Authors: Connie Falconeri
And she was gone. His immediate response was a little patter of panic. He hated that
she didn’t have a cell phone. He would have brought his walkie-talkies if she hadn’t
been such an airhead and had remembered to tell him before they’d driven the full
three hours. He’d heard all sorts of stories about how disoriented people could get
in the woods. The slant of the light, the trick of the shadows: it could all wreak
havoc on even the most accomplished outdoorsman. Hank had orienteered in all of these
woods and wasn’t worried, but Maddie was so easily distracted, what if she—
“Hey. Why do you look so serious? And eat your sandwich already. I want a swim.”
Oh, Jesus. Just what he needed. He was almost certain he hadn’t spotted a bathing
suit when she was transferring her clothes from her duffle into his backpack. She
was going to go all Hero and Leander on him. He scowled at the idea of having to watch
her nubile body pulling effortlessly through the steely blue lake water, then ate
his sandwich in a few unsatisfactory gulps.
“You don’t lie. This is awesome.” Maddie dropped her bag.
“Almost there” had meant another forty-five minutes through the forest. Her body was
warm and humming.
“Do you want to canoe for a bit now?” Hank asked.
“Shouldn’t we set up camp first?”
“We can, but it stays light up here for ages. Hours more.”
“Oh. Okay. Then sure, let’s get the canoe in the water already.”
They were on the edge of a huge lake that wove through a series of gently sloping
hills. “Are those mountains?”
“I guess they once were. They’ve worn down over time. I think they’re Devonian.”
“You think they’re what?”
“Devonian.” He pronounced it slowly, each syllable overly accented.
“What the heck is Devonian?”
“It was about halfway through the Paleozoic Era. About four hundred million years
ago. Give or take.”
“Do you just keep stuff like that in your brain?”
He shrugged. “I tend to remember dates.”
Maddie laughed and it sang out onto the lake and rose clear above them. “Four hundred
million years of dates? That’s a lot to remember.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
She stopped smiling. Completely. “What? No.” She looked at the ground. “I like you.”
She looked back up to look at him. “Why would I want to make you feel bad?”
God. Damn. It. Hank wasn’t sure how many more of these gut-piercing truths he was
going to be able to stand. Yes, Hank. Good question. Why would you want to make someone
feel bad? Who would do such a thing, Hank? Hmm? You would.
He took a deep breath. “Sorry. Forget it. Let’s get in the canoe. This’ll be great.”
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t great at all. Because if there was one thing Maddie could
bring to the party it was her share of endurance and upper body strength, and she
pulled too hard on her strokes.
“Cut it out!” Hank finally called out.
“You cut it out!” Maddie snapped back. “I keep trying to go on the opposite side from
where you’re going so we can keep heading in one direction and then you switch sides
and I feel like we are going to go in circles so I switch sides and then you do it
again! Just pick a side already!”
This did not bode well. If she was this bossy in a boat, Hank could only imagine how
bossy she’d be in bed.
“Why don’t I just sit here in the back and let you paddle for a while, Post?”
“Good idea,” she said on a huff and began pulling them along at a steady clip toward
the far end of the lake.
Hank sat with the paddle resting across his thighs and stared at her back and her
hips. He was momentarily tempted to set down his paddle and do something about the
aching pull that was starting to gather in his lap. Maybe letting her take charge
wasn’t such a bad idea. In the boat or in the bed, he thought, then smiled because
he felt like a Dr. Seuss character.
“Are you laughing at me?” she asked, without looking over her shoulder.
“I didn’t make a sound.”
“I know. But I can sort of feel you smiling back there.”
“I’m happy. What else do you want me to do?”
She held up the dripping paddle and they coasted quietly through the water. Maddie
turned her head slowly so she could look at him over her right shoulder. “You’re happy?”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised, you know?”
“Okay. I’ll try not to sound surprised. I know we only met a week ago, but you didn’t
strike me as the
happy
type.” She had turned back and resumed paddling. “More grudgingly accepting than
happy, I’d say.”
“How miserable. Is that how I seem?” It was easier talking to her straining back,
probably because he didn’t have to see her curved lips. She shrugged, and he liked
the way the movement pulled her T-shirt up so he could see the skin at the small of
her back.
“How should I know? It’s not like you set your emotions out on a platter.”
He laughed a little. “Now that’s probably true.”
She smiled over her shoulder and winked. “I’m not a total airhead.”
He didn’t think he had actually called her an airhead out loud, but he felt guilty
for thinking it just the same.
“Should I start paddling back to camp?”
“Probably. I’ll need to go catch dinner.”
“Oh, how primitive. I love it. Did you bring a bow and arrow? Are you a trapper?”
She kept paddling, and he had the wonderful vision of being a trapper, in another
time, with his little Sacagawea guiding him through the wilderness.
“Nothing so heroic. Just a fishing rod.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose a girl has to make allowances.” She kept pulling the canoe with
strong, confident strokes.
“You’re good with the paddle.”
“Thanks.”
The silence of their voices let the sounds of the lake blossom around them: the gentle
slap of the water against the edge of the canoe, the little brushes of noise near
the shore, the occasional loon crying out for his mate. It was beautiful in that spiritually
calming way that Maddie only found in these rare moments of pure, deep silence. “Thanks,”
she repeated, in a reverent whisper this time.
“You’re welcome,” Hank said with a gentle nod to the sloping hills in the distance.
He was glad he’d brought her here.
The lake was so remote and so full of fish, they caught four in ten minutes.
They
didn’t really catch them, Hank did, and he held them up by their gills and taunted
her. “You know how to clean these?”
She put her hands on her hips. “As a matter of fact I do.” She took the fish from
him and made a bed of leaves. She set them down carefully on the makeshift tray and
took out her Swiss Army knife. Hank stared, probably waiting for her to screw it up,
she thought skeptically. “Part of no-girls-on-trip training. Worms. Fish. Squirrels.
Pheasants. You name it, I had to gut it.”
“That might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Maddie looked up and blew that strand out of her eyes again. “Ew. Why would that ever
in a million years be sexy?”
Hank rinsed his hands in the lake, then walked over to their packs and started to
undo the tent bag. “I don’t know, maybe some caveman response to you being able to
feed me.” He pounded his chest twice with his fist.
She kept looking at him and the obvious turn of her thoughts from gutting fish to
having him do something crude and caveman-like to her body crackled between them.
He kept staring at her. Maybe now that they’d made it through the Nemean Lion of a
three-hour drive without her asking for a pit stop, and the Lernean Hydra of portaging,
and the Ceryneian Hind of canoeing, and now the Augean Stables of fish-gutting—just
maybe they could skip right ahead to the part where Hercules is granted immortality,
forgiveness, and a bride in the bargain. A weekend bride.
“What are you thinking about?” Hank asked. He was driving the tent stakes into the
ground with a small hammer and not looking at her.
“The Twelve Labors of Hercules.”
“Of course you are.”
She smiled and kept her attention on the fish. Maddie had already removed the heads
and tails, cleaned all the guts, sliced off the little fins, and deboned them to splay
them out into filets the way she liked.
“Did you bring a pan?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Okay.” She went to the water’s edge and rinsed the cleaned pieces of fish and wrapped
them up in the leaves. “I’ll be right back.”
Hank looked up from the last tent stake and watched her amble off into the dimming
forest. “Don’t go far!” he called.
“I won’t,” she called back, her voice floating from the dense emptiness.
She returned several minutes later with a few long sticks, then proceeded to sit on
a rock by the edge of the lake and whittle the bark off the ends of a few of the sticks.
Then she created eight shorter sticks, smooth and sharp. She retrieved the fish and
pierced them, creating two perpendicular pieces that fit neatly into the end of the
longer stick. When put together, the whole thing became a rough-hewn frame into which
each of the filets was elegantly secured. When she was finished she stood all four
sticks in the soft ground. “Bon appétit!”
“I have to say, I’m impressed, Post.”
“Thanks, Gilbertson.”
She looked down at her hands and her dusty self. “Do you mind if I go for a swim?”
It was turning into a gorgeous early evening, the purples and oranges of the sky beginning
to rise up from the horizon to crowd out the piercing blue of the late afternoon sky.
“Sure. I guess.” He stood staring at her.
“Want to come?”
His stomach coiled tight. Did he want to come? Was she joking? He honestly didn’t
know. If she was joking, that is.
“Sure. I’ll swim.”
“Awesome!” She reached for her backpack and he thanked everything that was holy when
she whipped out a bikini.
“Back in a flash!” She jogged off into the forest again and was back a couple minutes
later looking as hard and ready as an Olympic swimmer on the starting block.
“Jesus, Maddie.”
She looked down at herself. “What?”
“Nothing.” He scowled and pulled off his shirt, then bent down to take off his hiking
boots and socks. Still in his cargo shorts, he waded a few feet into the freezing
water, then dove long and elegantly across the surface and below.
Maddie took a moment to appreciate him in his natural habitat. He was definitely meant
to be in the water. His long body rose to the surface and swam with long strokes,
about a hundred feet out into the lake. He turned back to face her, treading water.
“It’s amazing! Get in here!” he called.
She took it back about the happiness thing. He definitely knew how to be happy. Apparently
he just had to be wet.
She stepped onto the cool, wet stones at the water’s edge and then walked a few feet
into the shallows. It took every bit of control she had in her to resist the urge
to scream at the icy temperature.
“Too cold for you, Post?”
“Nope!” she cried, way too quickly. She sounded like an auctioneer yelling sold.
“What are you waiting for?” he prodded.
She took a deep pull of air, relaxed her shoulders, and dove in. When she came up
for air, she was beyond caring. “Oh my god! This is freezing!”
Her lips were trembling, and she swam to him as hard and fast as she could to try
to raise her body temperature. “How long before we die of hypothermia?” she asked
through chattering teeth, when she reached him.
“Come here.” He pulled her hard and fast against him. His body was so warm and strong
compared to the arctic deep that touched her everywhere she wasn’t touching him. He
held her firmly under her arms, his arms snaking around her back. He could almost
cross his forearms behind her.
“You feel good,” he whispered.
She reached her hands up to circle his neck. “So do you.” For some reason, she didn’t
want to initiate the next move. She wanted to kiss him so badly, but all that hooker
and hussy talk had gotten under her skin. Maddie wrapped her legs around his hard
middle, linking her ankles together at the base of his spine. He made treading water
appear effortless.
“Am I too much?” she asked. She hadn’t meant it as a double entendre, but of course
it came out that way.
“Probably,” he said over a groan, then took her mouth in a possessive, demanding kiss.
The freezing water swirled around them, and the warmth of his mouth and his skin seemed
so hot by comparison. Maddie felt everything in the extreme: the cold of the water,
the warmth of his skin, the slick welcome of his mouth. His lips started roaming down
her neck, and her head dipped back into the water. His hand was there to cradle the
back of her skull. He pulled her tighter against him and began to breathe harder as
he kissed her neck. Hank moved his lips back up to the lobe of her ear, his legs never
stopping the continuous scissoring stroke that kept them both afloat.
“Still cold?” he whispered with a near-painful tug on her ear.
“Not on that part of my ear at least.”
His laugh rumbled deep in his chest, and she felt it thrum through her. She pushed
her breasts more firmly against him.
“My front half is pretty warm too,” she added.
He kissed her again, taking his time, feeling the bend and ease of her spine as he
found the edges and dips of her desire. His tongue traced the line of her jaw. “Mine
too,” Hank said.
“Come on, you’re starting to get too cold. I’ll race you.” He pushed her away from
him, catapulting her toward the shore. She kind of adored how he could toss her body
around like that.
She could feel his presence behind her and pulled harder to beat him to the shore.
Maddie ran out of the freezing water and dove into her backpack to take out the small
face towel she’d packed. It was enough to pat herself dry. She hunched over her bag
and tried to casually take her freezing wet bikini off without making a big deal about
it. She pulled on her sweatpants and then pulled the sweatshirt over her wet top,
then reached under and removed the wet bathing suit, keeping herself covered with
the loose hoodie.