When he doesn’t say anything, just stands there staring at me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him, I feel myself getting anxious. There’s a strange play of energy between us again, like he might span the slight distance between us and pull me to him. It’s like…goddammit, it’s such a stupid cliché, but I have butterflies in my stomach. It’s not something I like, feeling this vulnerable, and there’s this back-of-my-mind awareness that none of my behavior is remotely appropriate for an investigative journalist. (That inner voice sounds an awful lot like Mary.) So I say something I shouldn’t.
“Don’t make me go to Augusta. We both know she’s a liar.”
Something flashes in his eyes. “Don’t talk to her,” he says, and he turns back to the trail and starts stalking down it, taking big steps I can’t hope to keep up with.
But I try. For several minutes, I try.
Old-growth forest has shot up on either side of us. On one side there’s a steep fall, the other not so much. There are still little wildflowers and rhododendrons all around us, and even though my mind feels like it’s in a storm, I take in the fact that Cal is drawn to this place, to the beauty and serenity of it. I find myself thinking of that photo I found, the one of him and that rocking chair. The smile on his face in that photo is a lot like the one he had on top of the mountain, looking at the view. Looking at me.
“I saw a picture of you with a chair you made,” I say, hoping to turn this around by talking about one of his interests. “Do you still do that, or is your focus totally on renovations now?”
“No, I don’t do that anymore,” he says, his voice full of sadness. He doesn’t comment on the fact that I’ve clearly googled him. Then again, he’s googled me, so it seems like fair play.
I recognize the grief in his tone and can’t help but wonder if this has something to do with his wife’s death. I have the hunch that it does. He wouldn’t be the first person to turn away from something he loves out of grief. Didn’t I do the same?
I worked at Beyond the Sheets because it was a tamer, simpler version of what my heart wanted. Because it lacked the danger and bite.
He’s moving faster now, almost like he’s running from me. From my questions and the dangerous pull between us.
“Cal,” I say. “Cal.” I don’t know what else I have to say, but I have to stop him. Not because of Bad Luck Club, but because…
The truth is I don’t know why. All I know is there’s a part of me that wants to connect with him. To understand him.
He turns to me, his eyes full of raw emotion, his hands reaching out as if he wants to grab me. As if he wants to kiss me the way I wanted him to before that couple showed up. I quicken my steps, going to him, because I have this crazy desire to comfort him—and to rake my hands through his hair and kiss him. To give us both what we want, because reason and logic can go bite themselves. But the gravel slides under my feet, and I only have a second to call out his name before I go tumbling down the steep side of the path, tree limbs and roots and stones hitting and scraping my arms and legs.
Distantly, I hear Cal calling my name. Yelling, “Grab something, Molly! I’m coming.”
I do, but I lose hold of it, and it only slows my fall, until I reach an area that levels off, and I land beside a huge tree. The air is knocked out of me, and for a moment I struggle to breathe, but then it comes whooshing back, and I realize I’m okay. I’ll have some bruises—hell, probably a lot—but nothing’s broken. Miraculously.
I glance around, not quite ready to sit, and it’s like I’m in a completely different place, because there are no paths down here, only thick undergrowth, those wildflowers that no longer look so cute, and dozens upon dozens of tree trunks blocking my view of the path.
I know a moment of panic—I could have died! Well, Harry did warn me. Then I pull off my bag, which is now digging into my back, and prepare to sit up. Before I can, Cal comes pushing through the trees, expertly maneuvering in his hiking boots, and then he’s next to me, leaning over me, his eyes full of panic and worry. Full of concern for me.
“Molly, are you hurt?” he says, throwing his pack onto the ground beside him.
“I’m okay,” I say, “I’m okay, but there’ll probably be bruises.”
He still runs his hands—those big, strong, callused hands—down my arms and my legs, feeling my bare knees and my elbows and my shins and asking if anything hurts. And it doesn’t. Oh no, it doesn’t. It feels so good to be touched by him that I gasp, and then I’m reaching up and pulling him down by his thermal.
He gasps into my mouth—he clearly didn’t expect me to kiss him—but then he’s kissing me back. It’s like a hunger has been unleashed in both of us, because we tear into each other, our mouths melding and clashing the way we always do when we talk, our teeth nipping. And then I’m pulling up the hem of his thermal, and he’s tugging it off, revealing that his chest is even better than I’d hoped. A modest sprinkling of hair, which is great—the guys who shave it off feel like porcupines—and I don’t even have time to properly appreciate the beauty of him because he’s tugging at my shirt.
I try to help, but he shakes his head. “Let me.”
So I do. Then we’re chest to chest—almost—the foolish man forgot about my sports bra, and we kiss some more, our bodies pressed together, our heat enough to banish any goose bumps, and it’s not enough, not nearly enough, because I feel his hardness pressed against me, and I need him in a way I don’t care to analyze. And I want it to be here, where we saw that sunrise together. He groans when I go for his pants, and I capture it in my mouth, nipping his lip as I slide my hand beneath the waistband of his sweatpants and boxer briefs and reach for him. I caress him in my hand, memorizing the length and breadth of him and reveling at the look in his eyes. A look of wanting and lust and loss of control. A look I put there.
This isn’t the connection I wanted to create a moment ago, but it’s one I’ve wanted from him from the beginning. It’s a kind of wanting I understand.
“We can’t,” he says, but the words are barely breathed out, and it’s obvious that he wants this just as much as I do.
I respond by taking off my own shorts, leaving on my Toms. Because they’re cute, goddammit, and if they couldn’t get me safely down a mountain, they can at least protect my feet from the leaves and sticks and rocks.
“I want you to take me against this tree,” I say, “because I’ll be totally honest—I’ve been picturing it ever since we started this hike.”
“Jesus, Molly,” he says, his voice pained, “you’re killing me. I…I can’t. I don’t have any—”
“I do,” I say, “in my wallet. It’s in my bag.”
Something flashes in his eyes when I say that, but I don’t attempt to interpret it. I don’t want to ruin the moment. I sit up and reach for my bag, and in a second I have the foil wrapper.
He’s shaking his head, though, and the pang of rejection, of disappointment, hurts more than it should. I watch as he gets to his feet, then lifts out a hand to help me up.
I consider rejecting his help out of pique, but I’m not a child, and if I don’t want to be treated as one, I have to stop acting the part. So I give him my hand, and he pulls me up effortlessly, that easy strength on display in his muscular arms. In his beautiful chest. And those sweatpants of his do nothing to hide that he’s harder than ever.