Hopeless For You (11 page)

Finally, me and Blaine convinced the girls to go to sleep. It helped that the wolf call didn't come again.

When everything quietened down I found myself lying awake, remembering Ash's kiss. Her lips had felt so soft
on my forehead. So wet.

I was glad it was pitch black in there because I didn't want anyone to see my throbbing erection. Probably showed right through my sleeping bag.

That girl would be the end of me.

I was the first to wake up. Because of the way we'd laid out the sleeping bags, mine was the farthest from the entrance so I couldn't really get up without disturbing everyone else. So instead, I lay there, waiting, listening to the morning birds.

Kade woke a few moments later and he had no problem noisily extracting himself from the tent, waking up Blaine in the process.

After Blaine went outside, I secured my hair in a ponytail and prodded Gina. "Rise and shine."

Gina moaned, pulling the top of her sleeping bag over her eyes. With a sigh, I stepped over the empty sleeping bags and around the backpacks in the middle of the tent until I was outside.

Kade had already started a campfire so I helped him prepare a pot of instant coffee. Once I'd drunk the ambrosia of the gods, I started to feel a little life coming back into me. I offered to cook up the batch of oatmeal Blaine brought out and I had it ready just in time for a bleary-eyed Gina.

"Gruel is served," I told her.

"Coffee," Gina grunted. "Must have coffee."

I poured her a mug and ate my oatmeal. Kade sat beside me, silently eating his own bowl of my top-quality gruel.

"So what's the plan for today?" I asked him.

"Think about smoking," he said.

"Kade, come on."

A hint of humor
lit up his eyes, and he chuckled softly. "Right. Okay. The plan. Well, for the next three days we're going to be surveying the nests, among other things. We've got a lot of ground to cover and I'm not sure we'll have time to check them all. Most of the nests are on cliffs. A few in trees. So we'll see."

"Trees?" I combed a loose strand of hair from my face. "I thought falcons didn't build actual nests? They choose a site and scrape away the loose soil and sand. You can't do that with a tree."

"You can't," Kade agreed. "Which is why they choose trees that have hollows in them."

I supposed that made sense. "So what if some of the nests have moved?"

"That's what the tracking collars are for."

I was enjoying making him talk. I could listen to his voice all morning. "How about the circular drill thingy from last night? What's that for?"

"Marshmallow roaster."

I rolled my eyes. "What, am I a part of a team of double-o-seven park wardens or something? We have all these secret spy gadgets. Tracking collars, marshmallow roasters..."

He returned my smile, his cheeks dimpling in that ever-so-attractive way. "Welcome to the Secret Service, Moneypenny."

"Moneypenny? Why do I have to be Moneypenny? A
secretary
. The only way this is going to work is if I'm your partner in crime."

He winked. "I work alone."

If only he knew how badly I wanted to be his partner in crime right then. When I'd kissed him last night, even though it'd only been on the forehead, I'd felt that raw tingle of pleasure again and I nearly died from the want. It was like I was discovering everything I'd been missing out on over the past year and a half. I wanted to be loved again in all ways of the word. I really did. But I couldn't just forget the past even if I felt like jumping Kade every time he looked at me.

I rubbed the necklace I kept hidden beneath my shirt.

Devon.

I couldn't see myself with anybody else, especially not a player.

And maybe it was better that way.

We spent the next three days doing exactly as Kade said, confirming the locations of each nest, taking pictures, cataloguing the number of eggs, if any. I finally learned what the circular drill was for when we found two trees whose needles had turned completely red. Apparently, there was something called pine beetle disease that was infesting the forests around here. As part of their work as conservation wardens, Kade and Blaine were supposed to tag infected trees for burning. Normally, forest health officers did that, but there weren't enough to cover the vast forests of British Columbia and since Kade and Blaine had the training the center put their skills to use.

I watched Kade use the drill to extract several cylindrical "cookies" from the bark of the dying trees and those pines closest to them, but he found no signs of pine beetle larvae. He let me try the saw and I made my own bark cookie, which I pocketed as a souvenir.

Blaine and Kade often made fun of m
e and Gina's strong southern accents, mimicking the way we pronounced our S's on the end of words as Z's, the way we were always "fixin'" to do something, the way we said Florida and Georgia (Flarda and Jawja). Honestly our accents weren't
that
bad.

In the mornings, we ate the oatmeal gruel for breakfast. Lunch was a few soda crackers or that terrible pemmican. At night, we ate two balls of pemmican each and exchanged stories or played party games over the campfire. Sometimes we stargazed because there was no light pollution at all out here. I'd never seen Cassiopeia shine her W so brightly, or the stars of the Little Dipper twinkle so intensely. Then there was Orion, the hunter shooting his bow, a constellation I don't think I'd ever even seen in the south.

All in all, I forgot everything about my past in those moments. I was finally free of my emotional baggage, and felt I was living my life the way it was meant to be lived—in the company of good friends, close to nature, making a difference. I don't remember laughing so much in a long time. The bear spray remained tucked away in my backpack, untouched. Momma Jeanne had been right. I was completely safe out here with these two. Blaine was a great guy and I started to look at him as a brother. Kade wasn't so bad either but I still couldn't decide what I felt for him. My body was attracted—there was no doubt there—but my mind kept me distant.

The sexual tension seemed to lessen, somehow, during those three days and nights, as if we'd both come to realize we'd never be anything more than just friends. Though that was what I wanted, strangely it made me feel unhappy.

By the third night we'd doubled-backed to our original campsite. We were almost out of food and it was time to return. We'd checked all the nests and catalogued all the eggs so that even if Rebecca grounded us for the rest of the summer, we had the data the center needed.

The atmosphere around the campfire was subdued. Gina was trying to keep everyone's spirits up but she wasn't doing the best job of it. Kade had returned to his old grumpy self and he only offered short replies to anything anyone said. I hadn't heard him mention the word
smoke
in three days but tonight he said it every other sentence.

I guess I should've been relieved to be going back to the comforts of civilization but to be honest, I felt a little disappointed. It seemed way too soon. I could've stayed out here for the rest of the summer, away from the internet, other people, and problems in general.

Despite my misgivings, I slept fitfully that night. Three exhausting days in the wilderness had a way of doing that to you.

In the morning, I awoke to heavy pattering on the tent canvas above me. I was freezing.

Near the entrance, I saw Kade sitting upright in the twilight alongside Blaine. The flap was unzipped slightly, and the two of them were staring out the small opening.

I crawled forward to join them. Outside, the rain beat down so thickly, I could barely see more than a few feet in any direction.

"Everything was so clear last night," Kade said when he noticed me. "We could see the constellations. Damn it all to hell."

I had no idea what was bothering him. The tent had a waterproof bottom and so far, the inside seemed untouched by the rain.

"Everything seems dry in here." I lifted one of the packs. "Supplies are good."

"It's not the supplies I'm worried about." Kade exchanged a look with Blaine. Both their faces were grim.

"What is it then?" I wasn't really sure I wanted to hear the answer.

"What do you think, Ash? The river."

* * *

We slid on our rainproof jackets, refolded and packed the tent, and began the half-day trek back to the river.

The rain alternated between drizzle and all-out downpour so the going was slow. When we finally reached the river, the water was about three times higher than before—with raging rapids. I couldn't believe it. There was no way we were crossing that. Our little ford was long gone.

It turned out Blaine had forgotten to pack spare batteries for the satphone. Needless to say, Kade wasn't too happy when he tried to make a call and couldn't get the thing to turn on.

"We could wait it out," I said when Kade and Blaine took a break from accusing each other. The rain had kept up at a light drizzle for the past hour or so and I was hopeful it was going to stop soon.

When Kade turned to me, his eyes seemed a little sad. "Storm systems like the one last night usually flood the river all the way to the mountains. The water could take up to three days to return to its usual level."

"Three days?" I said. "How much food do we have again?"

"Exactly. No more crackers. Oatmeal's all gone. And we're down to our last three
portions of pemmican. That's what, half a meal each?"

"But you and Blaine are experienced outdoorsmen. Can't you hunt or something?"

"Oh, sure. Maybe we can carve ourselves a few spears with our knives and go get us some fine quality wilderness meat. But tell me something, do you really want to eat roast squirrel every day for the next three days?"

I exchanged a disgusted look with Gina and we both mouthed, "Ewww."

Kade was studying the raging rapids."I can swim it," he said abruptly.

Suddenly, I felt scared. No one could swim a river like that. I didn't want Kade to even try.

Blaine shook his head. "Too dangerous."

"I can do it. Tie a rope around my waist. I'll take it to the other side and make us a zipline." He looked at me, his eyes almost pleading. "I can do this."

My eyes pleaded "No" right back. I didn't want to lose him. Not so soon. Not when I was still trying to figure out my feelings for him.

Blaine crossed his arms. "I won't let you do it, Kade. That water's gotta be close to zero degrees. Even if you get across, you'll have hypothermia."

"The Jeep's not far." Kade was already sitting on the bank. He took off his boots and socks and stepped into the water. The river surged around his feet. "Get me the rope."

Blaine didn't listen. Instead, he shouted above the gushing water. "The river's too powerful, Kade."

Kade didn't move for the longest time. He just stared across the floodwater as if he could somehow will the river to calm. Finally, he climbed up the bank. His shoulders were slumped.

"Current's too strong." He dried his feet and pulled on his socks and boots. "There's nothing we can do. We're stuck here."

"What about that drill of yours?" I said, wanting to be useful.

"What about it?"

"Could we use it like an ax and knock down one of the trees? Form a bridge?"

Kade glanced at Blaine. He pressed his lips together. "That might actually work. Though we'd have to find a place where the water's narrower. The trees aren't tall enough to bridge the river here."

We walked upstream to the site of the swept-away bridge, where the opposite shore was far closer. By the time we made it there, the rain had finally stopped.

"This one." Kade patted the trunk of a pine that towered three stories above us. He threw off his pack and retrieved the circular saw. "The trick is to create a wedge so we can control where it falls."

"I've seen beavers on TV, Kade," I said dryly.

"Lesbian." He smirked.

I rolled my eyes.

Blaine went with him under the tree. "Stay back, ladies."

Kade applied the drill, taking out circular chunks of the tree near the base. It was hard going. The tree was wet and wood chips kept clumping on either side of the drill. He had to use a pocketknife to scoop away the debris. Kade also had to keep repositioning the drill to maintain the wedge shape he was aiming for and Blaine helped by watching from the side and shouting the occasional instruction. The trunk was about two feet in diameter so it took a lot of time.