Broken Lion (26 page)

“What are you guys doing?” Daniel asked, returning from the boulders.

“Nothing,” I said guiltily as I broke my hug with Lion.

<<<<<<<>>>>>>>

We returned to our campsite before the sun went down and made dinner on a small portable gas stove that Lion brought. He cooked. Everything was freeze dried, but once you added hot water, it was surprisingly good.

When it was dark, we sat in folding chairs looking up at the stars. You could actually see them, unlike in LA.

“What do you want to be when you grow up, Dan the Man?” Lion asked.

“Spider-Man.”

“Me too, bud. What about you, Brigid?”

“I’m already grown up.”

“No you’re not. You’re only grown up if you say you are. What do you want out of life that you don’t already have?”

I smiled at him. “I already have it.”

He smiled back. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Lion told several ghost stories. They were more funny than scary. Daniel enjoyed all of them. When it was time for bed, we went to our respective tents. Daniel and I got changed into our sweats and unzipped our sleeping bags.

“You guys okay in there?” Lion asked from his tent, which was two feet from ours.

“Yeah,” Daniel said.

“If you two need anything, I’m right here.”

“What if a bear attacks?”

“Daniel!” I gasped. “Don’t say that.”

“Don’t be such a scaredy cat, Mom.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t worry, Brigid. All the food and trash is in the food locker. There’s nothing for the bears to eat.”

“What about the other campers?”

“I’m sure they put all their food where it belongs.”

We said our goodnights. It wasn’t long before I was drifting off. It had been a long day of hiking and outdoor sun. I felt a little dehydrated, but I didn’t want to drink anything right before bed only to end up hunting for the nearby public bathroom in the dark with nothing but a flashlight standing between me and any bears. It could wait.

I knew I fell asleep because I dreamt that Lion unzipped our tent and crawled into my sleeping bag with me. Daniel wasn’t in the dream tent. Lion and I did dirty things in my sleeping bag. At the end of the steamy dream, he crawled out of my sleeping bag completely naked and fully erect. In my dreams, my fantasy men always had hard-ons. Always.

“Goodnight, my dream queen,” Dream Lion said, “I’ll be next door if you want me to fuck you again.” He zipped the tent shut.

I lay in my sleeping bag, a satisfied smile on my face.

“One other thing…” He shook the entrance flap of the tent.

“Anything.”

He shook the tent flap again, but said nothing. He shook the tent again, hard.

That’s when I sat bolt upright, awake.

Had someone just shook the tent, or was that my dream?

My skin started to tingle.

The tent flap bowed inward.

Grunt.

Every hair went up on the back of my neck.

Snort.

The tent shook again.

“Mom?” Daniel said sleepily.

“Shhh!” I threw my arms around him protectively. I was half in my sleeping bag, my legs bound. At least my arms were free.

The tent shook again, followed by a growling grunt.

“Is that a bear?” Daniel whispered.

“I don’t know, honey.” I really didn’t. “Lion? Is that you?”

No answer.

Frantic pawing at the tent flap. The entire tent shook and rattled.

Daniel and I both slid to the back of the tent, frightened.

“Lion!” I called out. “Lion! Help! There’s a bear outside our tent!”

“Brigid? Are you okay?” He sounded panicked.

Another low grunt outside. It was definitely a bear.

“Shit!” Lion barked and unzipped his tent.

I saw light shining outside our tent and the silhouette of a bear projected against it. I knew that shadows could play tricks, but this bear shadow looked ten feet long. I screamed. “Lion!”

“Get out of here!” Lion roared outside. Stomping noises. “G’wan! Get out of here, you stupid bear! Go!”

“Don’t call him names! You might make him mad!” I shrieked.

Lion roared like a beast. Not words, just animal noises.

The bear shadow flickered dramatically as the flashlight moved around outside. I was barely aware of Daniel cringing and cowering in my arms. The tent suddenly crumpled. Daniel screamed. I couldn’t tell what happened outside, but I think the bear backed up into the tent and sat down on the side of it. One of the tent poles snapped with a loud crack.

“Get out of here! Git!” Lion yelled.

More flashlight beams joined Lion’s and I heard more human voices outside. Several other people were shooing the bear. Finally, the bear pulled away from the tent and ran. Lion’s voice faded as he chased it, screaming and shouting.

I was afraid to move. So was Daniel.

“You okay in there?” a random man’s voice asked.

“Yeah, we’re fine. Daniel? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” he mumbled.

“Watch out,” Lion said outside, suddenly nearby. The zipper ripped open and he shone his light inside. “You guys okay?” I squinted into the light. “Sorry.” He lowered the flashlight. “Are you hurt?” He climbed into the tent.

“No, we’re fine.”

“Damn bear. Some idiot left food out one row over. Saw a huge mess when I chased the bear off. People are cleaning it up right now. But you’re okay, right?”

“Why did the bear want to eat us if there was already food outside?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe the scent of shampoo in your hair.”

“That would attract a bear?”

He sniffed. “You smell like strawberries.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I can’t think of everything. What matters is you’re okay, right?”

I held my hand to my chest. My heart was thudding behind my ribs. “I’m fine. Just a little excited.”

“Dan? You okay, buddy?”

“Yeah. Did you see the bear?”

“I did. Chased him off. Or her. I can never tell.”

“Was it scary?”

“Yeah it was. But you don’t have to worry about it now. It’s gone. Too many people around.”

Sure enough, outside more people had emerged from their tents to gawk or help clean up. Flashlights danced around. Murmuring as the story passed from one campsite to the next.

“I think we’re safe now,” Lion sighed. “I doubt he’ll come back.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep after that,” I laughed morosely. I looked at our tent, which was sagging inward where the bear had broken the tent pole.

“We can go to the Yosemite Valley Lodge and see if they have any rooms. It’s a short walk from here. Maybe a quarter mile.”

“But there could be bears between here and there,” I said seriously.

He smiled. “We’ll be okay here, Brigid.”

“What about my strawberry hair? It’s not like I can wash it right now. It’s too cold and too dark.”

“You can share my tent. There’s room for the three of us. It’ll be a tight fit, but we can make it work.”

“Yeah!” Daniel beamed. “It’ll be like a sleepover!”

“I can’t argue with that,” I chuckled.

We transferred our sleeping bags into Lion’s tent, which was more than snug for three.

“I hate to say this,” Lion whispered after zipping the flap shut, “but I’m tallest. I should probably sleep in the middle.”

“Oh, okay.” He wasn’t kidding. There was barely room for me to stretch out. Daniel had enough room, but my only real option was to curl up on my side. Because of the way we were all arranged, that meant staring at Lion all night. When we were settled in, I whispered, “Has anyone ever told you how good you look in a sleeping bag?”

It was zipped up to his neck. He grinned, “I thought it made me look like a mummy, so no.”

“Do I look like a mummy too?” Daniel asked.

“No, you look like a man-my, bud.”

“Man-my,” Daniel giggled. “Hey, why do you think the bear was sniffing around our tent? Was it really because Mom smells like strawberry shampoo?”

“Nah.” Lion winked at me, “He probably just smelled a fox.”

“I didn’t smell any fox,” Daniel said. “Do bears eat foxes?”

“No, but lions do,” Lion snickered, still staring at me.

“They do?” Daniel asked innocently.

I chuckled. “No, Daniel. They don’t. Not here in Yosemite, anyway.”

“But they would if they were allowed to,” Lion added.

“Lions are pretty big,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “And foxes are real small. Lions probably eat foxes all the time.”

“What he said,” Lion snickered.

At times like this, Daniel’s presence was ever so slightly inconvenient. I was happy he was here, but if he wasn’t, if Lion and I had been alone in the darkness of Yosemite Valley in this cozy little tent, I was certain that this Lion would be eating my fox. I would do my best to moan quietly so the nearby campers didn’t hear. If we were to find ourselves taking our sex play all the way to intercourse, I didn’t think I’d worry about our lack of condoms.

I sighed to myself.

It was going to be a long wet night for both the disappointed Lion and the disappointed fox, and I wasn’t talking about the mountain dew in the night air.

Best to put it out of my mind.

As I was drifting off, I thought about all the fun the three of us had today, and it occurred to me that I’d been lying when I’d told Donald I wasn’t sleeping with Lion Maxwell. He was breathing softly and steadily next to me, passed out. Oh well. We all knew Donald had meant sex, and this wasn’t even close to sex.

It was something better.

Donald could suck it.

Chapter 29

BRIGID

“Afternoon, Bridge!” Latisha smiled as I walked into the hospital on Monday afternoon. “You look all refreshed. You have a good weekend?”

“You could say that,” I grinned. I hadn’t kept her up to date on my time with Lion. Yes, I wanted to gossip with her like crazy, but I knew it would be taking a risk. The fewer people who knew, the better.

“What’d you do? Go to the spa? Pamper yourself? You look fresh faced. You get some sun?”

“A little.” Being outside all day had been a bit too much. Even with the hat I’d worn both days, I guess all the sun bouncing off the rocks was enough to get a light sunburn. For someone with my pale porcelain skin, it didn’t take much.

“It looks good on you.”

“Thanks.”

I was also worn out from the drama with the bear and sleeping in a tent in general. I couldn’t say I woke refreshed the next morning. I’d dragged the whole day. Even after last night’s sleep in my own warm bed, I was still tired. Donald had picked up Daniel after dinner, so I had nothing to distract me and had gone to bed early. The extra rest only half made up for my lack of sleep.

Today was going to be a long day.

By the time evening rolled around, I was already jittering from three cups of coffee. It was the only thing that could keep me focused. I hoped for a slow night and a fast end to my shift.

Nothing out of the ordinary for an ECU happened until about nine o’clock. I was standing at the nurses station at the time, entering info about my last patient into one of the many hospital computers.

Latisha muttered, “Look out, Bridge. Here comes trouble.”

I turned and saw Donald marching through the doors into the ECU. He was furious.

“You’ve gone too far this time, Brigid!” Donald growled as he stalked toward me. “What the hell were you thinking?” He wasn’t yelling but he was loud enough to attract the attention of several ECU staffers nearby. They turned their heads to watch Donald.

The first thought to cross my mind was,
What the hell are you doing talking to me this way in front of my co-workers?
What I said was, “What are you talking about?”

“You let our son get attacked by a bear!”

I cringed. I hadn’t expected the story to get back to him this quickly. I took a deep breath, trying to remain calm.

The ER staff were now all listening very closely, waiting for me to speak while pretending not to.

“Can we talk about this later?” I hissed.

“No. We’re talking about this now. We’re talking about how you let our son get attacked by a bear this weekend.” Donald knew he had an audience. I think that was the point. He probably figured I’d be less likely to argue.

Wrong.

I grabbed his arm by the bicep and dragged him to the nearest exam room and whipped the door closed. Then I laid into him, “You do
not
walk into my workplace and start throwing around wild accusations! What are
you
thinking?”

“I’m thinking you’re not denying it, Brigid. Care to tell me your version of what happened this weekend in Yosemite?”

“Not until we address what you just did. Have I ever walked into your father’s offices and chewed you out in front of him, barking like an idiot?”

He sneered.

“Have I?”

He huffed. “No.”

“Then show me the same respect. Never do that again. Ever. Do you hear me?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Ms. Perfect. You put our son’s life at risk. How could you let him get attacked by a God damn
bear?!
”

I was still fuming about the way he’d just tried to embarrass me in front of everybody. Luckily no other doctors or any of my seniors or hospital administrators had witnessed it. That would’ve been a disaster. I wasn’t done reprimanding Donald, but at that moment, the old saying “Pick your battles” flitted through my mind. I needed to focus on the battle about the bear attack. “I didn’t let anything happen to Daniel, and he wasn’t attacked. The tent was attacked.”

“And that’s better? You’re lucky our son wasn’t killed!”

“Killed? He didn’t even get scratched. Nobody did. And would you please lower your voice? We’re in a hospital, remember?”

“Fine. I will talk in a whisper while I try to drag a believable explanation from you about why you put our son in mortal danger.”

“First of all, it wasn’t that bad. Second of all, he wasn’t in
mortal
danger,” I mocked.
He wasn’t because Lion was there.
If it had come down to it, I honestly thought Lion could fight off an actual bear. Maybe that was ridiculous, but I wanted to believe it. Especially now.