Falling for Hope (9 page)

Amy gulped and held down her tears
of relief as she took Hope’s right arm and pulled back.
 
Hope scrabbled up and over the earth to lie
flat on her back, safe, and then all four women crawled away from the edge and
collapsed in the deep mud on the trail.

“Oh, my God, that was fun,” said
Chris with a drawl, and the other women laughed weakly as Hope gathered Amy
into her arms and kissed her, long and deep.
 
They were cold and wet and covered in mud, but Amy put her arms around
Hope and drew her close, closer still.
 
Though she might live to be a hundred years old, she knew she would
never again have such a lovely kiss as this one.

“Listen, Hope…” said Chris, when
Amy and Hope drew apart and lay side by side in the rain and the mud, too
weary, suddenly, to move.
 
“I’m really
sorry that I was such an asshole.
 
It
was really stupid.”
 
For a moment, Chris
seemed to be at a loss for words as she stared down at her hands in her lap,
playing with the end of the rope as she twirled it around and around her
fingers.
 
“Did you know that Melissa and
I—”

“Yeah,” said Hope tiredly.
 
Chris glanced up, but Hope smiled at
her.
 
“She told me.”

“What did she say?” asked Chris in
a whisper.

“She said that you and she were
really good together,” said Hope, leaning back on her hands.
 
“And that the two of us weren’t.
 
And that was okay.
 
I’m just…sorry.
 
That you
never got to…”
 
She trailed off, bent forward
and sighed, her elbows on her knees.
 
“I’m sorry she’s gone,” she murmured, then.

The four women were silent for a
long moment before Chris made her squishy way over to Hope, and the two
embraced tightly.
 
“I’m sorry, too,”
murmured Chris, and Hope smiled softly.

“All right, then, ladies.
 
If it’s not too much to ask, I’m getting a
little sick of this here trail.
 
I think
I’ve communed with nature enough to last me until…oh, next week,” Hope
grinned.
 

The rain spilled over their heads
in buckets, and lightning and thunder raged above them, but as the four women
helped each other make their way down the mountain, they smiled and laughed,
grateful for each other’s company.

---

When Irene, Chris, Amy and
Hope—drenched but happy—entered the clearing that cradled the cabin, all of the
rest of the women were still gathered together on the porch, coffee mugs
abandoned on the picnic table nearby, the lights of the cabin blazing bright
yellow behind them.

“Oh, my God, there they are!”
Lindsey cried, and then, despite the downpour (
Really
, Amy thought,
how
much water did one forest need
?), everyone surged out from beneath the dry
porch roof to embrace the thoroughly soaked quartet.
 

“Is Hope all right?”

“Are you guys okay?”

“What happened?”

“Ladies, ladies…we’ll tell the
whole harrowing story around a roaring fire with plenty of wieners and S’mores
for all.
 
At least, that was the only
thought that kept me motivated on the trek back here,” Chris laughed.
 

“Great!” muttered Chris’s
girlfriend, whose name would always and forever escape Amy.

“You guys go get cleaned up.
 
We’ll all start dinner,” said Lindsey, after
embracing her wife, Irene, with a tightness that left Irene laughing and
gasping.

Hope and Amy and Irene and Chris
stumbled tiredly into the cabin, where—seated on the counter and staring
solemnly at the bedraggled women—was the tiny kitten Amy had adopted.

“I’m gone for a couple of hours,
and look what happens,” joked Hope, holding out her wet arms to the
kitten.
 
And the kitten, in a very
uncatlike move, climbed onto Hope’s sopping wet sleeve and began to purr.

“I got her from the convenience
store,” said Amy with a weak grin.
 
“I
don’t know…
 
She just felt right.”

“Well, she’s very sweet,” said Hope
softly, rubbing a knuckle over the kitten’s head.
 
“What are you going to call her?”
 
The calico fur, mostly white but with a little bit of orange and
black speckled over her forehead, was now damp from Hope’s petting.

Amy shrugged out of her wet jacket
and let it fall to the floor with a
squish
.
 
“I thought I’d ask you.”

“Hey.
 
There’ll be time for cute, adorable baby animals later.
 
It’d kind of suck if, after all of that
awesome rescuing, you got the croup or something…” said Chris, shooing them out
of the kitchen.

“The croup, Chris, really?
 
Are you watching historical dramas again?”
muttered Lindsey, eyes to the sky.
 
“She
learns these words and needs a dictionary,” she chuckled, as Chris rolled her
eyes.

“The croup is totally something you
get if you’re out in the rain.
 
I saw it
on PBS.”

“Sure,” said Lindsey, spreading her
hands, “and I’m Jane Austen.”

“Actually, that’d be great,”
quipped Irene, snaking an arm about her wife’s waist and pulling her towards her.
 
Lindsey made a squeak of protest at Irene’s
soaked condition, but then melted against her and kissed Irene squarely on the
mouth.

“Didn’t Jane Austen die of the
croup?” asked Chris to various groans as Hope took Amy’s hand and pulled her
toward the bedroom.

Once inside, both women quickly
stripped out of their sopping wet clothes, letting them fall soggily the wood
floor.
 
Hope sighed and stretched
overhead, and it horrified Amy to see the black-and-blue marks scattered over
Hope’s body.

“It wasn’t an especially
easy
slide down that cliff,” said Hope sheepishly, peering in the mirror as she ran
her hands through her hair.

Amy ignored that statement, stepped
forward and put her arms around Hope’s waist.
 
The woman raised her eyebrows with a smile as Amy pulled her forward
then, kissing her quickly.

“I thought…” she whispered, when
they broke apart, and that’s when the tears came, finally, running down her
cheeks and falling off of her chin in quick succession.
 
Hope frowned, wiping the tears away gently with
her fingers, holding Amy close against her.
 
Though both of them had been thoroughly drenched, now, with their wet
clothes off, they were beginning to warm up.
 
Still, Hope shivered a little.

“Thank you for coming after me,”
said Hope gruffly, her voice low and rough and catching.
 
Amy held her tighter, pressing her body
closer to Hope’s.
 
They stood that way
for a long moment, every inch of skin touching, pressed fully against one
another.
 
Amy had never felt so
connected to anyone else in her whole life.

And then Hope kissed her again.

It was slow, at first, the way that
Hope’s lips found her own, the way that they captured her mouth—a capture that
Amy wanted and returned in kind, kissing back with a sort of fevered need that
she didn’t even know she was capable of.
 
She’d been so tired a moment before, but now she was stepping forward,
pressing herself harder against Hope, who turned in one smooth motion and
pressed Amy’s thighs against the back of the bed and then pushed her down
softly, carefully, against the covers.

Amy stared up at Hope, who crouched
over her, staring down at her for a single, aching heartbeat.
 
Hope’s eyes were half-lidded as she gazed
down at Amy through her lashes, her mouth curling up at the corners, not with
her usual easy smile but a smile full of want.
 

Amy’s heartbeat rushed as Hope’s
fingers began to trace their way down her neck, over her shoulder blades, and
down to her breasts.
 
Amy squirmed,
arching her back, desperate, as Hope dipped down her dark head to tease her, her
tongue lazily making patterns over Amy’s skin, the woman shivering beneath
Hope’s mouth.
 
Amy reached up and dug
her fingernails into Hope’s shoulders as Hope began to kiss her way down Amy’s
stomach, her right hand and fingers moving so softly and lightly over her skin
that every part of Amy’s body shivered beneath her touch.

Hope knelt over her, then, her
fingers moving across her lower stomach and then down between her legs.

Amy let out a little cry as Hope
began to rhythmically tease her, mouth capturing hers again as she let out
another small moan.
 
She hadn’t known
how much she wanted this until it was all over, until they were safe, and she
still had so much adrenaline in her, she didn’t know where to put it.
 
But now her body responded in an instinctual
way, all feeling, all want and need and emotion as Hope pressed her fingers
down between her legs and caused Amy to cry out against her mouth, arching her
breasts up to be devoured by Hope’s tongue and teeth.
 

Hope tasted every place of her, a
long, languorous dance that kept Amy rising on different waves of deep pleasure
and ache, Amy’s fingers in Hope’s hair.
 
After Hope was done, laying out exhausted upon the bed, Amy crawled over
her, every part of her skin tingling, the waves still rolling through her as
she knelt down and began to kiss Hope’s breasts, began to explore every curve
of her.
 
Hope didn’t make a sound as Amy
kissed her, tasted her, caressed her, but Hope’s face, as she gazed up at Amy,
was filled with such an intense love that Amy felt her heart grow.

It was too much to hold
inside.
 
Amy kissed Hope firmly, deeply,
their bodies moving together until Amy did not know where hers ended and Hope’s
began.

And outside the storm gently ebbed,
the rain ceasing, the symphony of summer insects beginning to strum their
evening music as the sun peeked out from behind the mountain, shining through
the window and falling over the two women who lay entwined together: happy,
safe and in love.

---

“I thought you’d gotten lost
again,” said Chris wryly, the other women laughing, as Hope and Amy stepped out
of the bedroom, dry and clean and exhausted.

“No, I was busy being found,” said
Hope, grinning as she squeezed Amy’s hand.
 
Chris made a barfing sound, but Lindsey beamed happily from her spot by
the roaring fireplace, sticks of hot dogs in her hands.

“I can’t believe it’s almost time
to leave the cabin already,” said Irene quietly, as Hope and Amy found seats
and sticks and began to roast their dinner.
 
The other women fell silent, each reflecting on what the days had
brought them, and reflecting on what the last few days in the woods would
bring.

“Life’s strange,” said Chris, then,
quietly, all hints of joking gone from her voice.
 
She sat at the edge of her seat, her elbows on her knees, her
blonde hair combed back.
 
She stared at
Hope and Amy for a moment, cleared her throat.
 
“Things can happen when you least expect them.”

“That’s what makes us human,” said
Irene, drawing her wife onto her lap.
 
The chair creaked in protest beneath them as Lindsey curled against
Irene, resting her head upon Irene’s shoulder.
 

“You never know how much time you
have,” said Lindsey, curling her arm around Irene’s neck, kissing her on the
cheek.
 
“I could never have said that
I’d be here and now, you know?
 
But I
am.
 
And I’m so happy.”

“I am, too,” whispered Hope,
squeezing Amy’s hand again.
 
Amy’s heart
soared.

“I don’t think Melissa could have
ever predicated that she’d die in that wreck,” said Chris.
 
Her voice caught, but she cleared her
throat, kept going.
 
“But you know
what?
 
I was thinking about it last
night…
 
She wouldn’t have regretted
anything.
 
She might have wanted more
time, but if she’d known that she was going to pass away then…
 
I
know
Melissa.
 
She would have been perfectly happy with how
she’d lived her life.
 
She was always
happy.
 
She took risks to be happy.
 
She did what she had to do to follow her own
path.
 
And it wasn’t right for everyone,
but it was right for her.”

“Well, think about it,” said Irene,
glancing around at the rest of the women.
 
“If you died tomorrow, would you be content?”

Aspen drew up her legs and leaned a
little more against Shirley, who grinned.
 
“Yeah,” said Aspen, head to the side, considering the group of
women.
 
“I would be.”

Slowly, the heads around the circle
began to nod.
 

Amy cleared her throat, bit her
lip.
 
“Honestly?” she murmured, gazing
down at her hand and Hope’s hand, clasped together.
 
“Before this trip, I wouldn’t have been able to say yes.
 
But I can now.”

Hope kissed her cheek, and Amy
smiled, feeling the warmth of Hope against her as she held her tight and close,
as the group of women around them sat in the comfort of the crackling fire, of
the crickets and cicadas.