She pointed behind him.
Dark clouds were quickly gathering on the horizon. A storm was coming in and fast. It didn’t bother Frank at all. He’d been stuck in a lot worse places than a meadow in the Berkshires with a beautiful and entertaining woman. But from the way a frown had settled in between Grace’s eyes and how she kept glancing at the clouds, she didn’t like the idea of getting caught in the rain.
It had taken them two hours to climb up. He guess-timated he could get down the mountain in forty-five minutes if he needed to, but could Grace move that fast? He wouldn’t want her to try. And from the looks of the sky and the way the wind was picking up, that wasn’t going to happen anyway, because the storm was moving in faster than that.
He rubbed his jaw, quickly thinking of options. “Do you want to take shelter or hoof it back to camp? We won’t outrun the rain, but we might make it back before the worst of it.”
“What would taking shelter look like?”
He dug out his first aid kit and handed her the silver emergency blanket. “We can use this as a tarp. If we get back under the tall trees, they’ll help protect us from the worst of the downpour, too.”
She didn’t hesitate. “That sounds way better than running down a muddy slope.”
He liked that she’d thought that far into the descent plan. “I agree.”
Moving quickly, they headed back to the log where they’d stopped for water, then kept going a bit further, into the dark shadows where the trees were thickest. He didn’t have rope on him, so he found a tree that had a horizontal branch nice and low to the ground. He folded the blanket over it, making a decent little tent for them. He used the second blanket from his kit to make a floor, lifting the sides up, and then they hauled logs in to pin the top and bottom together.
The floor blanket ripped twice in the process, but for a makeshift shelter, it wasn’t bad.
As the first fat drops of rain hit them, they scrambled inside.
Grace started laughing as she stretched out on her back.
“Having a good time?”
She shook her head side to side. “This isn’t how I expected my day to go.”
“They’re probably having a lot of fun back at camp.”
She snorted. “Playing Spin the Bottle, most likely.”
“Or Seven Minutes in Heaven.”
She rolled onto her side. The storm had darkened the sky enough that once again he was having trouble reading her face. Lucky for him, Grace had no problem communicating her desires. “I bet we have more than seven minutes in here, don’t you think?”
The foil blanket crinkled beneath them and the rain beat faster on the blanket above them. Neither noise was louder than his pulse as she slid into his body and offered up her lips.
He tangled his fingers in her hair and took the deep, hungry kiss she was offering.
They made out as the storm raged around them, as rain began to lash in the open ends of their shelter, and didn’t stop until the emergency blanket gave up under the onslaught of heavy water against it.
With a rip, the shelter gave out, and Frank rolled onto his back, grabbing Grace with one hand and the blanket with the other. He cocooned them together as she laughed into his neck.
“Did I mention that hiking with you is fun?”
“You did,” he rumbled.
She giggled. He threw his head back and joined her in the laugh, because she was right. This was fun.
He felt alive for the first time in a year, and Jesus Christ it was wonderful.
* * *
When they madeit back to camp two hours later, just in time for dinner, they found everyone milling around in the lobby. And for once it didn’t seem like a live-action silver-haired Tinder-sponsored full-contact sporting event.
It wasn’t just campers. Most of the staff were in the lobby, too.
Frank stopped the first person he recognized—Rachel from the craft building. “What’s going on?”
