скачать книгу бесплатно
And then that tail twitched.
“Munch?” He practically fell the rest of the way.
Landing hard on his knees, he shoved the brush aside.
The poor guy was just lying there, as though he’d stretched out on his side for a nap.
“Munch?”
There was a weak little whine. And then, woozily, Munch lifted his head.
“Munch. Munch...” For some reason, Garrett couldn’t stop saying the mutt’s name. He bent close. No blood that he could see.
The dog whined again.
“How you doing, boy? Where does it hurt?” Garrett ran seeking fingers over head, neck, back, belly and down the long bones of each leg. He checked the paws, too.
Nothing.
About then, Munch gave his head a sharp shake.
“You okay, buddy?” The dog wriggled his way upright and started wagging his tail.
Relief poured through Garrett, bringing another wave of weakness. He plunked back on his butt in the brush and grabbed the dog in a hug. “Guess you’re all right, after all, huh?”
For that, he got sloppy doggy kisses all over his face.
Laughing, Garrett caught Munch’s furry mug between his hands. The dog whined sharply. Garrett felt it then, a bump behind the right ear. Carefully, he stroked the sore spot. “You think you can make it back up to the Wrangler?”
The dog let out a sound that just might have been Yes!
Garrett rocked to his feet and straightened with care. His legs still felt shaky, but they were taking his weight. “Well, let’s go, then. Heel.”
Munch obeyed, falling into step at his left side. Eager to reassure Cami that the dog was okay, Garrett climbed fast, pausing only once to grab her purse as they passed it.
A moment later, he caught sight of her waiting on the rock where he’d left her, wearing the hoodie, looking like a lost Little Red Riding Hood, tears shining on her soft cheeks. She spotted him. Batting tears away, she sat up straighter. And then she saw Munch. With a gasp, she shot to her feet. “He’s okay?”
Garrett gave her a nod. “Go ahead. Show him the love.”
“Munchy!” she cried. The mutt raced to greet her and she dipped low to meet him.
Garrett waited, giving her all the time she wanted to pet and praise his dog. When she finally looked at him again, he explained, “The bear must have whacked him a good one. When I found him, he was knocked out, but I think he’s fine now.”
She submitted to more doggy kisses. “Oh, you sweet boy. I’m so glad you’re all right...”
When she finally stood up again, he handed over the diamond ring and that giant purse.
“Thank you, Garrett,” she said very softly, slipping the ring into the pocket of the jeans she’d borrowed from him. “I seem to be saying that a lot lately, but I really do mean it every time.”
“Did you want those high-heeled shoes with the red soles? I can go back and get them...” When she just shook her head, he asked, “You sure?” He eyed her bare feet. “Looks like you might need them.”
“I still have your flip-flops. They’re up by the Jeep. I kicked them off when I ran after Munch.” For a long, sweet moment, they just grinned at each other. Then she said kind of breathlessly, “It all could have gone so terribly wrong.”
“But it didn’t.”
She caught her lower lip between her pretty white teeth. “I was so scared.”
“Hey.” He brushed a hand along her arm, just to reassure her. “You’re okay. And Munch is fine.”
She drew in a shaky breath and then, well, somehow it just happened. She dropped the purse. When she reached out, so did he.
He pulled her into his arms and breathed in the scent of her skin, so fresh and sweet with a hint of his own soap and shampoo. He heard the wind through the trees, a bird calling far off—and Munch at their feet, happily panting.
It was a fine moment and he savored the hell out of it.
“Garrett,” she whispered, like his name was her secret. And she tucked her blond head under his chin. She felt so good, so soft in all the right places. He wrapped her tighter in his arms and almost wished he would never have to let her go.
Which was crazy. He’d just met her last night, hardly knew her at all. And yesterday she’d almost married some other guy. She could seem tough and unflappable, but she’d had way too much stress and excitement recently. The last thing she needed was him getting too friendly with her.
Gently and way too reluctantly, he set her away from him. Biting that plump lower lip again, she gazed up at him, her expression both hopeful and a little bit dazed.
“Now, listen.” He ached to stroke a hand down her pale hair, to cradle her soft cheek in his palm, but he didn’t. “What do you say I take you back down the mountain? We’ll be in Justice Creek in less than an hour and you can—”
“Stop.” In an instant, that dazed, dewy look vanished. Her soft mouth pinched tight. Without another word, she grabbed her purse and headed for the Jeep, Munch at her heels.
Garrett followed at a distance as she climbed up to the road. He gave her time to stick her feet in his flip-flops and usher the dog in on the passenger’s side. When she jumped up to the seat and slammed the door, he circled around the front of the vehicle.
As soon as he got in behind the wheel and pulled the door shut, she commanded, “Take me back to the cabin or I’ll say goodbye right here.”
He let the silence stretch out before coaxing, “Come on. Don’t be that way.”
Her tight mouth softened a little. “I’m sorry. I’m just not ready yet to deal with all the crap that’s waiting for me back in the real world.”
“I meant what I told you,” he warned. “I’m going home Wednesday.”
She turned her gaze from him and stared blankly out the windshield. “I understand.”
“Cami, when I go, I’m not just leaving you alone in that cabin. You don’t even have decent shoes to wear.”
“I know.” She looked so sad.
And he had that need again, to touch her in a soothing way—to clasp her hand or pat her shoulder. Or better yet, to pull her into his arms where she felt so good and fit just right. But he kept his hands to himself.
He spoke firmly. “If I take you back to the cabin now, you have to agree that you’ll be ready to go down the mountain with me on Wednesday.”
“I’ll be ready.” She met his eyes then. “I’ll go when you go. I just need a few more days on this mountain of yours where no one can find me.”
He eyed the faded, baggy T-shirt he’d given her to wear, the jeans she had to hold up with a battered old belt and the too-big flip-flops that had to be a real pain to walk in. “How ’bout this? We drive down to town and get you some clothes that fit you, then come right back up to the cabin?”
Her lush mouth got pinchy. “Nice try. I’m not going down there till Wednesday. I’m just not. I want this time away from everything, Garrett. And I’m going to have it.”
“We can use my credit card if you’re worried they’ll—”
“No.”
“Well, then, I could take you back to the cabin and then go down myself and get you some better clothes.”
“Better clothes can wait till Wednesday.” Her pinched look had softened. “Please. Will you just let it go?”
He figured it was about the best deal he was going to get from her. “Fair enough,” he said gruffly. And he had to hand it to her. She’d picked the right place to disappear. No one was likely to come looking for her up here.
She was smiling again, her good eye a little misty. “You are the best.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it. You are.”
“So how come I have so much trouble telling you no?”
“Don’t be a grump about it.” She slapped at him playfully. “I happen to love that you can’t tell me no. My parents and Charles never had a problem with no when it came to me. It was always ‘Camilla, no’ and ‘Camilla, don’t’ and ‘Camilla, behave yourself and do what I say.’ I’ve spent my whole life doing what other people think I should do, interspersed with the occasional attempt to escape their soul-crushing expectations.”
Again, he had to quell the urge to reach for her. She was the cutest thing, with her black eye and her scrappy attitude. “Well, you’re running your own life now.”
“Oh, yes, I definitely am.”
“And we have an agreement. We’re at the cabin till Wednesday and then you’ll let me drive you home.”
“Got it.” She stuck out her hand and they shook on it.
* * *
At the cabin, he had firewood to split.
She volunteered to help so he got the maul ax, his goggles and two pair of gloves and led her out to the chopping block behind the cabin. “I’ve never chopped wood,” she said cheerfully.
He put on his goggles. “And you’re not starting now. Not in flip-flops.” A slip of the maul and she could lose a toe. “You can stack the split logs, if you want to.” He pulled on his work gloves and handed her the extra pair. “But take it slow and be careful.”
“I will.”
For a couple of hours, he worked up a sweat with the ax. He tossed the split logs away from the chopping block. She gathered them up and stacked them against the back wall of the cabin. Then when lunchtime approached, she went inside to make sandwiches. He washed up at the faucet behind the cabin and joined her on the front steps where she had the food waiting.
They ate without sharing a word, but the silence was neither tense nor awkward. Just easy. Relaxed. After lunch, he went back to splitting wood.
When he came to check on her later, she was sitting in one of the camp chairs drawing pictures in her notebook.
He peeked over her shoulder at a pencil sketch of Munch snoozing at her feet. “You’re good at that.”
“I wanted to go to art school,” she said as she shaded in Munch’s markings, the beautiful spots and patches of his blue merle coat. “I always dreamed of studying at CalArts. But my father prevailed. I went to Northwestern for a business degree and took a few art classes on the side. Then, the summer I graduated from college, I knew I had to do something to make a life on my own terms.”
“But your dad wasn’t going for it?”
“No, he was not. I tried to make him understand that I didn’t want to work at WellWay, that I needed a career I’d created for myself. He just wouldn’t listen.”
“What about your mother? She wouldn’t step up and support you?”
“My mother never goes against my dad.” She shaded in Munch’s feathery tail, her pencil strokes both light and sure. “And she basically agrees with him, anyway.”
“So you went to work at WellWay, then?”
“No. I tried to get away again.”
“Again?”
“There were several times I ran before that. The time I ran after college, I packed up my car and headed for Southern California—and was rear-ended by a drunk driver on I-70 in the middle of the night.”
Garrett swore low, with feeling.
“Yeah. It was bad. I almost died.”
“That coma you mentioned last night...?”
She nodded but didn’t look up from her drawing of Munch. “I was unconscious when they pulled me from the wreck and I stayed that way for two weeks. You probably wondered about that scar on my leg? Another souvenir of that particular escape attempt.”
“But you made it through all right.”
“Thanks to the best medical team money could buy and a boatload of physical therapy, yes, I did.”
He had that yearning again to touch her. To pull her up into his arms and comfort her, though she didn’t seem the least upset.
He was, though. Just hearing about how bad she’d been hurt made something inside him twist with anger—at her father, who wouldn’t let her live her own life. And at her mother, too, for not supporting Cami’s right to be whatever she wanted to be.
“When I was well enough to go home, I moved back in with my parents.” She kept her head tipped down, her focus on the notebook in her lap. “My father insisted. And I was too weak to put up a fight. There was more physical therapy—and the other kind, too, for my supposed mental and emotional issues. And when I’d completely recovered from the accident and finished all the therapy, I moved to my own place at last—and started my brilliant career at WellWay.”
He clasped her shoulder and gave it a squeeze, because he couldn’t stop himself.
She didn’t lift her head from her focus on the sketch, but she did readjust the sketch pad on her knees enough to give his hand a pat. “It’s okay, Garrett. I’m all better now.”
Feeling only a little foolish, he let go.
She sighed. “Mostly, I like to create my own comic strips.” She flipped the sketchbook back a page to a cartoonlike sequence of sketches where a cute little bunny with a ribbon in her hair used a stick to fight off a bear with the help of a patch-eyed Aussie dog. A boy bunny in jeans and a T-shirt similar to Garrett’s ran toward the girl bunny wearing a freaked-out expression on his face.
“I’m guessing that’s me?”
She slanted him a teasing glance. “Okay. I took a little artistic license. You didn’t look that scared.”
“Maybe I didn’t look it, but that scared is exactly how I felt.”
A giggle escaped her. “Yeah. Well, it’s not like you were the only one.” She flipped the page back and continued working on the drawing of Munch. “I have a whole series on the bunny family. Unlike my real family, the bunny family works on their issues. They respect each other and try to give each other support and enough space that every bunny gets what she wants of life.”
