Page 64 of Love in Tandem
“Sorry. I’m rattled and embarrassed and . . . yes, I would really like some help getting down.”
Zach stepped to the edge of the shelter and held up his hands. “Okay then. I’m ready.”
The moonlight reflected off her shadowed shape. “Ready for what? I’m not a toddler. I can’t just hop down into your arms.”
“What’s your suggestion?”
“Get closer. I’ll . . . I don’t know. Maybe I can slide over and drop my feet down on your shoulders.”
“Okay.” That might possibly work. He supposed. He stepped right beneath where her feet started to peek out over the edge.
“Get as close as you can.”
He inched forward. “I’m right beneath you.”
“Get closer.” Her muffled words got lost inside a grunt as she scooted her feet further over the edge.
He straightened as tall as he could while bracing his feet apart to support her oncoming weight. “I can’t exactly grow any taller.”
“This hurts my stomach. Am I about there?”
Her knees were bent, so that her feet aimed for the sky. “You’re not even pointed the right direction.”
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“You can.” His hands pawed at the air, not even close to touching her. “You’re going to have to scoot closer to the edge.”
A grunt reached his ears. The hair on Zach’s neck rose higher than Charlotte’s feet. “Charlotte, please tell me that was you.”
She must have heard it too, because she froze and whispered, “That wasn’t me.”
Zach turned and caught a shadowed mound moving closer. “Charlotte,” Zach whispered. “Don’t panic, but there’s some sort of . . . something.” Not a raccoon. Not a possum. “A wild hog maybe.” He had heard of campers coming across those in this territory before.
“A wild what?” she whispered in a shriek that sounded an awful lot like panic.
The hog snorted and ambled closer, his attention so far directed on the trash sprawled all over the ground. Zach could probably walk away without the hog having any interest in him. But he couldn’t leave Charlotte up there alone.
With one eye on the hog, Zach edged his way to the other side of the shelter. If he could get Charlotte down, they could slip away. The small beast was too distracted with the trash to worry about them.
Then another grunt and snort sounded behind him. He turned to find two more shadowed bumps angling toward him. These two with tusks. And they were starting to charge.
Zach discovered something amazing in the next second. He discovered he had a vertical leap worthy of the NBA when his life depended on it.
He also discovered, whatever type of hogs these were, they weren’t the type to easily move on. Not when they wanted to investigate every morsel and scrap of trash in the vicinity. Didn’t look like he and Charlotte were going anywhere for a while.
So much for keeping his distance.
Zach nudged Charlotte’s shoulder with his. “What was that you said before the trip about kissing a pig?”
The sound of birds twittering beckoned Charlotte awake the following morning. She cracked open an eye to a bronze-tinted canopy of early light.
Whoops.
She must have fallen asleep before her first watch. She and Zach had agreed to take turns letting each other doze while the other person stayed on guard to make sure neither of them rolled off the slanted roof into a mosh pit of wild hogs.
But sometime early on, probably when Zach suggested she lie down and use his shoulder as a pillow, she must have fallen asleep. Hard. And then snuggled into him as if the rest of his body were her own personal sleeping bag. But who could blame her? This wonderful man had come back for her. He hadn’t left her alone in the dark. He’d made sure to find her because . . . well, they were a real couple, weren’t they?
“Looks like we survived,” his low voice rumbled next to her ear.
