Page 63 of Unnatural
Sam didn’t make her feel safe. In some ways, just the opposite. But Autumn finally knew what the scalding wash of passion felt like whooshing through her veins and muddling her mind.
And he hadn’t evenkissedher yet.
So okay then, she’d be brave. She’d help him remember that he was too. And that she was worth the risk.
They walked together, she read as he rested, and they both cooked meals and gathered firewood. In some ways, the complication—the size and scope and overarching ramifications—of their situation melted into sweet simplicity in that small cottage by the lake. Yet Autumn was all too aware that it could not last.
One night after dinner, Autumn asked, “What do you say to bundling up and taking a walk? Do you feel up to it?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, great.”
They finished their meal, and then Autumn put her sweater and gloves back on, also grabbing a beanie this time. She tossed Sam a zip-up sweatshirt lined in fleece from the closet, and then they stepped out into the clear, chilly evening as the sun began to dip below the water.
She led him to the path that meandered between the trees at the edge of the lake, just wide enough for two, and Autumn found that she felt strangely shy walking so close to him like this, the plumes of their breath meeting in the air in front of them. “I made a wish out here last week,” she told him.
He glanced down at her. He was so tall, so masculine, and she could feel the heat of his body even though they weren’t touching. “What did you wish?”
“For answers,” she said.
He looked away as they walked, out to the water, golden and rippling under the lowering sun.
“But also,” she went on, “for you to heal.”In every way.
“I’m already almost healed.”
“I’m not totally convinced of that,” she said, giving him a sidelong look. “But I know a way to test it.”
He frowned. “How?”
“If you can catch me! Don’t trip this time!” she called as she took off running.
She heard an incredulous laugh behind her and ducked between two trees, not running very fast, not really trying to get away from him at all. His stitches were healed nicely, and she didn’t fear that he’d tear them, but she wasn’t goingto risk it.
She could hear Sam behind her, and something about being pursued by him made excitement thrum through her veins. How very different from how their story began. Only then, she’d thought it was a bad dream.Then, she hadn’t known who was in pursuit. She laughed out loud as he caught up to her, his staggered breath and the crunch of his heavy footsteps directly at her back. He touched her and she laughed again, tripping over a root and pitching forward. Sam reached out and caught her around the waist, steadying her, but she went to her knees in a bed of pine needles and then rolled to her back, laughing up at the canopy of trees above. Sam dropped down beside her, rolling to his back as well.
For a moment, they lay there as they both caught their breath, the last rays of sun filtering through the dimming woods.Beautiful. Peaceful.
“You’re healed,” she declared.
He let out an agreeable grunt. “I know.”
He’d said he would leave when he was healed, and Autumn had asked him to stay. He’d given her a half-hearted yes, but she was afraid that he wouldn’t honor it. And in all honesty, she didn’t exactly know what to do with him once they left this temporary home. Would she take him to her small house? Leave him there while she went to work every day? It was all so up in the air, and it made her feel slightly desperate and very unsure. Because although she had no plan, her heart—her heart didn’t want to let him go. And in many ways, she knew even trying would be an impossibility.
Autumn turned, going up on one elbow and gazing at Sam, her eyes moving to those soft, soft lips of his. They’d been this close once before, their faces nearly touching. Andeven though she knew now it’d been reality, sometimes that long-ago moment still felt like a dream. “You almost kissed me once,” she murmured.
He turned his head, his expression surprised as their gazes met.
“In the woods, when I tripped you,” she said, as though he might not remember. And maybe he didn’t. But she had a feeling he did. “Do you ever think about what it would have been like?”
“All the time,” he answered. “Every day of my life.”
Oh.Sometimes he could be so incrediblyhonestthat it stole her breath. She hadn’t expected that, and it made her pulse jump, her heart pick up speed, her blood moving more swiftly through her veins than when she’d been running.
Autumn reached out and laid her hand over his heart and felt the strong pulse under her palm. He was growing used to her touch now, and he no longer flinched. But that was all brand new, and she couldn’t help wonder… “Have you ever been with a woman, Sam?”
He turned his face away from her, looking back to the gap between the trees where the sky had turned dusty rose.
