Page 23 of It’s You

She hurried toward him, yelping as his arm snaked out from his hiding place behind the boulder and pulling her up against him. It took her a second to catch her breath, and she leaned back in his arms, grinning, still panting from exertion and surprise.

He smiled at her. “You make me happy.”

She tilted her head to the side, looking at his dark hair and brown eyes under thick black lashes. She reached up to touch the lightly bearded skin of his cheek. “I love that you’re Métis, and you have pride in who you are. I love…it.”

He stared at her, furrowing his brows in confusion or remorse, but all she could hear was Darcy, Darcy, Darcy . He didn’t want her to know what he was thinking, so she looked down. One of his arms released her, and she felt his finger under her chin, tilting her face back up to his.

His eyes closed as he swooped down to close his lips over hers, his tongue parting the soft seam to make love to hers.

Touching, stroking, his hand caressed her jaw as he kept her face at the perfect angle for him to kiss her.

Darcy’s hands were trapped between them, but she flattened them against his chest and felt the heat of his skin through the layers of his two shirts and jacket, and she swore she could feel the pounding of his heart.

Abandoning her mouth, he kissed her jaw, pressing his lips against her neck until his teeth found the soft skin of her earlobe. He tugged on it gently, his breath warm and soft in her ear, and a shiver of pleasure made her back arch, pushing her breasts against him.

She heard him chuckle softly, and his teeth let go.

“You like that.”

Darcy leaned back, opening her eyes.

“I guess so.” She sighed.

He chuckled again and let go of her, taking her hand.

“What exactly did you and Phillip do ? Play tiddlywinks?” His tone when he said Phillip’s name wasn’t lost on her. Darcy understood. The thought of Jack with another woman was enough to make her sick.

“Yes, Jack. You guessed it. We played lots of tiddlywinks. That was our favorite.”

“Okay, Sass Mouth.”

“ Sass Mouth ?” she asked, grinning up at him.

He stopped walking, and his grip on her hand got suddenly tighter.

“Jack?”

“Shhh.”

She looked up at his face. He closed his eyes and breathed through his nose as he had done before their encounter with the bear. He dropped her hand and put his arm around her waist, hauling her up against his side.

“What is it?” she whispered. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Quiet,” he murmured.

“ Awena kéya ?” he growled low and slow. “ Tánde kéya ? Shipawaytay. ”

Darcy could feel her pulse in her ears as she scanned the forest before them, feeling a measure of safety with her back up against Jack’s side. She could feel how wide her eyes were, burning from staying open, but clearly, Jack felt there was a threat to them.

“ AWENA KéYA ?” he repeated, and his arm tightened around her like a vise.

It would take Darcy a while to put together what exactly happened next, but she heard the roaring growl of the wolf at almost the same time her body hit the ground.

One minute, she was safely pressed against Jack’s body.

The next, she tasted the dirt on her lips, felt the pine needles beneath her hands and under her knees.

When she looked up, she saw Jack hunched over, locked in a face-to-face standoff with a gray wolf, and the only thing between her and the bared teeth of the angry, snarling beast. She watched in horror as the wolf charged Jack, but with an almost unbelievable strength and grace, he caught the wolf by its neck, hauling it up and over his head like a puppy and turning once before throwing the entire one-hundred-pound animal into the trunk of a nearby tree.

Darcy heard the vague whimper of the injured wolf before she felt Jack’s hands under her arms, raising her to a standing position.

“Quick. I think it’s a cast-off beta, but I don’t know for sure. We have to go.”

“Wolves don’t come this f-far south,” she murmured, taking his hand and being pulled behind him. She could barely catch her breath. “D-did you th-throw that wolf into a tr-tree?”

“I did what I had to do.”

“You picked it up and th-threw it.”

“Darcy, come on. We have to move faster.”

He kept up a fast pace, just short of a run, and didn’t ease up until they’d been walking fast for at least twenty minutes. Finally, Darcy yanked her hand back. “Gimme a…b-break!”

He turned to look at her, fishing the water bottle back out of his pack and handing it to her, then looking behind her, into the woods.

“We’re not having very good luck with big game.”

“I’m in the w-woods all the time, and I n-never see bears or wolves!” She took another long sip and a deep breath, then handed back the bottle and rested her hands on her knees, panting. “What did you say to it? Before it lunged?”

“I asked where it was. I asked who it was. I told it to leave.”

“How’d that work out for you?”

“Very funny.” He was looking at the woods behind her. “I don’t think it’s following us. I think we’re okay.”

“Following us? You threw it into a tree. It’s probably dead.”

“Better it than you.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll never let anything hurt you, Darcy. It’s a?—”

“Sacred pledge. I know. You’re stronger than I would have guessed.”

His brows furrowed briefly as he dropped her eyes, putting the bottle away and securing the pack on his back.

Darcy was distracted by a drop of water on her arm. One drop…two. Three drops. Soon, her arm was covered with drops, and she could hear the pitter-patter of rainfall throughout the woods around them.

“Well, that’s great. ” He sighed, putting out his hand to her.

“How far are we from your house?” she asked, squinting through the increasingly fat raindrops that were coming down harder and faster.

“Another ten or fifteen minutes? If we’re fast?” he guessed.

“There’s pretty good tree cover,” she said, trying to look on the bright side. His mood was clouding over as fast as the sky.

“We’re going to get soaked,” he said, looking up at the sky with a sour expression. He shook his head, and she was sprayed by more raindrops. “Come on.”

They walked in silence the rest of the way back to the lodge, and Jack was right.

They were completely soaked by the time they reached his house.

Darcy could hear the river rushing by the lodge as they got closer, and it was one of her favorite sounds.

But she was suddenly very tired, and nothing sounded as nice as curling up in some dry clothes.

Huh. Dry clothes. Well, that would be nice. If she had some.

Jack unlocked the front door, holding it open so she could precede him inside.

In the foyer, she took off her drenched wool sweater, hanging it on a wooden peg and watching the drops of water fall to the floor in rivulets.

She shrugged out of her flannel shirt, which was similarly soaked, and hung it up beside her sweater.

She bent down to untie her shoes and took off her squishy socks, wringing them out over the flagstones and laying them flat across her boots.

She looked up at Jack, hugging herself and shivering.

“You’re cold,” he said, standing to face her in soaked jeans and a damp gray T-shirt.

“I d-didn’t think th-that,” she teased through chattering teeth.

“I know you didn’t. You’re shivering.” He grinned at her. “I don’t want you to get sick. How about a warm shower?”

She nodded her head gratefully, her tongue darting out to lick a raindrop off her lip as she looked up at him.

Want some company?

Her cheeks flushed crimson as she heard his voice in her head, and she looked away quickly.

“Darce?”

When she glanced at him, he smiled. “I was just kidding.”

“Oh.” She chuckled nervously, and he took her hand, leading her up the stairs. She felt just the littlest bit disappointed. “Stop teasing me.”

“You can use the guest bathroom. There are towels in the cabinet. If you’ll throw your clothes out into the hall, I’ll put them in the dryer. You can borrow my bathrobe…if that’s okay?”

“Thanks, Jack.”

“No problem.”

He showed her to the bathroom door, pushing it open for her, and she headed inside, flicking on the light. Without thinking, she poked her head back out and called to his retreating form.

“Jack!”

He turned to face her, but didn’t make a move toward her.

“About the shower…”

“You do want company?” he asked.

“No.” She smiled at him to soften her lie. “Well, sort of. But?—”

“Just get warm.” He winked at her and disappeared into his bedroom.

Darcy closed the door behind her, sighing as she looked at her wet-rat hair in the mirror. Damp wisps were pasted onto her face and flattened on her head.

You should have just said yes. Idiot!

She shucked off her cold, clingy jeans and pulled her shirt over her head, throwing both into the hall. She added her bra and panties to the pile, relieved she’d worn fresh, new underwear.

It suddenly occurred to her that he’d know she was naked under his bathrobe.

That should certainly make for a charged afternoon.

Afternoon. She looked at her watch. Sure enough, it was noon. She counted back. He had picked her up at six o’clock. After the drive and the walk, it shouldn’t be any later than ten o’clock, which she felt was generous. Noon made no sense. Time was going too fast. Again.

Darcy unbraided her hair, turned on the water, and stepped into the steamy shower, letting the water course down her cold, weary body.

She had long accepted soul flight as part of her life, and she was even coming to terms with binding kisses, eyespeak, and Jack’s strange rapport with wild animals.

But losing time still bothered her. Very much.

Plus, it seemed to be increasing incrementally.

On Saturday, she lost about an hour. Last night, about an hour and a half.

Today she’d already lost two hours. It made no sense, Métis or otherwise, and she intended to get to the bottom of it.

When she finished with her shower, she found a soft, navy-blue flannel bathrobe waiting for her, draped across the bed.

She toweled off with a big, fluffy towel, then ran her fingers over the robe, imagining the times it had pressed up against Jack’s hard, naked body.

She pressed the fabric to her face and inhaled deeply, smelling the essence of Jack, his aftershave, laundry soap, and fresh air all mixed together. It made her knees go weak.

She wrapped herself in the too-big bathrobe and tied it securely with the cord.

She found a pair of thick, gray wool socks underneath and smiled at his thoughtfulness as she pulled the warm socks over her feet.

There was a comb in the bathroom, and she combed out her long reddish-blonde hair until it was slick and smooth, then pushed it behind her ears.

She still looked a little bit like a drowned rat, but at least she was a warm, clean drowned rat, wrapped in Jack Beauloup’s bathrobe…and nothing else.