Heat Wave (15 page)

Luckily there are a few hikers who had come back along the rest of the eleven-mile trail and have a few supplies. There are no tents for Logan and I, but they do have a small tarp for us to rig up somewhere to keep out of the rain, as well as an apple, trail mix, and packet of beef jerky. Not exactly dinner but at least we won’t starve to death. Besides, I’m pretty sure if either of us felt adventurous after all that, we could probably hike into the bush and grab some wild mangoes or papaya. I make a note of asking Logan later if he can climb up some coconut palms.

“Keeping dry is the most important,” Logan says as he grabs my hand, wrapping his fingers around mine. His palm is warm, his grip strong. He holds my hand like he means to save me.

He leads me up a small path, away from the stream and the rest of the group. “Even though it’s warm and humid, the constant rain here can make you nearly hypothermic. You’re already cold from being in all that rainwater in the stream.”

“So are you,” I tell him quietly as we walk further into the jungle, my hand still in his.

“I have chest hair,” he says. “I’m insulated.”

He stops and gestures to an area where the cliff walls come into the path and a large, broad-leafed tree acts as an arch over it. “Here. There’s dirt there that’s somewhat dry. We can hang the tarp from the tree. With the overhang from the cliff, it’ll create a bit of shelter. I’ll start a fire, and we’ll be dry in no time.”

He turns to walk away. “Just stay here, the path up there leads out of the valley, it’s wet and steep and dangerous.”

Like I’d go anywhere
, I think as I sit down on the narrow patch of dry red dirt by the cliff wall. My hand feels bare without his, my skin tingling.

He disappears from sight and it’s only then that everything hits me. What happened, where we are, what’s next.

But it’s not even the ache in my muscles from the hike, the bruises that are popping up on my limbs from slamming into the rocks, the cold that’s starting to seep into my bones, despite the fact that the temperature is at least in the late 70’s.

It’s not even that I’m going to be stuck in the wilderness overnight, waiting for rescue.

It’s that for the next twenty hours or so, I’m going to be alone with Logan. Sleeping with him, even.

And there’s nothing scarier than that.

Because there’s a small, terrifying chance that I actually might like it.

I can only hope he doesn’t feel the same way.

CHAPTER TEN

When Logan comes back from the others, he’s carrying some matches, sticks, a few logs and a small white square.

“What’s that,” I ask, nodding at the square.

“Firestarter,” he says, placing it on the dirt in front of my feet. “Light this up and almost anything will burn. Found some relatively dry kindling as well. It won’t last all night but it will get us dried off. As long as the wind doesn’t pick up, the tarp will hold and keep us dry.”

I nod, biting my lip for a moment. “Have you ever been in a situation like this before? I mean, stranded in the wilderness kind of thing?”

“You think this is a regular occurrence for me?” he asks, cocking one brow as he eyes me.

I shrug. “Well you’re Australian, didn’t you hike into the outback and wrestle crocodiles on the regular? I’ve seen Crocodile Dundee you know.”

He watches me for a moment before getting all the kindling together. “You’re taking the piss, aren’t you?”

“When aren’t I?” I tease.

He places the white square in the center of the sticks and strikes a match. The second the match meets the square, it goes up in bright flames.

“Whoa. That stuff works,” I tell him.

He murmurs in agreement. “And to answer your question, yes I have been in situations like this before. In Australia. My brother is a tour guide out of Darwin. I may not be Croc Dundee—God forbid that bloody name is even mentioned in my country—but if anyone is like that, it’s him. He’s dragged me out on one too many adventures.”

“You have a brother?” This is the first I’d heard of this.

“Kit,” he says, adjusting the kindling so it will catch. “About five years younger. The same difference as you and Juliet.”

“He wasn’t at the wedding,” I note. Come to think of it, I don’t think any of his family was. It was just hard to notice since there were so many people there I didn’t know, thanks to the reach of my mother. Talk about wedding of the century.

“No,” he says. “He wanted to but finances were tough at that time for him and he wouldn’t let me pay his way. As for my parents, I only have my mum and she’s not doing so well. She’s suffering from a whole whack of autoimmune disorders and flying does a number on her.”

“Oh,” I say quietly. “I’m sorry. I had no idea…”

“That I even had a family?” he asks, glancing at me quickly before putting a few logs on the fire. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. I reckon I know a hell of a lot more about you than you know of me.”

I want to argue that, even though I know it’s true. Still, I want to hear him talk. “Oh yeah? What could you know about me?”

He dusts off his hands and comes over, stooping under the blue tarp, the rain falling methodically on it. He settles down beside me, his long, strong legs to the side of the fire. His shoulder rubs against mine as he adjusts himself and my eyes are drawn to his neck, wondering what he would taste like. Probably mud.

“Well, let’s see,” he says, admiring the fire the way I’m sure Early Man did, proud that he has provided and ensured our survival. “I know that you hate being wrong.”

“That’s not true. I just hate it when you’re right.”

His face turns to me, the glow of the fire lighting up his profile. “So you admit I’m usually right.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Right,” he says slowly, a small smile teasing his lips. “I know that you’re a terrible singer.”

“A new discovery,” I concede, trying not to cringe over my rendition of “Kashmir.”

“I know that you’re not left-handed, but you put your fork in your left hand when you eat.”

He noticed that? “A minor quirk,” I explain. “Doesn’t mean you know me.”

“I know you would rather think the best of someone than the worst, and I know no matter how many times they disappoint you, it doesn’t make you jaded in the least.”

His eyes stay locked on mine, a thread of intimacy between us. How could he know that about me? I’d never thought of Logan as someone who watched me that closely. Sometimes it looked like he did, that intensity in his gaze, as if he was studying you, observing, taking you all in. Not quite like a lab subject, more as mystery to be solved. But even so, I assumed his thoughts were always on anything else other than me.

He goes on. “And I know that you’re damn good at your job. That’s one of the reasons I hired you.”

I frown, puzzled. “How would you know? Had I ever cooked for you before I came here?”

He nods. “Yes. You didn’t know it. I went into your restaurant last time I was in Chicago. It was around noon. I saw you back there in the kitchen, and I saw you work on it. Spinach fettucine with shitake mushrooms and parm. Best I’d ever had.”

I’m amazed. Floored, even.

“What…was Juliet with you?”

He shakes his head. “Just me.”

“You came alone? Why?”

He stares into the fire, running his hand over his strong jawline, his beard sounding rough against his fingers. Above us the rain drips on the tarp, in the distance is the ever-present roar of the stream and the angry surf. The world doesn’t seem to pause, but the everything between us does.

“I wanted to prove everyone wrong,” he eventually says.

“I don’t…I don’t understand.”

He eyes me, his gaze resting momentarily on my lips. “Your sister. Your mother. Even your own father. None of them have any idea of what you do, what you’re capable of. They just talk. They don’t see. And I thought otherwise. So I went and checked it out for myself. And I was right.”

I can’t even believe it. My brain racks back, wishing I could have remembered that day.

“Do you remember Christmas?” he asks.

I nod.

You stood up for me.

“That was just an example…of their ignorance. Everyone is always so blinded by your sister.”

“
Was
blinded,” I correct him, my voice barely a whisper. I’m not sure we should even be talking about her in anyway other than complimentary.

“No,” he says. “Still is. Present tense. When your sister died…she died as the person everyone loved. I know that she was what you were always measured against, and I knew after she died, that it wouldn’t stop for you. If anything, it would be worse, because she’d forever be unflawed. And you…you’re full of flaws.”

I blink a few times. My heart is thumping louder, like it’s trying to break out of my ribs. “Thanks.” As if I needed a reminder of how imperfect I was. “You were blinded too, then.”

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I was.” He sighs, then props his elbows up on his knees. “You know that’s a compliment, right?”

“What is? That I’m terribly flawed?”

“Yeah.”

I roll my eyes. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t know what a compliment is.”

“Yeah? But it is one. Because you wear your flaws, proudly. You are who you are. You aren’t ashamed of it. You tell the world that you’re real and you’re trying. Why else would you be here?”

“Because I had no choice,” I mutter. “We both know it. My mother made you hire me.”

“You mother has never been able to make me do anything,” he says, his voice gruff. “She’s the most flawed of us all, and you know that. It’s what makes her weaker than you’ll ever be. Because you have strength in every dark crevice, you’ve had to fight and you have the scars. That’s why you scare her, that’s why you scared both of them.”

“Both of them?”

He breathes out loudly through his nose. “You never realized that Juliet was afraid of you, did you?”

I balk at that. Literally flinch. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He twists to face me, his dark eyes glimmering from the fire. “You marched to the beat of your own drum. Juliet never got to do that. Her destiny was controlled from the moment she was born. Why do you think she married me? It was her only chance to rebel. To escape.”

I swallow hard. All these truths coming out at once are a little hard to take, and what he’s saying is exactly in line with what my mother was saying over the phone this morning. “I thought it was because you two were in love.”

He doesn’t say anything to that. Instead, he gets to his feet and walks out from underneath the tarp. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “I should get some more wood before it gets dark.”

And then he’s gone.

Fuck.

The idea that Juliet was afraid of me, when all this time I was afraid of measuring up to her has a hard time sinking in. I’m not even sure I believe it. Juliet
was
perfect. I’d never heard anyone say a bad thing about her, never saw her look or act less than anything beautiful. If she was suffering underneath it all because of the expectations my mother put on her, she never,
ever
showed it. If anything, those expectations were then handed down to me because my mother told the whole entire world how much she loved Juliet. Hell, she told her how much she loved her. I heard it, all the time, and I remembered it because it never sounded the same when it was directed to me.

I know I sound like the long-suffering youngest child, I know it’s a part that’s far too easy for me to sink into. But it’s been a part of who I am since the moment I was born. That moment I was forever measured against what I could become. I was never taken as I am.

And yet here is Logan telling me everything I’ve always craved to hear and I’m not even sure he knows what he’s saying. Juliet was his wife and in some ways, maybe every way, he’s breaking her confidence by telling me these things.

Or maybe it’s the kind of things I should have always known. Maybe the pedestal I put her on was always a little too high.

Logan is gone longer than I anticipated. With my phone completely destroyed by the water I have no way of knowing how much time has passed. The clouds are still coming from behind us, obscuring the sun, leaving a grey and shadow-less void over the jungle. I can hear the faint chatter of the other hikers far in the distance, a familiar sound that reminds me that I’m not completely alone out here. If things get weird between Logan and I, I can always head down to their camp and join them.

And aside from the sounds of the violent surf and the steady roar of the stream, I can hear birds singing, along with the occasional crow of a rooster. Even in the heart of the jungle, the damn chickens are everywhere.

I also hear what sounds like a
mew
. I turn my head to see a cat poke it’s face out of a bush. It’s grey and white, scrawny but not starving, with large dark eyes.

“Hey,” I cry out softly, sticking out my hand and making the motion for him to come forward. “Come say hi.”