Chapter 23 #2
I glance across at her. My truck hits a rock and I curse myself for taking my eyes off the trail.
“Dammit. Not you. Sorry. I just… Give me a sec.” I get us back to where we need to be and find her hand.
“This part of the trail isn’t well cut. Usually I walk it, but that would take us longer than I want to get where I want to take you tonight. ”
Winnie is quiet for a while. “And have you seen it?”
The trees thicken here, the shadows darkening. I know what she’s asking and I’m of two minds about how to answer her. I can give her the tour-guide version that will let her sleep tonight.
The real answer is a little more… gritty.
I suck in a long breath. “Yeah. I’ve seen…
something.” Shit. I didn’t just confess that to my girl.
She’ll never sleep again. She’ll sure as shit never let Sally come out here with me.
“Listen, Winnie. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s alone out here.
And I think it’s been here for a long time.
Longer than us. It’s never hurt me, just observed. I don’t know what it is. But it’s not—”
“Lanie said the same thing,” Winnie interrupts me.
I close my mouth, try to reset my expectations, and fail.
“She did?” I manage not to fall off the edge of the road or reality all at once.
Actually, if the damn thing had come across the road and waved a giant dire-wolf tail at me, I wouldn’t have been shocked right then.
But I’ve only seen it at night, and only when I was alone and quiet and from a decent distance.
“She did.” Winnie nods like I’ve confirmed something for her.
I sketch her a quick glance. “And you’re not terrified?” I check in.
Winnie shoots me an amused look. “Would I be out here with you if that thing scared me?”
“Only if you expect me to wrestle it.”
“Could be fun. Front-row seat and all.” She grows serious. “But it’s not a figment of their combined imaginations? It’s real?”
I nod. “It’s real. No bullshit, beautiful. Respect this land, and it’ll respect you back.”
She’s quiet after that. Real quiet.
The trees thin out as we climb past a cluster of granite boulders that look like steps cut out into the mountainside. The truck rocks sideways once, until we summit the small crest.
Then the place I picked is in view. I put the truck in park and press a hand to Winnie’s knee. “This is what I had in mind. What do you—”
“Wow,” whispers Winnie. She stares out of the truck and turns to me, then back to the front. “West. Wow.”
I grip her knee. “Too much?”
“Uh?” She’s still as I unbuckle her seat belt, staring at the snowcapped mountains. They have always been visible from the falls Coyote is named for, but here, suddenly they’re brought up close. “How did you…”
“I found this place a few months back, right before I left. I was surveying a new parcel of land.” I unclip her in full. “You want to have a look around?”
Winnie breaks out of her reverie, craning forward over the dash. One hand grips my forearm. “Can I? Without, you know, death?”
I grin. There’s a reason I parked where I have. The angle makes the mountains look closer, but it also makes it look as though the cliff face ends right on the edge of the bull bar.
“Can I show you?” I disentangle our hands and give her knuckles a quick, rough kiss when she lets me. Her breaths come quick and shallow, but she nods and that’s all the permission I need.
I walk around the back of the truck, unwilling to ruin the illusion just yet, and open her door. Winnie slides into my arms without a word, her fingers still digging hard into my shoulders.
A thought slams into me that I possibly should have been better prepared for. “Do you have a thing with heights?”
She sends me a sharp stare. “I’m a paramedic, not a firefighter, West. Doesn’t everyone?”
I swing her about to face the vista spread out before her and lock my arms around her waist, hauling her back into me when she squeaks prettily for me. “Nope.”
I stopped counting the mountains after I hit twenty last time, but double figures are the least of the view.
White caps are displayed to their best in serious detail.
The white puffs of cloud that are visible from the falls are often absent from this angle, showing stark surfaces and harsh beauty in the last of the day’s sunlight before the colors fail.
Pale golds and faint peaches merge into a purple haze that soon descends over everything, the last flicker of gold reflecting off the farthest peaks.
“West,” Winnie whispers, staring at the sight like it’s the prettiest thing she’s ever seen. “You can’t top this.”
I grin and rest my chin on the top of her head. “I never intend to.”
She sighs and leans back into me, tension leaving her. “You’re too perfect.”
“Not yet.” I turn her around and point to the ground. “Pick a spot.”
“For?”
“Your picnic.”
Winnie dithers as I grab what I need from the back of my truck, turning to stare back at the mountains, which become the merest shadows beckoning in the darkness.
The foothills below us are feathered in a valley of pines we can’t see anymore, but their sharp scent fills the evening air as I create a fire and unbox tonight’s gourmet offerings that Levi has spoiled us with.
“Wraps, olives, breadsticks, fruit salad, cheese platter… what did you bribe Levi with? Did you pay him?” Winnie demands, her hands on her hips.
I hold out my hand, flicking a blanket tower and a stack of pillows to one side.
She takes my hand reluctantly and sits next to me, letting me pile olive tapenade onto a thin breadstick piece and feed it to her.
“Is it enough to say that you’re loved by more than me, and others want to spoil you too? ” I say quietly.
Winnie chews her food and says nothing, but then grabs a water bottle, taking a large sip. She emerges with watering eyes. “That’s wine,” she coughs. “And it’s strong.”
I laugh, ferreting about for real water, and swap the bottles out for her.
“Only Levi would do that for you,” I assure her.
“Look, it’s even got your name on it.” Sure enough, the bottle with the white wine is labeled Winnie’s Emergency Stash.
I have no idea what I need to have done on a date to earn that, but it’s hers, anyway.
“Wait, what did he give to you?” she asks, wiping her eyes.
I hold up two craft beers. “Mine’s been West-proofed.”
“Uh-huh.” In no way does Winnie sound impressed.
Her dinner passes without further choking incidents, and the wine makes it down safely after that.
The food is perfect in its proportions. Enough to fill, not enough to gorge on.
Levi is excellent as always, and he refused to take payment for his work.
I pack up after we eat and tuck everything away, batting Winnie’s fussing hands aside.
“This is my treat,” I remind her.
She only grumbles a little, and those noises stop when I slide around behind her, easing Winnie in between my legs. She curls comfortably in the space between. “I can see you out in a place like this, you know. Wilder West, frontier man.”
I snort. “Do you also watch John Wayne movies and put my face in cardboard cutouts over them?”
“Nope. I prefer martial-arts ones, instead.”
“That’s flattering.” I brush her hair back from her face and tilt her chin up.
“It is, actually,” she says seriously, before I kiss her.
This time there’s no one to stop us or interrupt our intimacy.
Our kisses aren’t forced, and she settles into my embrace easily, parting her lips and letting me in.
Her warmth surrounds me, the sweetness of her natural scent mixing with the sharp pine of the forest that lifts as the dew point hits.
I tug at her shirt when she mewls, gliding my tongue into her mouth, deepening the kiss.
Urgency slams into me, but I rein back on my need. We have all night and I don’t intend to let my girl get much sleep. We have tomorrow’s daylight hours for that.
“West,” she whispers breathlessly when I draw back to pull her shirt over her head. “Is this a typical second date with you, or a reason to come out here and seduce me?”
I laugh against her mouth, claiming her the moment her skin is bare to my hands.
I cup her breasts through the lace of her bra, kneading and tweaking until she sighs, already so close to the edge of her own control.
“I brought you out here because I promised you a moonlight picnic. And even though I fucked up the dates and there’s barely a moon to be seen, it is dark, we have a picnic, and you told me that you wanted to be fucked all night long.
So that, Winnifred Rand, is what you’re getting.
Now lie back and let me worship your beautiful body. ”
The moan that leaves her sends blood rushing south in milliseconds. My cock stands hard against my zip, straining for release. I palm myself, knowing she can see the outline of what I’m doing, showing her my need, what she does to me.
“That’s… raw,” she whispers, reaching back to unclip her bra. The lace cups loosen, and her hands drop, trembling. “I’m still not used to this.”
“You’ll get used to it,” I promise her.
A sound that might be a sob or could be a moan tears from her. Winnie launches at me, her arms latching around my neck as her mouth crashes against mine. This kiss is far from controlled, and it’s not gentle. This is rough and passionate and all the things that she is.
And it’s perfect in its imperfections.
I cup the back of her neck, letting her explore while I hold her in place, tugging the bra straps down her arms and off one at a time as she lets me. Then I lay her back, pushing her arms above her head.
“You’re not gonna move for me. Those arms stay right there, Winnie. You don’t touch me.”
“But—” Her protest starts almost immediately.