner.
After two full weeks of eating the bare minimum, every bit of food we caught made me emotional.
On my way to find Charlie, I picked the few remaining wildflowers the morning frost hadn’t killed and gathered them into a colorful cluster.
I found her near the lake, kneeling over a pool of water with her head bent low, forest foliage all around her. Her cameras were faced away from her. She was humming a song, another one of the ones we were making up. This one was the ode to warm showers, hot tubs, and electricity.
I grinned as I realized she was attempting to scrub her hair clean. She’d been complaining that she hated how dirty it was, but this water was freezing cold. She must have hit her breaking point.
I came around the foliage and sucked in a breath when I saw her.
Charlie was wearing only her bra and underwear, her other clothes discarded on a rock beside her.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her like this—we’d cuddled all night long after she’d injured herself—but I’d had the injury to think about then.
Now, all I could think about was the wide expanse of skin on her back and down the backs of her legs. I swallowed. Hard.
“Need some help?” I asked.
She let out a shriek and whipped her hair back, spraying me in the process. She folded her arms over her dripping torso and glared. Goose bumps popped up along her skin. The cut on her ribs was mostly healed, though a red scar remained. “Why are you sneaking up on me?”
“I didn’t. I swear.” I tried to bite back my smile, but I couldn’t. She looked hot—all fired up and ready to eviscerate me. “I brought you flowers and dinner.” I held them both out as proof.
Her eyes widened. “You picked me flowers? You didn’t have to do that.”
I set them down and motioned for her to put her hair back in the puddle. I could see where she was struggling to rinse toward the very back of her scalp, probably because the water wasn’t deep enough here.
“I’ve got this,” she said, her teeth starting to chatter. It was way too cold to be wet out here for long.
“Let me help you. Please.”
I knew she didn’t want to be needy. Which went directly against my need to be needed.
We faced off, but then her eyes flickered to the flowers in my hand, and she softened.
My attempts at romantic gestures out here had been met like this each time: surprise followed by acting like she had no idea how to respond.
“Okay,” she said, sounding unsure. “I can’t tell if I’ve got all the soap out.”
Our homemade soap made of animal fat, ash, and water (with crushed honeysuckle for scent) was primitive, but felt luxurious after being dirty for so many days. If I was out here alone, I would never have made soap, but Charlie took on the project after I’d caught our first rabbit.
I dug my fingers into her scalp to rub in the soap more, and she moaned in pleasure. Her hand came up to cover her mouth quickly.
“I heard that,” I said, not even bothering to hide my grin.
“Just rinse it out,” she said, trying to sound grumpy, but failing.
I scrubbed my fingers through her hair and then cupped water to rinse it out. She was shaking more from the cold, and as much as I wanted to prolong this, she needed to get dressed. I finished, then grabbed her shirt for her to put on.
“Turn around,” she said.
I spun around on my heel, giving her my back as requested. “I’ve seen you in a bra before.”
“Well, this one’s wet,” she said, clearly having zero idea what she was doing to me by planting that image in my head. I heard the rustle of fabric, and then, “Okay, I’m decent.”
I turned to see her dripping hair landing on the shoulders of her shirt. I shrugged my coat off and put it around her from behind, folding the ends close together. She leaned against me, and I kissed her temple, breathing in the flowers from the soap.
“I don’t want to take your coat from you.”
“You’re shivering.”
She turned around in my arms. “I don’t want you to resent me.”
“I won’t,” I said firmly. “I like making you comfortable.”
She studied my eyes as if trying to assess my truthfulness.
I stared at her openly, taking in her large green eyes.
Wet hair stuck to curls on her forehead and near her ears, droplets of water falling onto her long eyelashes.
“Who makes sure you’re comfortable?” She pushed back a strand of my hair from my forehead.
The energy was charged between us. “You do. In a million different ways.”
“Like kicking you all night?” she said with a scoff.
“Like making me feel not so alone.” I traced my nose along her jaw and heard her catch her breath.
I moved slowly, giving her time to pull back if she wanted, but she didn’t.
She held perfectly still. I pulled back to make sure she was okay, when her hand went behind my head and pulled my lips to hers.
Her hands gripped my shoulders. I slipped my free arm beneath the coat, pulling her flush against my chest.
I parted my lips to deepen the kiss, and a whoosh of cold air met me as Charlie pulled back with flushed cheeks and clear desire in her gaze.
“We’d better get that grouse cooking,” she said, her voice low and thick. Before I could stop her, she grabbed her flowers and the camera she’d set up just out of sight from where she’d been bathing and fled back to camp.
Leaving me aching and frustrated, and with no idea what to do about my runaway kisser.