Page 16 of Handcuffed to the Bear

She looked up at him with those startling gold-flecked eyes. “Jack, I—” she began.

And then she stopped. It seemed to him that she hovered on the edge of something she couldn’t quite bring herself to come out and say.

“Yeah?” he prompted at last.

Her face was very near. Her lips were parted, her eyes locked on his. He was suddenly all too aware that it would only take a bend of his neck, a dip of his head, to brush her lips with his.

He hadn’t meant it to come to this.

But she was the one who pulled away, blinking like a woman waking up from a dream.

“Nothing,” she said. “Sorry. We’d better move.”

She slipped her hand into his as they started walking again. It was definitely easier to move with their hands linked together like that.

Expediency—the only reason. Of course.

CHAPTER6

Casey knewshe couldn’t keep hiding the truth from Jack. She was still shaky and stunned from the emotional intensity of her reaction. And she couldn’t even explain to him that it hadn’t been fear, not really. He probably thought she was a coward, but it wasn’t fear that had hit her like a hammer between the eyes.

It had been grief.

Oh, Wendy. Did you stand on this same hilltop, looking down at the forest, making escape plans of your own?

She knew she should probably let go of Jack’s hand, but she didn’t want to. Even that small amount of human contact made her feel better, calmer, stronger. And he had a very nice hand for holding, callused and strong and just enough bigger than hers that she could tuck her fingers neatly inside his grasp.

And she couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d been looking down at her earlier, the warmth and support in his dark brown eyes, and maybe a different kind of heat as well ...

“Hey!” Jack said. “Hear that?”

Casey looked up quickly, a jolt of adrenaline blazing through her body like an electric shock. But he didn’t seem alarmed. In fact, he was grinning, and that gave her a jolt of an entirely different kind. Jack looked stern and forbidding when he was solemn, but his smile—a true smile, wide and happy—lit his whole face and filled his dark eyes with light.

She only got to enjoy it for a moment, because it dropped away at the alarm on her face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I hear water; don’t you?”

Casey listened, and now she heard it too—the musical tinkle of water falling over rocks. It was distant and muffled, but seemed to be coming from somewhere off to their left. Her mouth was suddenly desert-dry; she had been too distracted with all her other hurts and worries to even notice how thirsty she was.

This time she didn’t need Jack’s urging. Hand in hand, they followed the sound of water through stands of pines to the edge of a narrow, deep ravine. Here the sound was much louder, echoing off its confining walls in a way that reminded her of the hollow tones of a pipe organ.

The steep rocks leading down to the water’s edge were wet and slick. Casey hesitated.

“Turn around and go down like you’re climbing a ladder,” Jack suggested. “Here, I’ll help you down.”

He lay down on his stomach. Feeling a little silly, and suddenly more aware of her naked state, Casey crouched down with him and then cautiously put her bare legs over the edge, one at a time. Her toes found purchase on the rocks. Jack gripped her hands and supported her until she gasped at the sudden rush of cool water around her feet. Once she had solid footing, she kept her arms upraised, hands resting against the rocks, while Jack carefully turned himself around—keeping his handcuffed hand level with hers—and climbed down to join her.

Casey looked around. Here at the bottom of the ravine, it felt like being in their own private world: dim, cool, and private. A narrow sliver of blue sky above them, framed by pines leaning over the edge, were the only vestige of the world they’d left behind.

She’d never realized that water had so many sounds, splashing and gurgling and a delicatetink, tink, tinkthat sounded like the plinking of piano keys. Despite all the noise it made, the stream was a small one, just a couple of feet wide and deep enough to cover her ankles. The cool water felt wonderful on her sore feet.

“Can we drink it?” she asked, gazing yearningly at the clear cascade tumbling over a waterfall just upstream from them. As a lynx she usually didn’t worry about it, lapping water from whatever source she found, and it had never harmed her. As a human, though, she knew just enough about hiking to know that drinking untreated water in the woods was a good way to get sick.

“It’s a trade-off,” Jack said. “Dehydration will start weakening us pretty fast after a day or so, and we’re probably a little dehydrated already from the drugs. So you have to weigh that against the chance of picking up a bug.” He leaned over and dipped his uncuffed hand under the waterfall, bringing up a palmful of clear water.

“It looks okay,” Casey said.

“The stuff that’ll get you isn’t what you can see. Bacteria and parasites—those are the real problem. Still, somewhere this remote, and this high in the hills, the chances are better that the water will be all right to drink. At least, they’re the best odds you can get for unfiltered creek water.”

“So what’s the verdict?” She held her hand under the falling water and let it run tantalizingly through her fingers. Even though she knew it hadn’t been that long since she’d had a drink, her mouth felt dry as sand.

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