River's End

  “Hundred bucks.”

  “Deal.” He gave her hand a squeeze.

  He hadn’t expected her to send over a list that included wardrobe, detailing down to how many pairs of socks and underwear she recommended he take for the trip. It was like being twelve again and getting a to-do list from his mother.

  He bought the gear, including a new backpack, as she’d pointed out on her list that his was too small and had a number of holes in it. And though they were going to weigh him down, he bought two bottles of wine and nested them inside spare socks.

  Camping was one thing. Going primitive was another.

  By the time he was done, he figured he’d be carrying thirty-five pounds on his back. And imagined after five miles or so it would weigh like a hundred.

  With some regret he locked his cell phone and laptop in the trunk of the rental car. “I’ll be back, boys,” he murmured.

  “Looks like I’m going to win that hundred bucks before we leave.”

  “That wasn’t whining. It was a fond farewell.”

  He turned and studied her. She wore jeans, roomy and faded, a River’s End T-shirt and a light jacket tied around her waist. Sturdy boots, he noted, with a number of impressive nicks and scars on the leather. She carried her pack as though it were weightless.

  The smirk suited her. “You sure you’re up for this?”

  “I’m raring.”

  She adjusted the cap that shaded her eyes, then jerked her thumb. “Let’s get started.”

  He found the forest more appealing if no less primitive without the rain they’d hiked through the last time. Little slivers of sunlight fought their way through gaps in the overstory, shimmering unexpectedly on the now-lush green leaves of the maples and the fragile blades of ferns.

  The air cooled. Ripened.

  He remembered and recognized much of the life around him now. The varied patterns of bark on the giant trees, the shape of leaves of the shrub layer. The vast, nubby carpets of moss didn’t seem quite so foreign, nor did the knobs and scallops of lichen.

  He gave her silence as his muscles warmed to the pace and tuned his ears to the rustles and calls that brought music to the forest.

  She waited for him to speak, to ask questions or fall into one of those casual monologues he was so skilled at. But he said nothing, and the vague tension she’d strapped on with her pack slid away.

  They crossed a narrow stream that bubbled placidly, skirted a leafy bed of ferns, then began to climb the long, switchbacking trail that would take them into backcountry.

  Vine maple grew thick, an elastic tangle of inconvenience along the trail. Olivia avoided it when she could, worked through it when she couldn’t and once grabbed at it quickly before it would swing back and thwack Noah in the face.

  “Thanks.”

  “I thought you’d lost your voice.”

  “You wanted quiet.” He reached over to rub his hand over the back of her neck. “Had enough?”

  “I just tune you out when you talk too much.”

  Noah chuckled then went on.

  “I really like being with you, Liv.” He took her hand, sliding his fingers through hers. “I always did.”

  “You’ll throw off your pace.”

  “What’s the hurry?” He brought her hand to his lips in an absent gesture. “I thought you’d bring Shirley.”

  “She sticks with Grandpop most days, and dogs aren’t allowed in the backcountry. Here, look.” She stopped abruptly and crouched, tapping a finger beside faint imprints on the trail.

  “Are those—”

  “Bear tracks,” she said. “Pretty fresh, too.”

  “How do you know that? They always say that in the movies. The tracks are fresh,” he said in a grunting voice. “He passed through here no more than an hour ago wearing a black hat, eating a banana and whistling ‘Sweet Rosie from Pike.’ ”

  He made her laugh. “All the bears I know whistle show tunes.”

  “You made a joke, Liv.” He ducked his head and gave her a loud kiss. “Congratulations.”

  She scowled at him and rose. “No kissing on the trail.”

  “I didn’t read that in my camper’s guide.” He got to his feet and started after her. “How about eating? Is there eating on the trail?”

  She’d anticipated his stomach. Digging into her pocket, she pulled out a bag of trail mix, passed it to him.

  “Yum-yum, bark and twigs, my favorite.” But he opened the bag and offered her a share.

  He would have taken her hand again, but the trail narrowed and she bumped him back. Still, he thought she’d smiled more in the last ten minutes than she usually did in a full day. Some time alone together in the world she loved best was working for both of them.

  “You have a great butt, Liv.”

  This time she didn’t bother to hold on to the vine maple and smiled again when she heard the slap and his muffled curse. Olivia took a swig from her canteen as they climbed. The light sweat she’d worked up felt good; it felt healthy. Her muscles were limber, her mind clear. And, she admitted, she was enjoying the company.

  She’d chosen this trail, one that skirted up the canyon, because other hikers rarely chose to negotiate it. Long switchbacks leading to steep terrain discouraged many. But she considered it one of the most beautiful and appreciated the solitude.

  They moved through the lush forest, thick with green, climbing up and down ridges, along a bluff that afforded views of the river that ran silver and smooth. Wildlife was plentiful here where the majestic elk wandered and raccoon waddled to wash.

  “I have dreams about this.” Noah spoke half to himself as he stopped, just to look.

  “About hiking?”

  “No, about being here.” He tried to catch hold of them, the fragments and slippery pieces of subconscious. “Green and thick, with the sound of water running by. And . . . I’m looking for you.” His gaze snapped to hers, held with that sudden intensity that always rocked her. “Olivia. I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

  When he stepped forward, she felt her heart flutter wildly. “We have a long way to go.”

  “I don’t think so.” Gently, he laid his hands on her shoulders, slid them down to cuff her wrists. “Come here a minute.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Want kissing on the trail,” he finished. “Too bad.” He dipped his head, brushed his lips over hers once. Then again. “You’re shaking.”

  “I am not.” Her bones had gone too soft to tremble.

  “Maybe it’s me. Either way, it looks like this time I finally found you.”

  She was afraid he was right.

  She drew away and, too unsteady to speak, continued up the trail.

  The first wet crossing was over a wide stream where the water ran clear and fast. A log bridge spanned it, and dotting the banks were clumps of wild foxglove with deep pink bells and a scatter of columbine with its bicolored trumpets. The scenery took a dramatic turn, from the deep, dank green of the river basin to the stunning old-growth forest where light speared down in shafts and pools.

  And the ancient trees grew straight as soldiers, tall as giants, their tops whispering sealike in the wind that couldn’t reach the forest floor.

  Through their branches he could see the dark wings of an eagle picked out against the vivid blue of the summer sky.

  Here among the ferns and mosses were bits and splashes of white, the frilly tips of fringecups, the bloodred veins of wood sorrel against its snowy petals, the tiny cups of tiarella.

  Fairy flowers, Noah thought, hiding in the shade or dancing near the fitful stream.

  Saying nothing, he dragged off his pack.

  “I take that to mean you want a break.”

  “I just want to be here for a while. It’s a great spot.”

  “Then you don’t want a sandwich.”

  His brows went up. “Who says?”

  Even as she reached up to release her pack, he was behind her, lifting it off. She figured it wa
s fifty percent courtesy, fifty percent greed for the food she had packed inside. Since she could appreciate both, she unzipped the compartment that held sandwiches and vegetable sticks.

  He was right about the spot. It was a great one in which to sit and relax, to let the body rest and recharge. Water in the thin stream chugged over rocks and sparkled in the narrow beams of sunlight filtering through the canopy. The scent of pine sharpened the air. Ferns fanned over the bank, lushly green. A duet of wood thrush darted by with barely a sound, and deeper in the woods came the cackling call of a raven.

  “How often do you get out here?” Noah asked her when only crumbs remained.

  “I take groups out four or five times a year anyway.”

  “I didn’t mean a working deal. How often do you get out here like this, to sit and do nothing for a while?”

  “Not in a while.” She breathed deep, leaning back on her elbows and closing her eyes. “Not in too long a while.”

  She looked relaxed, he noted. As if at last her thoughts were quiet. He had only to shift to lay his hand over hers, to lay his lips over hers.

  Gently, so sweetly her heart sighed even as she opened her eyes to study him. “You’re starting to worry me a little, Noah. Tell me, what are you after?”

  “I think I’ve been pretty up-front about that. And I wonder why it surprises both of us that through all this, maybe right from the beginning of all this, I’ve had feelings for you. I want some time to figure out what those feelings are. Most of all, Liv, right now, I want you.”

  “How healthy is it, Noah, that this connection you believe in has its roots in murder? Don’t you ever ask yourself that?”

  “No. But I guess you do.”

  “I didn’t before six years ago. But yes, I do now. It’s an intricate part of my life and who I am. An intimate part of it. Monster and victim, they’re both inside of me.” She drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them. It disturbed her to realize she’d never spoken like that to anyone before, not even family. “You need to think about that before any of this goes . . . anywhere.”

  “Liv.” He waited until she turned her head toward him, then his hands caught her face firmly, his mouth crushed down hard and hot and heady on hers. “You need to think about that,” he told her. “Because this is already going everywhere, and for me at least, it’s going there pretty damn fast.”

  More disturbed than she wanted to admit, she got to her feet. “Sex is easy, it’s just a basic human function.”

  He kept his eyes on hers as he rose, the deep green diving in and absorbing her. “I’m going to enjoy, really enjoy proving you wrong.” Then in an abrupt change of mood she couldn’t keep up with, he hauled up his pack, and shot her a blatantly arrogant grin. “When I’m inside you, Olivia, the one thing I promise you won’t feel is easy.”

  She decided it was wiser not to discuss it. He couldn’t understand her, the limitations of her emotions, the boundaries she’d had to erect for self-preservation. And he, she admitted as they headed up the trail again, was the first man who had made her feel even a twinge of regret for the necessity.

  She liked being with him. That alone was worrying. He made her forget he’d once broken her heart, made her forget she didn’t want to risk it again. Other men she’d dealt with had bored or irritated her within weeks. Olivia had never considered that a problem, but more a benefit. If she didn’t care enough to get involved, there was no danger of losing her way, losing her head or her heart.

  And ending up a victim.

  The sunlight grew stronger as they climbed, the light richer. White beams of it shot down in streams and bands and teased the first real spots of color out of the ground.

  There were the deep scarlet bells of wild penstemon, the crisp yellow of paintbrush. New vistas flashed as they hiked along a ridge with the long, long vees of valleys below, the sharp rise of forested hills rising around them.

  At the next wet crossing, the river was fast and rocky with a thundering waterfall tumbling down the face of the cliff.

  “There. Over there.” Olivia gestured, then dug for her binoculars. “He’s fishing.”

  “Who?” Noah narrowed his eyes and followed the direction of her hand. He saw a dark shape hunched on an island of rock in the churning river. “Is that—Christ! It’s a bear.” He snatched the binoculars Olivia offered and stared through them.

  The bear slammed into his field of vision, nearly made him jolt. He leaned forward on the rustic bridge and studied the bear as the bear studied the water. In a lightning move, one huge black paw swept into the stream, spewing up drops. And came out again locked around a wriggling fish that flashed silver in the sun.

  “Got one! Man, did you see that? Snagged it out of the water, first try.”

  She hadn’t seen. She’d been watching Noah—the surprise and excitement on his face, the utter fascination in it.

  Noah shook his head as the bear devoured his snack. “Great fishing skills, lousy table manners.” He lowered the binoculars, started to hand them back and caught Olivia staring at him.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No.” Maybe everything, she thought, is either very wrong or very right. “Nothing. We’d better go if we want to make camp before we lose the light.”

  “Got a specific place in mind?”

  “Yes. You’ll like it. We’ll follow the river now. About another hour.”

  “Another hour.” He shifted his pack on his shoulders. “Are we heading to Canada?”

  “You wanted backcountry,” she reminded him. “You get backcountry.”

  She was right about one thing, Noah decided when they reached the site. He liked it. They were tucked among the giant trees with the river spilling over tumbled rocks. The light was gilded, the wind a whisk of air that smelled of pine and water.

  “I’m going upstream to catch dinner.” As she spoke she took a retractable rod out of her pack.

  “Very cool.”

  “If I get lucky, we eat like bears tonight. If I don’t, we have some dehydrated food packs.”

  “Get lucky, Liv.”

  “Can you set up the tent while I’m fishing?”

  “Sure, you go hunt up food, I’ll make the nest. I have no problem with role reversal whatsoever.”

  “Ha. If you want to wander, just stay in sight of the river, check your compass. If you get lost—”

  “I won’t. I’m not a moron.”

  “If you get lost,” she repeated. “Sit down and wait for me to find you.” He looked so insulted, she patted his cheek. “You’ve done just fine so far, city boy.”

  He watched her go and promised himself he would do a whole lot better.

  twenty-six

  The tent didn’t come with instructions, which Noah thought was a definite flaw in the system. By his calculation, setting up camp took him about triple the amount of time and energy it would have taken Olivia. But he decided he’d keep that little bit of information to himself.

  She’d been gone more than an hour by the time he was reasonably sure the tent would stay in an upright position. Assuming she wasn’t having the same luck the bear had had with fishing, he explored their other menu choices. Dry packs of fruit, dehydrated soup and powdered eggs assured him that while they might not eat like kings, they wouldn’t starve.

  With nothing left on his chore list and no desire to explore after a full day of hiking, he settled down to write in longhand.

  It was Olivia he concentrated on, what she had done with her life, the goals she’d focused on, what, in his mind, she’d accomplished and the ways he calculated she’d limited herself. The roots of her childhood had caused her to grow in certain directions, even while stunting her in others.

  Would she have been more open, more sociably inclined if her mother had lived? Would she have been less driven to stand on her own if she’d grown up the pampered, indulged child of a Hollywood