Page 24 of Trail to Trouble
His warm tongue swept through her mouth. They kissed and kissed and kissed. She enjoyed the hell out of it. Hunter’s arms held her tightly to his body. She liked it and firmed up her own grip.
After a few more moments of mind-boggling bliss, Hunter loosened his hold and edged back. He stared at her. Those amber specks in his brown eyes looked fiery. Her insides sizzled with delight. She didn’t want to stop kissing him.
“We’d better get back and check on the others,” Hunter said.
He was probably right. Bianca and Alyssa didn’t fare well by themselves in the wilderness. She considered dismissing the thought, as they were probably still just sunbathing on the small sandy beach area.
They hopped back into the canoe and made their way back upriver to the campsite. When they got there, they found Alyssa and Bianca sitting on opposite sides of the picnic table wearing frightened expressions.
“Are you okay? What happened?” Hunter asked.
Alyssa stood with her camera in her hand. “We were just lying on the beach and I looked across the river to find this...a bear,” she said as she handed the camera to Hunter to view the screen.
He studied the screen and smiled. “It’s just a black bear. What awesome luck for you to see this.”
“Are you kidding?” Bianca chimed in. “We could have been attacked.”
Dread saturated every cell of her being. Her friend was right. Here she and Hunter had been off gallivanting around and kissing while her friends were in danger with no guide to protect them.
The concern and look of failure emanating from Hunter let her know he felt the same. He had a duty to protect them on this trip.
“I’m sorry. Yes. But the bear was across the water...” Hunter said before Bianca cut him off.
“What, they can’t swim? And furthermore, if there’s a bear over there, what says there isn’t a bear over here? What if it had come over here?” Bianca’s nostrils flared as she spoke.
“I wasn’t all that frightened until we heard some thrashing around over there,” Alyssa said as she pointed toward the trail they had hiked earlier.
“We didn’t know what it was,” she added.
“It’s all okay now. Everything is fine. Nothing will happen to you. Animals are skittish. Unless you stumble upon a wild animal with babies, or a wounded animal, you’ve probably nothing to fear,” Hunter tried to assure.
Bianca’s nostrils still flared.
“Alyssa, look at that great photo you got. You can’t get that in the city, now, can you?” Hunter asked.
Hannah supposed he was attempting to use the awesome photo as a distraction for Alyssa to get her mind off the potential danger she’d been in.
Alyssa took the camera from him and filtered through the not one but six photos she snapped of the bear, showing everybody her work. Yep, she was okay now.
The relief on Hunter’s face was clear. She supposed the last thing he needed was unhappy customers and the last thing she needed was unhappy friends. Especially since they were kind enough to take this type of trip with her to help get her mind off things.
“Shall we get going on dinner? We’re having pizza tonight” Hunter said, as he headed over to the cooler stashed in the metal box.
“Pizza?” Alyssa questioned.
“Yep, pizza made in the pudgy pie makers. Then we can have cherry or blueberry pies for dessert.”
Hannah’s mouth watered. She hadn’t used a pudgy pie maker in years and looked forward to it.
Hunter pulled the cooler from the animal-proofed box. “Feels heavy. That’s a good sign.”
“What?” Hannah asked.
“It means the guys were here and stocked our cooler with dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch,” Hunter replied, then fixed his gaze on Bianca and Alyssa. “Take it you saw them?”
“Yeah, it was two guys in a motorized boat.”
Hunter set the cooler on the picnic table and pulled out sausage, green peppers, onion, black olives, and cheese.
