Page 18 of Trapped with the Forest Ranger
Because I’d follow that man into a wildfire with nothing but a camera and a bad idea.
He stops so suddenly that I nearly crash into him.
One hand lifts—a silent signal.
I freeze.
His body turns, just enough for his breath to brush my cheek, warm and woodsmoke-scented. “Fox.” The word grazes my ear like a sin I want to commit twice.
That one syllable shouldn’t make my thighs clench. It shouldn’t short-circuit my entire pelvic floor. But it does.
Because it’s him.
Because he says it like it matters. Like everything does. Every word. Every look. Every brush of skin that hasn’t happened yet but might.
And I want it to.
God, I want it to.
His gaze flicks toward the brush ahead, and I follow it, willing my heartbeat to slow down, willing my hormones to take a goddamn seat.
There are fox cubs ahead.
Baby animals.
Innocent, fragile nature.
Please, brain. For once. Don’t turn this into foreplay.
Too late.
Here we are.
I follow his gaze toward a fallen log. At first, I see nothing. Then—a flicker of russet against bark, so perfectly camouflaged it takes atrained eye to spot.
He has a trained eye. And I have dirty thoughts. It’s a partnership.
My camera comes up automatically, my fingers instinctively adjusting the settings. The lens locks onto a sleek copper form—mother fox, ears swiveling, alert but calm. Then three cubs spill out behind her like a ball of ginger chaos, tumbling over each other in the morning sun.
The shutter is nearly silent. But Caleb winces.
“Too loud.”
“They can’t hear it from this distance,” I murmur, not taking my eye from the viewfinder. “Silent shutter. I’m not a total amateur.”
His eyes narrow, skepticism flashing, but when the foxes don’t flinch, he relaxes again. Satisfied.
We fall into silence. Twenty whole minutes pass in reverent quiet—me documenting, him just… watching. And not in that casual ‘look at the cute animals’ way either. No, he watches like he’s memorizing them. Like every detail matters. And damn it if that kind of quiet intensity doesn’t do something to me.
“The smallest one is struggling.” His voice is barely audible. “See how the others push him away from food?”
I shift the focus to the runt. He’s right—the little one keeps getting shouldered aside by its siblings. My heart tugs. Of course, he noticed. Mr. Taciturn Woodsman with the unexpected emotional radar.
“Nature can be cruel.”
“Not always.” He points again, this time to the mother repositioning herself to allow the smallest cub access to her belly. “They adapt. Find solutions.”
His tone’s different now. Softer. Invested. And oh great, now my uterus is writing sonnets about him.
