Page 70 of The Cowboy's Second Chance Bride

Irony, thy name is karma.

There was another flash, and hand to God, I thought maybe the bolt had struck near us. The boom that followed made the water tremble. I looked at Cal as I butt-scooted toward him, my hands and feet sliding. I had stayed back from the edge of the falls because I knew that had to be the slipperiest, but when I caught air, I’d landed right on the edge.

I was literally living on the edge, constantly fighting the rush of the water as it maniacally ran toward the precipice to create a waterfall. Though the drop wasn’t that high, maybe ten feet, I did not feel like taking a plunge. It was bad enough that my jeans were wet, the feeling of such grossed me out.

But getting struck by lightning while being in a pool of water made wet jeans look like a nonissue. Getting electrocuted would dry those jeans right up, like a speed cycle on high heat, and my clothes and I would be cooked.

Cal looked in the direction of where I’d thought the lightning had struck, and he then stomped out to where I was but stayed away from the edge. “Give me your hands!” he barked.

I did, and he pulled me toward him. When I was closer to him than to the drop-off, he scooped me up, one arm around my back, the other under my knees. And he did it so effortlessly. He didn’t even need to toss me slightly to readjust me. If I had been standing, I would have swooned.

Fat raindrops began to pelt the earth.

“Please don’t fall,” I pleaded as I clung to him.

If we got stuck out here, would we have to fight off wildlife. I’d heard stories about elks attacking people. And there were bears. Oh, my word, bears. Cal might not have seen any, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there, because why else would Cal have bear spray?

He made getting back to not-slippery land easy. In three large steps, we were there. “We need to get to the shelter. I don’t want to be out in this. Can you stand?” he asked.

Our faces were so close, and his body was so warm. Mine was cold from the water. Goose bumps covered my skin. “I think so,” I said.

He eased me down to a stand. “You really twisted your ankle when you fell.”

I tested putting equal weight on both feet and gasped in pain, lifting my injured leg up immediately as I used his chest for balance. “I think that’s a no on the standing.”

Truth be told, as embarrassed as I was, if a girl was going to get hurt in the woods during a thunderstorm, there were worse people to be stuck with. My friend Nick for one. He had zero survival skills or instinct. Then there was Jace. He would be very confident in this situation, as he’d been raised in this forest, and so would most of my friends in Wyoming. So okay, maybe it was no big deal that Cal was with me. I was lucky I had so many capable friends. But regardless, I was glad Cal was here. Protecting me was where he excelled, and I felt like I needed some protection.

Lightning flashed. He turned his back to me. “Hurry, get on.”

I climbed him like he was a tree, scurrying right up like a squirrel looking for a hole to hide in, and held on for dear life, burying my face into the crook of his neck as the thunder rolled across the land. “We’re going to die!” I cried.

I didn’t know why I was so scared. I lived in Texas. Hurricanes, hello. But I was usually indoors and wearing warm clothes during those.

Cal chuckled but didn’t waste a second getting out of the open space. He paused only long enough to grab his pack and cooler before heading farther up the trail. I looked up to see where we were going, and ahead of us was a worn-out-looking hunting shack. If I were honest, shack was too good a word for it. He made good time, and we only had to endure two more flashes of lightning before we were in the cabin and Cal was latching the door behind us. The place smelled musty and a little like body odor, a remnant of all the dirty hunters who had passed through.

He pressed my back against a wall for support. “You can get down now. But hold on to me so you don’t have to put weight on your ankle.”

I slid down him like rain on a window, slow and clingy. I put my hands on his waist as I balanced myself. He dropped the stuff he’d been carrying, did a half turn, and flung a long arm over my head to rest against the wall.

When I stopped wobbling, he turned fully and placed his other hand on my hip. “You good?”

My hands were on his waist, and his face was close as he bent down to hear me over the heavy raindrops beating against the wood shack. I moved my hands to his shoulders and looked up, meeting his gaze. His brow was knitted with concern, his eyes dark and questioning. Where his fingers steadied me, heat moved like a current from him and surged through my body.

Am I good? Hard to say.

Parts of me were fine. Small, insignificant parts. Other parts, like my racing heart and my mind with its naughty ideas, were out of control.

A drop of water rolled down the side of his neck, and without thinking, I licked it off him, dragging my tongue along his skin. Cal groaned and not in a way that said he was annoyed. As I pulled back, his hand brushed away wet strands of hair stuck to my face. I shivered with longing.

“You cold?” His voice was a hoarse whisper. One hand held me steady as the other brushed up and down my arm, trying to warm me and chase away the goose bumps that textured my skin.

I shook my head, unable to speak.

He swiped his thumb across my lower lip. “You have goose bumps, and your lips are pale.”

“That’s not why I shivered.”

His eyes flared with heat. “We have to get this boot off you to look at your ankle.”

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