Page 11 of A Rugged Beauty
Run!
That voice in his head echoed again. Was it a child’s voice? Without any context, he couldn’t be certain.
Unease swamped him. They needed shelter. They needed help. But he caught another wary gaze from the woman.
They wouldn’t survive out here without trusting each other.
The woman felt another shiver of awareness from where she knelt over the carefully constructed pile of fine twigs and some thin, dry grasses the man had provided. He wasn't trying to be quiet as he dragged several branches through the woods to construct a shelter not far away. He'd collected several larger tree branches and broken off the twigs. Now he was forming a semi-circle around a tree with the branches, though he'd only made one partial wall so far.
He didn't speak or glance her way as he upended one of the branches he'd dragged near and added it to the growing shelter. She wished she knew whether his silence was normal. Or anything about him.
He'd startled her on his first trip back to the tree. He'd been carrying the limbs and she didn't know how a man so big could walk so quietly. She'd been bent over her pile of twigs, trying to ignite a spark when he'd seemed to have come out of nowhere.
She wasn't proud of it, but she'd shrieked in terror.
There was no mistaking the look of hurt he'd sent her before he'd carefully blanked his expression.
He'd made several more trips since, being noisy and dragging branches everywhere.
The sun was setting, hidden by a ridge beyond the river. It wasn't dark yet, but the light was fading fast. Urgency spurred her on as she handled the stick her companion had smoothed out with his knife before creating a pointed end. He'd carved a rough bowl from a flat piece of bark and left her with both pieces. Now she fitted the pointed end into the bowl and placed both hands flat together with the stick between them.
Familiarity crept over her at the motion and something, not quite a memory, rose up inside of her. Slowly, she rolled her hands back and forth so that the stick rotated between them.
She kept at it for several moments, a creeping feeling telling her this was right.
When she removed the pointed stick and touched one finger inside the bowl, it was warm enough that she jerked her finger back.
Instinct had her gathering a pinch of the dried grasses and adding it to the bowl. She put the stick back and twisted it more. Faster.
When a tiny spark glowed, she dropped the stick and bent low to the ground to blow on it—and blew hard enough that thegrass flew out of the bowl. By the time it hit the ground, the spark had gone out.
But she'd made one spark. She could make another.
She was placing a new bit of grass carefully in the bowl when the man dragged another set of branches into sight.
"I know this." Excitement made her slightly careless as she tossed the words toward him. "I've done this before. Made a fire just like this."
She saw his half smile as he fitted the branch into place. "That's lucky for us. I figured you for a bright woman."
She stalled out, holding on to the pointed stick, when she got a good look at his shelter.
"It's smaller than I thought," she murmured.
He pushed the top of the branch into place, somehow weaving it between two others from the opposite side. She didn't see how the entire thing didn't come tumbling down.
The space between the bottom of the branches, the bottom of the cone, and the base of the tree was narrow. Certainly not big enough for both of them to fit without touching.
Her stomach took a tumble.
"I'll sleep outside. By the fire." His words were calm and untroubled.
She felt the brush of the breeze against her cheek, how cool it'd become as the sun disappeared behind the horizon.
"Do you think we belong together?" She hadn't meant to blurt out the words, but the set of his shoulders and the way he'd turned his face away had affected her somehow.
He looked back at her in surprise, his eyes intent and searching. She dropped her gaze. "I-I mean... do you think we know each other. Since we're?—"
"The only two people within several miles?" There was a hint of humor to his words and it eased the discomfort, allowed her shoulders to drop and relax.
