-Jacey-
It was freezing, so cold that Caleb’s warm hand on my numb, wet cheek actually stung. That was not, however, the place where most of the warmth in my body was bubbling up from. My heart beat a ba-thump ba-thump when he touched me, and his words touched a broken place in my soul.
I blinked, pretending my tears were just the rain that kept pouring on us. Or at least I could have if the rain hadn’t, inconveniently, chosen just that moment to stop.
Caleb rubbed the tears under my eyes with his thumb, not saying a word. Even though we were both shivering so hard our teeth were chattering, he was still trying to take care of me.
“Please tell me you’re not being so nice to me just to get into my pants,” I mumbled, wincing at the pounding in my head when I tilted it a bit to see his face better.
“No,” Caleb replied, sounding wounded. “I would never do that, Jacey.”
“Okay.” I accepted his answer, not because I was too tired to argue, but because I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He had pulled me out of the water, after all. He had to have. There wasn’t anyone else around.
I carefully scanned my eyes down his wet T-shirt that was plastered to bluish skin, hoping he hadn’t been injured as well. Then I saw his crossed legs and gasped.
“Oh my GOD, Caleb! You’re bleeding!” I cried. I tried to sit upright, but the world swam, and I groaned.
Caleb pressed my shoulders to settle me back down. “Yeah, I’ll deal with that in a minute. You just keep still for a bit.”
“You have no shoes!” I added. “Where are your boots? God, how did you get over the rocks?! It must have hurt like hell!”
“It didn’t tickle, but I’m really okay. Some scrapes and bruises. We can deal with it. But you probably have a concussion,” Caleb said.
“Well, Dr. Killeen, what do you suggest we do?” I sighed, frustrated I couldn’t get up and help him.
“I think we’re going to have to stay right here for a bit. They always say when you’re lost, you shouldn’t change locations so rescuers can find you,” Caleb replied.
I nodded. “I can’t argue with that logic. I can’t get up to go anywhere right now anyway.”
“Exactly,” Caleb said. He groaned as he stood, wobbling on his feet a moment before finding balance. “Don’t get any ideas,” Caleb managed to grin as he started stripping off his pants.
His boxers left nothing to the imagination, and I’d heard somewhere cold water was supposed to make it shrink, but Caleb still had a monster of a cock. Then he peeled his jeans lower and pulled off his socks, and I saw the cuts and bruises on his knees, shins, and feet.
“We should dry our clothes,” I suggested. “Then you can use your shirt and mine to bind some of that up.”
Sure enough, as the weather had a tendency to do on the lake, the clouds had rolled away, and the sun was peaking in the sky, heating the air once more.
Caleb looked around for some obliging, low-hanging tree branches and hung up his holey jeans. He stripped his shirt off next and hung that up as well.
I tried to wriggle out of my clothes myself, but my head protested so much that I gave up with a moan. Caleb walked over to me and knelt beside me in the dirt, despite his wounds, and pulled off my boots, one at a time. Water poured out of them, but at least I still had them. I had no idea what Caleb was going to do.
The throbbing in my head did not allow me to appreciate Caleb’s strong hands unzipping my jeans and peeling them down my legs.
“Sunshine Bear?” Caleb teased when he caught sight of my bikini briefs.
“Shut up,” I mumbled, feeling my cheeks heat up.
“No complaints. I think it’s cute.” Caleb then peeled off my shirt.
I was happy that my bra, at least, was a nice, white one. Nothing too showy, not too much lace—I mean, I packed for fishing, not potential sex with my stepbrother—but not ratty or covered with Care Bears.
Unfortunately, my nipples were freezing in the wet shirt, so when Caleb removed it, they were standing at pert attention.
Caleb zeroed right in on them, pausing as he held my clothes in his arms.
I covered my face with my hand and groaned. “This day just keeps getting better.”
“It is from my perspective,” Caleb chuckled.
I took a tired swat at him.
Caleb laughed more and stood to hang my clothes to dry as well.
When he returned to my side, Caleb sat down cross-legged on the ground. I frowned at his dirty wounds.
“You should go down to the lake and rinse those off,” I said. “I can’t believe you knelt on that.”
Caleb shrugged. “Didn’t hurt any more than it already did. But okay, if you say so.”
“I do say so,” I insisted.
Caleb smoothed back the wisps of my hair with a smile then went down to the water while butterflies fluttered around my stomach. I watched his toned back as he sat down on a rock and cupped water over his shins and knees.
I was so absorbed, I almost didn’t hear the whuffling sound to my right. I turned my head and just barely managed to bite back a scream.
The abortive noise I did make, however, brought Caleb’s attention up. “Holy shit!” I heard him say.
A black bear was making its way toward us, lumbering slowly.
“Okay...” I whispered, my chest rising and falling rapidly. “Okay... so... we don’t have anywhere to go—”
Caleb reached into the lake beneath him and pulled out a fist-sized stone. He lobbed it at the bear. “FUCK OFF!” he shouted.
I stopped breathing altogether as the rock hit the bear squarely between the eyes.
The bear let out an angry snort but went loping back the way it came.
“Why the hell did you do that?!” I demanded, turning back to Caleb.
“Basic survival. You’ve been going up here all these years and never learned what to do when a black bear approaches you? It wasn’t like we could back away anywhere,” Caleb said. “Still, I don’t want to stick around here and wait for that guy to come back.”
I sat up, feeling a bit woozy, but better than I had the last time I tried. “I think... I think maybe I can stand...”
Caleb shook his head. “Let’s not chance it.”
“Well, what else are we going to d—” Before I could finish my question, Caleb had swept me up in his arms.
“We’ll come back for our clothes later. Let’s just get away from the water so our bear friend can have a drink or a swim or whatever he wants to do,” Caleb grunted.
I wrapped my arms around Caleb’s neck. “You do know you’re barefoot, right?”
“I don’t think your boots are going to fit me, Jacey,” Caleb grinned.
“No, I know, I just... after the rocks and everything...” I said.
Caleb planted a soft kiss on my lips that zinged through me and caused all kinds of confusion in my muddled mind. “I’ll be careful.”
True to his word, Caleb did not go running into the woods. He picked his way carefully with me in his arms, always watching the ground ahead of us before taking his next steps.
As our bodies dried off, I became more and more aware that I was skin-to-skin and nearly naked with Caleb. I blushed in consternation and buried my face against his neck so he couldn’t see.
“You’re pink,” Caleb said anyway, and I groaned.
“Sunburn,” I tried.
“Not so much, but you go with that if you want to.” Caleb kept us moving slowly through the trees.
“Your mom thought it was,” I muttered.
“My mom couldn’t conceive of the idea that you and I might be attracted to each other,” Caleb pointed out.
I bit my lip and raised my head, looking Caleb in his beautiful blue eyes. “Is it... gross?”
Caleb stopped walking. “Do you think it’s gross?”
“No. I mean, I never have. We met when I was thirteen and you were seventeen. It’s not like we’re blood related or anything,” I mumbled, my eyes flicking away momentarily. “It’s just that your mom seems to think it would be gross, and I didn’t know what you thought.”
“Jacey, look at me.” Caleb pulled my attention back to him. “In the many, many, MANY times I’ve fantasized about being with you, it’s been anything but gross. Unconventional, maybe, but never gross.”
My whole body heated up, and I knew I was a bit more than pink now. “You fantasize about me?”
“You don’t fantasize about me?” Caleb countered.
I swallowed. “Maybe.”
“Maybe, she says. Maybe,” Caleb chuckled. “Well, just so you know, seeing you nearly naked like this is going to keep my spank bank full for a while.”
“Um, gross.” But I giggled just the same.
Caleb put his mouth right up against my ear. “Do you touch yourself at night when you think about me?”
I shivered. “W-Weren’t we worried about a bear?”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” Caleb said smugly.
I groaned and buried my face in his neck again.
Caleb shifted my weight, then started moving again. “You know I... oh. Hey, Jacey, look, do you see what I see?”
I looked up and scanned the woods. Then my eyes fell on the small hunting cabin Caleb must have been referring to. “It’s... a cabin!”
“Yes!” Caleb picked up his pace.
“Caleb! Be careful,” I admonished him.
Caleb sighed and slowed down a bit. “Maybe there’s somebody home?”
“Probably not. It’s not moose hunting season yet,” I explained.
“But we can try,” Caleb said excitedly. “If nothing else, it’s shelter!”
“True,” I agreed.
Caleb set me down carefully on the ground as soon as we got to the door of the cabin and knocked. Then he knocked again.
As I expected, there was no answer.
Caleb tried the knob, and the door opened. He poked his head inside. “Sweet, there’s water and canned food in here!”
My stomach took that opportunity to rumble.
“Good thing, huh?” Caleb winked at me.
I folded my hands over my empty stomach. “I could have gone a little while without food,” I said defensively.
Caleb’s smile fell right off his face. “Hey. You’re beautiful. Don’t even think about not eating.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Dad.”
Caleb grabbed my arm. “I mean it, Jacey. You’re not going to starve yourself on my watch.”
I sighed. “Caleb, I know you’re trying to help, but that’s not how it works. I’m in treatment. I’m doing a lot better. But it’s really hard to change my thoughts, and it’s not something you can do for me.”
With a sad smile, Caleb kissed my forehead. “I sure wish I could, though.”
“I know. I appreciate that, I do. But it’s something I have to do for myself,” I said.
Caleb nodded and released my arm. “Okay. I get that. But I’m still going to try to shove...” He picked up a can and read the label. “... creamed corn down you.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Ew.”
“Yeah, I agree. THAT is gross,” Caleb grinned.
We stepped fully into the one-room cabin, and Caleb closed the door behind us. “Hey, why don’t you go lay down while I see what’s to be had in the pantry. Hopefully it’s not just creamed corn, but you know what they say about choosy beggars.”
“True,” I replied. I walked across the dusty floorboards to the bed, coughing as a plume of dust went up when I laid down.
“Okay, could use a little airing out,” Caleb observed. Then he triumphantly pumped his arm in the air, holding a can. “Beef stew!”
“Excellent,” I said. “Let’s have some of that. I don’t suppose there’s a range and some gas in here?”
Caleb looked around. “It looks like there’s a table where they should be sitting, but I guess since the hunter’s not here, he took it home.”
“Cold stew it is.” I shrugged.
After hunting around a bit, Caleb found a can opener.
Soon, we were eating cold beef stew out of the can, sitting side by side on the small bed.
“I thought your dad said there wouldn’t be cabins on the lake? Something about the Canadian government and public property and all that,” Caleb said after we finished.
“There’s two or three cabins you can see from the lake. Dad says they were grandfathered in when the Canadian government basically declared this area public land,” I replied. “We were lucky to find this place.”
“Yeah. Damn lucky,” Caleb agreed. He took the can and stood. “I’m going to go rinse this out and set it closer to the lake so we don’t attract bears. Then I’ll be back with our clothes.”
I frowned. “What about the bear?”
“By now, he’s probably done what he needs to do. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful,” Caleb said.
Impulsively, I gave him a strong hug. “Come back in one piece, okay?”
Caleb chuckled and kissed my nose. “I promise. Don’t go to sleep.”
“Okay,” I promised as well.