ELEVEN
There was a distance of at least a quarter-mile between my house and the other houses on the property. This distance was filled with tall grass, a large barn, and some woodland with a narrow stream running through it. Depending on how a person cut across, they could also find the berry fields, or the creamery. A narrow footpath connected these places to the house, and there was also a footpath that led more or less directly from the other houses on the property to my own. A little further south, there was a third footpath, if it could even be called that. Bordered by tall trees, it was basically just a faint groove in the dirt, with overgrown shrubbery blocking the way half the time. This particular path was only very rarely used, but on this particular evening, I decided to head down it, simply because of the way it meandered around, not really heading west in a straight line. This would allow me more time to walk, alone with my thoughts, before reaching the house. As much as I wanted to find out how my dad was going to deal with Kevin, I’d started to want to do some quiet thinking even more.
In the near-dark, I started down the path, strolling around a few fallen branches in my way, while a pearly, bright moon rose in the sky. Somewhere nearby, in the tall trees, an owl hooted. And for a minute or so, I just enjoyed the relative quiet and peace of the woodland.
However, stepping around some sort of an overgrown thorny bush to get back on the path, I snagged my dress on some thorns just good enough to make me do a funny little stutter-step in my wedge-heeled sandals. Simultaneously, an owl hooted loudly, and this sudden noise, combined with something suddenly tugging on my dress, made me feel for just a split-second that I was being attacked. Yelping, I twisted my whole body to the side, away from the source of the thorny “attack,” but because I’d taken a funny little step not a half-second before, this action made me lose my balance, teetering on my heels. Somehow, instinctively grabbing at the thorny bush to try to regain my balance, I went down, landing on the side of my hip, gasping.
Having landed on a surface that was fairly grassy, it wasn’t my hip that hurt, but my right hand, which was the one I’d grabbed the bush with. I’d probably been pricked a few times; however, that wasn’t my only problem. I was also experiencing pain in my left ankle, maybe having twisted it a bit when I’d gone down.
Before I could even try to stand on it or examine it in any way, someone shouted my name, startling me. Whipping my face up, I looked down the path the way I’d came, and I saw a moonlit figure running toward me.
“Are you okay, Chrissy?”
It was Jake. Shocked to see him, I found I couldn’t respond to his question, and he repeated it. Finally forcing myself to speak, I said I was okay.
He’d reached me by now, and he knelt beside me. “Are you hurt anywhere?”
With tears springing to my eyes for some bizarre reason, I tried to smile. “My pride is probably hurt more than anything. I don’t think I’ve ever so clumsily wiped out like that in my entire life.”
“Well, it is dark, and it looked like you caught your dress on that thorn bush, and it was probably hard for you to keep your balance in those sandals. It could have happened to anyone.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, other than your pride, are you hurt anywhere else?”
“Not badly. I think I just scratched up my palm a little…and I might have wrenched my ankle a bit.”
“Do you mind if I take a look at it? I can see better than you can in the dark.”
Knowing that because he was a vampire, that was very true, I told him to go ahead and take a look, lifting my possibly-injured ankle a few inches while I did so. “It just hurts a bit on the side.”
Gently propping my calf up on his forearm to bring my ankle a little closer to him, Jake had a look, soon saying that the side of my ankle was swelling a bit already. “You probably sprained it.”
I could barely process this information, nor did I really care. All I could focus on was how good Jake’s skin felt against mine, even if it was just the skin of his forearm against the skin of my calf. I wouldn’t have thought that that would be such a heavenly combination of skin touching skin, but it was, to the point that my heartbeat began accelerating. Realizing that I liked Jake very, very much, I thought how any part of his skin would probably feel good against any part of mine, even if it was just the skin of his elbow against the skin of my own elbow.
After having a quick look at my other ankle and making sure I hadn’t injured that one, too, he asked if he could give me “a lift” to the house. I asked him what he meant by “a lift,” and he said he’d just carry me in his arms.
“If you feel comfortable with that, anyway.”
With the skin on my calf still tingling where he’d touched me, I was pretty sure I would be more than okay with being carried home in his arms.
Mutely, I nodded. “That would be just fine.”
Demonstrating his superhuman strength, he picked me up and brought me to his chest in one smooth, swift motion, with the action not seeming to strain him in the least. “Wow. You’re light as a feather, Chrissy.”
That wasn’t even remotely true, but I smiled, glad that at least I wasn’t going to make him exert himself by carrying me home.
With his blue eyes silvery in the moonlight, he began walking up the path with me in his arms, deftly stepping over fallen branches every so often. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I realized that not only did I feel comfortable with him, I also felt completely safe and secure, knowing that he’d never let me fall.
After maybe a minute or so of quietly walking, he glanced at my face, smiling a little. “I wasn’t creepily following you down the path, you know. Or, at least, I wasn’t trying to.”
The thought of him “creepily” doing anything hadn’t even occurred to me, although I had wondered how it had happened that he’d seen me fall. Answering my unspoken question, he continued.
“I was a few houses down, talking to one of the other new guys out on our front porch, when I saw you start to walk off alone. I wanted to say hello, but at first, I wasn’t sure if I should follow you, thinking that maybe you wanted to be by yourself after a bad first date with Sean or something. I watched you until you were out of sight, then sat thinking some more, until I eventually decided that with so many Warrens in the area, I should probably at least make sure that you got home all right. So, I started down this path, but you were already a few hundred feet ahead, and at that point, I didn’t want to come up and scare you. I was thinking about ways to possibly not do that when I saw you fall. Please just know that I wasn’t trying to be stalker-ish or creepy.”
Becoming more and more relaxed in his arms with each passing moment that I spent in them, I gave him a little smile. “I know you weren’t…and I’m so glad that you happened to be near when I fell. If you hadn’t been, I’d probably be limping home right now, hurting my ankle even worse.”
With moonlight illuminating a little smile playing around his full lips, Jake briefly tightened his arms around me, saying that he was glad he’d been near me, too.
A short while later, he asked me if I’d heard about the “craziness” that had happened with Kevin, and I said yes.
“Sean told me all about it.”
“Well, you’ll probably be happy to know that your dad has already sent Kevin packing. And when Kevin started protesting, saying that he had a ‘right’ to a second chance, your dad added an uppercut to his jaw to the marching orders. Kevin is lucky that’s all your dad did to him, too. From what I’ve heard, when your dad heard what Kevin said he wanted to do to you without your consent, he was just about ready to literally kill him. Your mom, Sam, and Eric had to force him back into the house to make him cool down for a minute. Lucky for Kevin that your mom, Sam, and Eric were around.”
I agreed, saying that Kevin sounded like a total scumbag, but that I was glad that my dad hadn’t outright murdered him.
Jake said he was glad, too. “With the Warrens adding to their ranks lately, I think this Watcher community has enough to deal with these days without the Watcher elders questioning your dad about some supposedly unjustified killing or something.”
I said that was for sure, putting my face against Jake’s hard chest without really even thinking about it. However, once I became aware of what I’d done, I immediately became self-conscious, and I lifted my face from his chest. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to just cozy up to your chest like that.”
With silvery light from the stars and moon revealing amusement on his face, Jake said there was nothing to be sorry for at all. “I really liked that, actually…just the feel of your face pressed against my chest.”
Smiling but still a little embarrassed, I put the side of my face against his chest once more. “All right. I guess I’ll just leave my face here, then, I guess.”
“That’s more than okay with me.”
For the rest of the way to my house, we both remained silent. Holding me tightly, Jake walked with strong, sure strides. Clinging to his neck, I kept my face pressed against the warmth of his chiseled chest. When we arrived at my front porch, I couldn’t remember a time when I’d ever been so disappointed. However, my disappointment was soon to turn into sheer joy.