Chapter Six
Amy
Even through all the pain shooting up my leg. I could still feel my stomach flutter when Luke put his arms around me.
A feeling of safety and security filled me. Along with quick fleeting thoughts of other things. Things I shouldn’t be thinking about Jenny’s brother. She’d hate me for the rest of my life if she knew about them.
But hey, a girl could wonder, dream. I mean, after all. This was bad boy extraordinaire Luke Prescot. Tall, handsome, and heroic if you asked me. With his strong arms wrapped around me. What girl in her right mind wouldn’t be having thoughts she shouldn’t?
Sighing, I let my head rest against his chest.
The fire crackled, sending sparks up into the night sky. Orange cinders rising to join the stars above us.
Who would ever have thought my first time camping in my life and it is with Luke Prescott? I could see why people enjoyed it. This sense of primal simplicity. Of course, I would have preferred an air mattress, a canteen full of mountain dew, and a medical clinic around the next bend in the trail.
But otherwise, it was sort of special.
A vet? I never would have thought of that in a thousand years. But now that he had said it. It sort of made sense. In fact, it was hard to imagine him doing anything else.
Suddenly, a distant crack of a branch made my insides tighten into a ball. Nellie lifted her head and tested the wind. Maybe camping wasn’t so special after all, I thought as I held my breath. Had the mountain lion returned? A bear? Or, some backwoods mountain man on the run from the police?
“It’s okay, girl,” Luke said to his dog as he reached out and patted her head. That was Luke, I thought. Deep down, he was calm, assured. Nothing ever seemed to bother him. What must it be like to go through life like that? Knowing who you were.
“It’s just the wind,” he told me, obviously reading my nervousness. Again, that was Luke, super attuned to those around him. He liked to pretend he was above it all. But I was starting to see the real Luke.
“Did you do a lot of camping growing up?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he said. “All the time. At least before my dad died.”
I cringed internally. Sometimes I can be such an idiot. Jenny had told me about how Luke had been trapped, unable to reach his father. How her father had hung on for almost ten minutes, slowly dying, all the while, Luke was going crazy trying to get free so he could get to him.
That car wreck had changed his life so much.
“He and I used to go fishing up at Stafford lake,” he said. I turned to see him. I needed to see his eyes when he talked about this.
He was looking off into the distance as if remembering good times.
“Jenny would tag along sometimes, but usually she and mom would go do girl things.”
I nodded, Jenny had told me all about it. Luke and his dad had been returning from a camping trip when someone had run them off the road. The truck had tumbled and flipped repeatedly. Twisting itself into a metal pretzel.
It was amazing that Luke had survived.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He smiled softly and turned me back around and pulled me to his chest.
“It was long ago.”
I bit my lip to keep me from saying anything that might make it worse.
Luke took a deep breath. “I was so mad. So angry. Even now. Sometimes I feel it return. That helpless anger.”
My heart broke for him. “Is that why you kept getting in trouble?”
I could feel him nod behind me. “Yeah. Typical, I know. A cliché. Broken boy takes it out on others.”
“It is understandable,” I said. Even now after six years, I could hear the pain in his voice.
He grimaced and shook his head. “No, it isn’t. I didn’t think about what Mom and Jenny were going through. It was self-centered and childish. But I couldn’t stop it. Even when I knew I was making a mistake.”
All I could do was nod, silently urging him to go on. For some reason, I think he needed to talk about this. I wondered if he had ever talked about it to anyone.
Shrugging his shoulders, he tried to dismiss it as no big deal. Of course, it was obviously the biggest thing in his life.
“So, the big question,” I said with a teasing smile, “what was jail like?”
He laughed. “Not as bad as you might think. Yet the worst nightmare imaginable.”
I frowned, trying to work out what he meant.
“It was scary at first. Once they learned to leave me alone, they did. It takes a while, but eventually, you fit yourself into the pecking order, things were okay.”
My heart lurched, it was impossible to imagine what that had been like.
“No,” he continued, “the worse was the lack of control. Every moment of your life regimented down to the smallest degree. If it wasn’t the guards. It was the … clicks, shall we call them. You think high school is bad for groups. You put a hundred guys, none of them known for being smart, behind bars and it becomes tense real fast.
“That and the constant reminder of how I had screwed up. It never went away.”
I fought to hold back a tear, imagining that hell made me go cold inside.
“But the worse,” Luke said, “was the time. The slow drag of time. Knowing that life was passing me by. That was a soul killer.”
Taking a deep breath, I turned and said, “It is behind you. You survived and came out the other side. Never forget that,” I told him, trying desperately to help him find some good.
His eyes locked onto mine, the two of us stared into each other’s soul for an eternity. He leaned forward and my heart jumped as I got ready for him to kiss me.
It was there, it was obvious. The way he stared at my lips. The look of hunger. The way his head dipped as he leaned into me.
I started to close my eyes when I saw a look of fear pass behind his eyes. Suddenly, he pulled back and stared off into the night.
Nellie was up, her eyes focused out into the dark. Something had crashed through the brush.
“Stay here,” he said as he got up from behind me. A sudden coldness filled me. A combination of the loss of his arms and a fear of what was out there.
“It’s not exactly like I could go anywhere if I wanted to,” I told him as a sense of uselessness flowed through me.
“Stay Nellie,” he said as he pointed to my side.
Nellie whined in the back of her throat but came back to stand next to me. I reached out and pulled her into a hug. I didn’t want her charging off into the darkness.
“What is it?” I asked, unable to believe my luck. Luke had been about to kiss me. But something had interrupted him. I had a broken leg after all. You would think karma would be on my side.
“I don’t know,” he said as he reached down and removed a flaming branch from the fire. He held it up high. Using it like a torch.
Wow, I thought, it didn’t throw very much light. The darkness still surrounded us. Luke took a deep breath and started walking upstream.
“Where are you going?” I hissed.
“I’m going to see what it was.”
My eyes rolled up into my head. Surely he couldn’t be that dumb. “No, you’re not. You’re going to stay here with the fire, Nellie, and me. Don’t be an idiot.”
He turned to smile at me, then turned back and stepped out into the darkness. All I could see was the flickering brand he held up high.
“Luke,” I called after him, unable to believe he had totally ignored me.
The sense of aloneness was overwhelming. My heart began to race and my fists tightened on Nellie’s caller.
“Please come back,” I whispered to myself.
A splash and then the snap of a twig drew my attention like a laser beam. Every sense was on full alert as I stared after Luke.
For the next five minutes, my heart raced and my mind whirled with a thousand bad scenarios. But, just as I thought it couldn’t go on, Luke stepped back into the firelight and tossed his burning stick onto the fire.
“Deer,” he said with a smile.
Why was he calling me dear, I wondered as a warm feeling filled me? Then I realized he was talking about the animal type deer. Not a term of endearment just for me. That warm feeling was quickly replaced by an embarrassed disappointment.
“How do you know?” I asked.
He smiled again as he built up the fire. “I found their tracks where they come down to drink at night.”
I sighed, Luke was safe. We were both safe. At least for now.
“Still,” I said, “you shouldn’t have gone off like that. What if something happened to you?”
He shrugged. “At least we know what it was.”
I wanted to slug him in the shoulder. Didn’t he get it? Didn’t he realize how important he was to so many people? Instead, I folded my arms and gave him my best glare.
He laughed and shook his head as he moved to sit behind me again.
And just like that. All my anger disappeared. Luke Prescott was holding me in his arms and all felt right with the world.
“Where were we?” I asked with the best sultry smile I could come up with.
He looked down at me for a long moment then broke my heart by saying, “We were going to talk about Jenny.”
My stomach felt as if it had been crushed. I could see it in his eyes. He had purposely chosen that subject to remind me of what was important. My best friend.
I sighed and nodded. He was right. Best friend rule number one. Nothing is allowed to happen between brother and said best friend.
Leaning back, I rested on him. This would have to be it. As far as things could ever go. His arms around me, holding me in the dark, both of us staring into a fire.
.o0o.
The chatter of an angry crow woke me just in time to see the sun poke itself above the mountains. We had made it through the night.
A warm feeling of wonderfulness washed over me as I sank into Luke’s arms and savored the moment. I wished I could wake up like this every morning.
The fire had died down with only a few flames licking along the edge of a log. Thick gray smoke rose up like a pillar reaching for the sky.
I had no sooner relaxed when a shaft of sharp pain traveled up my leg from my injured ankle, reminding me of just how much life could suck at times. Here I was, in a soothing, peaceful embrace and I couldn’t even enjoy it.
Gritting my teeth, I wiggled to try and get my leg in a better position.
“Morning,” Luke said from behind me, shocking me a little. I hadn’t known he was awake.
“Good morning,” I said through a clenched jaw. My leg was on fire. My butt hurt from sitting on the ground all night. And I desperately needed to go to the bathroom.
“How you doing?” he asked.
All I could do was grunt and shrug my shoulders.
Luke wiggled out from behind me then kneeled down to examine my foot. The kaleidoscope of blue and purple made my stomach turn over. My foot had swollen so much that it was distorted around the splint sticks. God, it looked ugly.
His brow narrowed as he examined it. He gently touched my toes then looked up and silently asked if I could feel his touch.
I nodded, unable to really speak it hurt so much.
He sighed heavily. “At least you still have circulation. I was worried about that.” He stood and stepped back, slowly turning to scan the area.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. My cheeks felt as if they had caught fire, but really, what else could I do?
He nodded, then before I could stop him, he bent down and picked me up like I was a feather pillow. His strong arms held me next to his chest as he started walking downstream.
“You can use the bluff and this log for support,” he said as he gently lowered me, allowing me to stand on one foot. “Do you need any help?”
“No,” I snapped. “Just go away. Far away.”
He laughed and turned, calling Nellie to go with him.
Once he was gone, I twisted and contorted myself, all the while cursing the universe for putting me in this position. How embarrassing, and so frustrating.
Finally, when I was done and buttoned up, I was able to take a deep breath and relax.
“Luke,” I called as I tried to hop back towards our campsite.
“Hold on,” he said as he stepped around the bend and through the tall grass. Without a word, he once again picked me up.
Really, a girl could get used to this I thought as my arm instinctively draped itself around his shoulder. The fire had been covered with sand and two long pieces of wood that had probably been saplings only a minute before were laid out on the ground.
“I need your jacket,” he said as he set me down then retrieved his own jacket from the ground.
I frowned as I removed my windbreaker and handed it to him without a word.
Within minutes, he had threaded the two poles through his jacket and up through the arms. He did the same to mine but in reverse. He then pulled the cord from the windbreaker’s hood and used it to tie the material to the wood so it wouldn’t slip. He’d created a stretcher out of nothing.
“A travois’,” he said, “I can drag you out. It’s too far to carry you.”
I nodded as I inspected his contraption. How did he know all this stuff? Splinting my leg, the fire last night, tracking me down. Now this travois’ thing. Once again, I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that it had been Luke who found me.
Once he had me positioned on his invention, he frowned at me and said, “You let me know if that leg hurts too much. It’s going to be bumpy. We can stop and rest if you need to.”
A knot of fear settled inside of me as I bit down on my inner lip. No way was I going to let him see me cry. Instead, I nodded at him. Hoping he would believe me that everything was okay.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the thing worked. In fact, it worked great. I lay on the jackets, my hands gripping the poles on either side of me, my foot perched on the pole and Luke pulled.
He worked his way upstream until he could easily get up on the trail and then started for home. Nellie followed behind, weaving back and forth, keeping one eye on me and one on the forest around us.
A feeling of hope started to build inside of me. Luke would get me home. Really, there was no doubt in my mind. But there was something else. A new awareness of something wonderful on the horizon. I don’t know why, but the world just felt better somehow. Even with a leg yelling to be cut off.
I took a deep breath and tried to relax. The less I moved, the easier it was for Luke.
“How you doing?” I asked him.
He grunted. “Fine, I can do this all day. We should be home in an hour or so.”
An hour? This would all be over in an hour. For some reason, the thought didn’t sit well.
Sighing, I closed my eyes as I thought back to what it felt like to sit in Luke’s arms next to a bubbling stream and a warm fire. The smell of pine smoke and the wind rustling the trees. The stars above and those strong arms around me.
Yes, my world had changed, I realized. It was a night I would remember for the rest of my life. Of that, there was no doubt in my mind.