Page 46 of Wild in the Woods
“Who cares if I’m not living my dream.”
He stopped and looked down at her. “You’re not seeing the point, Lulu. You’ve already won. You created something big that was important to you. It doesn’t matter what your father approves of. Your already successful. You have almost one million followers craving content from you. There’s no way that many people are going to read a paper in a medical journal.”
Tears hit her eyes. Why was he doing this to her? The vlog didn’t matter. It was over and she had a real job to do. If he kept being this kind and understanding, she was going to break down.
“Okay, Mr. Therapist. Since you’re dissecting me, let me ask you a question. Why don’t you have a date to the wedding?”
He huffed through his nose and shook his head. His hand fell away. “Ugh, the damn wedding. Why? Because my father is also a raging asshole who scared me off trying to have a relationship. One-night stands got old, dating is a waste of my time, and getting serious is off the table. No wedding date means no expectations.”
Her heart ached for him. How is it they both had such difficult families?
“Where’s your dad now?”
“We cut him out of our lives years ago and never looked back. You don’t have to tolerate people treating you like shit, Lulu. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is let toxic family member go and choose the people you want to accept as your family instead.”
He paused to look at the sky. Dark clouds were moving in and blocking out the sun. Fox pulled out a handheld device and tapped around on it. “This came out of nowhere. Radar shows a storm moving in. We need to make shelter.”
Their intimate conversation had drained her further, but the thought of being caught in a storm lit a fire under her ass. Fox explained how to find a suitable place to take cover in a situation like this. The basin was mostly flat with a few rolling hills but nothing enough to provide adequate cover if the storm turned violent. They went further when Fox pointed out a large rocky feature towering over the hills. A crest above formed a sort of ceiling. They hurried that way as the wind picked up and pulled at their clothes and Lulu’s hair. It whipped around her face, easily pulling free from the hairband that slid down, down, and fell away. Pulling her hood over her head, she held it closed beneath her chin.
“This rise should help against the wind.”
Throwing down his pack, he withdrew a small tent, a collapsible pole, and some metal stakes. He instructed her on how to help. Rain beat down on them before they got the stakes in the ground. Wind charged the tent, making it flutter and billow, but they managed to wrangle it into submission.
Lulu wilted against the onslaught of the storm, terrified. Her flight instinct kicked in, urging her to run like a frightened deer. With her luck, she’d end up in front of a truck.
“Get inside!” Fox yelled.
Grabbing her arm, he fed her inside the tent, tossed in his backpack and crawled in after her. The fabric rippled and stuttered around them as he zippered the door flap closed. She’d never been in a tent before and now she had to ride out a storm in one. Pulling her knees to her chest, Lulu wrapped her arms around her legs and put her forehead on her knees. Fox squished up against her, his body heat quickly becoming oppressive It was small in here, obviously made for one person. How were the thin walls going to hold up against the onslaught?
Her breath came hard, too hard. Too fast. Hiccups lodged in her throat. Rudd was right. She shouldn’t be out here. Not weathering a storm in a tent, not fishing for her food, and definitely not fighting her attraction to a man she’d never have.
“I’m tapping out,” she said with her face buried. “I want to go back in the morning. I’m done.”
Fox put his arms around her and held her tightly as the air outside darkened and the sky unleashed.
Chapter Eighteen
“Lulu,wakeup.”
Somehow, the tent was still standing. They’d managed to fall asleep sometime in the early morning, he guessed, after the wind had stopped screaming and the rain slowed to a pitter-patter. Lulu fell asleep before he had, which was intentional. He couldn’t assess every minute of the storm if he was passed out, and the only way to keep her safe was to know what was going on out there.
He’d never held a woman in his arms throughout the night. Never. He’d never woken up next to one, either. Yet here he was, awake with Lulu sleeping in his arms where she’d been for hours. Fox didn’t want to move but a rock had been pressing into his ribs for a long time and he wanted to what the basin looked like now that the storm was over.
“Lulu.”
He’d laid on the hard ground with her half on top of him. Her sweet weight and warmth had been a comfort he’d never expected.
She yawned and her voice was thick with sleep. “Is it over?”
“Yeah. I need to go outside and check things out.”
Brushing hair away from her face, she slowly sat up and glanced around with sleepy eyes. He moved past her, unzipped the door, and crawled outside. There was standing water everywhere. The basin was flooded. Luckily, they’d pitched the tent on a small rise that kept then safe from the water. But it would be like walking through a swamp to get out of here. Lulu climbed out after him, stood and hugged herself tight as she glanced around.
“Wow.”
“Let’s move out of here to higher ground. We can’t risk a flash flood coming through from one of the rivers higher up.”
“I want to go back.”
