Page 63 of Love in Tandem
Even so, she’d rather not think about it.
Except thinking about that night might take her mind off thinking about this night.
She lifted her head. It had started off as a game with her brother and his friend. She’d thought she was impressing them. No matter how hard they tied the knots, she could always get free. Like magic. It had been a game. Just a silly game. Until it wasn’t.
Until the ropes had been too tight. The barn too dark. Too scary. And Will never came back for her.
Tears splattered against her knees.
Why hadn’t Will come back? He was her brother. He knew she was stuck. He should have come back. He shouldn’t have left her alone. In the dark. Struggling. Not when they’d always been so close.
She fell to her side, hugging her knees against her chest. If her own brother hadn’t come back to save her, if her own fiancé hadn’t shown up to marry her, could she really expect Zach to come find her tonight?
Zach stumbled over a root. Where on earth could she be? After taking two laps around the trail earlier, he’d set up their tent, eaten a snack, and waited for her to show up. When she didn’t, he’d checked the bathrooms and tried calling her on his phone—only to remember his battery had died the night of the Uber ride when he forgot to turn it off afterward.
He checked the bathrooms again, then started up the trail she’d taken earlier to call her sister.
“Charlotte,” he called out. He stopped when he thought he heard his name. He shouted again and listened.
Yep, definitely heard his name. Or at least something that resembled his name. He cleared the top of the trail and caught the sound of a sob.
His heart stuttered. “Charlotte?” His eyes searched the darkness. Had she hurt herself? His mind didn’t even want to consider the possibility that someone else had hurt her. “Charlotte, where are you?”
A trash can lay tipped over on its side, wrappers, napkins, and bottles scattered around it. Had she been attacked?
“You came looking for me,” she said in a choked-up voice from somewhere above his head.
Well, of course he came looking for her. What did she think he would do? Just shrug his shoulders and go to bed?
“What are you doing up there?” he said, once he’d located her on top of the shelter. Then he sent a quick glance around him. Whatever had sent her to safety on top of a roof might still be around. “It wasn’t a bear, was it?”
Wait. The Natchez Trace didn’t have any bears. Or did it?
He reached for his pocket. Shoot. He’d left his knife with the bike. Not that a knife would do much against a bear. Charlotte had the right idea in climbing. Unless it was a brown bear. Couldn’t brown bears climb? Or was that black bears? Why couldn’t he remember a single thing about anything survival related?
Because Charlotte was crying. Why was she crying? It had to be a bear.
“What are you doing?” Charlotte asked, her sniffling drawing his attention to the issue at hand.
“Searching for bears.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Isn’t that why you’re on top of the shelter?”
“I dropped my phone.”
“Okay.” He waited for more. “So you climbed up on the roof?”
“I was trying to get a better signal on the roof. But I dropped my phone. And knocked over the trash can. Now I’m stuck.”
And crying. But now didn’t seem the time to point that out. He’d point it out later, once his heart rate dropped back to a reasonable level. Hopefully sometime this century.
“So would you like some help getting down?”
“Well, I mean, unless you’re busy with other plans tonight.”
“Sarcasm? Is that how we’re going to handle this?”
