Chapter Six
Walker
We should stop kissing.
The storm passed sometime during the night and the skies are finally beginning to clear. It’s the perfect day to leave the cabin for a while, to finally get some distance between us.
Instead, we’ve spent the entire morning tangled together in front of the fire, kissing like the outside world doesn’t exist.
But eventually we’ll have to leave this place. I’ll take Kelly back to town, back to civilization, and then I’ll come back to the woods alone.
That has to be the end of us. We can’t have anything outside of this cabin. I can’t risk getting attached to someone I’ll only disappoint in the end.
I won’t let this become more than it already is.
And this, God, this has to be goodbye. She seems to know it too, if the sadness in her eyes when we finally break apart is anything to go by.
“It’s my turn to make breakfast, isn’t it?” she asks, forcing brightness into her tone. “I’m thinking pancakes. I make the best pancakes at home.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes,” she laughs, climbing off my lap. “When you come from a family as big as mine, you have to be good at something to get noticed. Me? They call me the pancake princess, which now that I think about it, might not be such a great title after all.”
I watch her move around the cabin in one of my T-shirts, looking far too comfortable here, and I have the dangerous urge to ask her to stay another day.
I’m getting attached. Fuck.
“And what exactly is the secret to these pancakes?”
“Love,” she says with a grin, turning to wink at me. “And homemade buttermilk.”
“Will the result survive without that second ingredient?”
“I’m the pancake princess, aren’t I?” she teases, tying her hair back as she gathers the ingredients from among the staples the park keeps stocked in the cabin’s tiny kitchen.
I follow her into the kitchen and drag a stool over to watch her, my attention snagging immediately on the fact that she’s wearing nothing beneath that oversized shirt.
Christ.
“I was thinking...”
I drag my attention away from the outline of her nipples beneath the thin fabric and back to her face, where she’s chewing nervously on her bottom lip. “What is it?”
“Do you think it’s safe to head out today?” she asks. “It’s been snowing for days and the place is completely covered.”
“I have gear for it. I don’t work in heavy storms if I can avoid it, but I’m used to rough weather out here.”
“Oh,” she mutters, disappointment slipping into her voice. “I don’t have anything to wear, though. I could wear my old clothes now that they’re clean, but they won’t keep me warm and dry in snow this deep. Besides, my ankle is still tender, and I don’t think I can make it down the mountain yet.”
“Kelly—”
“We could stay,” she blurts out, lifting those moss green eyes to meet mine. Pleading. “Just a couple more days. Long enough for my ankle to heal properly.”
“We can’t—”
“Why not?” she challenges. “We have food in here and supplies for months if we choose to stay longer. Or we could leave and do our work, then come back here. I still need to take pictures of the wolves and you can do what you, do but we’ll come back here.”
Christ, the hope in her eyes tears straight through me. And I wish I could give her the answer she’s hoping for, tell her exactly what she wants to hear from me, but it’s not possible.
“Kelly,” I sigh. “We can’t lock ourselves in here forever.”
“I’m not asking for forever,” she snaps. “I just don’t understand the hurry to leave and...” She stops, angling her head to the side and staring at me for long seconds. “It’s not that you can’t, is it? It’s that you don’t want to.”
When I don’t immediately respond, she nods and turns back to preparing her pancakes. The silence that settles between us is tense enough to choke the air.
“You’re right,” I say, running a frustrated hand through my hair. “It’s not safe for you to go down, especially with an injury. Maybe—”
“I’ll head down first,” I say. “I can get the truck closer, bring back warmer clothes for you, and turn the photos you took over to the rangers.”
Her expression tightens. “So you’re leaving me here?”
“Only long enough to make sure you can get down safely. I’m not making you hike out with that ankle.”
“And the trappers?”
“I’ll give the photos to the authorities and tell them everything you saw. They’ll probably want to talk to you once your back in town and feeling better.”
She looks away, jaw tight, but some of the fight leaves her shoulders. “Fine.”
She turns around and walks out. She’s gone for a few minutes, and when she returns, she’s holding a small memory card encased in a thumb-sized plastic container. “This has all the photos of the trappers setting up traps.”
“Kelly, I don’t like leaving you here alone, but I can get to my truck faster without you on that ankle.”
“Because you don’t want to stay with me.
” When I don’t respond, she nods in understanding.
Or perhaps it’s resentment I read in her eyes, a great cover for the hurt underneath, and I wish.
..I wish things were different and I wasn’t fucked up.
I wish I could give her the things she wants from me, but I can’t.
I can’t go back to being the helpless, broken teen I was when I was abandoned.
I can’t allow her deep enough that she has the power to break me.
“Then go,” she says quietly. “I’ll be fine. ”
The rest of the breakfast happens in silence. Her pancakes are indeed good, and the compliment I dish out is met with nonchalance. She doesn’t offer to join me in the shower as she has in the past, and when I come out, she’s already dressed in her old clothes.
“These won’t hold in the chill,” I tell her, studying the light jacket with a few tear marks on the shoulder and back. “You’ll catch a cold if you go out like that.”
“I know. I wasn’t planning to get caught in a storm,” she says, walking away when I reach out to touch her. I ignore the sting of rejection as I ball my hands into fists and shove them into my pockets.
“I’ll be back in a few hours, and I’ll bring you better boots and a warmer jacket for the trip down to town.”
“Sure.”
The air between us is frigid, and the look she gives me doesn’t carry any of the warmth that I’m used to. “I better get going.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Kelly—”
Her eyes shoot to mine, and yes, there is indeed resentment in them. “What?”
I can’t say what I really want to, so instead I tell her. “If your ankle can handle it, we’ll stop near the den so you can get the photos you need before I take you back to town.”
Her face shutters. “Right. So we can finish the assignment and be done.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I’m not trying to rush you out,” I say quietly.
She wraps her arms around herself and turns toward the fire. “It feels like you are.”
I don’t know how to answer that without lying or giving too much of myself, uncovering wounds I’m not ready to show her.
Her arms wrapped around her body, facing the fire, is the image I carry with me of her as I walk out of the cabin for the first time in days. There’s no “see you later” or “goodbye” from the woman I’ve shared the best three days of my life with.
But can I blame her?
The air bites with a crisp, clean chill when I open the door.
Delicate snowflakes continue their gentle descent, dusting the already thick blanket of white that covers the forest floor.
I step out from the warmth of the cabin, the door groaning softly behind me as I pull it shut.
My boots crunch softly over the pristine snow, each step a small, crunch in the hushed stillness.
I pause for a moment, turning to look back at the cabin.
It’s a solid shape against the muted backdrop of the woods, smoke curling lazily from the chimney because of the fire I left burning.
It looks so peaceful, so serene, a perfect picture of isolation and quiet.
Well, that was until Kelly came bursting into my life.
A slight shiver, not entirely from the cold, runs through me. I snuff out the voice in my head that calls me to go back and live out the fantasy a little longer; I can’t. The longer we let this fantasy continue, the worse it will hurt when it inevitably ends.
After putting on my snowshoes, I turn away from the cabin and face the trees standing like silent sentinels, their branches heavy with snow, creating a natural archway over the path.
My breath plumes in front of me in a fleeting cloud as I trudge through the snow, following the familiar path down the mountain that’s now only discernable because of the breaks in the trees.
For twenty minutes, I allow myself to focus on nothing but the soft hush of the falling snow around me. On anything but the woman who started getting under my skin the second I found her hiding behind the bushes, fear written in her eyes.
“Fuck!”
Why?
Why did the universe have to send her my way? Is this a fucking dare to see if I betray the part of me that swore to never give myself completely to another person?
Damn it!
I squeeze my eyes shut and consider carrying on down the mountain, but I can’t make my legs move. When they finally do, it’s in the opposite direction. My mind races and my heart pounds hard in my chest as I consider what the fuck I am doing. What the hell am I even going to say to her?
It doesn’t matter, I realize. I just want to see her. Maybe the words will come to me when I do.
By the time I turn back, I’ve been gone nearly an hour.
The climb back to the cabin, which wasn’t too taxing on the downward slope, is now an arduous, almost agonizing ascent.
My legs burn with effort as I pick up the pace, and I’m panting when I storm into the cabin, expecting to find Kelly where I left her nearly an hour ago.
She’s not here.
Panic sets in, a cold knot tightening in my stomach as I take in the state of the cabin. I might have noticed the door wasn’t fully shut when I stormed in if I hadn’t been so desperate to get to her. But I see now that it would have been only the first clue that something was wrong.
The coffee table is overturned, pillows scattered on the floor. I might have thought it was the work of a scorned woman if not for the broken glass and the fresh drops of blood on the living room floor.
I take a step back and notice yet again the things I missed in my rush to find her. Tracks in the snow that aren’t mine and were clearly made by more than one person
Someone took her.
They waited, lying in fucking wait for me to leave the cabin then came in and took her. They took something that belongs to me.
Anger I’d thought squashed in my teen years comes surges to the surface and consumes me. It’s blinding and dangerous. Those red drops on the floor make my hand clench, and I feel rage and fear unlike anything I’ve felt before.
My thoughts are on the blood as I yank open the small closet door by the entrance. I reach in without looking, and when my hand closes around the thick wooden neck of my ax, I decide it’s time I went hunting. I’ll cut out the rot before it spreads. It’s what I do best.
Someone took her, and they are going to pay for it!