Authors: Kelly Martin
“How did they reach that high?” She stretched her neck back.
“Talented, I guess,” he said, reading some of the more non-pleasant phrases. It looked as though Lacy S.’s lips weren’t used to spread the Gospel. “What is this place?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they used it for funerals or picnics or something. We’ll have to look it up when we get back.”
“Guess so.”
“Whatever it is, I’m glad it’s here.”
“Wish it had walls,” he said. It would have been nice.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she said, wringing the water out of her hair. Asher felt guilty and a little bad for watching her, because his thoughts weren’t entirely pure. The anger he’d felt before had put his nerves and emotions on overload. Now, with Rachel so close and unaware of how she was affecting him, he wanted nothing more than to help her with her hair so he could be close to her.
He shook his head and tried to look anywhere else but at her. Those feelings had to go. First, he hated her for getting him stuck there in the woods and then he wanted to, what, kiss her? No way. She wasn’t healthy for him. Nothing about her fit his normal type, and she thought way too much about God. Still, something about her affected him, and not in the most saintly of ways.
“The situation hasn’t changed, you know?” he said, trying to keep his mind off of her long, ginger locks falling like a waterfall over her shoulder.
“I know. We’re still stuck out here.”
“There’s that. But we also need to think of a way to help ourselves tomorrow. It’s too late and wet to go back out tonight.”
“I hate that I hurt my foot,” she said, rubbing her ankle. “We could walk down Harrison’s Trail tomorrow and find some way back to Gatlinburg.”
“That would be nice. Useless wishful thinking, but nice.”
“Maybe the search party will be here soon. They have to be looking for us by now.”
“Do you honestly think anyone would come out in this miserable weather, not to mention the dark, to find us?”
“Don’t you?”
The question hung in the air like a thick veil. Asher knew she wanted reassurance, but he didn’t know if he could give it to her. He wanted to say, yes, he believed people were basically good and that they were looking for them no matter what obstacles arose, or what the odds were. But he couldn’t lie to her like that. “No. No, I don’t.”
Her face fell. “They won’t leave us here.”
“I don’t think they will either. Not forever. But they aren’t going to be coming out in this. They might get as lost as we are—”
“But…”
“But nothing.” He fought the urge to take her hands in his. The way he felt, touching her would be a bad idea at the moment. “Look, as pitiful as this place is, we have shelter. Let’s not push our luck by getting our hopes up for a nighttime rescue, all right?”
“Fine,” she said, but he could tell she wasn’t happy about it.
“Good.” He was glad that was taken care of for the most part. He reached in his inside jacket pocket and found what he was looking for. It was next to the thing he was too embarrassed for Rachel to see at the snack machines back at the hotel.
“Wanna split supper?” he asked, showing her a battered, slightly melted candy bar, hoping it would cheer her up.
Her eyes widened, and her nose flared a bit. She wasn’t happy. “Where did you get that?”
“Bought it from a squirrel a few hours ago,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Hotel snack machine, remember?”
“And you were saving it for a rainy day?”
“Looks that way.”
“Glory, Asher! Why didn’t you mention it earlier? I’ve been starving to death all day, thinking all we had to eat was a few bags of chips, and you’ve been hoarding a candy bar! We could have eaten it for lunch.”
“Careful girl. Your hair is flaring.” He grinned and opened the bar. In truth, they could have eaten it for lunch, but something in the back of his mind kept telling him to save it. Guess he had good instincts.
“Asher…” she warned.
“If we had it for lunch, we never would have had it for supper, right?”
Her face softened. “You could have still at least mentioned it.”
“Yeah, but I lead you not into temptation.” He divided the chocolate bar in half and handed a piece to Rachel.
She snatched it and threw it toward her open lips. Then she stopped herself, closed her eyes, and moved her mouth. It took Asher a second to figure out what she was doing — praying. Even after all of this, she still prayed. He didn’t understand her at all. The prayer was short, making him laugh. The shorter the prayer, the quicker she could eat. She was human after all.
Once she opened her eyes, she devoured the first bite. From the way her eyes rolled back in her head, Asher could tell the chocolate candy hit the spot. Caramel hung on her lip, and he had to fight the desire to wipe it off. He couldn’t stop thinking about her lips and how much he wanted to kiss them.
Asher bit into his own piece of candy to take his mind off her, and she hadn’t been wrong. It tasted wonderful. He savored every bite, wishing he’d bought the king-sized bar.
“What changed?” she asked, catching him off guard.
“What?”
“What changed? You were so mad at me before. Why are you being so nice to me again? Giving me candy and all.”
“This a therapy session?”
“No, just curious. Just seemed like an about-face.”
He played with the candy wrapper, unsure what to tell her so she could understand. “Sometimes I do things, and I don’t know why I do them. I let my anger get the best of me and after I do them, I feel bad about it.” It was the best explanation he could give.
“Like when you got arrested for fighting?”
His head snapped up. He’d hoped she had forgotten that and wished he’d never told her about it. It hadn’t been one of his finest moments, not that he’d ever take it back. “Not exactly. Jason deserved every bruise he got.”
“Jason?”
“My aunt’s boyfriend.”
“You beat up your aunt’s boyfriend?”
“I had my reasons.”
“Which were?”
Asher bit his lip hard enough to hurt and tried to figure out what to say. He didn’t want to get into it with her. Only two other people in the world knew about what Jason did. One was his aunt, who didn’t believe him, and the other was Jessica Prince, his ten-year-old neighbor. Jason placed no bias on gender.
“My reasons,” he said curtly, hoping she took the hint and dropped it. In case she didn’t, he changed the subject for her. “And besides, it wouldn’t have been gentlemanly to leave you out here by yourself, hurt.”
“You’re nothing if not a gentleman.” She laughed, making him feel a little better. Maybe she was coming around.
He thought he should tell her how sorry he was for leaving her earlier, but decided against it. The past should stay in the past. Instead, he focused on her ankle. “How is your foot?”
Rachel shrugged. “Still there, I guess.” She rolled up her pant leg. Even with her boot on, the bottom of her leg was swollen pretty big.
He took her leg and examined it under the flashlight. “Ouch.” The swelling had erupted over her high-top and gone up almost to her knee. It looked worse than he ever imagined. Yeah, he was a real gentleman for making her walk on that. The rain, wet grass, mole holes, and his temper tantrum hadn’t helped it at all.
“We need to do something about that.” He unzipped the pack and got out the First Aid kit her mom had packed. Opening it, he found what he needed. “I’m going to take your boot off and wrap your ankle. You promised yesterday, remember?”
“If you do that, I’ll never get it back on. Can’t hike with one boot.”
“Can’t hike with a severely sprained ankle either,” he said, already kneeling down to take off her boot.
“You think it’s just sprained?”
“Yep.” He sure hoped so anyway. A broken ankle would be bad.
“Stop.” She put her hand on his when he had almost finished with the laces. The surprise of her hand on his made him look up at her. Her green eyes pleaded with him.
Despite all of the moisture in the air, Asher’s mouth dried at her touch. How could one girl make him feel so much? And could he turn it off if he wanted to?
She was so close to him — the girl who he hadn’t said more than five words to until Friday morning. The girl he had been so angry at not two hours ago. Now… now he found himself looking at nothing but her lips and felt nothing but her hand on his.
“Um…” She shook her head like she’d been sucked into the same fantasy he had. “Sorry. Just, I’m afraid to take my boot off. To tell you the truth, I don’t particularly want to see what’s under there.”
“We have to see what we're dealing with, Rachel.” He rolled her hand over in his palm until her gloved fingers were locked with his bare ones. It felt right, normal, and incredibly scary. “It could be hurt worse if we don’t wrap it. It’ll be fine.”
“Do you promise?” She squeezed his fingers
“I’ll be easy,” he whispered, letting her fingers go.
He handed Rachel the flashlight and told her to shine it right on her foot so he could get a better look. Wasting no time, he unlaced the strings all the way down the front, exposing the tongue. “Ready?” he asked nervously.
She nodded, squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw.
“Okay.” He nervously wet his lips. He did not want to do this, but he had to. “On the count of three. One. Two…” She screamed as he pulled her boot off a count early. “Sorry,” he said when she shot him a dirty, upset glare. “I thought it would hurt less on two.”
“Nice thinking,” she gritted through her teeth.
“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” he teased, trying to play it light. Inside, he was anything but calm. He slid his fingers under her once-white sock and rolled it down her leg. The rain and mud had turned the sock into an ugly tie-dyed-looking brown.
“I’m not a baby. Even you would have yelled at that.”
“Sure,” Asher dragged out. When he saw what was under the sock, he wished he hadn’t.
“What’s wrong?”
“Um… well.” What could he say about
that
?
“Don’t lie to me,” she demanded as if reading his mind. “Just be honest. It looks bad, doesn’t it?”
“Well, it doesn’t look good,” he admitted. He positioned her hand holding the flashlight over her foot so he could see better. Her ankle was a swollen mess. If it had been a painting, it would have had pretty colors of deep purple, dark blue with some black mixed in for some depth. However, being a human body part, it was scarily unnatural.
“Is it broken?”
I hope not.
“I can’t tell. It’s too puffy. Can you move it?”
The panicked look she gave him told him all he needed to know. She was freaking out, and rightly so. It was going to hurt her and hurt bad. “You need to try,” he urged, trying to stay calm. “We have to see what we’re dealing with.”
She handed Asher the flashlight and dug her fingers into his arm. After taking a few deep breaths, she ground her teeth together and concentrated. When her ankle moved, she bit her lip, and her breathing became erratic. After a few movements, she screamed and doubled over against him. Her nails dug into his coat. “I can’t do this,” she panted.
Her face turned sickly pale, and beads of sweat formed on her forehead. The way she swayed meant she’d pass out soon. On top of everything else they had going against them, he couldn’t let that happen. “Stop. Hey, chill out. It’s okay. Take a deep breath and calm down. It’s fine.”
The pained expression on her face broke his heart. He wished more than anything to do something to help her. Then again, part of him didn’t want to get too attached, too emotional. In his experience, when people got emotional, they got sloppy; something he and Rachel couldn’t afford. Despite his brain yelling at him that it was a bad idea, he laid her foot on his thigh and rubbed it soothingly with his fingertips.
****
“Thanks,” Rachel said as the dancing lights behind her eyes began disappearing. Moving her ankle around hurt way worse than she had expected, but Asher had been there to help. She was so grateful for that. “I’m better now.”
“Good,” he said. Was she imagining the strain in his voice? “I say no more moving of the foot, okay?”
“I say thank you,” she said, relieved. She didn’t want to have to do that again anytime soon.
“I’ll wrap it, so it will be more stabilized.”
Rachel dreaded that. She knew it was necessary, but the thought of having a tight thing around her foot wasn’t appealing. “You’re strong, Rachel. You can do this.” By the way he looked at her she could almost believe it herself.
“Be easy,” she emphasized, psyching herself up for the pain.
“Always,” he smiled and proceeded to be a man of his word. Wrapping her foot felt uncomfortable, but wasn’t unbearable. Asher was a good guy to have around.
“There.” He smiled. “Told ya it wouldn’t hurt.”
“You’re a Godsend!” And she meant it. She truly believed God had put Asher with her to help her, though she wished she wasn’t in the position to need help in the first place.
“I wouldn’t go that far. One more thing to do.” He reached over her to their pack and searched through it, emerging with a pair of dry socks. “Yay, Rachel’s mom.”
“Yay.” She smiled. He took the sock and carefully put it on her foot. The larger-than-normal limb stretched the sock like a sausage casing, resulting in something even a person with elephantiasis would gawk at. The dry fabric felt good against her cold foot though. To her delight, the pain almost disappeared… almost.
“Thank you. Thank you for everything.” The howling wind splattered cold rain at them even in the covered gazebo, but at least her foot was dry for the time being. She was grateful for that.
“You’re welcome,” he said, clearing his throat. He looked nervous, and she couldn’t figure out why. Was it because she was in pain? Or was it something else? “Do you want the other sock on?”
“No… well… I’ll do it tomorrow when we head out.”
His head snapped up at her. “Head out?
We
aren’t heading out anywhere. You can’t walk on that. You’ve already hurt it enough.”
“I walked all day yesterday and most of today, thank you very much. And especially after you went all toddler on me,” she reminded him. What did he mean she couldn’t go anywhere? There was no way they were going to sit and waste another day waiting.