The moose crashed against a tree. The forest floor shook at the sheer force of the blow. We had to get out of here.
“Can you walk?”
“Yeah.”
She stepped one foot forward and almost went down again before I grabbed her arm, stopping her fall. She yanked it out of my grip and tried again. I clenched my fists tight in an effort to remain calm when there were two bull moose fighting it out in the dark only yards behind us.
When she almost fell at her second attempt, I ignored her mild threats and picked her up in my arms, moving up the trail and away from the powerful animals. I walked us not toward the hot spring, but up the trail, higher into the mountains. The first time Tessa had been changing in my tent, I had taken myself on a little walk up the hill to keep my mind in line and had discovered an abandoned hunter’s tree stand. With our limited options, I figured that was the best place for us to crash for the rest of the night.
The stubborn woman refused to relax into my hold, so you can imagine how much more difficult it was to move what seemed like an angry, unbending tree down a darkened trail in the woods. If Tessa was grateful to me for finding us a safe place to hide out for the rest of the night, she didn’t allude to that fact.
The tree stand was nothing but a metal ladder nailed to a tree, leading to a metal landing pad, maybe five feet wide. It was a simple place for a hunter to wait out his prey—or for a couple of miserable campers to escape two battling moose. Tessa climbed up first, a slow climb with an ankle she couldn’t put any weight on. Finally, we both reached the top.
She scooted over to make room for me. With the thicket of trees between us and the moose, we could no longer see them or their movement, but I could still pick out the sounds of their fight. I wondered how our little tent had fared.
Once we were in the uncomfortable safety of our metal tree, my heart rate slowed. Our adrenaline rush was over. I scooted backward and leaned against the tree trunk. Tessa sat rigid beside me and looked very much like she could pass out from exhaustion any second.
“Should we call a truce for the night?” I asked.
“Hmm?” she mumbled, her head wobbling.
“A truce,” I said gently, placing my hand softly on her shoulder and gently pulling her back against me. “You can yell at me tomorrow. But you need to sleep right now.”
Her resistance lasted all of two seconds, and then she was curled up on the stand, her head on my lap.
“I am still so mad at you,” she mumbled as she scooted backward against me like a kitten searching for warmth.
I wrapped my arms around her, trying to give her any heat I could. “I know.”
She was asleep in fifteen seconds.
* * *
It wasstrange for me to think this scene was romantic. Tessa shifted in her sleep, and I immediately cuddled her closer, my hand on her head, soft shushing noises escaping my mouth.
The metal tree stand dug into my tailbone. I hadn’t felt my butt in an hour and a half. Earlier, a bird, lit only by moonlight, had attempted a shot at my head twice from his position above me in the tree. I flipped it the bird of my people. Tessa had a large, jagged scratch on her leg, near her twisted ankle. With all that, I shouldn’t have felt anything but misery and guilt. The usual suspects.
I looked back down at her face, currently splayed out on my lap.
Tessa had the windpipe of my ninety-year-old grandpa. And it was adorable. She was furious at me right now—hated my guts, according to her 5 a.m. sleep-induced chatter. But all I wanted to do was pull her up against my chest and cuddle her like a newborn kitten. A kitten who got cranky when she was not fed on time. Or when she was on her period. Or when she found out just how much of an idiot I was. She was vulnerable in ways I wanted to be. She made me want to do better. Be better. Even fighting with her was unlike anything I’d ever experienced—in the best way possible. I could imagine us in our old age together, sending out zingers to each other with sly grins and exasperated huffs, all the while pinching butts before making each other laugh about something.
I pulled her more firmly onto my lap to make her more comfortable. She moaned and muttered softly in her sleep. Maybe I’d carve our initials into this tree. Our tree. I thought of that fish Jake had pulled out of the water. For years, there had been a pit growing in the bottom of my stomach, weighing me down. It was gone now. Replaced by something lighter. Something that breathed a lot like hope. I had no more shifting emotions. My thoughts were clear. All traces of doubt were gone. I knew exactly what I wanted. It would be a battle to get it back, but I was willing to fight for it. For her.
I sighed, rubbing my face with my hands—grateful Tessa slept onward, unaware of my emotions that seemed to want to leak from my eyes.
It was that damn sunrise.
How could I feel anything but amazing? Light was bursting through the trees. A new day was beginning. Sun rays were dancing off the leaves all around me. The air was crisp. A girl was in my arms. Not justagirl, butth—
Anyway…the sunrise. We had survived the night. The moose had scampered off not long after Tessa fell asleep. At least, I didn’t hear them any longer. I had never been a morning person, but here I was, in a tree, with a beautiful woman in my arms, chainsaw-massacring the woods with her snoring, and I felt like I could spout poetry. And in case you didn’t get the impression, I am not a poetry guy.
Too bad we hadn’t had that talk yet, because she would have loved this sunrise.
* * *
Tessa seethed asI wound half of my shirt around the cut on her calf after assessing the damage. Dried blood stained her ankle from her fall, but the bleeding had stopped. I was taking precautions and putting pressure on it for our journey back down the mountain. She was exhausted and wobbly, and her taking another tumble down the mountainside wasn’t completely out of the question.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
