Daredevil’s Run

He could feel her tension, almost hear it, like a humming in the air. Knowing she was an instant away from walking off and leaving him there, he reached out and caught her hand. “Talk to me, dammit.”

Her silence was impenetrable, her wrist like steel in his grasp. But the feel of it…the warmth, the wiry strength of it…the softness of her skin, touching his for the first time in so damn long. He gentled his grip, stroked his thumb over the tendons at the base of her palm, and wondered what would happen if he were to bring her hand to his mouth and put his lips there instead. Juices pooled at the back of his throat, and he felt like a starving man, starving for the taste of her…the smell of her.

“Matt…”

She was pulling against his grip, and reluctantly he let her go. But not before he felt her tremble. She took one step away from him, jerked back, lifted one hand toward him, then wrapped it with the other across her body. When she spoke it sounded as if the words were choking her. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? That day. I didn’t check it. And I should have. I didn’t-”

“Didn’t-what?” He shook his head, trying to understand. She was talking nonsense. “Check what? What day?”

She took a step back toward him, then retreated, so upset he could see her shaking. “The day you fell. Your gear. I should have double-checked it. If I had-”

“What?” Sudden anger sent his voice off the scale. “What in the holy hell are you talking about? You think you were supposed to check my gear? What are you, my mother? Now I need you to check up on me? ”

“It sure looks like you did!” She spat the words at him like an angry cat.

Matt shook his head, gave an incredulous bark of laughter. “Do you even know how insulting that is? You think you should have double-checked my gear…why? Because you think I was careless? Why-oh, wait, because we were arguing? Because I suggested maybe we should get married? Because I asked you if you loved me?” He paused, not really expecting an answer. In the silence he could hear her breathing. In a voice heavy with irony, he went on. “Maybe it was a question I shouldn’t have had to ask after five years, and sure, I know it was lousy timing. But do you really think I’d be so upset over it, I’d forget to check out my gear?” Again, he tested her stubbornness. Finally, softly, he said, “I’ve been over it a thousand times in my mind, Alex. I swear to you, the gear was okay. I checked it thoroughly.”

She answered him, a whisper of misery. “Then why did it fail?”

She waited, but he had no answer for that. He hadn’t had one for five long years.

Chapter 6

Alex slept badly that night. She woke up several times, once in time to watch the almost full moon rise above the rim of the canyon and flood the river gorge with silvery light, and the stars go into hiding. She watched the river carry the moon’s broken reflection along on its rippling current without ever taking it away. She saw the pines in black silhouette, and the smooth granite boulders huddled along the riverbanks like herds of great slumbering beasts.

Except for the chuckle of the river and the whisper of the breeze in the pines, the world was silent.

Across the camp she could see Cory and Sam, their sleeping bags close together, touching. And Matt’s, on the other side, some distance from her own.

I can’t hear him breathe. He always used to snore. I wonder if he’s awake, too.

She fought the urge to call to him, whisper to him in the darkness. If she did, would he answer? What would she do if he did? Would she go to him? And if she did…then what?

Images…feelings…Before she knew it, they came tumbling in. She didn’t want them but couldn’t stop them, couldn’t make them go away. So she closed her eyes and surrendered, let herself drown in the sweet, aching memory of how it had been…with Mattie, making love.

He was so sensual, for a man. He loved to be touched, not just there, but everywhere. And I loved touching him, with my lips and tongue and fingers and breasts. I loved the way his skin felt…smelled…tasted. I could spend hours just…touching him.

And he loved to touch me, too. He never seemed to be in a hurry to get inside me, as if that were the only thing that mattered. No…he would kiss me and kiss me…everywhere. Not as if that was something he had to do to get where he wanted to be, but as if this…the kissing…was all that mattered.

Oh, Mattie. I wonder…would it still be like that now?

What would it be like now? Even if you can’t move, can you still feel?

We used to laugh a lot when we made love. I wonder, Mattie…would we…could we…still laugh?

The smell of coffee woke her up. She sat bolt upright in the morning chill and saw that it was early, just breaking day, and the pale ghost of the moon was slipping below the mountains on the far side of the river. And that Matt was already up and in his chair, with the stove going and coffee made.

Her sudden movement must have alerted him. He turned and saw her sitting up in her sleeping bag and made a little beckoning head-jerk, as if to say, Hey, get up and get your lazy self over here. A tremor ran through her, and she saw herself rising, going over to him and putting her arms around his neck and breathing in the warm, sleepy-man smell of him.

And so, contrarily, she took her time disentangling herself from her sleeping bag, stretched…shivered in the shorts and tank she’d slept in as she slipped on her shoes, and finger-combed her hair that had come loose from its braid. Then, and only then, did she get up and make her way across to the fire and the warmth where Matt waited to pass her a mug of coffee.

She smiled at him as she took it and murmured, “Thank you.” Then, watching him reach to take a package of bacon out of the cooler, “You don’t have to do that.”

The smile he gave her back was crooked. “Figured you could use a little extra sleep, after the day you had yesterday.”

She feigned outrage in a squeaky whisper. “Me! You’re the one that went for a swim.”

He handed her a stainless steel bowl, a whisk and a carton of eggs. “Okay, then, make yourself useful. First morning out-omelets, right?”

“Surprised you remember that.” She set her coffee on the grill’s prep shelf, and as she leaned past him to take the milk from the cooler, inadvertently brushed against his arm.

Her heart jolted and her skin shivered at the touch. Had she done it on purpose? Surely not. But she hadn’t tried very hard to avoid touching him, either.

“Some things you don’t forget.” His voice was a husky drawl, so close she could feel his breath on her temple. She turned her head to look at him, and her braid tumbled over her shoulder to dangle between them. He didn’t have to move his hand much in order to grasp it.

An involuntary breath escaped her, not quite a gasp. She glanced down at his hand in its fingerless glove, holding her braid, his thumb stroking across the bumps and crevices, then lifted her eyes to his. They were so close, gazing back into hers. So close. If he tugged on her braid, even a little, and if she obeyed that summons…It would take no more than that.

Their eyes held. Time stopped.

A twig snapped in the quiet. Voices murmured across the camp. Alex straightened up, breathing again, as her braid slithered through Matt’s loosened grasp.

“Our guests are awake,” she said in a croaking voice, and only realized she’d said our when it was too late to take it back.

It was a picture-perfect day. As if, Alex thought, the river were trying to make up to them for its surliness the day before. The rapids were hair-raising enough to get everybody’s adrenaline pumping, but they all came through them without mishap. And in the quiet water between, there was time for picture-taking and storytelling, to surprise a doe and her fawn drinking in the shallows, and to catch an even more rare glimpse of a bobcat bounding away across the rocky hillside.