Page 65 of Deceptive Lies

Tears were good, they meant there was still some water left in her body.

On the other hand, they were bad because Willow knew how to keep her emotions in check, and if she was at the stage where she was crying then she wasn't doing well.

“What’s wrong, honey?” he asked anxiously as he knelt beside her, reaching for her good hand.

She batted it away and began to rub at her calf muscle. “C-cramps,” she forced out as she clenched her teeth together.

Just what they needed.

They were creeping toward a medical emergency he didn't have the tools to deal with.

First, it was heat cramps, then it would progress to heat exhaustion, then following that would come heat stroke. Something she wouldn't survive if he couldn’t get her out of the heat and get some water into her.

Helplessness crushed heavily upon his shoulders. It wasn't that he didn't want to help her, his entire body screamed at him to do something productive. But he couldn’t. He could literally do nothing to help Willow, and it was killing him.

Forcing his fingers to uncurl from the fists they’d formed, he gently shifted her hand away from her legs. “Here, honey, let me do it.”

Teeth still clenched, Willow sank back to lie against the hot sand. Heat was everywhere, it surrounded them, it was in the ground, it was in the air, the sun shone relentlessly on them, and there was not a single tree to give them a little relief.

Massaging her cramps wasn't going to do a damn thing to help her. This wasn't just an overuse problem that working out the kinks in the muscles was going to solve. The only thing that would relieve her of the pain was water.

Right now, he would sell his soul to the devil himself for a bottle of the stuff.

Or for a village to appear on the horizon.

Anything.

Literally, anything that would prevent him from having to stand helplessly by and watch Willow die while he was powerless to do anything about it.

“I’m sorry, Willow,” he whispered forlornly. If he was going to have any chance of processing her impending death, he needed her to know how sorry he was that he couldn’t save her.

Lifting her head just enough to look at him, her brow furrowed as she asked, “For what?”

“Not getting you somewhere safe, for all of this.” He waved a hand at the desert surrounding them on all sides and their mortal enemy the sun.

“None of this is your fault,” she said softly. Although he could feelthe tension in her body, and knew the cramps had to be excruciating, somehow she managed a smile for him, and it had tears burning the backs of his eyes.

How was she so strong?

He knew she knew what was coming, it was why she’d tried to convince him to leave her behind. Yet even staring death in the face she was being so damn brave. She was still walking alongside him even as he had to slow his pace until they were barely crawling along. They alternated between him carrying her and her walking a little on her own, but they weren't making anywhere near enough progress to outrun the inevitable.

Cooper’s fingers tightened on her leg as though he could somehow force the cramps from her body. “I should be able to do … something,” he hissed in frustration.

“Like the impossible?”

“Damn the impossible. I want to make it possible. I won't let you die out here,” he roared into the empty desert.

Pushing herself up into a sitting position, Willow’s hands covered his, gently easing them off her cramped muscles, then entwined their fingers together. “That’s exactly why I'm falling for you,” she murmured.

His gaze darted to her face in shock.

Relief that he wasn't the only one who felt this pull drawing them closer momentarily wiped away a little of his fear that he was going to lose Willow before he ever had a chance to make her his.

“I know I've only known you a couple of days, but I've never felt for another man anything even close to what I already feel for you. I just … I wanted you to know.” Her gaze dipped and she didn't need to finish that sentence. Didn't need to say she wanted him to know because she more than likely wasn't going to survive this.

Framing her face, Cooper crushed his lips to hers. This time, it was no sweet, delicate kiss, this time he poured everything into it. These feelings he was developing for her, his helplessness, his regret, how badly he wanted to have a chance with her. All of it. Because this might be his only chance. Willow was deteriorating quickly, and hours might be all he had left with her.

“You're not the only one,” he told her when he finally pulled back enough that he could see her face. “I feel it, too. It’s crazy, but it’s so strong. It’s like my soul is screaming out for yours.”

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