Surviving Love (Montana Wilds Book 1) (15 page)

“What’d you find?” he asked, standing up to receive her.

Her gaze slid down to his package. Her face turned crimson and a crease formed in her brow. She yanked her gaze back up to his, holding up the large bundle of green. “Thistles and nettles. Nettles are full of calcium and vitamins, but you have to cook them to stop the stinging. Thistles, though, you can just peel off the outside and chow down. I already had two. They won’t cure the hunger, but it’ll help a little.”

“It’ll help a lot. Great job!”

He transferred the booty to the side and checked the water.

“Won’t the plastic melt?” he heard behind him.

Mike turned so she could see the water bottle as it hung in the flame. He’d looped a shoelace around the mouth of the bottle, and then draped that over a branch and tied it off to the tree. On the other side of the fire was a similar device set up for her clothes, hanging as close as possible to the flame without setting the material on fire.

Hopefully.

Mike pointed to the bottom of the bottle where the color was turning black. “Without water, absolutely it’ll melt. But water within the plastic bottle will prevent melting. And as you can see, it’s boiling, which is a good sign. The rule is, cleanish water should boil for about five minutes—then all the nasty bacteria should be dead. Dirtier water should be let to boil for ten minutes, just in case. Boiling doesn’t improve the taste, unfortunately. Though that shouldn’t be a problem here.”

“And what happens if you don’t let it boil?”

“Sometimes nothing. If you’re lucky and have no fire, maybe nothing. But animal waste, not to mention a great deal of other things, create E. coli and other such bacteria, which will give you the Aztec shuffle real quick. It’ll also make you really sick or could kill you, so you should always boil the water.”

“Aztec shuffle…”

“Diarrhea.”

“Ew. Got it.”

Mike nodded and transferred the bottle to the side to let the water cool, his tongue feeling three times too big and his head pounding. He’d almost risk choking down scalding water to get one taste.

Equally ignoring his pinched stomach, well beyond hunger, he turned back to the evenly broken branches. He allowed himself one sigh to steady his head, focusing on the goal. If he let hunger and thirst rush his thoughts in the wild, he’d make a mistake that could cost a life. He had to stay strong, keep focused, and stick to the plan.

If only it was that easy. “Okay, while the water cools, let’s get this trap in place.”

Without asking what he was talking about or why they couldn’t just wait for the water—something he’d probably do if he’d had her inexperience—she nodded and immediately bent to pick up some branches.

Warmth filled his chest as he walked upstream to the location he’d scouted earlier. Her unquestioning willingness to put her life in his hands showed a deep trust. That wasn’t something she’d have in a guy she’d met a month ago. Or even the guy she’d spent half her life with. Regardless of what she said, or how she tried to reconcile her confused feelings for him, the solidity of their bond was true, and it was forged with skinned knees and skipping rocks. Now they were just building on it. Relearning each other after all this time. With the fundamentals so firm, everything else was just gloss and shine.

A high gloss, and a shine so bright it reflected…

He cleared his thoughts as he reached the location of, hopefully, a good meal.

“Okay, what I’m doing here is creating a fish trap,” he explained as he stepped toward the center of the stream, fairly shallow through this area. The icy water rolled over his shoe and attacked his ankle with a searing bite. Not fun. “This stream should be full of trout. I’ll put the branches like a gate, bracing on rocks, and make it so they can’t sneak through with the water. So they’ll come down the stream, see a branch, try to go around, see a different branch, and then just get confused and hang out.”

“How do we get them out?”

“Grab them, smash their head with a rock, gut, and eat. Hopefully. It doesn’t always work if the stream doesn’t have many fish or the trap doesn’t hold.”

“It’ll work.”

Mike smiled at the conviction in her voice. It was always nice when someone had your back.

He finished sticking the branches in the water, creating something that should hold.
Should
being the operative word. That done, and his insides starting to tingle with the thought of water waiting for them, they turned to head back.

“I want to be done with the pain. I do. I want to move on,” she said softly, trailing behind him. “It’s just so deep. It’s like a fishhook caught on a rib. I try to pull it up and it yanks at my core.”

Mike stayed silent as they got to their home base, hoping she was about to purge a little of the pain. This was an important step in getting over her loss, and she needed to let it happen at her own pace. He picked up the bottle and turned to her. She barely refrained from snatching it, taking it down in panicked, thirsty gulps. Halfway finished, she abruptly pulled it away, panting. “Here.”

“You can take it. I’ll get another.”

“No. Drink. We’ll go back and get it together. Here.” She pushed the bottle at him again, not making eye contact.

The second the wetness hit his tongue, his eyes closed in sweet, pure bliss.

“Water has never tasted so good,” Sara said, reading his mind. “Best-tasting drink I have ever had, and it tastes kind of like plastic.”

He nodded as he finished the bottle, immediately starting forward to get more. “I wish we had more than just this one bottle. Still, it beats having to find a container.”

“It’s like… an elixir when it hits your mouth, am I right? Like… I’m still really thirsty, but… I’ll never take water for granted again. I swear to God I won’t.”

He laughed, crossing the clearing for what seemed like the millionth time. “You probably won’t take any sort of sustenance for granted. When I get through with a particularly hard assignment, I thank everything in sight when I get back.”

“I want to try that with you. A hard one.”

He stepped down the small ravine and bent over the quickly moving water. “Let’s see how you feel after you get through with this one first.”

“Okay, but I won’t change my mind.”

“We’ll see.”

She fell back into silence as he filled the bottle. When they were on their way back again, she said, “He’s shaken my confidence. I think that’s the lingering problem. That’s what keeps nagging at me. It’s the fear that… I don’t know. That I’m just…
not
enough
. That I need to start my cat collection because now I’ll definitely end up alone.”

Mike couldn’t help the snort at her comment. She sat down, watching the fire dance. “And if I’m being really honest…” She glanced up at him and then back down. Her face flushed in embarrassment. “I’m old, now, you know? My best years are gone. I have no job, no—” She sighed in frustration. Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears.

He did move to her then, wrapping her tightly into his body and rocking.

“I’m scared, Mikey.” She laid her head on his chest. “I don’t know what to do now. My whole plan, my life, has been derailed, and I don’t know where to go from here. I’m lost.”

“
S
omeday I’ll stop crying
,” she said with a weak laugh.

“You will. He was your first love. For some, losing their first love is a lifelong ache—it never goes away completely, but it will diminish. Love yourself, love others, and with time, you’ll feel the sting of him less and less until finally you’ll believe in yourself enough that it no longer matters.”

“So you say.”

“I know everything, so it must be true.”

“Hmm.” Sara sat a while longer, content to be rocked. He laid his cheek on the top of her head and pulled her in closer, ignoring the water, ignoring the food, and focusing solely on her. It was that which had her heart warming and a tiny smile curling her lips. St. Mikey.

“Okay, I’m hungry. Let’s get the show on the road,” she said, giving him one last squeeze of thanks before disengaging.

“Always did think with your stomach,” he said lightly, his concerned eyes training on her for a beat before he got up to the boiling water.

“I could really go for a huge steak right now.”

“I hear that. When we get out of here, I’ll take you for one. Right now, however, I need to try and figure out how to boil those nettles. I don’t think stuffing them in the water bottle is going to work.”

“I’ll peel the thistles. They taste like broccoli, which I hated before this trip. Now, I think even dirt would taste delicious.”

“I don’t advise you trying it to find out.”

“Spoilsport.”

L
ater that night
, after they’d partially sated themselves with vegetables, and Mike had set snares for ground squirrels, they lay down next to the crackling fire.

“Thanks for the clothes back, by the way,” Mike said, wrapping a big arm around her. He pulled her in tight. A warm tingle started in her middle. His fingers brushed her neck as he cleared away a wisp of hair, the tingle turning into shivers. Then butterflies as his scratchy chin and soft lips glanced against her skin.

“Goodnight, Sara.”

A brief image flashed through her head: Mike’s taut body over her, the moonlight from the window glistening off his muscular butt between her thighs. She couldn’t help remembering the intense feel of him, his substantial girth pushing into her, filling her up. Stretching her to the point of glorious pain. It’d seemed like he knew every inch of her body. Like he revered it, going slow when she needed it, fevered when the feelings got so tight every one of her muscles flexed. He’d hit places she didn’t know a man could tease. Tantalized her body in a way that couldn’t be normal. Exploded her into an orgasm so intense she was on fire.

Just thinking about it had the cold dropping away. Had her focus drifting to the body behind her. To the man that snuggled around her. But that was just sexual. She needed to somehow merge the man with the boy.

Why was that so difficult? Why couldn’t she just push herself into the present?

Her stomach pinched, and not from hunger.

She knew why. Because in the present existed pain. Even before the breakup, she hadn’t really been happy. She hadn’t smiled regularly. She held on to the past, to happy times as kids, to solid and unyielding trust, to unconditional love. That was where she had wanted to be. Forever. It was the only time she’d been unquestionably happy, even in the sad times. Even when one of them got in trouble. Together they’d dusted themselves off and moved on, never taking long to smile once they were together.

When had she really stopped smiling? Was it when adulthood had bogged her down, or when the other half of her had moved away?

Frustrated, cold washing through the warmth from a second before, she switched gears.

“Do you like this?” she asked softly, feeling his breath on her face. “Surviving?”

He chuckled. “Are you kidding? This sucks. It’s miserable. Thirsty, starving, headaches, freezing at night, hot during the day. Always surviving. A footstep away from death. This is pain and torture for days at a time. No safety net. No, no one could like this.”

“Why do you do it, then? Why don’t you just teach it, or work the ranch?”

He kissed her neck and snuggled in closer. “Because I can’t teach what I don’t know. And I don’t want to shy away from things just because they might be unpleasant. There is a certain amount of pride in making it through something that could kill you. In knowing that if you get stranded one day—if the worst happens—you have a fighting chance. That you don’t have to lie down and die; you can get yourself out of it. Plus, four days of misery make life on the other side of it all that much sweeter.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes. “You’re crazy.”

After a short silence, all he said was, “You’ll see.”

T
he morning brought glorious sunrise
, sprinkling the ground in a glowing light show. Sara uncurled from Mike’s body with chattering teeth. He had been right last night when he said this sucked. It did. Her stomach churned and growled, imploding on itself from lack of sustenance. Her limbs quivered and ached, prickles of cold making motor skills jerky and arduous. The only thing going for her was that she was only a tiny bit thirsty. Her tongue wasn’t thick and sticky, like it had been yesterday before they settled in.

“We need real food, today,” Mike said, bringing sticks over to the faintly glowing embers. “The vegetables were a good start, but we need protein. This morning I’ll go check those snares, see if anything caught. Next we can see if any fish came down. If those fail, we’ll have to get more active with hunting.”

“Someone should come for us tomorrow, right?” Sara asked, doing a couple of jumping jacks to work some heat into her shaky limbs.

“They’ll turn the GPS on tomorrow and see where I am. It’ll take them some time to make a decision to come get us. Then to make it to us.”

“Shouldn’t we just walk back up to the place we got dropped off?”

Mike stoked the fire and glanced in the direction they’d come. “I’ve thought about that. The risk is too great, I think. I know the general way back, but we could get off track. Plus, there was no water up there. If we have to wait another couple days, we’ll just have to look for water again. No, I think staying put is our best option—it’ll make it easier for them to find us.”

“So. Food.”

He stood, glancing around their area. As his eyes whisked passed their supplies, suddenly he paused. His piercing gaze hit hers and held her for a moment. A sparkle wormed its way into his glance. “You still haven’t started your period.”

“For a man that didn’t have sisters, I’m worried about how blasé you are about this topic.”

He shrugged, turning his broad body to face her. “I’ve worked with women in the wild. My shock or squeamishness value is incredibly low.”

A smattering of jealousy nudged her. “You’ve gone surviving with other women?”

He squinted a tiny bit, analyzing. A smile quirked his lips. “I had a few women in my classes when I was learning about survival. Neither of them was dating material. Why? Jealous?”

“No,” she lied, reaching down to snatch up the bear spray. “I’m going to get water while you look for squirrels. Make myself useful.”

“I might need to hang out with the squirrels for a while—are you sure you won’t be mad? Do you want to tag along and make sure none of them makes a pass at me?”

“It’s all fun and games until someone gets hit in the head with bear spray,” she mumbled as she walked away. “Your laughter is grating, by the way.”

In a fog of hunger, she wandered to the stream, the soot-covered water bottle clutched in her hand. As she stared down, watching the submerged rocks shimmer and dance as the water flowed by, a thought struck her.

She turned right and started walking up the hill. A few minutes later, she was standing beside the shallow area housing the fish trap. A grin spread across her face.

“He did it!” she announced to no one.

Two fish floated in the area just before the branched gate, waiting for something to happen. Mike had been right; they couldn’t get by, and they couldn’t swim back upstream. So they waited. What for, they didn’t know.

But she did.

“Okay, Sara, let’s not be hasty.”

Eyes on the prize, she edged down past the trap and eased the water bottle in, then filled it to the brim and secured the liquid with the cap. That done and stowed, she rolled up her sleeves and approached the treasure trove slowly. Creeping. Real sneaky-like.

No sense advertising their death.

Her stomach pressed and her mouth went dry. She could almost smell cooked fish. Hearing the imaginary sizzle of one of these little suckers on the fire.

Oh my God, I am so hungry.

One foot slid into the water. Cold soaked her shoe and flash-froze her foot. She didn’t move.

The fish, still idling, glanced her way—if fish could glance. And in her mind, they could.

“No big deal, just a strange new rock. It was always here,” she cooed quietly, her foot going numb. After another immobile moment, she inched her other foot in. The fish closest scrammed upstream with a tail jolt, coming to rocks that blocked the way.

“Don’t freak out, little fishy. Everything’s fine.”

She took a step closer, slow and steady, shooting the other fish upstream with the movement. And another step, corralling them with a patient hunting method. Both fish were eyeing her warily by now, she could just feel it. They knew what was coming.

“Poor little buggers,” she said softly. She’d never killed anything before.

Her stomach turned and a wave of dizziness swept over her, something that happened more frequently the hungrier she became. The churning pain of an empty stomach receded into a dull ache.

Wiping away the guilt of what she was about to do, she bent at the waist, hands out like claws, ready. The fish waved their side fins, floating.

And she was upon them.

She plunged her hands into the icy water and grabbed at the fish on the right. The slippery skin glided off her fingers, and it darted away. She sloshed after it, half grabbing, half clubbing the water, trying to swipe it out like a bear. To the trap now, cornering it. Kind of. It was way faster than she was.

This time, she used both hands and slapped and splashed the water, pushing the foot-long fish toward the bank in a wet splash. A glimmering body slapped the bank, bouncing and flapping to get back in.

“Have to get it!” she hollered, jumping after the fish. She scrabbled at it, closing her hands around the slippery body and pinning it to the ground. Wild, beastly,
hungry
, she grabbed a rock off the bank and brought it up for a killing blow.

Her heart hammered in guilt, but her mouth salivated with the thought of cooking food. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” Breath coming fast, the logical side screaming at the fevered, hungry cavewoman side, she brought the rock down.

“Oh
God.
Ew. Oh, gross!”

She did it again just to be sure. She didn’t want it suffering. Then, taking a deep breath, she put the fish out of the way and turned back to the trap. Sympathy would mean she didn’t bring a full meal back for Mike. It would mean continued hunger. It would mean failure and possibly death.

“I’m sorry, fish. I really am. But I’m starved. And this is Mother Nature, right? And she’s a bitch. So you have to be used to this by now, right? So… this is just more hard luck.”

She waded in again, the creature obviously not real bright, because it shot to the same place its swimming buddy had. Sara closed in the same way, slowly. Inch by inch. Dizziness rolled. Her stomach clenched. Her arms shook. Half of her wanted to rip into the shiny body with her teeth.

She suddenly had a new appreciation for Gollum in
Lord of the Rings
.

“Easy does it. Steady and efficient. I can do this. I can.”

The fish bolted as she reached it. She chased it to the other side of the trap, freezing water splashing up her legs and drenching her pants. Numb hands slapped the water, missing. To the other side again, sloshing like a bear in the middle of the stream. She darted her hands in the now agitated water, visibility nonexistent. Slimy surface glanced past one hand. She clutched with the other, just closing around it.

“Got you!” she shouted, hanging on and grabbing with the other hand. She swung her arms toward the bank and flung the wriggling fish that direction. It bounced and flapped, same as the other. And just like the other, she was on it in a flash, some sort of primal ability taking over. Pin and bludgeon, reality pushed to the side so she could get this done.

Only when both creatures had stopped moving, and blood coated her hands, did the gravity of the situation sink in.

“Oh no. I killed something.” She shivered, guilt coating her insides. “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this.”

She washed her hands thoroughly and then grabbed her prizes. With a slightly sour mood, headache pounding from the hunger, she trudged back to camp, half hoping Mike had come up empty. Killing fish was one thing, but little squirrels…

She shivered again, not registering her teeth. Back in the clearing, Mike was by the fire, staring in her direction with a steady gaze.

“I got some!” she said, feeling guiltier with the delighted smile, holding up her catch. If she hadn’t had to bludgeon the poor things to death, it would’ve been like coming back from the store.

And now she had more appreciation for farmers and game hunters.

Mike nodded as his eyes roamed every inch of her body, lingering on her abdomen before taking in the fish. He put down what was in his hands and stepped forward, his eyes twinkling.

“Good job, baby. You did good!” Mike planted a kiss to her head and took the fish.

She pretended not to notice her heart fluttering as she brought the string from the tree and hooked up the water bottle to it.

“Take off the cap,” Mike said, setting the fish near the fire.

Rookie mistake.

Sara rolled her eyes at herself and then stripped off her pants, warmer without the cold, dripping things. Using Mike’s contraption of branches, she strung up her pants so the heat from the fire could dry them, before glancing at his task.