Hidden Deep (7 page)

The sound of movement behind me broke my deliberation. My stomach went watery as I heard a low rumbling growl. I whirled around. A coyote. My legs locked as another growl, equally as menacing, joined the first.

The second coyote appeared from the underbrush, flanking its mate. Both of them had teeth bared, hackles up, and were staring directly at me. With my back to the slain doe, I had no doubt what had drawn the coyotes there. I was standing between them and their feast. My scent must’ve been overpowered by the smell of decomposing flesh until they got close.

I’d heard coyotes rarely attacked people, and in fact, would cower in the presence of a human. Someone forgot to tell these two.

I saw no sign of cowering. The small part of my brain still capable of it searched my memory for the appropriate action. Was I supposed to play dead or make loud noises? I couldn’t remember which, and I really didn’t want to make the wrong choice.

What I wanted was to step out of the way, or more accurately,
run
as far and as fast as possible out of the way, and let them have at the dead deer. I took an experimental half-step backward with one foot. The coyotes snarled louder and stepped forward several paces.

A few more steps in my direction by the pair, another step in retreat by me, and my feet stumbled on the doe’s legs. My back scraped a thick tree trunk. There was no escape for me now.

My pulse rocketing through my veins, I scanned the ground immediately around me for a stick or anything I could use to at least make killing me more inconvenient. The beasts broke their stalking pattern and charged toward me. With a scream, I squeezed my eyes shut tight.

There was a sudden and deafening guttural cry close to my ear, and my heart flew into my throat as something grabbed me hard around the waist. I was hauled upward. The crushing tension around my middle now pressed up painfully into my rib cage. It wasn’t the excruciating sensation I’d been bracing myself for—teeth tearing into my skin—but it was no less frightening than a coyote attack. Wind and small branches whipped my face as I was pulled higher, higher. The motion stopped with an abrupt thump, and I sat hard against a solid but pliable surface. I began to shiver. Somehow I was still alive, not in pain, and sixty feet off the ground. I turned my head, looking for the explanation.

And saw his face.

“Lad.” I blinked several times as my brain tried to process it.

Lad tightened his hold around my waist with one arm, and with the other hand stroked my hair. “You’re safe now. It’s okay. They can’t get you up here.”

They.
I peered down at the feeding frenzy far below. The coyotes ripped at the deer carcass, snarling and snapping at each other in their greed for the dead flesh. The sound was nauseating. I couldn’t help picturing my own body in place of the doe’s.

Awareness of my surroundings began to return as the near-death panic subsided. Lad was holding me securely on his lap, my back to his chest, and my thighs supported by his own steely legs. The scent of him was all around me, too, fresh like the woods and a little salty. I inhaled deeply. It was the fragrance of safety.

Lad was really here, and I was wrapped in his arms, cradled by his body. I twisted again to see him. Impossibly-green eyes glinted with what looked like worry.

“Are you injured?” he asked.

I wasn’t hurt, but I was breathless. Probably in shock. Also, hearing his voice again, so much more beautiful than I’d remembered, and seeing his flawless face so close after days of searching and finding nothing was disorienting. I started considering the hallucination theory again.

“Are you real?”

His eyes crinkled slightly at the corners as the edges of his mouth pulled upward. “You’re always asking me that.”

“I’ve spent most of my life doubting my memories of you. It’s a habit. But here you are—you saved me.” I looked at the ground again, shaking my head in wonder. “How…”

“Yes, well, I couldn’t sit and watch as you became coyote chow.”

“Right. Thank you. That was… close.”

Another full body shudder rocked me, and Lad gently tightened his hold. I peeked down at the ground again. Mistake. Turning my head back, I pressed my cheek for a moment against Lad’s solid chest to let the vertigo pass.

He was wearing leather pants that nearly reached his knees, and like the last time I’d seen him, his feet were bare. But today he wore a collarless shirt with a wide open neck. It was soft and thin, of a strange, almost sheer material. The heat of his skin passed through it to my face. He hugged me close and rested his chin on the top of my head. The vibration of his deep voice hummed through my cheek as he spoke.

“You didn’t answer my question, Ryann. Are you hurt? I was worried I might have been too late.”

I shook my head. “I’m fine. You were just in time. I thought it was all over. Where did you come from?”

“I was… nearby. Unfortunately, I was so busy watching you, I didn’t notice the coyotes until too late. If I’d seen them sooner, I would’ve scared them away before they ever got close. You must have been terrified.”

I raised my head to look at him. “You were watching me? Why didn’t you say something, let me know you were there?”

Lad sighed heavily. “There are strict rules about contact with…outsiders. Rules I’ve broken three times now.” He shook his head side-to-side in a gesture of dismay.

“Really? You couldn’t even talk to me? Not once? I’ve been looking for you,” I said.

After a long moment he answered, “I know. I saw you, heard you. I stayed out of your sight, up in the treetops. I… followed you.” He hesitated, looking embarrassed. “I wanted to talk to you again, to see you. But it didn’t—doesn’t—matter what
I
want.” He brushed the thought away with an irritated hand gesture.

“Why? What do you mean?”

“The last time we were together, Ryann… someone saw us. That’s not good—for me. For you… it’s dangerous.” He stroked a long finger lightly across my cheekbone and something in his eyes looked pained. His words were a whisper. “You are so beautiful up close.”

My belly went crazy with a sudden release of butterflies. I could hardly believe what I was hearing—Lad saying something like that about me—it was too close to the fantasies I’d been having about him. And some of the other stuff he’d said was just… weird.

“I can’t stop shaking. I don’t think my fear of heights has improved. Can we get down?” “Well, we can’t go down the way we came up, at least until they’re finished.” He nodded to the pack below us. “If you want to get to the ground, you’re going to have to trust me. It’ll get a bit worse before it can get better, okay?”

I reconsidered staying right where we were until the coyotes had moved on. But I really did want the earth under my feet again, so I could focus on what Lad was telling me. I’d finally found him again, and I was too frazzled to focus.

Also, I needed to put some distance between our bodies so I could think straight. The warm pressure of his skin against mine was
not
helping my confusion.

“Turn toward me,” he instructed.

“What are you going to do?” My voice rose with my intensifying acrophobia. “You’ll have to hold on to me. I’ll need a free hand.”

I obeyed and shifted my body, so Lad and I were chest to chest. He was sitting on a wide branch with his back against the trunk, and me sideways on his lap. The hard bands of his arms were still wrapped protectively around me, letting me maneuver without fear of falling. Well,
much
fear.

“Good, now put your arms around my waist,” he said.

I reached around Lad’s back. Powerful muscles flexed under my palms. So much for relieving my frazzled state, but I assumed we were getting there.

“Great. Now, move one leg to the other side of my lap.”

“What?” I blinked in instant embarrassment.

“It’s okay. You’re going to straddle my legs for a minute, so I can move to lift us up.” At this rate the frazzled state would last the rest of my life. My arms and legs trembled. I wasn’t sure if it was from fear or the discomforting intimacy of our position. Lacking a better plan though, I followed his instructions.

Raising my body so one knee pressed into his thigh, I raised my other leg up and over his lap. That accomplished, I ungracefully plopped back down, now sitting astride him, clinging desperately.

“Okay, now slide your arms up around my neck.”

I complied, and then we were up. I instinctively wrapped my legs around his waist as he lifted me. “You’re going to drop me. I’m too heavy.”

Lad laughed out loud and held me against him with one arm while grabbing an overhead branch with another. “Do I look like I’m struggling?”

“No… you seem to be doing pretty well, actually, but I’m not exactly dainty.”

The side of his mouth quirked in bemusement and one eyebrow went up. “I would argue, but this is probably not the best moment for me to detail exactly what I think of your body, so we’re going to move now. Don’t be afraid, Ryann. There’s no way you can fall. I have you, and I’m not letting go. Ready?”

I nodded, but internally, I was in a deep panic. Lad kept one arm wrapped around me, extending the other out to the side for balance. He began walking along the large branch. I looked down at his bare feet gripping the bark, moving steadily and swiftly along toward the branch’s end. It was amazing, but I also saw the ground spinning impossibly far below us. I buried my face in his neck.

He jumped, and I glanced up long enough to tell we were in a different tree, its soft green leaves brushing my face. It occurred to me I might be choking Lad with my death grip around his neck. I tried to loosen it.

Lad dipped his chin and nuzzled my cheek, murmuring, “Let go of your fear, Ryann. Trust me and try to enjoy the ride.”

I looked up to meet his gaze. I was trying. Then he leapt to the next branch, and I buried my face and squeezed again for all I was worth. Sometimes he made a small jump down, sometimes to a slightly higher branch, steadily taking us west, further away from the coyote pack. We finally stopped in a tree near a clearing, perched on its lowest branch, about twenty feet from the ground.

“Okay, it’s all over. Not so bad, right?” Lad leaned back against the trunk, attempting to loosen my petrified fingers.

At first, I clung tighter, but eventually let him pry my grip from his neck and torso and attempted to cut off the circulation to his fingers instead. “How on Earth did you do that?” I asked when I could finally manage speech.

He shrugged. “It’s not hard. I’ve been doing it since I was a toddler.”

Bending his knees to level his eyes with mine, Lad searched my face. I’m not sure what he saw, but even a county fair fortune teller should have been able to tell I wasn’t doing all that well. He broke into a grin, his eyebrows rising in apparent amusement.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me, Tarzan,” I snarled.

“Who’s Tarzan?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Listen, will you be okay to stay here for a minute? It’s a secure spot. Hold on here.” He took one of my hands and placed it on a y-shaped offshoot near my shoulder. “And here.” He placed the other hand on a branch about the diameter of my forearm. I gripped it greedily. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

“Where are you going?” I demanded, my panic level rising again.

“Don’t worry. You’re coming with me in a moment.”

That had me more worried, actually, because I realized he was about to jump to the ground.

“Oh no,” I started to protest, but it was too late. He’d stepped off the branch and dropped, in the way a normal person might have done on the side of a swimming pool, with water waiting inches below. Nothing waited for Lad but a twenty-foot plunge to the ground.

He slipped below the branch and landed lightly on the earth as if he’d hopscotched to the spot instead of falling out of a tree. He looked up at me and smiled.

My breath left me in a whoosh. It might have been the surprise of seeing him jump and execute the landing. Or maybe it was the sheer beauty of his smile that left me breathless once again.

“I guess you’ve been doing that since you were a toddler, too?” I yelled down.

“Of course not. That would be suicide. I was at least seven before I made a jump from such a height.” Lad held his arms up to me. “Okay, now you.”

“Now me, what?”

“Drop, and I’ll catch you,” he said as if it was obvious.

It might have been—to him. To me, it was out of the question. “No. No thanks. I can’t do that. When I was seven, I was still riding with training wheels. I’ll stay here.” I looked around for something, a staircase or an elevator to appear, I guess.

“Really, Ryann. It’s going to be all right. I will catch you. There’s no chance you’ll get hurt.”

“If I jump down, there’s every chance I’ll die.”

He laughed again out loud. “You won’t die. I promise. I rescue terrified girls from trees all the time. It’s much easier than saving them from coyotes, and look how well
that
turned out.” Knowing I had no choice, I girded myself for my first and what I vowed would be my last leap from a tree. Nudging my way to the edge of the limb, I offered up a silent prayer and stepped off the bough. My body hurtled through the air. My eyelids squeezed tight, tensing for impact. It never came.

Lad’s hands and arms materialized gently under me as if I’d simply rolled out of bed instead of falling from such a height. I opened my eyes again to his very pleased expression. He held me high against his chest, his muscled arms pressing into me, supporting me like I weighed nothing.

“I’m alive,” I said with a little laugh.

Lad grinned. “See what happens when you trust me?”

I couldn’t answer. Now that I was no longer in mortal fear of plummeting to my death, I was acutely aware of how close his face was to mine. Impossibly, his eyes were even brighter than before, the delicious fresh-green color of growing things.

Part of me knew I should stop staring at him, but I couldn’t seem to.
He’s really here
. The living breathing reality of him was so much better than any memory could ever be. He set me down, keeping his hands on my waist.