TJ let out a long, slow exhale, his breath ruffling the wet hair at her nape, and then turned her to face him. His voice was different when he spoke, calm but the concern clear even with his tight control. “Did I hurt you, Harley?”
“No. God, no. You…you were…” Sweet. Loving. Hot.
Perfect.
He pulled her hands away from her face and held them, waiting until she looked at him to speak. “Are you sure?”
“Very,” she said weakly, and closed her eyes, swallowing hard. “And I’d really like it if we could go back to not talking about it now.”
“We didn’t talk about it because I didn’t remember it,” he said quietly. “If I had, believe me, we most definitely would have talked.”
“It was a long time ago. It’s done.”
He let out a long breath.
“So…is this going to be uncomfortable now?”
“Does it feel uncomfortable?”
“No more than usual.” With her eyes closed, she registered the sounds around them. The wind rustling the trees, the rainwater still in the branches falling to the ground. The chirping of birds…
Incessant chirping, actually, which wasn’t a normal, happy sound. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Shaking her head, she turned and followed the bird sounds, off the trail and through the thick brush.
“Harley-”
“Hang on, there’s something wrong.”
She found it at a full, majestic Jeffrey pine, towering at least a hundred feet in the air. At the base of the thick trunk sat a very young bird, squeaking, pathetically flapping its wings for all it was worth and getting nowhere. Above it was the nest from which it’d fallen, its frantic mom, and two more babies.
“Oh, no, you poor thing.” Harley carefully scooped up the baby and eyed the tree, trying to figure out how to climb it with the baby in her hands when TJ gently nudged her aside.
He reached for a branch above his head, using it to pull himself up with what appeared to be no effort at all. His T-shirt clung to all those flexing and bunching muscles as he straightened to a stand on the branch. He tested the branch above him, his jeans going tight and snug over his very fine ass.
“Here,” he said, crouching low again to hold out his hand for the baby bird, and caught her red-handed staring at his hind end.
He said nothing but did raise a brow at her.
She shrugged, but figured apologizing was a waste of breath. Besides, he’d ogled her in her wet shirt plenty. Fair was fair. She set the birdie in his palm and watched in awe and not a little bit of envy as he gently settled the little bird back into the nest. In thanks, the mom viciously pecked at him.
He pulled his hand back quickly, chuckling as he lithely leapt to the ground. “I don’t think she liked me much.”
Harley took his hand and looked at the blood welling from the new hole between two of his knuckles. “Ouch.”
“It’s okay.” He gestured to her to precede him back through the bush to the trail, where they’d left their packs. She started to open hers to look for her first-aid kit but he already had his out. “It’s really nothing,” he said. “Just want to make sure it’s clean.”
She took the kit from him. Since they didn’t have running water, she took his hand in hers and used an antiseptic spray. They both had their heads bent over their joined hands, so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her jaw. Looking up into his eyes, she winced for him. “Hurt?”
“Nah.”
She smiled softly. “Now who’s the liar.”
Then she lifted his hand to her mouth and still holding his gaze, softly blew on the wound.
His eyes smoldered.
Later Harley would think she had no idea what the hell came over her, but she blew again, and he appeared to stop breathing. “If you’re doing that on purpose,” he said softly, his voice pure silk, “you should know, paybacks are a bitch.”
Next, she dabbed antibiotic ointment on the wound, then covered it with a Band-Aid, struggling with her conflicting emotions over him. The need to run far and fast-versus the need to crawl up his body.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally said, innocently.
He let her get away with that. Or so she thought, but when she turned to walk off, he snagged her, pulling her back against him. “Are we playing, Harley?” he asked, his mouth against her ear.
She could feel him, hard and warm at her back. Were they playing? Tilting her head up, she looked into his eyes, dark and heated.
“Is that question going to take you awhile?” he asked, mouth slightly curved.
“The question’s going to have to wait, since we’re losing valuable daylight.”
His slight smirk said he recognized a diversion tactic when he saw one, but he let her have it.
They had two hours left, she figured. She set the pace, and they walked in silence-which didn’t mean she couldn’t feel the weight of his thoughts, because she could. But he kept them to himself. It shouldn’t have made her like him even more, but it did.
An hour later, they cleared a ridge and came to a stop while Harley consulted her maps and GPS. “There,” she said, pointing to the next ridge over. “That’s where the first camera is.”
“Where did you plan on staying tonight?”
“There, or as close as we can get to it before dark.”
From where they stood at the cliff, they were overlooking a wide meadow, which was abundant with plant and small animal life that her coyotes depended on for food. Some large elk were grazing, their impressive antlers glinting in the waning light. It would take an entire family of coyotes to bring down one of those beauties. “I’m hoping to get a visual on some of the tagged coyotes,” she said, “if they show themselves. According to their trackers, most of the red group is in this area. There’s six in their pack and-” She paused. “Listen,” she said as the telltale buzzing of flies sank in, along with a sudden dread.
Stomach dropping, she followed the sound to a cluster of trees. At the base of one was a large burrowed hole in the ground, reinforced with a fallen log. A coyote den. Lying just inside was a far too still ball of fur. With an involuntary gasp, Harley crawled closer. “Oh, no.”
TJ dropped to his knees beside her and leaned in to look at the coyote. His expression was grim when he sat back on his heels.
“Dead,” she murmured.
“Not just dead.” He looked at her, jaw tight. “Shot.”
Her stomach dropped, but she brushed past TJ to look for herself, and felt her heart squeeze when she caught sight of the tag. Red. The coyote had been one of theirs. Throat burning, Harley consulted her GPS and her maps, and shook her head. “She was right where she should have been. She just got in some asshole’s way.”
TJ covered the mouth of the den with large rocks, making it a grave so that other animals couldn’t get to it, but also marking the spot so that Harley could lead the authorities up there if she had to.
TJ called it in to the forest service, and then Harley worked on pulling herself together with sheer will as they hiked to the next ridge.
It was a challenging hike, and got more challenging as they climbed. The air was thin, and they were surrounded by peaks that had been formed more than 30,000 years ago beneath ice sheets and snowfields. Back then, the ice had piled more than 5,000 feet deep in places, and as it’d retreated, the meltwater had forced glacial troughs, forming the harsh peaks and outcroppings, creating a rugged, isolated, unfriendly land.
For humans.
But wildlife tended to thrive there. Especially coyotes-at least when no one was shooting at them. Proving it, Harley watched as a group of them moved as one through the meadow far below, bounding through the tall grass calling and yipping to each other.
She pulled out her camera and lost herself for long moments, taking pictures with her wide lens. The moist air
