Exposed - My Mountain Man Protector Read online

  I had started walking to have something to do, but I kept walking because I liked it. It was nice here; the air was cool and clear. Everything was so empty, so untouched. Being alone like this was a relief. Right now, I didn’t have to do anything but walk in a straight line and avoid getting hopelessly lost. Here, there were no expectations, nothing to do or say, no “right” way to go about doing things. The only goal was enjoyment.

  I liked it here.

  After a while, my legs moved of their own accord, my thoughts moving similarly. I imagined myself living here for good, alone, hunting in the forest, living off the land. Would I like it?

  My flashlight beam glanced off a red bush, the first one I’d seen this entire time. I paused and stared at it, thinking of all the things I was missing being out here. It had been years since I’d been off social media for this long, and my timeline was going to be insane when I finally did make it back. And yet, this was the first time I had thought of either of those things. That was probably because I’d been fleeing for my life these past few days, but still, I couldn’t deny the relief I felt. I didn’t want to be concerned about what some girl I hated from high school was doing with her life or posting a selfie by my pool to get a few likes from women who didn’t really like me and men who wanted to date me.

  No, I didn’t miss those things, and maybe, just maybe, I would like it if living here was all I had to do, if it was just me and the land. Or maybe I was just romanticizing a life I’d never lived and wouldn’t be able to. Who knew.

  The wind picked up and shook the trees. Rain was in the air. I turned around, shining my phone flashlight behind me. Barely visible was the path I’d taken here, a path of beat-in grass—the one that should have been straight but instead was a circuitous slant. Clearly I hadn’t been walking in a straight line for a while now.

  “Crap,” I muttered.

  I set off back the way I’d come, shining my flashlight on the indentations where my shoes had hit the grass and dirt, squinting to make them out. As long as these indentations were here, I could get home. Slowly, surely, and annoyingly, but I’d be able to do it.

  Mother Nature, however, clearly had other ideas.

  She laughed great gusts of wind at my plan, great puffs of “ha ha” that flung my hair into my eyes and threw the grass to and fro, making it hard to make out the indentations.

  And so I stumbled forth, slower still, while Mother Nature scoffed at my determined attempts. She laughed so hard that she cried big, sloppy tears that hammered down everywhere, the rain scattering the grass further, obliterating all signs of my former path. I tried running ahead to catch a glimpse of the last traces of prints as they disappeared, but soon I was back where I’d started, back where I’d paused the first time by the red bush.

  I stared at the stupid, mocking thing for a minute before scrambling around, searching, searching for a sign I didn’t find, for anything. All the grass here was trembling with rain and wind and laughter—laughter at the dumb girl who had wandered off into the forest in the middle of the night, who was never seen again.

  After another harried dash toward what looked to be an indentation from my foot, I slipped on the wet grass and collapsed to the ground. It turned out that what I’d thought was my foot’s indentation was actually just an imperceptible stick buried in the grass. At the sight of it, my own tears started streaming down while frustration bubbled up my throat.

  I yelled at nothing, at everything, at the failure that was my life, which had led me here, into this godforsaken forest where I was drenched and lost and being hunted by my murderous husband.

  I yelled at myself for ever thinking I could do anything, for being so stupidly naïve as to wander into some unfamiliar forest in the middle of the night.

  I brought my phone up to my face. It was 4 a.m. I stared at my phone for a minute. I could find my way back to the ranger’s station with this phone. I could. I could turn it on, call for help, or even just check for directions, figure out where I was. That was if there was even a signal way out here. Still, it was my best bet right now, now that I was plopped down here, lost, drenched, and freezing.

  The rain was cold and I was tired. I wanted to go home or just to the stupid, crappy ranger’s station even—anywhere to get out of this bone-chilling rain.

  My phone went black, and I put it in my jeans pocket. Inhale, then exhale.

  I didn’t take my phone out again. I wouldn’t be able to resist taking it out of airplane mode to check for directions if I did. And I had to resist. I had to, otherwise Angelo would track me, find me, and kill me. No matter how bad things seemed now, they were not as bad as that. I could do this.

  I sat there, immobile, and told myself again: “Claire, you can do this.”

  Then I yelled some more. I railed against stupid, lying Angelo and stupid, mean Blake. Then I railed against myself.

  And now that my voice was hoarse from yelling, I got it. This was my doing, just how being with Angelo had been my doing. Just how I was getting myself out of that, I had to get myself out of this.

  It was my responsibility to find my way back, not anyone else’s. The world didn’t owe me a thing.

  And so I sat on the grass, grim and yet a bit pleased with this latest revelation. I sat and waited for the light that would surely come, that would hopefully show me the way.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ironically, I almost dozed off there, and it was the crash of a far-off branch that fully woke me. I jerked upright to see a squirrel scurrying off the fallen thing. It was light out. Not very light, but enough. Enough to see where I was.

  I got up, looked ahead of me, and spotted it only 100 feet or so away. The cabin. I had never been that far at all. I had probably started going at a slant halfway into my journey, and now the way back was easy.

  My trip back was calm, unharried. After all, according to my phone, it was only 5:45 a.m. Even if Blake happened to be up, he’d probably welcome my absence, not worry about it.

  The light made everything even more beautiful: the blades of grass with their still rain-tipped stalks, the trees with their rustling leaves. Even the ugly ranger’s station almost looked like a nice little red-bricked bungalow from far enough away.

  When I got back to the ranger’s station, Blake was in the same position in the sleeping bag as before. He looked deep in sleep, albeit unhappily. There was a crinkle of irritation between his eyebrows. I slipped in quietly, slowly, so as not to disturb him. Then I rolled to the side, closed my eyes, and, finally, fell asleep.

  It seemed only a second later that Blake was shaking me awake. Through my half-open slits of eyes, I saw him smile apologetically.

  “Sorry, but it’s 8 a.m. We have to get to work.”

  Before I could respond, he plopped another two pieces of bread on the sleeping bag over my belly. I sat up and then painstakingly rose, heading into the station. I paused and took in the room once more.

  It looked even more dismal in the light—that floor of rubble, that black hole in the fireplace—and this was just the first room.

  As if hearing my thoughts, Blake strode in with a broom. “Look what I found.”

  “I can do that,” I said.

  But as I tucked my second piece of bread in my pocket, Blake shook his head and leaned the broom against the wall near me.

  “Eat first. You have to be clearheaded for this. There’s glass and nails everywhere.”

  I nodded, leaning on the wall myself. Taking the time to enjoy this raisin bread wasn’t the worst thing in the world. I turned to face the door so I could look at the nature.

  It was a strange image, this undisturbed beauty framed by the glass shards of the broken door. The tall, proud trunks of the trees, the playful little swings of wildflowers—how superior it all was and how perfect! I turned back to survey the wreckage around me. Nature had always been perfect; it was humans who were flawed and messy.

  Once I finished my bread, I grabbed the broom and got to sweeping. It didn
’t take long to sweep all the plaster, glass, nails, and odds and ends of God knew what into a pile in the corner. As I surveyed my work, I couldn’t help but have a proud smile on my face.

  “Nice job,” Blake said, coming up behind me. “But that’s just the beginning. Take a look at this.”

  I followed him into the next room, which was actually more of a dump than the first room. Its floor was pure bottles—wine bottles, beer bottles, coke bottles—some of which looked half full.

  Blake shifted some with his foot, and a sliver of purple carpet emerged.

  “This’ll make a good bedroom once we’re finished.”

  I lifted my broom. “Want me to?”

  “Could you? I still want to check out the rest of the house, especially the bathroom.”

  “No worries,” I replied.

  “Just wait a second first though, okay?” he said.

  I nodded, and he returned with a handful of plastic bags.

  “Throw them in here and we’ll put them out back once you’re finished.”

  “Okay,” I said, and I got to work.

  At first, cleaning up the bottles was annoying. My body wasn’t used to standing and bending so much, and my mind swirled with angry questions. How long was this going to take, and what was the point of it anyway? How long did I think I could hide out here from Angelo?

  But as time went on, I felt an odd little satisfaction in seeing the islands of purple carpet join into full continents, then into huge bodies of cleared space until there was only the odd bottle left. I almost felt upset when I got to the last series of bottles.

  I leaned over, and my arm was gripped.

  “Ahhh!” I screamed.

  Ripping myself free, I twisted around to see a hand grabbing at me through a hole in the wall.

  Then there was laughter.

  “Sorry,” Blake said, coming from around the corner, still laughing. “That was mean.”

  I shoved him. “You jerk!”

  “Wow, you got way more done than I would’ve thought,” he said.

  He looked genuinely impressed, though I was already stomping into the hallway.

  “Claire…” he said.

  “Wait there,” I commanded.

  In the hallway, I spotted the hole leading to the bottle room.

  I pushed my hand through, said, “Hey, Blake, look over here!” and gave him the finger. Now it was my turn to return to the room, laughing.

  Laughing himself, Blake said, “I was just going to say that you got way more done than I would’ve thought, being a housewife and all.”

  I glared at him.

  “When did I tell you I was a housewife?”

  He shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

  I sighed, picking up one plastic bag of bottles and then another.

  “I guess it was me being woefully out of shape that gave it away, right?”

  “Yeah, and…” His voice died off.

  He glanced at me and then away.

  “Never mind.”

  “No. Tell me.”

  “Well, just how…well-kept you are.”

  I froze and found myself reddening.

  And here I had thought Blake and I were bonding. Really, he was just busy judging me some more.

  “You were right,” I said, grabbing another bag. “You shouldn’t have said anything.”

  I strode out of there, out to the back. I slammed the bags down, enjoying the loud clank the bottles made. When I went back in, Blake was at the top of the stairs.

  “Upstairs is pretty unusable. Looks like a few steps away from collapsing entirely. Let’s stick to the main floor.”

  “Okay,” I said, not looking at him.

  “Also, I packed some extra clothes, like a few shirts, that you can wear. We can wash our clothes tomorrow too, if you want.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  The rest of the day was full of more odd jobs: cleaning up the rest of the debris, setting up the fire pit outside, bringing our sleeping bag inside.

  “Check out the bathroom,” Blake said.

  “You’re kidding me,” I said, eyeing him with annoyance.

  There was a working bathroom and I’d been going to the bathroom in the forest this whole time?

  “No, it’s not working,” he said, opening the door and extending his arm inside as an invitation, “but it’s got a tub.”

  I looked past his extended arm to see a tub—a three-foot, yellowed tub, but a tub nonetheless.

  “So?” I asked.

  A tub with no water wasn’t all that useful.

  “So… we could fill it with hot water. We could take a bath. Separately,” he said, his face reddening at the words. He added, “If you want.”

  I glared at him. Blake had already made it abundantly clear how distasteful he found me. Did he need to rub it in any more?

  “Okay.”

  He turned to me. “Okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ll have a bath now,” I said. “I’m dead tired, and I’m pretty sure there’s about two layers of dirt on me by now. And the alone time wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.” The last I said with the iciest of glares at him.

  “Sure,” he said, walking away.

  Outside at the fire pit, we watched the fire heat up the kettle in a stony silence.

  “I’ll do it,” I said once it was the water was warm.

  A quick grab of the stainless steel handle, a jog to the half-tiled bathroom, and a dump of the kettle into the tub only produced a sad puddle in the bottom. Five kettles later, I was leaned back in the tub, enjoying the warm caress of the water against my bare skin.

  God, it had only been a week since my last bath, and yet it felt like a month. Just one week and my entire life had been completely transformed. Just one week and everything was different. I sank in the tub until I was underwater.

  Would I change it if I could? Go back to before I followed Angelo and just stay home instead? Would I go back to my old life?

  I opened my eyes, saw a shape in the water above me, burst up, and screamed.

  A second later, Blake was there.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I flailed out of the tub.

  We met each other’s gaze and then his flicked down.

  I desperately threw my arms around me to cover myself.

  “Get out!” I screamed.

  Blake scrambled out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  I sank to the ground, unsure whether my words had been directed at him or the real offender of the whole thing: the huge spider that was still floating in the tub.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A few minutes later, when I emerged from the bathroom, clothed and slightly more relaxed, Blake called from the next room, “You good?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He walked up, still not looking at me.

  “I’m really sorry about before,” he said. “I didn’t think; I just ran in. Thought it was your husband somehow or another bear or…” His face was beet red.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It was just a spider.”

  “Okay, well, I cooked some rabbit when you’re ready,” he said, walking out the front door before I could respond.

  I followed him to the fire pit, where a healthy fire was already raging. Blake was sitting on a big log; I sat down beside him.

  “Here,” he said. He handed me a plate, on which was a brown slab of meat.

  It didn’t look nearly as unappealing as I’d expected. It almost looked like something I’d order at a restaurant.

  “You’ve been busy,” I said. After a bite, I added, “It’s really good.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “That’s thanks to Grandad. That, and trial and error. There’s only so many ways you can mess up rabbit until it becomes more or less edible.”

  He grinned, half to himself, and then dug in. He ate slowly, as if each bite were a meal unto itself. When he was finally done, he got up and, without a word, disappeared int
o the house. He returned with a beat-up wooden guitar.