They helped each other clean off, using one of Mia’s spare panties, then curled up in each other’s arms and drifted in and out of sleep. Aiden didn’t mind being a human blanket for Mia. Her soft curves warmed him to the core. The chill from running around the wilderness in shorts and t-shirt finally melted away.

“You know,” he murmured at one point. “This day didn’t turn out half bad considering it started with me getting kidnapped.”

“Mmmm. So glad I could help.”

Later, she stirred and shifted so they were side by side on her jacket. “Crushing you,” she mumbled in explanation. He wanted to explain that it was okay, that he could sleep anywhere, but he was just too exhausted to manage the words.

After that, he fell into a deep sleep that didn’t end until the first light of dawn filtered into the cave. He opened his eyes to see Mia curled up against his chest, her face completely buried in his side. He carefully shifted his position, his muscles screaming from his night on the hard ground.

A crazy night. A confusing night. An unforgettable night. What the hell was going on here? It didn’t make any logical sense, really. Boy gets kidnapped. Girl rescues boy. Boy rescues girl. Boy and girl escape from a bear. Boy and girl spend a hot night in a cave. Then what?

Boy and girl say goodbye as if nothing much happened? Boy and girl go on with their lives?

If that was what Mia wanted, he’d do it, of course. But there was just one big problem with that.

Darren.

Based on everything Mia had said, and what Aiden had seen face to face with him, he didn’t trust the guy. Would Mia be safe from him when she went back to Fresno? Would he try to win her back? Intimidate her into coming back? Or do even worse?

He’d learned a few things in his Psych class that made him worry about Darren. How could he just let Mia go, knowing that Darren might be a threat to her? How could he rest easy?

When Mia finally lifted her head and blinked drowsy eyes at him, he was ready with his request. “Will you promise me something?”

“What?”

He brushed her hair away from her face. “After today, I mean. When you go back to Fresno and I go back to college.”

Her expression grew wary. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m going to give you my brother Will’s number. He’s a private investigator and former deputy sheriff and he knows a lot of good law enforcement people in California. Will you promise me that if Darren does or says anything that makes you nervous, you’ll call Will? He won’t charge you anything. You won’t have to file a police report or anything like that. He’ll be like an on-call…I don’t know. Security service.”

Her dark eyes went wide. “You think I need a security service? Because of Darren?”

“I don’t know. I hope not. But we did a unit on domestic abuse in my Psych class and one thing we learned is that if he hit you once, there’s no way to guarantee he wouldn’t again.”

“But I’m not going back to him. I won’t give him a chance to…” She swallowed, and he saw that it was hard for her to use the word. “Hit me. That’s over with.”

“What if he wants to be the one that says it’s over? Look, I’m just a college student, I don’t know much. But Dearborn, the one who kidnapped me? He was never even with my mom, and he stalked her. Just be careful, okay? And take my brother’s number just as a backup.”

She sat up and tried to run her fingers through her dark hair, but it was so tangled she didn’t get far. “What time is it?”

He sat up as well, then crawled to the opening to peer out. Slate-gray sky overhead, a soft mist floating just above the ground. Their makeshift campfire was nothing but a pile of cinders, the spilled soup a stain in the dirt. No sign of any predators, animal or human. “Almost sunrise, I’d guess.”

He breathed in the fresh dawn air, which tasted of evergreen mixed with ash, and eyed the ominous sky. He edged back into the cave, where Mia was already stuffing things into her backpack.

“We should go,” she said as soon as he reached her. “Last protein bar.” She tossed it to him, then fastened her pack. “Overall, I’d really rather not starve out here.”

“I hear that. Hand me that map.” He spread out the map and pored over it as they each nibbled on their half of the bar. Matching up the squiggles and lines with the terrain they’d covered took him a while, but finally he fixed on a likely path out of the woods.

He showed her on the map. “See that creek? I think we’re about half a mile from it, and it leads right to a trailhead. From there, we might be able to catch a ride to the highway. The best part is that Three Forks is this way and Dearborn’s cabin is over here.” He pointed to two spots on the map, then traced the line of the creek. “It’s mostly downhill.”

“How many miles? No, don’t tell me. Let’s just go. It’s not like we have a lot of choices here, right?”

“Not unless someone comes along to rescue us. But we don’t need that. We can rescue ourselves. That’s our thing. Let’s keep on keeping on.” He raised his hand for a high-five. She smiled and their palms touched.

He thought about her hand on his cock, stroking him to orgasm, and felt a rush of heat. Not now, idiot.

Shoving all hot memories of last night aside, he led the way out of the cave. He checked the map one more time to orient himself. Creek, check. Ridgeline, check.

As he matched up the landmarks to their current location, he noticed an overlook. It looked just like the last place he’d camped with Dad, when he was maybe seven or so. Dad had shown him how the closeness of the squiggly lines indicated the steepness of the slope.

Yes, it was the same spot!

He and his dad had fried canned Spam in an aluminum pan. He could still taste the charred fatty flavor of it, washed down by metallic water from his dad’s old Army canteen. His father had brought his flask along. The whisky made him talk more than usual, and he’d started telling stories.

God, he’d forgotten all about that trip until now. What stories had Dad told? Only one came back to him. The story of how Dad had met his future wife, Janine. She was only fifteen at the time.

“She was helping out on her dad’s boat, which meant she sat on the deck in her swimsuit and read books. She was a real bookworm, did you know that, son? I was going fishing with a buddy, last time before shipping out. I dove off his boat halfway out of the harbor and swam back to her. Asked if I could see her. Her dad chased me away, but she laughed and pointed at the little grocery store at the marina there. When we got back from fishing, I saw a note there for me. She wanted to meet the next day. So we did. We had an ice cream cone. I knew I wanted to be with her, but she was too young and I was just starting my military career. So I waited. Took a chance she might forget about me. But she didn’t.”

Aiden had listened wide-eyed to the story, trying to imagine his always-distracted mother as a teenager.

“Your mother…” Dad trailed off in thought, then took another swallow from his flask. “I love that woman. You’ll never know how much.”

“Are you okay?” Mia nudged him in the side, and he jumped.

“Yeah. I just realized that I camped once near here, with my father.” He hauled in a deep breath of the fresh morning air.

I love that woman. You’ll never know how much.

I do know, Dad. You sacrificed your life to protect her. That’s what Knights do. We protect.

“That’s a funny coincidence.”

“Yeah.” But maybe nothing was random, as Mia had said before.

She was in the midst of putting on her backpack.

“Why don’t you let me take the pack this time? You carried it all day yesterday.”

This time, she handed it over without protest. At least she trusted him now. He slid the straps over his shoulders and fastened the buckles. He gave one last look around at the little clearing where so much had happened between last night and now.

“What?” Mia looked around in alarm, probably assuming he’d seen the bear again.

“It’s weird that it took a kidnapping to get me out here again.” He grinned and set off in the direction of the creek bed.

She gave him an amused shake of her head as she followed. “That’s a very glass-half-full way of looking at things.”

“I’m definitely a glass-half-full guy. I wouldn’t have met you, either. So that’s two things to be thankful for.”

Her smile seemed halfhearted to him.

They hiked in silence for a while, soaking in the magical sounds of morning in the wilderness—warblers greeting the sunrise and tiny forest creatures searching for breakfast. The storm clouds were moving fast overhead, revealing patches of blue sky.

Why had it taken a kidnapping to get him into the woods again? He loved this wilderness, loved the towering pines and immense quiet. Truth was, maybe he hadn’t been ready to do something that would remind him of his father so much.

As they closed in on the trailhead, a glint of silver overhead caught his eye. A helicopter. Rescue chopper? Coast Guard maybe? Or perhaps there was a wildfire in the area?

Or maybe…

“Mia, can you grab the binoculars?”

“Sure.” He stopped so she could retrieve them from their pouch.

The next time the chopper passed overhead, he focused the binoculars on it and pumped his fist. “It’s my brothers! That’s their helicopter.”

Mia craned her neck to see. “Wow, it’s beautiful.”

“It’s a Robinson R44 Raven, practically new. It’s probably either Tobias or Ben up there. I should have known they’d come looking for me.” Love for his brothers swelled his heart. He might have grown up without a father or a mother, but his brothers had always been there for him.

He gave the glasses back to her. Her dark eyes shone with relief—and maybe something else—as she tucked them back into the pack. “We’re rescued.”

“Just in time for breakfast, too. Us Knight brothers have good timing when it comes to food.”

She laughed, but it seemed forced to him. “How does this work? I’ve never been rescued by a helicopter before.”

“We still have to get his attention. And he has to find a place to land. I say we stick to the plan and head for the trailhead. He might be able to land in the parking lot there.”

She nodded, her smile wobbling at the edges. “Let’s go, then.”

She edged past him, but he snagged her arm before she could get anywhere. “Wait.”

She yanked her arm away from him and launched herself down the trail. “We shouldn’t keep your brothers waiting. Come on.”

“Mia!” He hurried after her. “I had an idea. About us.”

Finally she stopped and turned to face him. Tears shimmered in her eyes. Holy shit, she was crying? “Are you okay?”

“Yes!” She glared at him fiercely, even though a tear spilled over and trickled down her cheek. “I’m fine, why?”

“Um…you’re crying.”

“No, I’m not. Okay, yes I am, because my mom is sick and my ex-boyfriend sucks, and the highlight of the last couple of years has been hiding out in that stupid cave with you. How pathetic is that?”

He reached for her, but she evaded his touch.

“It’s not pathetic at all. And it wasn’t a stupid cave. And I don’t want to leave you either. That’s why—”

She snorted through her tears. “This isn’t about you. This is about my crappy life. It has nothing to do with you.”

Okay. That hurt. He drew in a breath, reminding himself that she had a lot of worries on her plate. “Well, just in case any of this is about me, I came up with a plan.”

“What plan?”

“I remembered a story my dad told me about when he met my mom, and she was only fifteen. So he waited and tracked her down after he left the Army. What if we made a date for, like, five years from now? In five years, if we haven’t forgotten about each other, and we’re still single and we’re still thinking about all this…” He swept his hand between the two of them. He had no idea if he was making sense here. Her prickly attitude was throwing him off. “Then we’ll, uh…meet.”

“Meet where? When?” Her frown was loaded with skepticism.

He hesitated. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. She didn’t look especially impressed by it. “Jupiter Point? Five years from today? Or I can come to you if you tell me how to find you.”

Slowly, she shook her head, tugging her lower lip between her teeth. At least she wasn’t crying anymore. “I don’t know, Aiden. Maybe it’s better if we just walk away. Plans are completely pointless. Just look at every single thing I’ve experienced in my life. I didn’t plan for my mother to get sick. I didn’t plan to get involved with a jerk. And look at your life. You probably never planned for your dad to get killed. Or to get kidnapped. Plans are a waste of time.”

His stomach twisted. He could sense her slipping through his fingers, vanishing like the mist in the trees. “I never planned to meet you, either. But I did, and I don’t want to pretend I didn’t.”

“You don’t have to pretend that. I’ll never forget you either.”

He stared at her, at her closed expression, her air of distance. “We’ll always have the cave, is that what you’re saying?”

Finally, a smile broke through. “I guess so. We’ll always have that. And the bear.”

The drone of an engine caught their attention as the Robinson buzzed past them. Aiden waved and jumped up and down, but his heart wasn’t in it. Rescue was good, of course. Never seeing Mia again…

He swallowed hard. If that was how she wanted it, that was how it had to be. He wasn’t going to be an asshole like Darren, or worse, Dearborn. He had to respect her choice.

“Will you at least take Will’s number? That’s all I ask. Just so I don’t worry.”

She nodded and dug in her pocket for her cell phone. As soon as she turned it on, her glance flew to meet Aiden’s. “I have service. Want to call your brothers?”

She passed him the phone, her fingers brushing against his. With a sad smile, she withdrew her hand.

But even after he’d called Tobias, arranged a plan, met the helicopter at the agreed-upon landing spot and gotten airlifted out of the woods…even after Ben took Mia away in his truck, heading to the airport…still, hours, even days later, he still felt her touch on his fingertips.