Sunny’s entire body ached with exhaustion, like letting her tears free also emptied her of what strength she had left. Thunder rumbled low, quickening her heart. It wasn’t often that they’d get thunderstorms up there in the Alaskan Interior. When they did, it either meant wildfires or downpours. Neither would be good at the moment.
“We need to find shelter.” Davis scanned the sky, then the forest ahead of them.
“Yep.” She didn’t know what else to say.
She was too tired to even think at the moment, though his earlier words about why he hadn’t called sure seemed to not have any problem replaying in her head. Shaking out her hands to wake herself up, she surveyed the area they were in. Being on the top of the ridge should help them find some place not a soaking marsh. However, if it rained, there wouldn’t be anywhere dry. A section of older spruce up ahead caught her eye.
“Davis, let’s go check out that area.” She stepped up next to him when he stopped, and pointed to the mature trees.
“Good idea.” He nodded, then extended his hand. “Lead the way.”
She smiled over at him. Even with all his military training, he was letting her take the lead. Her exhaustion couldn’t keep down the thrill his action brought.
Searching the terrain for the perfect shelter was always difficult in Alaska. Many of the trees, especially the black spruce, were too spindly to provide any protection or grew so thick one couldn’t get between them. Add how the ground could be solid one moment and marshy, uneven ickiness the next didn’t help. Permafrost sure knew how to cause problems. Thankfully, this area was free of it, and the spruce grew tall.
She spotted a decent black spruce ahead and made a beeline for it. The height wasn’t as tall as some others, which would be good if the thunder rumbling meant lightning storm, but the branches grew thick and wide. She rubbed her foot at the ground beneath, glad to find dirt and spruce needles rather than wet moss.
“This should work,” she said, just as the clouds opened up.
She grabbed her collapsible saw from her pack, then tossed the bag up against the trunk of the tree. If they didn’t want to get rained on all night, they’d have to reinforce what the tree had. Davis set his pack next to hers, then turned to her expectantly.
“I’m going to cut some boughs from the other trees.” She clicked open her saw and pointed her chin at the closest spruce.
“Good. I’ll get the ground ready.” Davis ducked under their shelter’s branches and got to work.
What? No fight over the more laborious job? With the way her shoulders ached, she might even give in, but she loved that he knew she could handle it. She rolled her neck and got to work.
She cut branch after branch off of the neighboring spruces, chucking them into a pile near their shelter. The pelting rain made the saw slippery and increased her frustration. Davis worked just as hard, running down the slope repeatedly and coming back with armfuls of birch leaves for their bed. In the back of her mind, she worried about leaving so much evidence of their location, but it couldn’t be helped.
When she had a good pile of branches, she picked out the smallest ones and threaded them in among their spruce’s own. Davis helped, working from a few feet away. When they got too high for her to reach, she let Davis continue and shifted her focus on weaving the larger boughs into a front wall.
Davis soon joined her, their hands brushing occasionally as they wove. They didn’t speak, just worked, anticipating what each other would need. She knew it was because of his military training and her own wilderness background, but it had to mean something that they worked so well together. Right?
“Let’s see if we’ve got enough.” Sunny lifted one side and waited until Davis grabbed the other.
They fitted it up against the bottom limbs of their shelter. She snatched a couple of zip ties from her pocket and secured the wall to the tree. It probably didn’t need it, but she wanted to be sure it wouldn’t get ripped off if the wind picked up.
She wiped rain off her face, wishing it would just give them a break, and stepped back to survey their work. “I think that should be good enough. Let me check inside.” She kneeled down and peeked her head through the small opening they’d kept. “It’s dry.”
“Climb on in, and I’ll just put these leftover branches above us.” Davis touched the small of her back, rushing the chill from the rain away in a whoosh, before his feet squelched through the mud to the last branches.
She crawled in to the farthest side, more than happy to be done for the day. Pulling her pack into her lap, she rifled through it, setting the items they’d need for the night aside. It wasn’t much, some food, water, and her sleeping bag. She clicked on her headlamp and hung it from a branch. Their reinforcing job made it dark inside. She mentally cataloged the food that she had and calculated how long it would last between the two of them.
Not long.
Definitely not enough to get them to civilization.
Davis crawled in, and she quickly zipped her pack and set it aside. They’d just have to worry about that later. They had more pressing things to worry about than lack of grub, like homicidal people chasing them. She could scavenge the land for food when they ran out.
“Well, this is cozy.” Davis’s low voice curled warmth in her stomach.
“At least it’s not wet.” A gust of wind pelted rain against the branch wall and made her shiver. “Too bad we won’t be able to start a fire and dry out.”
“You have a change of clothes, right?” Davis wiped at the water dripping from his hair.
“Yeah.”
“Good. We need to strip out of these soggy things.” His words shouldn’t make her blush, especially with how used to close quarters she was with her treks up Mount Denali with mostly men, but it did. “I covered a section behind me so our clothes can dry out overnight. Well, at least not be soaked.”
She nodded, hoping he couldn’t see her blush in the dim light. When he cleared his throat, she glanced up from digging in her pack. His ears burned red, and his eyes darted to her, then away.
“I’ll just turn around.” He shifted in the small space so his back was to her.
Her cheeks hurt from her smile. How could this warrior be embarrassed over something like this? She bit her lip, turned her back to him, and quickly swapped clothes.
She really wasn’t sure what to do with him, with the words he’d confessed. Sure, they hadn’t been in a relationship or anything, but him ghosting her had hurt. She figured it was because of her, but, if she could believe what he said earlier, his reason for not contacting her soothed her bruised heart.
“Done?” He cleared his throat again.
“Yeah.” She zipped up her fleece jacket, glad she’d had it in her pack.
“Hand me your clothes.”
Their fingers brushed, and she shivered at the contact. His eyebrows V-ed on his forehead, and his lips pressed tightly together. His concern made her smile. She’d led mountaineers up Denali for so long that it’d been a while since someone worried about her. Gunnar had, on their trek to the North Pole, but that was the annoying, overbearing brother kind of worry. Davis’s care wasn’t irritating at all.
“We need to get warm.” He hung the clothes from branches, his back to her as he mumbled, “The last thing we need is hypothermia along with murderers.”
And just like that, the terror of the day had her teeth chattering. She reached into her pack, her hand quivering, and grabbed her sleeping bag. As she laid it out in the small space, she cringed at the mummy bag. She loved her Mountain Hard Wear Phantom, but it definitely wasn’t meant for two people.
“Did you grab a sleeping bag from your tent?” She glanced at his pack, wondering for the first time what he was able to pack.
He shook his head and huffed out a disgusted grunt. “I only had time to get clothes and the few packaged food items I had in the tent before I heard the footsteps. I stupidly thought the Alaskan wilderness was a place I could finally relax. A place to stop being paranoid that someone was going to jump out of the shadows or that I’d have to bug out. My pack was shoved under my cot, empty, and most of our supplies were in the cabin with the computer.”
“It’s okay. I never thought this would happen here, either.” She swallowed.
“Yeah, well, I should’ve known better.” He clenched his teeth.
A shiver ran through her. “Well, that just means I’ll warm up faster with us sharing. I shouldn’t be this cold, not after the expedition to the North Pole, but I can’t stop shaking.”
“Climb in.” Davis nudged her shoulder. “I’ll take the zipper side.”
The cold side. She nodded and slid into the bag with her back to Davis. Would they both even fit? He turned off her headlamp, plunging them into darkness, and slipped in. He hesitated a moment before his arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her close.
“You know, for a mummy bag, this thing has decent foot space.” He shifted his legs so his feet cradled the bottom of hers.
“It has extra room down there for gear you don’t want to freeze. Worked great on the expedition.” She tried to relax her muscles, but she couldn’t with him so close.
“I enjoyed the videos you posted about the expedition. You made it feel like I was right there with you.” His low words shot through her.
“My camera.” She tried to sit up, but the space was too tight. “I had my GoPro on when I walked into your camp.”
“Leave it for now.”
“But—”
“It’s not going anywhere, and watching it now won’t help us.” He adjusted his position, pulling the sleeping bag closed tighter.
Relief crashed over her. She didn’t think she could handle watching it at the moment, and she hated herself for that weakness. In the morning, she’d watch it, whether or not she could handle it. Justin deserved that much, deserved his murderers brought to justice.
As she slowed her breathing and relaxed a little into Davis’s hold, his words jolted through her again. He’d enjoyed her videos? Why would he even bother when he’d left her hanging?
“You really watched?” she whispered, then held her breath, waiting for his response.
“Yeah. I watched them all.” His swallow was loud in her ear. “I’ve watched all of your videos. Might have even downloaded them to my phone.”
He laughed it off, but she heard the truth of the confession in his tone.
“Why?”
Why would he download her videos, but not call, text, or email? Nothing.
“Because they … you make life brighter.” He groaned and buried his face into the space between her neck and the sleeping bag. “Now, I sound like some kind of stalker.”
She didn’t know what to do with that. Was he being honest with her or just playing her? Her tendency was to see the good in people. It was incredibly naïve and had stripped everything from her. Her money, her job, her confidence. Nevertheless, being on guard wasn’t in her nature. She was just too gullible, which was why she figured being by herself would keep her safe from emotional hurt. She could live with the gaping hole of loneliness solitude left in her, couldn’t she?
No. No, she really couldn’t. This last adventure taught her that.
She rolled over, grunting and shifting awkwardly in the tight space.
“Sunny—oomph.” Davis’s breath rushed out as she accidentally elbowed him in the gut. “What are you doing?”
“Sorry.” She giggled as their legs tangled together, and she sputtered as her hair escaping her braid got in her mouth. “I just—”
She sighed, not knowing what to say. Her knowledge of this man could fill a teaspoon, and yet … she wanted to believe that what he’d said earlier was true. That he had worried about hurting her and that was why he hadn’t called. Didn’t him downloading her videos contradict his not contacting her?
“Sunny?” He brushed her wild hair from her face, shifting to give her more space.
She didn’t care if she was naïve, gullible, or just plain dumb. Having Davis here, knowing he cared enough to keep her show on his phone, cinched that hole of loneliness closed a bit. Not all the way, but enough that she could breathe a little easier than before.
She leaned forward in the dark and pressed her lips to his. He smelled of rain and spruce. He froze like a snowshoe hare just noticing danger. His heart pounded fast against her palms pressed to his chest. She smiled at how both their pulses raced.
Kissing him one more time, she whispered against his lips, “I’m so glad you’re here with me.” She sighed and snuggled into him, pressing her cheek against his collarbone and pulling close to him. “You make me feel safe, cared for.”
“I want to protect you.” He tucked his chin on her head and pulled her tightly to him like any minute someone would rip her away. “I just don’t know if I can.”
She shook her head. “I trust you.”
She did?
Searching into her heart, the statement held.
Healed.
“You shouldn’t.” His barely whispered words plinked like ice cubes in her gut.
She squeezed her eyes shut to the doubt that chilled her.