Page 5 of Lost in the Wild

What if this sweet, friendly stranger hiked up this mountain to find me, and I sent her away to get hurt? How can I ever live with that?

“City Girl.” Pain radiates through my knees as I crash down by her side. She’s curled up in a fetal position, her wavy red hair sprawled across her face. Swallowing hard, I brush the hair aside. If she’s dead, I swear to god, I’ll jump in the roughest part of the river, because I cannot live with this. What have I done?

But twin butterscotch eyes blink up at me, glassy with shock and pain. “Wild Man? What are you—ow.” She winces, tipping gingerly onto her back, and stares up at me.

I stare back.

“This whole assignment sucks ass,” she says conversationally, like we’re chatting by the water cooler in some office. “If I get down this mountain alive, I’m quitting Pretzel Media. They think being some fancy start up with ping pong tables and nap pods means they can treat their employees like shit, but I’m so over it. Half the time they shoot down my pitches anyway.”

Babbling—a classic sign of head trauma. Sliding one hand carefully beneath the girl’s head, I probe her scalp with my fingertips. “Did you headbutt a rock?”

“What?” She wrinkles her freckled nose at me. “No. I mean, I don’t think so. Not gonna lie, the last few minutes are a big, painful blur. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be off swinging from a vine somewhere?”

Gonna go ahead and ignore that.

“Is anything broken?” I say, abandoning her head to run both hands down her arms. “Move carefully. Tell me if something hurts.”

She snorts, even as she pushes to sit up, bringing our faces dangerously close together. I don’t move back, too distracted by the sudden wave of cinnamon spice. She smells good.

“Dude, everything hurts. I just tumbled down a rocky slope, remember?”

Oh, I remember. Vividly.

The sight of this girl falling will haunt me to my dying day—I’m sure of that. Even after she’s long gone, taking all the warmth and color from this mountain with her, I’ll be fretting about whether she has cuts and bruises.

“This is swelling.” She blinks down when I tap her right leg just above the ankle, where her thick socks cover her red leggings. Pine needles cling to the sock wool, and her breath catches when she tries to move her foot.

“Ow.”

Standing, I shake away the tingly sensation in my hands. Haven’t touched another human being in a long, long time.

“Don’t move. I’ll grab your things.”

“Way to rob me while I’m down.”

Rolling my eyes, I stuff her spilled belongings back in her backpack. The city girl holds up one arm then the other, letting me slide the bag onto her shoulders, and it’s alarmingly difficult to ignore the warmth spreading through my chest at the trust she shows me. My gaze roams over her again and again, checking that she’s whole.

And… she’s alright. A little banged up, but okay. And sure, dusk is falling—but this girl is not in danger anymore.

Not while I’m here.

I won’t make the same mistake twice. While she’s on this mountain, she’s in my care, because I never asked for this mission… but I’m in it now.

“Ready?” I ask, sliding one arm between the bag and her back, the other beneath her knees. She loops both arms around my neck as I push to my feet with her cradled against my chest. We sway together before I find my balance on the uneven ground.

“What are you—? Oh, god. Put me down! I’m really heavy. Seriously, you’ll get twenty feet and then your arms will be numb, and then we’ll both be embarrassed. Don’t be a hero…”

Her chatter fades as I tune her out, carrying the wounded city girl off path between the trees. Springy branches scrape against my legs, and the dirt is hard beneath my bare feet, while sleepy birds gossip together in their roosts.

Don’t need a map. This is my mountain; my home.

And I’ll take good care of this interloper until morning.

Three

Evie

When I woke up this morning, I did not think I’d end the day being carried through the forest by a Tarzan lookalike. If I had suspected the way things would go, I might have braided my hair and slicked on some lip gloss, because the Wild Man of Starlight Ridge?

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