Chapter 16
Caleb’s body does react, and I wake to his reaction pressing into my backside. I should be ashamed for not jumping away, but it’s so cold in here. And he told me it’s not personal. It’s biology. So I hold still and replay the memory of our quiet confessions.
I have no idea what time it is, but it’s full dark outside. The rain has stopped, the wind is gone, but we’re still stuck. Houdini yawns and whimpers. He must have curled up on the other side of Caleb, because he isn’t under the desk.
The side of my body pressed to the floor is in agony.
But the rest of me—sandwiched against Caleb’s muscle and warm skin—is relishing the closeness.
With Houdini stirring, I expect Caleb to wake and recoil.
Instead, he spreads his broad palm across my stomach and pulls me tighter against him with a subtle thrust of his hips.
And oh. I’m here for it. But I think he’s asleep.
My conscience jumps into action, and I try to roll away.
Caleb’s arms are strong, though, and there’s no give.
He has me around the waist, sealing me to him with his signature stubbornness.
I feel the outline of him against my ass and .
. . well, I’m not sure I could resist it if he were offering.
I’m embarrassed about the heat that’s building between my legs. It’s just been so long. And he’s so incredibly hot, and surprisingly sweet when he’s not being an asshole.
His hand travels under my T-shirt until his calloused palm is splayed against my bare rib cage like he’s claiming me. I’m really going to move away. In a minute. In a few minutes. But until then, I’m going to cement the texture of him into my long-term memory.
There’s a faint sound of voices from outside, before the crunch of pine needles, and then a shout, followed by Houdini prattling to the door, whimpering.
“Over here,” someone says, and then there are so many voices.
“Caleb! Hey, are you in there?”
I need to yell and let them know they’ve found us, but then I’ll have to admit I’ve been taking advantage of Caleb’s “reaction” while he lay comatose behind me.
“What?” Caleb’s voice is rough with sleep.
“Shit,” he says into my hair. “Eden, I’m sorry.
” He slides his hand out from under my shirt and jerks his hips back.
It’s then I realize we’d been under the same towel, and I’m exposed.
He tosses it to me and stands in his boxer briefs, turning his back so he can adjust himself.
I should look away. I really should. But it’s so dark in here that I can see only a vague outline of him anyway. He moves to the door. “Hey! We’re here. We’re okay, just stuck.”
“You had us worried,” someone says. It’s a male voice I can’t place.
Caleb laughs. “Well, you could have fooled us. It took you long enough.”
“So ungrateful.” When the guy laughs, it clicks. Ian. “If Eden wasn’t in there with you, I might be tempted to leave you for the night.”
“Is everyone else okay?” Caleb asks, still unconcerned about his ass on display in those tight briefs. And since he’s not guarding his modesty, I don’t feel bad about enjoying the view.
I wrap myself in the towel and walk toward the voices.
“Yeah, the earthquake was small, and the storm wasn’t too bad in town,” Ian yells.
“Told you,” I say.
Caleb smirks at me. On one side of his head, his dark hair is smashed flat, on the other it’s standing straight up, and he has a crease on his cheek. There are also dark bags under his eyes. But somehow, he still looks irresistible.
“But there were a couple of trees down on the road,” Ian continues. “And we checked every goddamn trail out here searching for you. What the hell are you doing in the maintenance office?”
“Picking up paperwork.” Caleb glances at me, and I feel the heaviness of his gaze as potently as I felt his palm on my skin earlier.
Maybe it isn’t just biology after all. Because he adjusts himself again with a small wince and mumbles, “Sorry,” before turning back to the door, waiting for our rescuers to get to work.
“Is that what they’re calling it?” A woman’s voice this time. And the voice is so familiar it makes me giddy, like a flipped switch. It sounds like Cassie, but it couldn’t be.
“You okay in there, Eden?” Ian asks.
“Yes.” I swallow. “I’m good.”
It’s then I hear the voice again, and it’s the laugh that confirms it.
“Cassie?” I yell.
“I drive all the way out here to drop off your favorite hoodie and fuzzy socks, and you repay me by going missing like a Dateline episode.”
“Oh my God, Cassie,” I squeal. “You’re here.”
“And this is the thanks I get? Giving me a heart attack? This trip is worse than that norovirus nightmare in Cabo last summer. I did not want to have to explain to Lester Holt how you lit up the room.”
Caleb looks at me, bemused. “Who is that?” he mouths.
“My best friend.”
Houdini jumps up and paddles his paws against the door like he’s running on a vertical treadmill.
“I’m surprised Houdini didn’t get you out of there,” Ian says.
“Maybe they didn’t want to get out.” Cassie, naturally. I drop my forehead to the door, and Caleb chuckles beside me. “Do you two need more time?” she asks.
“Cassandra Moreno, we are freezing and hungry, and Caleb is a big dude with a giant mean streak. If you don’t get us out of here right now, I will share your seventh-grade school photo on Instagram. The one with the drool mark from your headgear.”
Cassie guffaws, and Caleb says, “Cassie, don’t believe anything she says about me,” with all the charm in the world.
“As long as you believe everything I tell you about her,” she singsongs.
Caleb scans me up and down, smiling briefly. “Deal.”
“I hate to break it to you two,” Ian says, “but it’s going to take a while to get you out of there.”
It takes another three hours to be precise, three hours during which Caleb is not cradling me in his arms under a layer of beach towels.
Instead, we’re up and pacing, trying to distract ourselves from the whir of the chain saw and the chatter of conversations we can’t make out.
By the time we emerge, everyone in Grand Trees has been alerted and is waiting outside the cabin, and the sun is rising, no evidence of yesterday’s storm in sight.
Cassie envelops me in her enthusiastic embrace as soon as I step from the door.
For all her teasing, I can tell she was, in fact, worried.
She arrived at Sonny’s house to surprise me with two suitcases full of everything I could possibly need and found a houseful of traumatized townsfolk organizing a search party.
Meanwhile, Caleb is attacked by Abby. She jumps into his arms like a wild monkey, a whir of tears and squeals and a rant about how scared she was.
I catch Caleb’s blissed-out expression as he greets his daughter—eyes closed tight, arms wrapped around her spine—and I know he loves her a billion times more than whatever broke him.
All these people showed up to find him and rescue him.
He’s filled his life and loved so big that his heart had no choice but to heal.
The heart’s a muscle, I realize. Instead of exercising it, I let it atrophy; I loved small with what was left of mine.
It’s why all the surgeries and physical therapy in the world couldn’t fix me.
It’s probably why I married a man who felt safe, who—even when he did the worst thing—couldn’t break me any more than I already was.
I hug Cassie tighter, so thankful she was already lodged in there before my heart stopped working properly. “I love you, Cass.”
“Ah, I love you, too.” She drops her voice. “And because I love you, I hope you took advantage of your near-death experience.”
I pull back. “What?”
Cassie doesn’t have a subtle bone in her body, and Caleb is watching us. I sense his stare, even though I refuse to make eye contact.
She nods toward him. “If the world were ending, I don’t even think Justin would fault me if I hit that.”