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He kept his arms around me and pulled me down against his chest. He rubbed my back while I sobbed. "Everly, you need to calm down, and tell me what happened."
Every time I thought I was getting a handle on my emotions, the sobs returned louder than before. I guess I finally cried myself out. I struggled to sit up without putting any pressure on Chance's body. He could have injuries I didn't know about.
"Don't move. I think you have a concussion and a broken ankle. There could be other injuries. How are you feeling?"
After taking inventory, it seemed that the ankle and the concussion were the worst of it. Chance said he might have some cracked ribs, but even if he did, there was nothing we could do about it.
I explained how he fell. "Why did you stop so suddenly?"
"There was a print, no, two prints, crossing the trail," Chance said. "I stopped to keep you from stepping on them."
"I tied my pink shirt to a tree where you fell," I said. "I was afraid I might have to walk a long way downstream to find a place where I could get down to the bank. I wanted a marker, so I could find you. If we get out of this, we can use the shirt to find the prints again."
"True, but for now you have to tell me everything you've done." He slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position. He moved his uninjured leg, as if making sure it still worked. He winced in pain as he moved his head, but he didn't pass out again.
I explained as much as I could remember about what I'd done since I climbed down the hillside. "You must have woken up just after I walked off to find something I could use to make a stretcher to get you out of the water."
"Wait. I'm confused," he said. He turned his head slowly to look at the pink shirt. "Why did you tie that shirt up there?"
"That's where you went over the side. I tied it there, so I could find you when I got down here."
"Why were our packs back there?" he asked, pointing back to the spot where he landed.
"That's where you fell. I guess when you got up, the backpack was too heavy for you."
"How did you get me to this spot."
"I didn't. I walked away to find the poles. When I came back, you were here. You must have woken up and tried to follow me."
He shook his head, grimacing with each movement. "Don't shake your head," I said. "I can see it hurts."
"I didn't wake up until you kissed me, which was very sweet, by the way." He grinned, but I could still see the pain etched in the lines of his face.
"I don't know how you got here, but I'm glad you did. I had already figured this would be the closest place to make camp for the night." I knew he had to have crawled to the clearing on his own somehow, but his concussion was making it hard for him to remember exactly what happened.
"I can help you get up, if you need to move. You were lying in the stream for a while. We should probably get you out of those wet clothes."
He gave me a wicked grin. "You've just been waiting for a reason to do that," he said.
"It isn't like you haven't taken your jeans off every night in the tent."
"Yeah, under cover of the sleeping bag. This time I'm going to need help, and I suspect all my clothes are wet," he said, giving me a wink.
We decided, well Chance decided, and I didn't argue, that we needed to prioritize. After he took some pain meds from the first aid kit, the next priority was to get him out of his wet clothes and into dry ones. I moved his backpack over beside him, so he could get what he needed. He pulled out dry socks, underwear, a shirt, and cargo pants. "Pull the scissors out of the first aid kit," he said. "I'll probably need you to cut my pants off."
He looked like he enjoyed shocking me. "You'll probably need to cut the leg open at the bottom, so I can get these off over the splint, and the same with the dry ones to get them on."
I helped him pull his shirt over his head, being cautious of the bandage. I hadn't told him about cutting his hair. He had enough to worry about right now. In spite of the accident and the fact that we hadn't had showers in several days, a shirtless Chance Munroe was the best view of nature I had this whole trip. "If you’re done molesting me with your eyes, I could use some help with the shirt. I'm feeling a little chilled, so let's put the fleece on too."
When his top half was warm and dry, I realized what was coming next and I wasn't at all sure I could handle it. There were two areas of concern—seeing Chance naked and having to touch his injured leg. Both made me squirm, but in vastly different ways.