Alphas in the Wild (37 page)

“Isn’t there anything we can do?”

He shook his head. “IV antibiotics might help, but she needs a trauma center.”

“I could fly her out of here once they’re done with whatever they’re doing in the Muir Hut. Fresno’s not far by air.”

Jared laid a hand on her arm. “You could. Odds of her being alive thirty-six hours from now aren’t good.” He straightened. “Come inside. You look about done in.”

She felt more than
done in
. Running on fumes, she plodded up the stairs after him, Jake right behind her. He made a beeline for his dish and began crunching kibbles.

“Shit!” She rolled her eyes. “Wish I could just tuck into my dinner and forget all this.”

He tugged a chair out for her and pushed her into it. She sat heavily and supported her head with one hand, elbow resting on the table. “I should be up at Muir with them,” she said.

“Why?” Jared plunked a steaming mug of tea in front of her and poured a jot of booze into it. “No one asked you to stay with them. They seemed like a competent bunch, all in all.”

“I suppose you’re right.” She blew on steam rising off the metal mug before taking a small sip. It burned her tongue, but it felt good going down, all heat with a bite of scotch. She glanced at Jared. “I’m glad you didn’t head up the trail after me. I’d have had no way to get hold of you. I have radios, but didn’t think to drag them out.”

“It’s okay, Sara.” He placed his hand over one of hers and dragged the other chair beside her, settling into it. “Yeah, I was close to leaving, but I didn’t. Even if I had, I would’ve heard the chopper and doubled back.”

“Oh yeah, huh?” She dragged her hand from beneath his and sifted fingers through her hair. “Guess I’m not thinking very straight.”

“You have every right not to. You’ve had a hell of a couple of weeks.”

“Do you suppose whatever they’re doing up at the hut will really fix this?”

Jared shrugged. “They think it will. I don’t see any reason not to believe them.”

“Mmph. Guess all we can do now is wait.”

He nodded. “I mixed up some freeze-dried glop from my pack. Saved you some on the back of the stove, so it’s still probably warm.”

She smiled weakly. “Sounds good. Haven’t had anything since the oatmeal and energy bar we called breakfast.”

He squeezed her shoulder and got to his feet, returning with a bowl of noodles in an oriental looking sauce. “I’m going to check on Christine. Be right back.”

Jake padded to her side and looked meaningfully at her dish, whining softly.

“Sorry, dude. You had your dinner. This is mine.”

As if he understood, he retraced his steps and laid next to his dish, head on his paws, watching her.

* * * *

J
ared bent over Christine’s inert form. She was still breathing, but beyond that, she’d sunk to a place she’d likely never surface from. Sweat beaded her forehead, probably fever from whatever infection was ripping through her body. He tucked a sleeping bag one of the scientists had offered more firmly around her and watched the sun heading for the western horizon.

LeConte was in a deep canyon, which meant it got the sun late and lost it early. This late in the year, the problem was even worse. Sara looked trashed. He wanted to give her something to help her sleep and tuck her into bed, but that wasn’t a good idea. If anything happened, the last thing she needed was to be sedated to the gills.

He’d been frantic as minutes had turned to half an hour and she didn’t return from the second trip up the mountainside. He’d just been gathering his pack when the
whump
of rotors sent him to the landing pad at a fast trot. It sounded like she’d had a damned close call. Good thing she’d followed her instincts—rather than her conscience—and not flown to the top of the pass on that last trip.

After a final check of Christine’s pulse, which was fast and thready, he turned and mounted the steps back into the cabin. An hour had passed since the group left. If they were correct, after five more they’d be past the worst of repercussions from the aliens. Hell, just the thought of having them on the run made him smile.

Who knew what would be left of his old life, but it didn’t matter. He’d built what he had from nothing, and he could do it again. This time with Sara by his side. He paused before opening the door. What if she didn’t want him? Worse, what if she insisted on keeping her backcountry ranger job? When the answer came, it was so simple, it surprised him. No reason he couldn’t be a backcountry doc for the Park Service. Surely they used medical personnel. Maybe he was a shred overqualified, but so what?

He pushed the door open. Sara still sat at the table sipping the tea and booze mix he’d given her.

“How is she?” Sara raised her gaze to him.

“Fading.”

“Are you sure she wouldn’t be better off in here?”

“She might be, but people have a right to decide where they want to die.”

“Of course, you’re right.” She moved her eyes to the cabin’s one window. “Want to go to the creek and watch the sunset? It’s usually pretty dramatic when there are clouds.”

“Sure.” He tugged his coat off a hook and shrugged into it. “Temp is dropping.”

Sara stood and zipped the parka she’d never taken off. “We can build up the fire after we get back.”

He thought about calling the dog, but the minute Sara got to her feet, Jake joined her and headed out the door first. “He’s a good boy.”

“Yeah.” Sara smiled. “The best. I haven’t been nearly as lonely back here since I got permission to keep him with me.”

If Jared had his way, she’d never be lonely again, but how to broach the subject? He walked next to her down a well-worn trail to the creek. It bubbled and burbled over stones on its way to the Pacific Ocean.

Sara sat on a large, flat rock and patted the place next to her. “All the ranger cabins are different,” she said. “This one has a wild river that runs all year. The creek next to mine freezes over, but it has the hot spring.”

Jared settled next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him. “I’ve been thinking about after,” he said.

“Wondering what’ll be left out there?” She waved an arm toward the west.

“That, and trying to figure out how I can keep you in my life.” There. He’d said it. He sucked in a breath, waiting for her response.

Her body stiffened where it rested against his, but she didn’t pull away. “I suppose you could come into the backcountry and visit me,” she ventured after a long silence.

“I could, but I want more than just visiting you.” He paused long enough for a measured breath. “We’re far from kids. I’ve been searching for a woman who loves what I do for a long time. We could be really good together, Sara. I know it.”

She twisted out from under his arm and looked at him. The rays from the setting sun illuminated her face, giving her an otherworldly look that transcended beauty. “I’ve thought the same thing, and told myself I was being ridiculous. That we don’t know each other well enough.” Something like hope flared from the depths of her blue-gray eyes.

He laid his hand along her jawline, and she angled her face against it. “We may not know each other well yet, but we know ourselves. You understand why you’re still alone, and so do I. If you think we might have a chance as a couple, and I believe the same thing, I’d say that’s a really strong start.”

“But how—”

“Anyway we want to. You can keep working. I could hire on as a doc with the Park Service during the summers. We could split the year up. Surely you’re not manning McClure through the winter.”

“No. I’m at Park Headquarters in Three Rivers then.”

“See. Easy. I could move a branch of my lab there. Or I could move the whole thing. Depends how my staff feel about switching locations.” He took a breath. God, she was the most beautiful creature. The bones in her face would’ve done a goddess proud. “Please say yes, Sara.”

A smile split her face, making her even more stunning. “Just what am I saying yes to?”

“To giving us a chance.”

She placed her hand over his, her fingers cold since she wasn’t wearing gloves. “How could I not? I want to get to know who you are too.”

He drew her into his arms and kissed her, soft and tender at first, but need raced through him, heating his blood with desire for the woman in his arms. She kissed him back as if her life depended on maintaining contact with his mouth. He recognized that level of intensity, twin to his own. It was how he approached everything in his life. Full steam ahead, throttle wide open.

He wove his hands into her hair and plumbed her mouth with his tongue. She opened for him, tasting of tea and scotch and Sara. She teased his tongue with hers and nibbled and bit his lips. He teased back, and she wrapped her arms around him. A chill wind tossed the last of the season’s leaves from aspen trees growing by the creek, but he burned with an inner fire that consumed everything in its path.

Cupping a hand over a breast, he rubbed her nipple through multiple layers of clothing, and she moaned into his mouth. He broke their kiss. “I want to make love with you.”

“Me too.” She laughed, and color lent a rosy cast to her tanned skin. “I want you too.”

“Should we go inside?”

“Do you want to?” She glanced at the top of the canyon walls where the sunset painted the sky in teal and violet and pink. “We’ll miss the sunset.”

“If you’re sure you won’t be cold, we can have it all. Each other and the sunset.”

“Cold isn’t much of a possibility with you next to me.” She laughed again. “We can get fancier later, but this rock’s looking like a pretty promising surface all of a sudden.”

“We did warm it up sitting on it.”

“See. The backcountry is full of possibilities.” She grinned coquettishly, unzipped her jacket and drew his hand inside, atop her breasts, but still with fabric in between.

He took her hardened nipples between his fingers and tweaked them, using her moans as a roadmap for what to do more of. She snaked a hand out, settling it on his erection, and he pushed his free hand between her legs. Hunger snared him, and he wanted to sink inside of her with a desperation that turned even his live-on-the-edge world upside down.

Her boots would have to go, so he reached for one, but she said, “I have a better idea.” Breathlessly jackknifing out of his grasp, she twisted away and undid her pants, letting them fall partway down her legs as she bent over the flat rock he still sat on. The perfect globes of her ass framed her sex in the rays of the dying sun, dark curls spiky with moisture.

He touched her folds almost reverently, tickling, teasing, rubbing until she gasped with delight, hips rocking against his fingers. Meantime, his cock swelled almost to a point of pain where it was trapped between his shorts and pants. She bucked her hips in clear invitation, and he stood and unzipped his pants, freeing himself.

Wrapping a hand around his erection, he guided it to the entrance to her body and steadied them with a hand on her hip. Slowly, ever so slowly, he sank inside her. Feeling the scorching heat of her surround him was ecstasy, and he clung to a ragged edge of control. She clenched her muscles around him, and he groaned with delight. Being inside her was amazing, incredible.

When he felt like he could move without pushing himself into an orgasm, he withdrew almost all the way, and then slid back inside. Reaching around, he rubbed her clit, while he continued his long, slow strokes into her molten core. She dissolved around him in a flood of liquid heat, and he felt the rhythmic contractions of her climax around his shaft.

It was tempting, so tempting to move up his tempo, to drive into her until he exploded, but he held back. He wanted to make her come again before he reached his peak, but wasn’t certain his body would cooperate. In an effort to up the odds, he withdrew, missing the warmth of her vault immediately.

“Come back here.” She twisted so she could look at him over a shoulder. “We’re not done. Specifically, you’re not.”

“You had it right the first time.”

Kneeling behind her, he bent so he could lick her pussy. The angle was awkward, and he tongue-fucked her while rolling her clit between his fingers. The tempo of her breathing escalated and she thrust her hips against his mouth and fingers, writhing beneath his touch. Her juices streaked his face, and her scent was intoxicating. When he was certain she was close, he straightened and pressed his cock back inside her.

She screamed her delight and shoved against him, forcing him into a rhythm that would topple him into release. The slow, cadenced lovemaking from earlier fled like chaff in a stiff wind and he slammed into her, hands on her hips, wanting nothing more than to take her, brand her, make her his.

Her pussy muscles milked him, clenching in spasms signaling her orgasm. He let himself go and felt semen judder out of him so hard a feral cry burst from his mouth. He gripped her so tightly, he prayed he didn’t hurt her, but he needed intense contact with all of her.

They remained like that, her bent over the flat rock and him standing behind her until their breathing moved from gasps and pants to something slower. He pulled out of her and drew her to her feet, turning her to face him.

“Sara, darling. That was one of the most powerful experiences I’ve ever had.”

“Glad it wasn’t just me.” She closed fingers over his exposed, still-erect cock, tucking him back inside his pants.

He tugged her trousers up her legs and helped her set herself to rights. Kleenex materialized from one of their pockets, and she blotted herself with it.

“Imagine what we could do with a double bed,” he murmured.

“We had a bed inside,” she reminded him. “We would’ve missed the sunset.”

He glanced at the sky, still streaked with pink. “It sounds hokey, but it’s like nature was smiling on us.”

“She was. I’m sure of it. Every ancient religion held outdoor ceremonies where they blessed the earth by making love on it.”

Jared pulled her close and kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks, and her lips. When he was done, he said, “Speaking of Earth, I wonder how things are going up in the Muir Hut.”