* * *
The walls in Dani's apartment were closing in around her. It had only been two days since she'd gotten out of the hospital, but already she couldn't stand lying around and doing nothing. She sat at her small dining room table, her laptop open before her, several pages of notes strewn about.
But no matter how many times she tabbed through her data, no matter how many times she scrolled through her tables, she couldn't focus. With a frustrated moan, she pushed her chair back and stood up, putting her hands on her generous hips and wondering what to do now.
Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket, and she jumped, then made a frantic grab for it. Not for the first time she prayed it was his voice on the other end.
"Hello?" she said breathlessly, not having bothered to check the number before answering.
"Hello, this is an automated reminder of your doctor's appointment on Wednesday at noon," the robotic voice said, and Dani groaned. "Please press one to confirm your appointment." Dani stabbed the "one" button and disconnected the call.
Yet again, the one voice she wanted to hear more in the world was not the one calling. Shit.
Dani shuffled over to her couch and threw herself on it, grabbing the remote and turning on the television. It only took a couple of minutes for her to turn it off again. It seemed that daytime television consisted of nothing more than a series of advertisements for incontinence devices, help qualifying for social security, and motorized scooters.
She was too young to be watching television before 5 pm, apparently. She stared at the blank screen, willing herself to find something else to do before the grief overwhelmed her again.
Too late.
Tears filled her eyes as she thought about the last few days. Each morning she'd woken up with hope renewed, knowing that today would be the day that he came. And each night she nearly collapsed in her bed, defeated after he hadn't shown.
Not for the first time she wished she could just forget him entirely. Forget his deep voice, his tanned skin that always smelled vaguely of sunshine, his soft smile and eyes full of passion. Forget the way she felt in his arms. But as the teardrops slid down her pale cheeks she knew she would never forget him.
Caleb was not what she'd thought she'd wanted in a man. Hell, she'd never really considered what she had wanted in a man. Someone smart, she figured, successful. Someone who knew which wine was appropriate to drink with which cut of meat.
She had wanted someone as passionate about education as she was. Not someone who hid out in the forest. Not someone who chopped wood and tracked animals by their spoor. And yet it was just that kind of someone who had captured her heart.
And it was that kind of someone who was now breaking it.
Dani picked up her phone and stared at it. She considered for the millionth time whether to call him herself. She had his number; he'd programmed it into her phone himself.
If you call, I'll come, he'd said.
But she just couldn't bring herself to call him now. Dani wanted him to come to her. She was an independent woman, sure, but she didn't want to track him down.
No woman wanted to feel like she'd hounded a man into a relationship. Especially one who'd started their lovemaking with a warning that he wasn't the relationship type.
Besides, what if he was cruel to her? Or worse, what if he was kind? What if he tried to let her down gently by explaining his words in the cave were just a tactic to facilitate their escape? She didn't think her heart could take it.
As she stared at her phone, it rang, and Dani nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise. She fumbled for the phone but quickly recovered it, then answered. The familiar voice of her friend almost pushed away the disappointment at the realization that once again, it wasn't Caleb. Almost.
"Hey, you!" Janna's chipper voice almost assaulted her ears. Dani was suddenly thankful for her relationship with the bubbly redhead, was glad for the connection with another human being. It helped push the loneliness into the background, even if it didn't disappear entirely. "You got cabin fever yet?"
"God yes!" Dani replied with a laugh.
"That's what I thought. How about you meet me at that noodle place for lunch? My treat?"
"Sounds like a plan."
Dani hung up, trying on a smile but deciding it didn't fit. She grabbed her coat, climbed into her car, and soon pulled up in front of Janna's favorite noodle house.
"I can't believe how good these taste," Janna crooned as she slid the teriyaki-covered noodles into her mouth. "You'd think they're just plain old noodles, but they must put something addictive in their sauce. Sometimes I wake up at night in a cold sweat, dreaming about this damn sauce. They ought to bottle it; they'd make a mint."
"Uh huh," Dani said, poking at her plate.
Last night she'd woken in a cold sweat, but she hadn't been dreaming about noodles. She'd been dreaming about being devoured, about Caleb's hot mouth moving all over her body.
I'm going to lick every inch of you, Dream Caleb had said with a sultry smile. Hold still, or I'll have to start all over again.
She blushed furiously at the memory and kept her eyes down on her plate, her untouched food blurring before her eyes.
"Okay, what gives?" Janna asked. "I know my conversation isn't exactly riveting, but you've been sulking since we got here. What's going on?"
"Just tired, I guess." Dani didn't feel like getting into the gory details with her friend. As usual, she was afraid of opening up, of spilling her guts to someone. She was too used to going it alone.
"Yeah right," Janna replied, refusing to be put off. "I know you had some kind of an encounter out there in the woods with some pretty nasty guys. Is that it? Did they do something to you, besides give you a concussion?"
The concern in her voice was palpable, and Dani felt the tears fill her eyes again. She couldn't hold them back anymore and surprisingly at that moment she was happy to have someone to rest her burden on and at last opened up.
"No...yes, oh, that's not it, well, it's part of it, but not all of it."
Janna shook her head in confusion. "You're not exactly making sense here, Professor."
"It's a long story," Dani began with a sigh. "The ranger, Caleb, we sort of...became involved, and--"
Janna's gasp was so loud, the couple in the booth beside them craned their necks around in alarm. "Oh my God! You slept with him!"
"Shh! The whole town doesn't need to know it!" Dani shot her friend a furious glance, and Janna immediately apologized.
Dani composed herself before beginning her recitation of events. "Yes, we were...intimate. At first, I thought it was just a one-night thing, but it...well...happened again. He opened up to me, told me about his fucked-up past. And I thought everything was going well until he started freaking out. We didn't get a chance to talk about it, though, before we were held captive by some rogue miners. Things got pretty intense in that cave. Our captors intended to kill us, but Caleb fought his way free. I was knocked unconscious, and apparently, he put four men in the hospital, including one in a coma."
"Wow," Janna said with a breathy sigh. "Just like one of those action movies. You mess with his woman, he messes you up."
"It's scary, to think of him losing control like that. And then I woke up in the hospital, and he was nowhere to be found. He hasn't come to visit me; he hasn't called or texted. He's completely avoiding me." Dani felt the tears slip down her cheeks. "And it hurts like hell."
"Aww....I'm sorry!" Her friend reached across the booth to put her gentle hand on Dani's own. "What an asshole! What do you think happened?"
"I don't know," Dani replied with a sigh. "He kept saying he wasn't any good for me, that he was dangerous."
"Well, that's obvious. Four dudes in the hospital!"
"But he'd never hurt me!" Dani protested, and her heart agreed. "He did all of that to protect me, to keep me safe."
She couldn't bring herself to tell Janna that he'd said he loved her. That secret she would hold close to her breast like a baby bird, nurturing it, feeding it on hope. But right now it was looking pretty sickly and undernourished.
"Sounds like he has a screw loose somewhere. Just look at you! You're beautiful, smart, and successful. Any guy would be lucky to have you! Shit, Dean Fischer would give his left testicle for one night with you, and he's already been going around saying that he did have you."
"What?" Dani was livid.
"Yeah, he says you guys 'spent some time together' a few weeks back. Don't worry, nobody believes him."
"That son of a bitch! Just wait until I tell you what really happened!" Dani spent the next several minutes telling Janna about their little excursion to Newport and his love trap. By the end of the tale, Janna was just as indignant as Dani herself.
"What a little bastard! You should report him!"
"I know," Dani said but shook her head instead. "It just isn't worth it."
"Better yet, you should let lose your forest ranger on him. That would be appropriate."
Dani laughed at her friend's words. Too bad the ranger was no longer hers.