Savage Cinderella (9 page)

He would definitely have to come back for his
camera or have Brinn retrieve it for him. He’d lost it in the fall
and his backpack was left behind at the creek. He wanted to save
that incredible first moment when he had seen her, crouching in the
stream and tossing a fish up out of the water—a moment he would
never forget. He hated leaving behind the only evidence he had of
her existence. If it were up to him, they would see each other
again.

Brinn moved with surety through the dense
underbrush, swinging her machete in an even rhythm ahead of her and
cutting a path through the ferns.

Justin couldn’t help but admire her lithe
body as she trekked seamlessly through the forest. Her clothes were
worn and clung in the drizzling dampness like a second skin,
showing the curve of her hips and the outline of her small breasts,
her nipples peaked from the cool breeze. The boots she wore looked
like they were part of her feet with the soft leather wrapped up
around her ankles. She had a small pouch at the back of her belt
and her knife sheathed at her side. Her hair was tied back in a
snarled bunch with a piece of blue ribbon, a simple reminder of the
world she’d left behind.

Her face was streaked with dirt, but every
time she looked back to see what progress Justin was making, or if
he needed help to negotiate the next turn, her almond-shaped blue
eyes sparkled with warmth and beauty, turning up at the edges along
with her smile. She looked like an angel—or maybe a wood sprite or
fairy. He smiled, meeting the grin she flashed as she peered over
her shoulder to check his progress.

Justin recalled waking that morning with her
in his arms, a hot bundle of softness that he’d held close through
the night. He hadn't slept much, afraid of touching her in a way
that would remind her of whoever had done her such harm as to make
her choose a life of fear and isolation—the bastard that had left
behind the cluster of cigarette burn scars on her shoulder.

His insides twisted at the thought of the
little girl she’d once been and the innocence that had been stolen
from her. The visible wounds had healed, but Justin wondered at the
possibility of ever finding a way past the hard wall of fear and
mistrust surrounding her heart. His own muddle of feelings aside,
and whatever her story was, her safety had to come first.

Over the past few days, he’d pieced together
what little she’d told him and had concluded that she was a runaway
and obviously the victim of horrible abuse. But she wasn’t a
defenseless child any longer and whoever had hurt her had to pay.
When he’d finally dozed off just before dawn, with the fragile
young woman wrapped in his arms, he made a silent vow that he would
find a way to free her from the loneliness of her wilderness
prison. He would find a way to help her, whatever the cost.

It was late afternoon before they reached the
trailhead. Brinn stopped abruptly ahead of him and stared out at
the valley below. She tucked the machete into the back of her belt
and pointed down a well-worn deer trail.

"Head south until you come to the great falls
and then turn onto the East trail. The trees will be marked with
yellow dots. You should be able to find your way from there," she
said with a distinct sadness in her voice. “I can’t go any
further.”

The finality of her tone made him resist
argument. "You know I would stay longer with you if I could, but
people must be searching for me by now. I have to go back. I have
work, and family, and friends..." He left his sentence unfinished
as she stared, her blue eyes shimmering with moisture. He felt
awful leaving her behind but he couldn’t force her to come with him
either.

"I understand. I would not ask you to give up
the life you know, any more than I could leave this mountain with
you." She gazed around and smiled sadly as if the wind in the
trees, the birdsong on the air, and the warm rays of the afternoon
sun were her family. "This is my home."

She touched his cheek and traced her fingers
over his ear, smiling as she smoothed a curl into place. She
reached into the leather pouch hanging from her belt and handed him
a small tin. “It’s burdock salve. Use it on your cuts and scrapes
and they will heal more quickly.”

He took the gift and stepped back, afraid
that he wouldn’t be able to leave her if he stood too close. "I’d
like to come back and visit you again." Relief swept through him
when her face lit up and she nodded.

She tilted her chin to the sun, which was
slowly dropping into the west behind the trees. To the east, a
sliver of the pale moon sat above the tree line like a crooked
smile on the face of the cloudless blue sky. "I’ll meet you here at
midday after the moon has shown its full face. Can you find this
trail again?"

"I’ll find you," he said with certainty and
resolve. Unable to stop himself, he stepped closer and took her in
his arms. He held her there, thankful for the small grace that she
had neither flinched nor pulled away when he approached her
uninvited.

“
I don’t think I remembered
to thank you for saving me. I don’t know what would have become of
me if you hadn’t come to my rescue.” He forced a smile past the
aching in his chest as he loosened his hold on her. “I want you to
have this.” He lifted the chain from around his neck and slipped it
over her head. It was the only thing he had to give her, and he
wanted her to have it. Maybe it would protect her or give her some
comfort. “This was a present from my grandfather on my graduation
day—a Saint Christopher’s medal. “It’s for the protection of
travelers.”

She looked down at the small medal and up
into his eyes with an expression of confusion and pain he didn’t
understand. She grabbed at the chain and pulled it back off,
shoving it into his hand as she stepped away and turned her back.
“I can’t wear that. It would mean...” She stopped in
mid-sentence.

When she turned back, Brinn's cheeks were
moist with tears. "Good-bye, Justin." She looked away and then took
off at a run. She faded into the forest, even as he called after
her.

Finding Brinn

The verdant forest thinned as Justin made his
way to a cleared trail that finally ended at the ranger station.
The rangers had searched for him, but after the heavy rain had
found nothing but his backpack. By the third day they assumed he
had met with a tragic end and were amazed by his good condition as
he limped in after dark.

He said nothing about Brinn or her tiny cabin
hidden in the high wilderness region beyond the state park. He told
them only that he had found shelter under a rock overhang until his
ankle was healed enough to support his weight. Reminding him how
lucky he was, they officially called off the search and a ranger
drove him to a hospital in Atlanta, just to have an x-ray done of
his foot and to be sure he suffered no ill effects from his ordeal.
His BMW, he was told, had been towed to impound. He called his
friend Cody to pick him up at the hospital.

By the time he retrieved his car and reached
home, all he wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and sleep for
a day or two. He pressed the play button on his answering machine.
There were six messages from his mother, three from Cody, and
fourteen from Charlene. He let out a tired sigh and retreated to
the shower.

He returned calls and briefly related the
story of his adventure, which included nothing about his encounter
with Brinn. Exhausted, he settled into the warmth of his own bed
and slept, dreaming of falling, of dancing bears, and of waking
with the slender body of the wild girl wrapped in his arms.

∞∞∞

Justin returned to work at the magazine the
next morning, thankful it was Thursday and almost the end of a very
long week. Greeted with a swarm of smiling faces, he was bombarded
with questions and hugs of relief from coworkers. Charlene dragged
him bodily into her office, closed the blinds, and threw her arms
around his neck.

"Oh, God, I thought I'd lost you. You have no
idea how worried I've been. I knew something like this would
happen. You never listen to me. You should have let me come with
you, or taken Cody. Why don't you at least get a dog to take with
you on these reckless mountain treks of yours?" Her tirade
continued for another minute or two before he finally put up his
hands in surrender.

"Okay, okay, already. I get it. You were
worried, but I'm fine, see?" He waved a hand over his body,
dismissing the crutches he’d been issued at the hospital. He smiled
amiably at the woman, whose face flushed with the excitement of his
return. Charlene had fair skin, which turned instantly red and
blotchy when she was upset or excited, a color that matched her
hair perfectly. The auburn curls were swept back in a fashionable
style and held up by a decorative barrette studded with shiny,
colored stones. Her dark eye makeup accentuated her green eyes and
she was undeniably pretty, but Justin couldn't help but compare her
tight skirt, voluptuous curves, and made-up beauty to the earthy,
natural glow of the girl he'd just met. Somehow, he found the
overbearing redhead lacking.

"Tell me every harrowing detail of your
experience. Did you get lots of pictures?"

"Sorry to say, I lost my camera when I fell
down the mountain. As well as my cell phone,” he added. “I wasn't
in any shape to worry about it at the time."

"That's a shame; the pictures would have
added a lot to the story. But don't worry, the magazine will
replace your camera and your phone, and I want a copy of the story,
complete with all the gruesome details, on my desk by Monday. We'll
run it in next week’s edition and then we can do a follow-up in a
few weeks when you can make it back to the park to get some shots
of where you were and how you survived." She eyed him suspiciously.
"You look remarkably well for a man who just spent three days
living on ferns and suffering a head injury and a broken
ankle."

Justin laughed, "It was only a sprain; and as
you know, I have a very hard head. Fortunately, I found a shelter
and ate fish and day lilies."

Charlene's eyes widened with surprise. "I
didn't know day lilies were edible. You never cease to amaze me,
Sweetie-Pie." Justin flinched. Her deep southern drawl was as
exaggerated as the rest of her charms and as annoying as nails on a
chalkboard.

"If you get hungry enough, anything is
edible.” Justin ignored the compliment and term of endearment and
continued, “I just got lucky, I guess. Nothing I ate was poisonous.
I figured as long as I stayed away from mushrooms and berries I
couldn't identify, I'd be safe enough." He hated lying to Charlene,
but he owed it to Brinn to keep her secret, at least until he
figured out what her story was.

He remembered looking through Brinn's books
and talking with her about how she learned the hard way as a child
what was good to eat and what had made her terribly ill. She’d told
him about a bad incident involving some berries from a Virginia
Creeper. She’d explained that her friend Abby, whom she spoke of
only a few times in passing, had found some books on edible plants
of the Southeast and taught her about planting and gardening,
putting an end to Brinn's suffering for her ignorance. She also
discovered that by watching what the animals ate, she could be
relatively certain that any plants or roots that were safe for them
would be okay for her to eat as well. It wasn’t foolproof, but
nothing had killed her yet.

Charlene broke through his reverie and threw
her arms around his neck again, pressing the fullness of her
revealing cleavage against his chest with intent. "Why are you
smiling like that, Handsome?"

Justin tensed, but returned the embrace,
hugging past her warm cheek and giving her a firm squeeze. "I'm
just feeling lucky to be alive, I guess." He rested his hands on
her hips and gently pushed her away.

Charlene was complicated. He was fond of her,
and at one time, thought maybe that he even loved her. He’d been
drawn to the fact that she was a few years older and more
experienced than he was. They had journalism school in common and
the sex was good—not that he had anything else to compare it to. It
was his first and only serious relationship. But their careers had
collided when she took the job as managing editor of the magazine
he was working for, and the relationship had taken a dive. He
refused to sleep with the boss, and she couldn't give up the
perfect career opportunity for the sake of a relationship.

If it was up to her, they would still be
sleeping together and she would still be bossing him around the
next day. Justin decided his infatuation with her had worn off with
the novelty of the experience. It seemed most of the women he’d
tried to date were only looking for a fast car and a fat wallet. He
didn’t want to be that for anybody.

Since taking the job, his career had been his
only focus. Not that he had big plans for fortune or fame, but he
wanted the freedom to photograph and write what he wanted. For that
privilege, he had to be the best, and he had to make a name for
himself.

Financial independence had the added benefit
of making it clear to his father that he wouldn’t be caving in to
the pressure of following in his footsteps. There was nothing about
a career in corporate law that appealed to Justin. Power and wealth
meant very little to him considering the mess his father had made
of their family in the name of material comforts and rising to the
top. Luckily, Justin’s trust fund from his grandfather had allowed
him to break away from his family problems when he went off to
college. Even more fortunate was that Gramps had paved a way for
Justin’s mom to leave the ruins of a violent and destructive
marriage.