Hopeless For You (9 page)

"That's messed up," Kade said distractedly. He halted. "There, that looks like a place we could cross." He stepped from the tree line and pointed.

I breathed a quiet sigh of relief, glad he hadn't pursued that particular line of conversation. I wondered if he'd sensed my unease and had purposely changed the subject. Maybe a small part of me was disappointed that he hadn't seemed to care but like I said, I didn't want his pity. I'd already heard the oft-repeated lecture from Gina that I should just do what I wanted. But things were more complicated than that. Coming from a family with money, there were certain expectations that had to be met. Expectations so deeply ingrained in me that I wasn't sure how to escape them. I didn't think I ever could.

I gazed at the pebble-covered riverbed. It definitely seemed shallower. "I agree."

"So that settles it. We'll cross here."
Kade checked his watch. "Let's head back. We'll probably beat Blaine and Gina by a few minutes." He pulled out a pocketknife and I stepped away from him, keeping my distance.

"Whoa." I watched warily as he made a mark on one of the trees.

"Just making a little blaze here," he said.

"A what?"

"A blaze. A mark." He chipped away the bark until there was a long whitish-brown scar in the trunk and then he put the knife away. "That's where the word trailblazing comes from, by the way."

"I didn't know that. You really are a walking encyclopedia, aren't you?"

Kade smirked. "Hey, I already agreed with you when you called me a dork, didn't I? No need to rub it in. And you're the one who misquotes
Lord of the Rings,
remember?"

I laughed and the conversation tapered off. This time the silence didn't seem so painfully awkward. We moved with purpose, eager to get back to the others. I didn't
realize how close we were walking to each other until my hand brushed his. I felt a tingle of pleasure shoot through my arm and I moved away to put a little more space between us. I told myself I'd imagined the tingle. I had to because it was the only defense I had. I didn't want to admit it but there was something primal that attracted me to Kade.

He hadn't seemed to notice the touch, though. His sea-green eyes were glued to the river as if he were searching for a better spot to ford.

I rested my hand over the ring I wore around my neck beneath the shirt. Would anyone else ever measure up to the man I almost married? Was I making a mistake by denying my feelings for Kade?

Finally,
we reached the area of the washed-out bridge. Kade went over to a log shaded by a pine while I sat in the Jeep and basked in the sun.

I
fumbled in the backpack beside me until I pulled out one of the apples I'd stuffed inside. Blaine had told me not to bring any food because he and Kade would handle the rations, but I had the room so I threw two apples in. I offered one to Kade.

He shook his head.

I bit into the apple with a shrug and gazed out at the river.

"You like vodka?" Kade said.

"What?" I glanced at him uncertainly. "That's kind of an odd question. From way out in left field."

"You're half Russian." He was staring at me intensely. "You must like vodka."

"Oh, no." I returned his gaze with equal intensity. Had he felt that tingle when our hands touched, too? Our conversation was all innocent on the outside but I could sense the sexual tension seething on the inside. Neither of us broke eye contact. He wasn't sitting all that far from me. It wouldn't take much to close the gap and wrap my lips around his. "I had vodka once when I was in tenth grade. Almost threw up. Scotch is more my thing."

"Scotch? That's a man's drink."

I shrugged, but didn't break eye contact. "Not really."

"Any preferred brands?" His voice sounded deeper, more sexual. I was starting to lose myself in those eyes.

"I don't know." My voice sounded strange, too. A little breathy. "All kinds of brands. I don't like Jack Daniels, though."

"That's not even scotch. That's whiskey."

"Same thing."

Kade stood up now and edged a little closer. His eyes never left mine. "How can you not like Jack Daniels? That's, like, a Tennessee institution. They make it there, don't they?"

"They do." My heart was beating fast. "But Collier and McKeel is more my thing."

"How do you know so much about all these drinks, anyway?" he said in that deep, slow voice. "The legal age is twenty-one in Tennessee."

I knew my eyes were broadcasting sheer want. He felt it. I'm sure he did, because his eyes fed that want right back at me. "I'm a delinquent."

"You are." He took another step closer.
I could hear his breathing now. Deeper. Faster. "Collier and McKeel... remind me to let you try Seagram's 83 sometime. Canadians make the best whiskey. Perfect for a delinquent like you."

"I'm actually more of a wine person. At least I used to be." We w
ere so close now, barely a hand span away. Those green eyes never left mine, and consumed me.

"Wine? I can see that. I'd peg you as a fan of white. You speak Sauvignon Blanc?" The way he said those French words sounded so sexy.

"I speak champagne," I said huskily. "Dom Perignon makes the most amazing Cristal. White Gold is—" I choked off the words, feeling suddenly like I was drowning, and I turned away from Kade. I couldn't hold back the sudden tears.

I almost hoped he would wrap his arms around me and carry me away from the horrors of the past and save me from the guilt, but when I looked at him I saw he'd retreated to the shade again. He was sitting on the log with his arms crossed, facing away from me, staring at the river.

Neither of us said anything about what just happened.

I was glad about that, actually. It was better this way. Better that he left me alone.

I wiped the tears away quietly. After all this time, something so simple as the name of a drink still affected me. When would I rebuild the shattered pieces of my life? When would I be free of the guilt?

"So what's your story?" Kade said, interrupting my sad thoughts. "Why are you here? Just defying your parents or what?"

I smiled briefly. My cheeks had dried and I wasn't afraid to meet his eyes. I felt like he was challenging me somehow. "I don't know. I needed a change, I guess. Needed to get away from Tennessee. Too many bad memories. Gina kind of forced me into it, really."

"So you don't really want to be here..."

"I didn't say that. I just, well, it's really hard for me to go against the wishes of my folks sometimes. But I'm glad I came. Seriously. Coming here gave me a chance to get away from it all. To leave my folks behind, and my past. Kind of like starting over, almost. At least for a little while."

He nodded, seeming solemn now. "If there's any place that's good for starting over, it's here. This place is kind of magical. There's something in the air, or maybe the water, that heals old wounds. Some only stay one summer. Others come back again and again."

"Like you?"

"Like me."

He hadn't asked about my past. I was glad because I wasn't sure I would have told him about it, anyway. I wasn't ready to share that part of myself with him. Maybe someday. But not yet.

He threw a small rock at the river and it skimmed the surface three times before sinking. "You know what? I think I'll have one of those apples, after all."

I tossed him one and that signaled the end of our conversation. He gazed out at the river as he ate, a thoughtful expression on his face. I resisted the urge to join him in the shade.

I glanced at my watch and noticed a half hour had passed since we'd split from Gina and Blaine. I started checking my wristwatch more often, and grew more restless as the minutes stretched out and
still they didn't return.

Kade had noticed the delay, too, and he was even more on edge than me. He'd been pacing back and forth since he finished the apple and now he finally just burst.
"Where
are
those fuckers?"

"Would you please just sit down?" I said. "You're making me even more nervous."

Kade threw up his arms and returned to his spot in the shade. "I need a smoke."

Another five minutes passed. It had been forty-five minutes since Kade and I had first split from the other two.

Kade stood. "That's it, we're going to look for them."

I heard the snap of branches breaking nearby and Kade tensed. He quickly positioned his body between me and the sound.

A wave of relief washed over me when Blaine and Gina appeared.

Kade stamped forward. "What the hell took you so long? Don't you know the meaning of the words
twenty minutes
?"

Blaine raised his hands apologetically. "Shit. Sorry about that. Got carried away, I guess. But we found a good crossing about a mile up."

"Too far. Ours is closer." Kade gathered his backpack from the Jeep. He bent down right in front of me and seemed to be making a point of squeezing his bicep for my benefit. I pretended not to notice, though I kept glancing at his arm and saw a big vein running along the head of the muscle. I yearned to touch it.

"Let's go." Kade shrugged on his pack. "I want to make the cliffs before dark."

I squinted at the sun. It was creeping steadily toward midday. "It's not even noon yet. Are these cliffs really so far?"

Kade scrubbed a hand through his hair and then checked the GPS. "They are. We're going to have to seriously haul some ass."

The rest of us grabbed our packs from the Jeep and swung them over our shoulders.

"Should we make a call to Rebecca on the satphone, let her know what's up?" Blaine said.

Kade shook his head. "I don't see the point. She knows we're going to section C. But she doesn't need to know the bridge is out. Not yet, anyway. It's not like she can do anything about it from there."

"Except order us back."

Kade smiled ironically. "Exactly."

With that, he turned and led us downstream.

Ash drove me wild. Those sharp sky-blue eyes, the firm set of her mouth, the pouty lips, the defiant attitude.
The secrets.

Especially
the secrets.

She seemed so fragile at times. All it took was the wrong word to set her off. I thought I had an idea of what had happened to her and I was going to say something when she was crying there in the Jeep but the time hadn't seemed right. Besides, talking about her past was dangerous. It might bring the two of us closer together.

I couldn't allow that.

The only thing that got my mind off her were the nicotine cravings, which came in waves, a little bit like hunger. One moment I'd be going off the rails, ready to kill for a smoke, and the next, my mind would head straight back to Ash. I was seesawing between two different addictions.

I glanced back and saw her swinging those sexy hips of hers. Damn. Too bad all she had for me were lies and broken promises. Maybe she was different but I doubted it. A haunted past didn't guarantee a thing.

She met my gaze but I looked away, forcing myself to march on. As I led the others back to the ford, I noticed Ash stayed close to me and let Blaine and Gina fall behind. Interesting.

I reached the blaze mark I'd made earlier and called a halt. I took off my boots and socks and stowed them in my backpack. Then I rolled up my pant legs and splashed into the water. Damn, it was frigid. My bare feet began to feel numb but there was nothing to do but grin and bare it—after all, Ash was watching.

After everyone had crossed, I dried my feet and pulled my socks and boots back on. I took out the GPS again and led the others toward the mountains that hugged the coastline.

I glanced at the sun, which peered between the tall branches of the pines. "By the time the sun sets, we should make the cliffs."

I increased my stride, eager to be there in time for the spectacular sunset. For some reason, it was important to me that Ash saw it too. Maybe it was because I knew she'd appreciate it. Or maybe I just wanted to share a small part of myself with her.

At the end of the first hour I called a halt. "Water break."

I lowered my pack and grabbed the canteen. Beside me, Ash pulled the tie out of her hair, shaking her locks out before retying them in an odd topknot. She looked like Princess Amidala from
Star Wars
or something. I shook my head, smiling slightly. Girls did the weirdest things with their hair.

Still, it was kind of cute and I had to admit it showed off her neck quite nicely. I found myself wondering why I was attracted to her. Gina was more my type. Tall, blonde, leggy, chiseled. Ash was beautiful too, but in a different way. There was just something about her... if you took any one of her features by itself—her lips, her nose, her cheeks—they were nothing special. But when you combined them, she became something amazing, something more than beautiful. It was like every time I caught the sunlight hitting her face, I noticed something else about the color of her eyes, the fullness
of her lips, or the shape of her nose.

When she turned toward me, I pretended to be far more interested in my canteen. What was wrong with me, putting this girl—this intern—on some high-and-mighty pedestal far above ordinary mortals? I was just undersexed out here in the woods, that was all. Because I definitely wasn't developing feelings for this girl.

I definitely wasn't going to get hurt again.

"British Columbia's a whole different beast than Tennessee, isn't it?" I said as we started hiking again. I'd never been the greatest at small talk.

Ash frowned. "It's not some pissing contest, you know. 'My back country is rougher than your back country.' These woods aren't so different than The Smoky Mountains. Not at all."

I shrugged, a little taken aback by her combative tone. I thought we'd moved past that. "Not what I meant. Like I'm supposed to know what The Smoky Mountains are, anyway." I imagined a mountain range made of cigarettes waiting to be smoked. Sounded like heaven.

"Only the best mountains in Tennessee." Ash fell into step beside me, brushing my arm slightly as she did so. The whole area tingled as if some electrical spark passed between us. She'd done that earlier and I was starting to wonder if she was doing it on purpose. I doubted it. She was a medical student and liked her guys rich, clean-cut, and dressed in pinstripe suits and penny loafers, not poor guys like me with tattoos and spiky hair. I was fine with that. More than fine.

Eventually, the dense pines gave way to lichen-covered rocks. Alpine flowers sprung from between the gray stones here and there. The incline steepened considerably
and soon I heard the sound of waves crashing against rock. I crested the last rise and there it was, my favorite spot in the world. I'd been waiting since last summer to see this. It was one of the reasons I loved section C so much.

I stood on a ledge. The rippling waters of the ocean stretched to infinity in front of me. The sun was low and even though it wasn't touching the horizon, it streaked the ocean red down the middle. The cloud-smeared sky was gold near the water but transitioned to red and then purple higher up.

Below, the ocean waves struck the rocks and launched gigantic plumes of spray in every direction, though up here, they looked like tiny splashes.

I heard Ash beside me. "I love it."

She might as well have said, "I love you" for all the effect her words had on me. I was actually starting to wish I was one of those clean-cut guys in the loafers and suits I thought she liked. I felt a wave of depression coming on as I realized once again I'd never be the kind of guy she wanted. But that was good, right? Really good.

I went closer to the edge, maybe a little too close. My vision filled with the dizzying sight of the white breakers crashing against the rocks far below.

A hand roughly grabbed my arm and pulled me back. "Kade!" Blaine said. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

I shrugged. Maybe I
had
gone a bit too close. That didn't mean he had to be so rude about it.

I took off my backpack and let it fall to the ground. I fished around for my canteen and sat down. I wished I had a smoke.

Ash and Gina had taken off their own packs and were busy snapping pictures with their otherwise useless phones. I wondered how long the batteries would last on those.

"Look." I pointed out the silhouettes of two falcons in the distance, above the ocean. The birds swooped, dove and pirouetted around each other.

"What are they doing?" Ash said.

I grinned. "Courting."

The birds slowly neared, the setting sun tinting their rich plumage red. I watched the larger female spin upside down, talons up, as she took something from the male—it looked like a fish.

The birds broke apart and the dance was over all too soon. I was left feeling a little broken inside. I knew falcons chose their mates for life and that the two were just re-establishing their bond, but still I wished the act could last forever. Because after the dance there was only pain.

Not that falcons had to worry about that.

"Got positive IDs on Hercules and Andromeda." Blaine was writing in a notepad he'd pulled from his pack. The radio frequency tracker rested on the ground beside him.

"Glad to see they wintered all right." I stood. I suddenly realized this spot was best enjoyed alone, and I was impatient to get going. "Come on, we can check on the nests tomorrow. I want to set up camp before dark."

"Is he always in such a hurry?" Gina asked Blaine.

"Only when he's hungry."

I was, at that.

In the deepening twilight, I led the group over the rocky terrain and away from the cliff until I found a relatively flat area that would make a good place to set up camp. It was already getting cold so the first order of business was to pull on a sweater.

While Blaine worked with Gina, I guided Ash through the steps of setting up camp and I was pleasantly surprised when her insistence that she wasn't completely new to roughing it seemed to be spot on. She was capable even with gear she hadn't worked with before.

Before long, we had the four-person tent pitched and a firepit dug out and surrounded with stones. I placed three two liter bottles of water beside the pit for dousing purposes and then tossed Ash the lighter.

I settled back and in moments, she'd created a warm, surging fire.

"Did you know you can make fire from ice?" I said when she sat down across from me. I was feeling way more talkative than usual after a long day of hiking.

Ash furrowed her brow. "What? How?" The firelight reflected in her eyes and made them glimmer. For some reason, I was reminded of gemstones.

"The key is to find a clear sheet of ice," I continued as Blaine and Gina joined us. "River ice is perfect. The top part, anyway. You don't want the cloudy pieces deeper inside. Cut out a small section of ice, shape it with your knife, then use the body heat of your hands to smooth it into a lens. Angle it over kindling and the sun gets concentrated into a point, like a magnifying glass. The kindling ignites. Fire from ice."

I saw Ash and Gina exchange a glance. "I doubt it's as easy as he makes it out to be," Ash told her.

"I never said it was easy. But it does work. The best shape is a sphere because you can keep rotating the ice until you find the best angle."

Ash shrugged. "I'll stick with a lighter."

That made me chuckle. "Touché."

Darkness settled on the camp and with it came the night chill. We huddled closer to the fire for warmth. I could think of someone else I wanted to huddle closer to...

Me and Blaine distributed sandwiches. We always ate those on the first day because the bread and lettuce got moldy fast. I'd also brought along some instant oatmeal but for most of the next three days we'd be eating rations of pemmican, Momma Jeanne's special recipe borrowed from the Native Indians. Made of dried beef mixed with fat, salt and spices, pemmican never went bad, as far as I knew.

I'd also managed to find space for a bag of marshmallows, a little treat I'd bought along for the girls. I handed them out after we finished the sandwiches and Blaine snapped off some nearby branches
and carved the tips with his pocketknife so we had roasting sticks. For fun, I reached into my pack and pulled out the circular drill.

"What's that?" Ash said.

I took off the drill bit and speared a marshmallow right onto the shaft. I winked at Ash. "Marshmallow roasting machine. Cooks all sides equally, every time."

I activated the drill, applying only a little pressure, and the marshmallow began to
revolve. As I'd promised her, all sides were toasted evenly. When it was ready I offered it to Ash and she slid it off the drill.

She took a bite. "Mmm, it's perfect. So good." Some of the goo spilled over her lip
s and I had the craziest urge to wipe it off with my fingers.

Or my
own lips.

I forced myself to lie back on the ground. I had to, before I did something I regretted. Those lips
of hers filled my mind. So kissable.

"Let's do something
fun
," Gina said out of nowhere.

"Like what?" Ash sounded wary.

"I don't know. How about a game of truth or dare?"

I pretended to groan from where I lay on the ground. "God. That's for thirteen-year-olds."

"It's for adults, too," Gina said.

"I hate that game." Actually, I liked it but felt like being a rascal tonight. Blaine gave me a sly look.

"I hate it, too," Ash said. "And it
is
for kids."

I tilted my head so I could see her from where I lay. Her pure blue eyes actually seemed a little wider than usual. Wide with...fear?

Gina wouldn't take no for an answer. "Come on, let's play."

"I'm game," Blaine said.

I sat up and gave Ash what I hoped was a comforting grin. I lowered my voice. "Don't worry, this is the one game where you can lie your ass off and still win."

"I heard that," Blaine said. "Trust me, I can tell when you're lying, Kade."