Page 9 of Playing with Fire

“Yeah, I really never want to do that.” Why would she want to crawl through an underground cave in the pitch dark? If that was his thing, more power to him, but she didn’t need to explore that kind of unknown to get a thrill. Willa could watch someone else do it via The Discovery Channel from the safety of the couch with a bowl of popcorn on her lap if she ever got that curious about it.

“Huh,” he replied.

Despite her lack of enjoyment, the more they talked, the more Willa was convinced that Dan had been the perfect choice for trial date number one. They had nothing in common beyond living in the same small town, and not once did she feel even the slightest inkling that there could be anything more between them than this shared experience.

As they came upon a small clearing in the woods, Dan glanced at the large sports watch on his wrist before turning to look up the rest of the trail with a sigh. “Do you mind if I go ahead? I was hoping to hit a personal best today.”

Willa’s feet nearly slipped out from under her when hiswords registered. “You want to leave me here by myself?” This wasn’t just her first time on the trail, it was her first time onanytrail. When she referred to a hike as being like a walk on the beach, she hadn’t meant it figuratively. When it came to actually being out in nature, Willa was about as much of a novice as one could get.

Beyond a slight tinge of pink on his cheeks, Dan didn’t look the slightest bit embarrassed about wanting to ditch her during their date. “Kind of,” he admitted with a shrug. “It’s a beginner trail that should be easy enough for you to follow. I doubt we’re the only ones out here.”

They were definitely the only ones out there. In the time they’d been hiking, Willa hadn’t seen another soul, probably because everyone else had the good sense to take one look at the dark clouds, fattened with rain and ready to burst, and stay home. Even so, Willa couldn’t fault him for wanting to get something out of a date that had been lackluster at best. She did feel the tiniest bit guilty that she’d agreed to it knowing it wouldn’t pan out.

“Fine,” Willa huffed. The trail was mostly marked. Even for a nature newbie such as herself, the odds of not getting lost were in her favor. “I’ll just follow along and will turn around when you reach me on your way back down.”

Showing the first signs of interest in what Willa was saying since they first shook hands an hour ago, Dan smiled and started hiking again. “Great. Just follow the trail and I’ll see you soon.”

Willa mentally flipped off his retreating form. “Great,” she muttered, stepping over a large rock.Smooth move, Willa.Not having a future with someone was one thing, but driving them to ditch her was another.She would need to either date someone she was remotely interested in or work on her acting skills. Sighing, she glanced around the deserted mountain andstarted up the trail.

If Willa had been wanting to prove to herself that she was a strong, independent woman, she supposed that hiking without a guide on an unknown trail was one way to do it. It would be good for her, trying something new. New experiences were how people grew as individuals, she reasoned with herself over and over again as she tripped and stumbled her way up a mountain she didn’t even know the name of. The longer Willa was on the trail, however, the quieter her mind got and the more she could hear Jeff hissing in her ear,You’re such a mess, Willa. Where would you be without me?

Angry that he still had any influence over her, even in the slightest of ways, Willa glared down and plucked up a heavy, moss covered rock before chucking it at a fallen log, feeling only marginally better when it cracked through the rotted wood and hit the hollow inside with athunk. Her therapist told her it would take a while for his voice to stop popping into her head, and that Willa just had to drown him out with her own voice.

The trail continued to twist and turn, a seemingly endless loop through the trees. “Quick mile my ass.” Apparently Dan was as bad at measuring distance as he was at gauging the weather.

For almost the entire hike, her own voice was screaming at her to go home and watch a movie with her good friends Ben and Jerry, but she’d ignored it. Not wanting to disregard her wishes any longer, Willa decided to call it quits on the hike and go back to her car. She pulled out her phone to text Dan a goodbye, only to watch a fat drop of rain splash onto the screen. At the same time, the fact that she had no reception sunk in. She cursed Dan and his horrible weather prediction.

“Wonderful,” she grumbled as more rain poured from the sky. It was just heavy enough to obscure her view and add even more difficulty to the hike, but it also fueled her desire to get the hell out of there and back to her car.

As Willa descended the mountain as quickly as she could, water seeped through her shirt, causing her to shiver despite the time of year. Early June weather in Washington was beautiful, unless you were wearing the wrong clothes and were soaked with rain like she was. Water continued to saturate the ground Willa walked on, so much so that for a moment she was tempted to just slide down the rest of the way on her rear. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option when her foot caught between two rocks and she tumbled forward.

Luckily, Willa caught herself with her hands, but that was about the only good news she had. Her knees hit the ground with a loudsmackand her ankle twisted painfully, so much so that she let out a distressed cry. The downpour drowned her out. When Willa pushed herself up, her hands squelching in the slick mud of the forest floor, she scanned the area and realized her surroundings were wholly unfamiliar. There were no trail markers nearby. Evergreen trees surrounded her. Dan was probably nowhere near her. All of those things should have sent Willa into a panic, but all she could do was laugh hysterically.

It was an odd reaction when her ankle throbbed with pain, her shoe tightened, and her foot swelled. Her clothes were nothing more than soggy rags covering her trembling body. If only Willa’s ex could see her now. He’d have a big fat “I told you so” ready for her, and she would probably deserve it. Eventually her laughter died out, leaving her tired and defeated.

With a heavy sigh, Willa extracted her ankle as gently as possible, wincing while she rolled over to examine it. If her one year of Girl Scout training was correct, it was definitely not broken, probably not even sprained, but when she attempted to put any weight on it, a sharp pain shot up her leg and to her lower back before she collapsed into the mud again. Thick sludge and bits of gravel covered her legs as Willa sat and stared out into the distance, wishing she’d forgotten all about dating andnever come.

Grabbing her phone one last time and seeing that there were still no bars, Willa did her best to crawl over to a tree for some cover from the rain. The evergreen needles themselves were thin, but the abundance of them provided enough of a canopy that she was no longer in the middle of the deluge. The temperature wouldn’t get so low that she might suffer from hyperthermia if she was stuck out there for a long time, at least she didn’t think it would. Willa probably should have paid more attention during her scout years instead of focusing on when she would get her free box of Thin Mints.

At least Lottie knew where she was. Of course, she left the house to start her shift at Branch and Brew before Willa had. Lottie probably wouldn’t be back home until after ten. What if she came home and went straight to bed? Or worse, what if she assumed Willa was out hooking up with Dan and didn’t expect her back until morning? Then she would really be screwed.

Settling herself in for the long haul, Willa wrapped her arms around her chest, leaned her head back against the tree trunk, and tried to think warm thoughts. She immediately dismissed thinking about the hot sun and warm sand in Florida since she didn’t want a reappearance from ex-asshole number one, so instead Willa tried to think about a cozy fireplace she could lay in front of, the orange and blue flames dancing about as the heat penetrated her clammy skin.

Thinking about fire naturally had her thinking about Kemp. The name didn’t suit him, but everything else about the man suited her just fine. He was definitely not the type to ditch a woman halfway through a date to tick some checkbox on his personal athletic record. No, he seemed like the type to go out of his way to show a girl a good time. He would have taken her out on a nice date, his smile and laughter alone making an evening spent dressed in something other than her coziestpajamas worth it. Willa would bet money that he was a generous lover too.

The idea brought a sad smile to her face. Willa had been with a fair number of guys, but none of them had been anything to write home about in the bedroom department. Sex with men had been…fine, she guessed. With Jeff, it was somehow even worse than that because it was always about what he wanted. Why had she put up with his shit for so long? Willa didn’t even have the excuse of being dickmatized because their sex life had been less than mediocre.

It seemed like hours passed while she berated herself. After enough time had come and gone, Willa was finally so frustrated, so completely fed up with herself at not having ended that toxic relationship sooner, that she finally let some of her anger at Jeff and at herself spill out. Gazing up into the darkening sky, Willa screamed at the top of her lungs. The earsplitting sound shot from her mouth like a rocket and went on for a few seconds until she was all out of air, her chest heaving as she tried to fill her searing lungs. The cold air burned slightly as Willa sucked it in greedily, but it also felt very cathartic, with her sore limbs loosening ever so slightly.

Any release of tension or sense of calm she’d achieved through her dramatics vanished the moment she heard a twig snap. “Wow,” someone called, startling her. “That’s quite the set of lungs you have there.”

Willa’s head whipped in the direction of the low voice, her wet hair slapping her cheek as she blinked rapidly. Wiping rainwater away from her eyes, she peered over to see who was speaking to her. Had Willa hit her head when she fell? Is that why she was seeing the man who occupied her mind more often than not lately here with her? She must have a concussion. “Kemp?” She wasn’t sure if she was speaking to the man himself or a possible hallucination of him, but either way, she instantlyfelt much better about her situation.

The image of him turned out to be very real as he chuckled, stepping over branches and rocks as he approached her. A rain slicker covered most of his body and a bag was slung over one shoulder, but even wet and bedraggled, he was hotter than the fires he was trained to battle. He pushed his sandy brown hair out of his eyes as he crouched down next to her.

“About that,” he began, slipping the bag off his shoulder. “Kemp is my last name. Beckett is my first.”

Willa nodded dumbly, too dazzled by and elated at the sight of him to do more than that. “That suits you better.” It was unique and kind of manly, encapsulating his easy personality much better than his last name did.

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