Page 42 of A Little More Forgiveness

“Shit. You don’t think he slipped and fell, do you?

“Wait here,” he ordered, tentatively stepping closer to the precipice to peer over. He cupped his mouth with his hands and hollered, “Leo.” It felt an age as I waited for him to finish his search, his eagle eyes sweeping back and forth. “I can’t see— No, wait. Leo,” he hollered again. “Leo.”

I caught a faint sound in response, but wanting to be sure, I stepped forward to look over the edge as well. “Careful,” Mitch warned. “I don’t want to lose you too.” His gentle words hit me hard beneath the ribs. I got that he meant losing me to the gorge, but the way he phrased it, the slight hint of emotion in his voice, had me longingly thinking he might have implied something more.

“Help!” There! The voice sounded faint and scared but must be Leo. He continued to shout “Help” over and over until his voice must have given out.

“Leo, we hear you,” Mitch shouted. “Hold on. I’m coming to get you.”

Dropping his backpack on the ground, he unzipped the main compartment and pulled out a couple of climbing ropes and some metal equipment I had no idea what to do with.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked him warily.

“I need to go over the edge. He’s down there. I heard him.”

“What?” I screeched at his ridiculous plan. “No fucking way. It’s too risky.” I ran my hand roughly through my sweat-dampened hair. “Can’t we call someone? We must be able to call someone. Mountain rescue or the fire department or somebody?”

“He might be hurt, Gabe, and we don’t have time to wait around. Plus, how would they get here with the bridge out? We don’t have a choice. I need to go get him now before the freezing weather gets to him first.”

I couldn’t fault his logic and grudgingly agreed with him. If Leo had injured himself, he’d need help right away to prevent his predicament from getting any worse. Panic curled in my stomach at the thought of something bad happening to him if we didn’t act now. If he blacked out or something, the weather was so cold he may never wake up. “What do you need me to do?” I asked, placing myself in Mitch’s hands.

“We need to secure these ropes to a tree so I can lower myself over the side.”

Jesus.

He pulled out a harness and placed his feet in the loops, pulled it on like one would underwear, then secured the buckle. The action cinched the straps around his crotch, cradling his package, giving him a healthy bulge in his jeans. I felt like a pervert for noticing, considering the situation we were in and the danger to Leo. Even worse, my cock twitched its approval, making me feel like a total douchebag.

“Where’d you get all this equipment?”

“I volunteer for the Park Rangers, and I’m trained in mountain rescue.”

He was full of surprises today. He had become such a recluse I didn’t think he ever socialized at all, so his answer came as quite the revelation.

Mitch thrust a couple of ropes in my hands and continued to pull more stuff out of the never-ending depths of his backpack. “I need an anchor, so we need to tie these to a couple of trees,” he pointed ten or twelve feet up the rock at the two closest to the edge.

“I wouldn’t even know where to start to tie the rope correctly.”

“I’ll do it,” he replied calmly. “We need to double back around the turn to get to the level above, then we can wrap them around the trees a few times.” I started up the slope, as he said, while he added some metal clips to his belt. Following behind me, we retraced our steps about sixty feet and scrambled our way up the snowy hill. Mitch efficiently tied the knot around the first tree, before tying a couple fancier knots in the rope and hooking two of the metal clips through the loops. Next, he took the second rope, and tied this one to the first before securing it around the second tree.

“Why tie around two trees?” I asked him, curious.

“Because I want to be as safe as possible, and evenly distributing the weight over two trees ensures there’s less pressure on a single one. Plus, if one tree does shift, or whatever, the other should still hold.” After tugging on them to satisfy himself they were solid, he next wove the rope through the clips.

His explanation helped relieve some of my anguish, and I had to reassess my conception of the man again, my admiration for him going up another couple of notches.

After securing the ropes around the trees, he threw them over the side to the path below us, before we quickly returned to the point where Leo had gone over the side. “Here.” He handed me another harness. “Put this on and I’ll make sure you’re secured.” I gawped at him, as he rolled his eyes. “You’re not going down there with me, but you will need to get close to the edge and help me with Leo when I bring him up. I want you to be safe while you do it.”

Thank fuck. “Oh, okay.”

He got me ready. The straps of the harness emphasized my crotch, too, though wearing one felt way too tight and a lot more uncomfortable than snug and sexy. Next, he made a few more knots to clip himself to the rope.

“You ready?”

I gave a quick nod. “Ready.”

“Let’s go.” He wasted no time in walking to the edge. He then turned around so he faced the wall of rock and snow, tugged on the ropes a few more times until satisfied they would hold his weight, and without any further hesitation lowered himself over the side of the gorge.

Chapter Seventeen

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