13. Toren #2
“Staring at the trees won’t make the weather change faster.”
“No.” My gaze didn’t move from the forest, tracking left to right, then back again.
“It also won’t magically make the bad guys appear, either. What’s the saying? A watched pot never boils?”
A crooked smile crossed my face. “Maybe not, but I’d also rather see danger coming.”
She bumped my shoulder. “Have you always been this bad at doing nothing?”
“I’m doing nothing. I’m just sitting here.”
“No, you’re not. You’re ‘watching.’” Her hands rose a couple inches, and she made small air quotes.
I chuckled. “I suppose you’re right. I used to be better at just sitting still and letting my mind wander.
Waiting, being bored, is part of being a guide.
You have to be patient and relaxed when you’re just sitting in a hunting blind for hours on end with a bunch of other hunters.
” I shifted, leaning back on my hands. “Lately, that’s been a struggle.
” Much more than I ever thought it would be.
I didn’t like being alone with my thoughts and tried to stay busy so my mind didn’t wander.
“The waiting?”
“Being still.”
She was quiet for a moment, then asked, “What changed?”
My mouth flattened, and I shifted again, bringing my good leg up and wrapping my hands around my knee, mimicking her pose.
The fire popped. “Life.” The singular word came out shorter than I intended, but I didn’t apologize or offer an explanation. I hoped she’d drop it. The story behind that one word wasn’t something I wanted to talk about.
“I struggle to sit still too. My mom says I got it from my dad. She says watching me plan an event is like watching a master puppeteer holding the strings to the entire puppet show and pulling off a masterpiece. Dad and Luke are like that too.” She chuckled.
“It used to drive my mom crazy when we were kids. She’d try to sit us all down for a quiet evening with a movie or something and within twenty minutes, Dad would be up, sitting at the table, tinkering with some little woodworking project while the movie played, Luke would drag out his Legos and erect a skyscraper, and I would pretend all my dolls were having a tea party along with the movie characters.
” A soft laugh escaped her at the memory.
“She eventually would give up sitting on the couch and join one of us.”
“Sounds fun.” I hadn’t had the same experience, but what I did have growing up wasn’t terrible.
My parents had been too busy for family movie nights.
Or family nights in general. We ate dinner together every evening, but after that, Dad went back to the barn to finish chores, Mom finished her housework or worked on a sewing project for a client, and my brother and I either did our homework or helped Dad with chores.
“It was. So, do you have siblings?”
“I have a younger brother.”
“Are you close?”
I thought about Bram. The way he’d shown up at my door three weeks after Cara’s funeral, coming straight from the Navy yard in San Diego after his boat docked, to simply be there when I needed that silent support. It had meant everything.
I nodded once. “Close enough.”
“What about your mom? Is she still living?”
“Yes. She lives in Juneau, now, actually. Her health isn’t great, so when I moved down here, I moved her down with me. She lives at an assisted-living facility there. I’d have moved her in with me, but I’m not home enough to give her the care she needs.”
Lana wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry to hear she’s poorly. It sucks watching our parents age. My dad had a heart attack a few months back. It was scary.”
It was. Watching my dad decline so rapidly and now seeing my mom’s mind slip away more and more all the time were two of the hardest things I’d ever done.
Needing to move to shake off the heaviness that had settled around me, I pushed to my feet. “I’m going to chop up those poles you brought back.”
Lana got up. “I can do that. You should rest.”
“I’m fine.” The dark look I aimed at her should have sent her straight back to her butt, but she just propped her hands on her hips and glared back, one blonde eyebrow rising.
I turned away, ignoring her and how the fight in her made something burn in my chest that I hadn’t felt in years.
Thankfully, she let it go and let me whack at the logs in peace. I needed to burn off the energy.
With our firewood situation sorted for the rest of the day, we ate lunch, then broke out the cards, playing several more rounds of rummy and a game of war—which she won.
As the day wore on, the snow falling through the trees slowed until just flurries drifted down. By the time we made dinner, it had stopped and the sun was attempting to peek through the tree canopy above.
My belly full and my emotions in check again after our conversation earlier, I wandered to the edge of the alcove to stare out at the forest.
Nothing moved. Even the birds were hunkered down. I expected that to change in another hour or two, when evening feeding time hit and they realized the weather had cleared.
But for now, the forest was quiet.
Lana came to stand beside me. “Hey, the sun’s trying to shine.”
“It is. Looks like we might get out of here soon after all.” I glanced down at her, my gaze catching on the scrape on her forehead beside the one she got retrieving my pack. One of the saplings earlier had sprung up and clipped her when we were tying them down.
“How’s your head?” Raising a hand, I skimmed the spot before it registered what I was doing. The warmth of her skin zipped through my fingertips, lighting that burn in my chest again.
She looked up. “Fine. It stopped stinging hours ago.” Something shimmered in her gray-green eyes, an awareness. Of my touch. Of me.
Caught in her gaze, my touch lingered on her face, my fingers trailing down her temple to skim her cheek.
What are you doing, McCrae? You swore off romantic entanglements, and if there was ever a woman who screamed entanglement, it was this one.
But despite my inner voice yelling at me to back away, I couldn’t. She called to me in a way I thought I’d never feel again. Truthfully, I didn’t want to feel it, because it only led to pain when it was ripped away. I’d be damned if I could break her stare, though.
Finally, she did it for me.
“We should, um… we should clean up. Get ready for bed.” Color tinged her cheeks.
My body tightened. I knew what she meant, but my mind couldn’t stay away from the idea of zipping our sleeping bags together and seeing where that took us.
Walker better find a place to land tomorrow and get us the hell out of Dodge. This woman was dangerous to my psyche.
Why now, all of a sudden, did I find her irresistible? Why not yesterday? Or the day before?
You liked her then, too, dummy. How do you think you ended up out here?
I turned away and scowled, limping back to the fire.
Did I?
She’d certainly intrigued me when she showed up at my cabin. It took guts to drive out to a strange man’s cabin in the Alaskan bush and ask for help. It took even more to agree to join him on the search and rescue mission you sent him on. I liked that sort of fire in a woman.
But I needed to find a way to keep these growing feelings at bay. At least until we got back to civilization. The last thing she needed was to feel uncomfortable because I kept staring at her like a man dying of thirst, stranded on a raft at sea for weeks.
So caught up in my thoughts, it took a moment for the scuffle outside to fully register. My head came up, my brows drawing together.
I glanced at Lana.
She, too, frowned and stared toward the forest.
Clutching the stick I used as a crutch, I swung toward the cave wall and my rifle that was propped against it.
“Come back here,” I said, my voice low.
Lana retreated immediately, stepping backward as she kept her eyes facing the trees.
A branch snapped, then one of the spring triggers released.
Logs and rocks clattered to the ground to the left just out of view as the sapling we tied down shot skyward, its branches clicking together.
I raised the rifle, ready to stop whatever loomed just out of sight.