Out of This World (2 page)

The wind made tears stream out of my eyes, and I think I had a bug in my teeth. “Kellan!”

“You're going to break my fingers.” He tried to free his hand from mine, but that wasn't going to happen. I had a death grip on him, and the only way he was getting free was to chew free.

Supposedly this “air taxi” could handle both water and air, though as near as I could tell, we hadn't left the water more than a foot or two below us. The top was open, like that of a biplane, the noise incredible.

The landscape whipped by so fast, I couldn't catch more than a brown-green-blue blur, the only constant being Jack, the pilot. He sat behind the controls yelling “Woo hoo!” at the top of his lungs as he dodged trees like we were playing some sort of Xbox game with our lives.

Jack looked the mountain-man part: long hair held back by a leather string, the mass flying out behind him. He wore aviator sunglasses, beige cargo pants whose every pocket was filled with God-knew-what and a long-sleeved shirt open over a T-shirt that said
FLY MY FRIENDLY SKIES
—
PLEASE
.

The light in his eyes as he flew the plane said he was either very good at what he did or he was thoroughly, one-hundred-percent insane. I was betting on the former, while praying it wasn't the latter. In spite of the way I had led my life—that is, without much precaution or a single thought-out plan—I was not reckless.

And yet, here I was, on a plane I could have parked in my bathroom, with a man who might have smoked a crack pipe for lunch, flying over the wilds of Alaska.

I'm telling you, the crazy streets of Los Angeles were tame compared to this. Here, there were peaks on peaks, each bigger than the last, layers upon layers, stabbing up into the sky to heights I'd never imagined.

“Seriously, Rach”—this from Kellan, at my side—“I need my fingers back.”

We made another heart-stopping turn at the speed of light, following the river below. Ignoring Kellan, I closed my eyes, then felt my stomach leap into my eyeballs. Whoops. Definitely not a good way to fight vertigo, so I opened them again. “Are we almost there yet?”

Jack craned his neck. “Why, what's up? You need a pit stop?”

I looked at him hopefully. “You have a bathroom on board?”

He laughed. “Nope. But I can find you a tree.”

Even Kellan laughed at that—the jerk—and I squeezed his fingers harder, until he paled.

There. That made me feel marginally better, but the only thing that could fix this situation entirely was to have Dot at my side. She wouldn't have found any humor in my need to pee. She'd have been right there with me, demanding a bathroom complete with blow-dryer and scented hand soap.

“Serious,” Kellan gasped, “my fingers—”

I squeezed harder. Suck it up, I thought. And then I couldn't think, because right in front of us—right in the middle of the river whipping by me so fast that the landscape looked like one of my paintings, still wet and also blurred, as if I had swiped my fingers over it—was a fallen log the likes of which Paul Bunyan had never seen. The thing was massive, with branches still reaching into the sky, like the arms of a downed giant ghost.

And we were going to hit it.

So I did the only sensible thing: I closed my eyes, opened my mouth and screamed.

And screamed.

My stomach bounced, down to my pink toenails, then back up into my freshly touched-up roots and finally to somewhere near the region where it was supposed to be, so I knew Jack was doing some fancy flying—not that I looked. No sirree, my looking days were over.

Then I realized Kellan was saying “It's okay” over and over in my ear, his breath tickling my skin. Maybe it was the fact he'd grown up with only his mother and three sisters, smothered in feminine woes and Barbie dolls. Or maybe it was from all that practice with the dolphins. However he'd gotten the gift of knowing the right thing to do and to say to a woman, I was grateful. Especially since comfort was an almost foreign concept, given that the men I dated tended to be, well, badasses, and badasses typically don't do comfort.

Kellan was not a badass by any stretch of the imagination, which for once was a good thing. He was nice to have in an emergency, and this felt like as big an emergency as I could imagine.

“We're going to be okay,” he was saying. “So you can let go. Any time now, Rach…”

He sounded a bit strangled, and as I took stock, I saw why. At some point, I'd climbed out of my seat and into his, which meant I was in his lap, my arms shrink-wrapped around his neck, which probably accounted for his sounding like he couldn't breathe. Chances were, with the death grip I had on him, he couldn't.

My face was pressed into his throat. Since he hadn't shaved today, and maybe not yesterday either, his skin was roughing up mine, but that felt like the least of my worries, so I just kept holding on as tightly as I could. Our bodies were sandwiched together, like peanut butter and jelly, and though he was definitely trying to put some space between us, I wasn't allowing it.

“That was hella fun,” Jack said from the cockpit.

I looked up. The crazy bastard was grinning.

“It was a little close,” Kellan pointed out, still holding me. He didn't really have a choice, since I hadn't loosened my grip.

“Nah,” Jack said. “Should have seen last time. Lost the tip of the right wing. Anyhoo, we're here now.” He hoisted himself out of his seat.

I could still feel Kel's heart beating against my breasts. I could feel a lot of him: his chest, his belly and…“Kel? Something in your pocket is digging into me.”

He sighed, still sounding a bit strangled. “If you'd just let go—”

I looked up into his face in time to see a flush ride up his cheeks. Oh.
Oh.
I could feel every inch of him. Apparently there were just more inches than I'd realized.

“Here you go.” Jack tossed our bags from the upper storage down to our feet, and put his hands on his hips.

I unwrapped myself from Kellan, who looked very happy to have me do so, then I stood up on legs that were still quivering.

“Tips are welcome,” Jack said, “so don't be shy.”

“I have a tip,” I said.
“Take flying lessons.”

His grin broadened.

Free of my weight, Kellan sat there gasping for breath.

I scowled down at him. “I wasn't that heavy.”

“Of course not.”

“You're just too scrawny.” Only he hadn't felt so scrawny a moment ago…

He rubbed his chest as he stood, gesturing to me to leave the plane ahead of him.

I hopped down. In Los Angeles, we'd have felt a wave of heat, but here there was no wave. Fresh, late-afternoon air brushed over us, cool and clear and crisp, and utterly devoid of the burn of smog.

It did feel good to have solid ground beneath my feet. We stood on the shore of some wildly raging river, surrounded by forest and mountains so tall, I had to tip my head back to see them all. In spite of the noise of the rushing water, we were enveloped in silence, the kind that comes from the utter lack of civilization. At least, the human kind. I looked around for bears, but thankfully, I didn't see any.

No mountain cats either.

Jack dropped four boxes out of the plane next to our bags. “The weekly drop of supplies for Hideaway,” he said, then began to shut the door.

“Wait,” I said, a bad feeling gathering in my belly along with the remnants of terror from the flight. “Where are you going?”

“Back.”

“
Back?
” We were going to be alone here? I wrapped my arms around myself and moved slightly closer to Kellan, which was silly. He was more city than me. “You can't go back!”

“Sure I can.” Jack turned away, then slapped his forehead. “Oh, wait. I forgot to list the warnings.”

“Warnings?”

He ticked them off on his fingers. “Watch out for sudden rainstorms—they come with flash floods. The mosquitoes are a bitch—real killers. You should spray the hell out of yourselves so you don't get any diseases. Oh, and don't feed the bears.” He flashed his grin. “Okay then. Have fun. See you on Monday.”

Flash floods. Killer mosquitoes. Bears for real. Oh God.

“Hold on.” Kellan looked around. “I don't see the car rental place.” In fact, there was nothing but trees and sky, and our bags at our feet. “We have a Jeep waiting.”

Jack laughed hard and long. “Car rental place.” Still grinning, he shook his head. “They get you tourists good with that one, don't they? Look, just take the path there”—he pointed vaguely behind us—“up about a quarter of a mile. You'll find the bed and breakfast, no problem. There's a Jeep there, available to guests. But there's no roads, just four-wheeling. You're not going to actually get anywhere except by my plane.”

“But—” I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around the quarter-mile hike, much less the no-road thing. “You're leaving?” I repeated weakly.

“Back on Monday,” he said again, as if deserting us was no big deal.

For
days.

In the wilds.

“Um…”

But I could “um” all I wanted. He'd started his plane and was taxiing down his runway—the river.

“We're in the wilds,” I said. “Alone. With neither of us knowing a pine tree from an oak.”

“I know a pine from an oak.”

“Really?” I shot Kel a sideways look. “Do you know what all this is?” I waved a hand at the growth nearly swallowing us whole.

“Sure.” He looked around. Pointed. “There. Those are spruce. And there? Birch.”

“Are you kidding me? You know the types of trees these are?”

“Yeah.” He craned his neck the other way, and studied the landscape some more. “And those”—he pointed to the bushes lining the path, or rather, practically taking over and suffocating the path—“that dense stuff right over there is a bunch of alder thickets, see?”

“Huh.” I couldn't believe he knew what he was talking about. This in itself was disturbing enough, but then, right next to me, a thick, overgrown so-called alder thicket began to shimmy and shake, as if someone had turned the thing on vibrate.

Accompanying this was a series of undomesticated, ear-piercing whistles in different tones, reminiscent of C-3PO from
Star Wars
having a bad day.

I didn't think; I simply reacted, and threw myself at Kellan.

He caught me—barely—against his chest with an “oomph,” staggering back a few feet.

“Do you hear that?” I whispered, pointing with a shaking finger at the bush, which yep, was still rocking and rolling. “What is it?”

Kellan was still struggling to hold us both upright, but he let me burrow close, and after a moment, he cupped my head in a sweet gesture belied by his next words. “You're not going to like it.”

“No?”

“It's something terrifying.”

“My God.” I couldn't handle anything else, I was sure of it. “What? What is it?”

“Big Foot.”

“What?”

“Okay, it's not. It's just two squirrels fighting.”

Lifting my head, I stared at him.

“They're out-of-control squirrels, too. Wild.
Vicious.
” His voice had laughter in it. “Better run, Rach.”

I shoved free, and closed my eyes. “This is not nearly as funny as you seem to think.”

“A little bit, it is.”

I opened my eyes now, and glared at him. “Seriously? You have no idea how good running sounds.
Running.
I never run, Kel.”

He just kept grinning.

“Kel?”

“Yeah?”

I'd planned on saying something not very nice, but the truth was, I had no temper available because I was working on pure nerves.
“What have I gotten us into?”

He managed to stop grinning and reach for my hand, and unlike me, he squeezed only very gently. “I don't know. Why don't we go find out?”

“Yeah.” I looked down at the boxes at our feet. “There'd better be cookies in there. Lots of cookies.”

A
t least there really was a trail. We trudged along it, a sheer rock cliff on our right, a sharp drop-off on our left, at the bottom of which the river rolled and charged along its path. Some really loud birds squawked, as if scolding us for the interruption. Then a cute little squirrel ran out on a branch of a huge, towering tree and chattered at us.

“Oh, look how sweet,” I said.

He chirped again, and then chucked a pinecone at my head.

I ducked and screamed, and Kellan rolled with laughter.

“You wouldn't be laughing if he'd hit me,” I said, pouting a little. “You'd be carrying my limp body!”

Kellan tried to stop laughing but couldn't.

I huffed onward, and did my best to regain some dignity. But I'd like to point out, a quarter of a mile is a helluva lot farther than I could have imagined. Probably if I exercised, I wouldn't be huffing and puffing and wishing for a box of cookies. But I didn't. And I was.

But there
was
a trail. I grasped onto that fact, clinging to it like it was my fondest memory. It meant Jack had been telling the truth and, at the end of a quarter mile, we'd find the B&B.

And food.

And, God willing, a telephone, and even better, an Internet connection, which I'd use to find us a way out of here.

“How fast do you think we can get back home?”

“Not fast.”

“I bet I could call someone to come for us.”

“You're not really going to chicken out that fast.” Kellan was right behind me on the trail, taking up the rear, which worried me.

What if we were being stalked by wolves or bears this very minute?

Or worse, the dreaded mountain cats?

Kel would get eaten first, and then I'd be all alone. On second thought, maybe being in front was a good thing. Still, I sped up as much as I could carrying my two large duffle bags and a box, which was filled with frozen meats. Yes, I'd peeked. This left Kellan with his single duffle bag and
three
boxes, all loaded with fruits, veggies, pastas and many more supplies, but no cookies.

I'd checked those boxes, too.

I really hated that Kellan knew me well enough to know I wouldn't chicken out, that I would want to see this through. But that want was more abstract than actual. Because now that I was here, I was discovering a whole host of things about myself. Such as that it's one thing to
think
of yourself as adventurous, another ballgame entirely to really
be
adventurous.

“I'm hungry,” I said.

“What, you missed that first-class meal on our last flight?”

Okay, in spite of myself, I laughed. My last boyfriend had been a leather-wearing biker guy from Santa Barbara. Mouthwateringly gorgeous. He'd been a doctor, too. Perfect, right?

Except for his utter lack of a sense of humor. In fact, he'd been something of an egotistical asshole, and in the end, I'd discovered I wanted more than hard pecs and a nice bank account.

Go figure.

Good things never last.

Dot claimed that was just an excuse to hold back, that I dated the wrong men on purpose, in effect sabotaging my own happiness to prove my own point.

Whatever. All I knew was that Kellan never went for the wrong women. No, he dated sweet, kind, peace-loving, tree-hugging, sensitive women who were his perfect complement.

But I couldn't help noticing, none of his relationships lasted either. “Huh,” I said over the crack of various pine needles and twigs beneath my feet.

“Huh what?” Kel asked.

“I'm just wondering why you aren't taken.”

“You mean because I'm such a catch with my high-powered job and buff bod?”

I didn't look back, because I was still keeping an eye out for kamikaze squirrels, but I could hear the humor in his voice. I knew he didn't make big bucks at Sea World, but he had a job that he was extremely passionate about and that had a certain sex appeal to it. And no, he wasn't exactly a buff guy, not with his tall, lanky frame, but he had a great face and an easy smile that was contagious, and that a woman might pass him up made me mad. “You're a catch, Kel.”

He let out a low laugh. “Okay.”

“You are.”

“Such a catch that you're dying to nab me yourself, right?”

I was pretty sure that was a rhetorical question because one, he'd never made a move on me in all these years, and two, I'd never thought of him that way. I was spared from thinking that way now by the sound of my stomach growling so loudly, it startled a bird into flight.

“Feel free to tuck into that meat you're carrying,” Kellan said, shifting the weight of all he carried. Not that he'd complained once.

Nope, not Kellan. At one point, he'd calmly opened his backpack, pulled out twine and rigged himself some sort of arm strap for the three boxes he carried. He'd offered to do the same for me, but I'd said I was fine.

If “fine” was hot, tired and increasingly grumpy.

“Believe me,” I said, “if anything in here was cooked, I'd have dived in by now.” I already had my sights set on a New York strip steak, as well as on one of the potatoes from box number three in Kellan's arms. Loaded with butter and sour cream…Oh yeah…

“You okay?” Kel asked.

“No, but why?”

“Because you just sort of moaned.”

“It was nothing.” Only the thought of melted butter…

“Why are you huffing and puffing?”

“Um, because I'm out of shape, thanks for asking.”

Kellan, the jerk, wasn't huffing and puffing at all. Probably because for his job swimming with dolphins, he actually used physical exertion.

I ought to try that sometime.

Or not.

“This stuff is heavy,” I said, adjusting the straps of both my duffle bags.

“You packed too much.”

“Did not.”

“Really? Then why do you need two gigantic duffle bags for three days in the wilderness?”

“Because things might come up.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know.
Things.
”

“Tell me what you brought,” he said.

“Oh, you know. Just the essentials.”

“Bet you brought makeup and fingernail polish.”

“Neither of which is heavy,” I pointed out.

Laughing, he shook his head.

Actually, the whole makeup thing had been a quandary. I'd had no idea what I'd need for the great outdoors, so I'd packed it all.

And truthfully? It was a tad bit heavier than I'd imagined.

“And what about shoes?” he asked.

Now
there
was a discussion I most definitely didn't want to have. “What about them?”

“How many pairs?”

“Six.”

“Jesus.”

“Okay, four.”

“Haven't you ever roughed it, Rach. Ever?”

Hey, I rough it every day of my life in the mean, tough streets of Los Angeles. I didn't see a need to rough it on vacation as well.

“How many pairs of shoes did you really bring?”

“I don't know why it matters to you,” I said, sniffing. “I'm not asking you to carry my bag.”

“Bags. Plural.”

Damn it. I hated that he was right. “See, this is why I don't have a boyfriend. I don't want to have to disclose certain matters.”

“You don't have a boyfriend because you date guys who are allergic to commitment.”

Okay, maybe that was true, too.

“I'm sweating,” I said, looking for just a little sympathy.

“Sweat is good for you.”

I couldn't have heard him right, because I sure hadn't received an ounce of sympathy anywhere. “Excuse me?”

“It's good for you,” he repeated patiently.

My eyes narrowed, and I stopped and faced him. “Are you saying I could stand to lose a few pounds?”

“What?” He shook his head. “Of course not. What I said was—”

“I'll have you know, I'm only a few pounds over my goal weight.”

“I do know—Look, you're fine—”

“And most of those five pounds are water weight.”

“Rach, I
am
speaking English, right?” He asked this in the baffled tone of men everywhere who'd stepped into uncharted territory: a woman's psyche. “I said you look
fine,
” he said. “You heard that part?”

“Fine?”
I made a snort that sounded like my head had just gotten a flat tire. “The word ‘fine' should be erased from the English language!”

He blinked, and eyed me like an unstable rock wall. “What's wrong with the word ‘fine'?”

“If you don't know, I can't help you.”

“Okay, clearly the excursion has gone to your head. Take a lighter box,” he said, sounding a bit desperate to change the subject.

Typical guy.

“Here, take the fruits-and-veggies box,” he said.

Great. Fruits and veggies. I hate fruits and veggies.
“Fine.”

This made him frown. “Why do you get to use that word, and I don't?”

I didn't answer. I was still obsessing over my weight. I really did plan on losing those extra five pounds. Okay, ten. Honest. Just not right now. Not when I was wishing for some cookies.

Or the end of the quarter mile.

I was
really
wishing for that, but the woods had swallowed us up. I had a blister on my left heel and my stomach was still growling, but I couldn't complain because I was with a guy whose arms could fall off and he wouldn't say so, and I didn't want to look bad.

I really hated to look bad.

“What do you suppose are the chances there's a day spa at Hideaway?”

He let out a laugh between pants. “Only you, Rach.”

“Hey, it's possible.”

Something buzzed. It was either my brain matter beginning to boil or the biggest fly on the planet. Wait. Not a fly, but—“Ack,
bee
!”

And it was after me. Like really after me. This was no simple flyby either, but a serious I'm-going-sting-your-ass attack by a dive-bombing, maniac bee. I lifted my box higher, trying to protect my face, while screaming like…like the girly girl I was.

“Stand still,” Kellan advised.

Stand still? This was a bee, the mother of all bees, out for my blood.

“Rach, your box.” Kel was trying to balance his own three boxes while watching me dance around like an idiot. “I'm telling you, you're going to spill—”

Just as he said it, my box toppled right out of my hands and crashed to the ground.

Good news: The bee got the hint that I was crazy, and took off.

Bad news: The box imploded upon impact. Frozen ribs, steaks and ground meat all scattered across the ground, their plastic wrap loosened, becoming marinated in pine needles, dirt, ants and who-knew-what-else.

I dropped to my knees, looked at that New York strip steak I'd wanted and let out a pathetic sound. I think my eyes welled up, but I pretended it was from the dust.

Beside me, two battered tennis shoes appeared. One was untied. I have no idea why I noticed such a thing at a time of crisis like this.

With a sigh, Kellan lowered his knees to the dirt beside me.

“A little dirt never hurt anyone,” he said in way-too-kind voice.

And how pathetic was it that I actually wanted to believe him? I tried not to fall apart. “You think we can apply the thirty-second rule?” I asked in a weak voice. “You know, if we pick it up within thirty seconds, it's like no-harm-no-foul?”

“I do,” he said solemnly.

“Good. Because we can't just leave it all here, right? I mean, we might attract those bears Jack mentioned, and he did say don't feed them.
Right?
”

“Right,” he said dryly as we reached for the fallen meats, dirt and all. “
That's
what you're most concerned about: the bears eating your steak.”

See, this was the problem with good friends. They knew you too well.

We shuffled the contents of the boxes around—meaning Kellan gave me an easier load.

“You know what I don't get?” I asked, again breathless after only one minute, and also boggled by my thought. “Guests pay to come here. As in, they pull out their checkbooks and
pay.
”