Jurassic Heart (17 page)

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for Hunter to pick me up from the dig on Friday just after lunch. I wasn’t missing much that way. We drove north for a few hours, deeper into the forest and farther away from civilization.

Hunter had stocked up on supplies for the weekend, bringing extra so he could replenish the contents of the cupboards at the same time. It meant we both had two bags to carry, one full of our stuff and the other with bread or bottled water or whatever else he’d decided to bring.

From what Hunter had told me, I was prepared for the walk up to the cabin; there was no road, so hiking it was our only option. The shelter of green was an effective barrier from the heat of the day. It was cooler under the canopy of leaves than out in direct sunlight. Even so, we still stopped for a water break.

I concentrated on following Hunter, placing my feet where he’d put his and trying not to fall over. It didn’t appear to me to be a well-worn trail, but he certainly seemed to know where he was going. Every so often, he’d look back at me over his shoulder, checking that I wasn’t falling behind or, you know, dying.

When he finally stopped, I nearly collided into his back. The clearing wasn’t very big, and the log cabin seemed to melt into the background.

“Home sweet home,” Hunter murmured under his breath and took long strides to the door.

The lock was very simple, and it occurred to me if anyone wanted to break in, they wouldn’t have much difficulty in doing so. A small covered porch wrapped around a window on either side of the front door. As Hunter let us in, I was struck with the impression this looked like the cottage where the dwarfs lived in the Snow White story.

“Ugh, it’s musty in here,” Hunter said, tossing his duffel bag onto the floor and crossing to the window to open it wide.

“How long since you were here last?”

“I think my brother came here a few months back with his wife,” he said. “It’s been a while, though. It’s been… fuck, nearly a year since I was here.”

There wasn’t a hallway as such. The front door opened onto the living area, where a couch faced a comfy-looking armchair with a small table in between. There was a rug on the floor in front of the fireplace, and a large bookcase. The TV was a fair size, but looked ancient; it was hooked up to a VCR, and movies that had been recorded straight from the TV onto tape were stacked on the floor. I wandered over to check out the titles.

“Let me show you around,” Hunter said with his arm outstretched. It still felt weird, but I dutifully slipped my hand in his and allowed him to pull me away.

“How the hell did you build this place?” I asked as he took me to the kitchen.

“We had to clear a path big enough to get a pickup through the trees,” he admitted.

“Oh, really, Mr. Conservationist?”

I couldn’t let the chance to rib him pass me by.

“Most of the tracks have grown over again, and we were pretty thorough in replanting anything we had to take down to do it.”

“Defensive,” I muttered, teasing him, seeing if he’d take the bait.

He didn’t, and I went back to admiring the beautiful craftsmanship in the little cabin.

“You put all this in yourself?” I asked, running my hand over one of the smooth worktops. He nodded somewhat shyly.

The kitchen was fairly small, but the whole cabin wasn’t huge, so in comparison it worked just fine. The second window I’d seen at the front of the house belonged to the kitchen. Hunter reached over and opened that too. Cupboards sat in neat rows under the counters, not over them, and a small stove nestled in between.

Instead of a dining room, the kitchen had a table and four chairs pushed to one side; someone had covered the table with a neat red gingham tablecloth that matched the fabric of the curtains at the window.

“My mom made them,” Hunter said as I let the fabric flow through my fingers. “Come on, I’ll show you the rest.”

Behind the kitchen was the bathroom, which made sense; I guessed all the plumbing was contained to a small area. At the back of the house was the sole bedroom. The window in this room was bigger and lower, so when we were sitting or lying on the bed, it was easy to see out over the forest and the deep crack of the ravine behind. All the bedroom furniture looked crafted rather than mass-produced, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine someone designing it specifically for this spot.

“It’s a really beautiful house,” I said, turning to Hunter, who was hovering by the doorway.

“Cabin.”

“Cabin,” I agreed. I patted the bed next to me—it was covered in white sheets and a homemade patchwork quilt blanket—and he sat down. “Have you brought anyone up here before?”

“Sure,” he said dismissively. “All the time.”

I elbowed him in the ribs.

“No. Just you.”

“Thanks.”

He huffed a laugh and leaned over to press his lips to my temple, then stood again and went to fuss with our bags. I left him to it and went to check out the kitchen a bit more thoroughly—getting on with him this well was starting to freak me out. I needed some space.

As I had expected, the cupboards were filled with mostly canned goods and things like rice and pasta in well-sealed containers. There were dried herbs too, and spices, and sugar and flour to bake bread or cakes.

“You could live here for months,” I called out, sure that wherever Hunter was, he’d be able to hear me.

“That was the plan,” he called back and then appeared in the doorway. “When the rebels overthrow the government we can hide out here until the revolution is done.”

“I thought you’d be at the front of the revolution,” I said, leaning back on my elbows on the counter.

“Nah. I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

I gave him my best seductive pose. “Come here, lover.”

“You’re such a goofball,” he said, and shook his head but came over to me anyway. Gripping my hips, he leaned in and captured my lips in a hot kiss.

When we were done kissing, I managed to stay in his embrace while I continued to pepper him with questions.

“I’m guessing the electricity comes from solar panels?”

He nodded. “Yeah. We’ve got our own generators in the attic space, and the panels are on the roof. The sun heats the water in the tank too, so we’ve got hot running water. You need to go out every few days, though, and get water from the stream, and add it to the tank with the stuff that purifies it.”

“You’re not connected to any utilities at all, then?”

“Nope,” he said and kissed my nose.

“That explains all the video tapes.”

“Well, we’ve got to have something to entertain us in these long, lonely nights out here.” He kissed me again. “I’d normally offer you a shower, but if you want one later, then there won’t be enough water.”

“I’m okay,” I said. “Can we go out and explore some more?”

“Of course.”

We locked the front door―although I wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t like there was going to be lots of people walking past―and hiked farther into the forest for about an hour. Then he took me on another, twisting path that led right out to the edge of the ravine. From here, we could see for miles in each direction. The pine trees stuck out of the craggy rock in seemingly impossible places.

Hunter had brought energy bars and water with him, and we sat on a particularly handy rock in silence, sipping at the water and leaning into each other.

“This feels a long, long way from the dig,” I said quietly, watching a gull dive around the rocks.

“You aren’t tempted to get your shovel out, then?”

“Out here? No. I don’t have any topographical maps or soil samples or any kind of reports. And I thought we were here to avoid the dinosaurs for the weekend.”

“That’s true.”

It really was a beautiful spot, but we needed to head back to the cabin before it started to get dark or risk getting lost. I did not want to sleep in a bush.

Even though the sun was starting to set, turning the sky a hundred shades of orange and pink and wispy purple, we walked back at an easier pace. We weren’t at a place where holding hands was something we did often, either when other people were around or when we were on our own. Still, we walked close to each other, trading insults as easily as jokes.

“Do you ever come here with your brothers?” I asked as we approached the front door.

“Not really. There’s space for all of us—the couch folds out into another bed, and there’s room on the floor for an inflatable mattress. I don’t know why we’d all want to be here at the same time, though. It was built so we had somewhere where we could go for some peace and quiet.”

“Are you like your brothers?”

“In some ways, yeah. I mean, obviously we built this place together with our dad, so we’ve all got an interest in construction and craftsmanship and all that sort of stuff. My dad is a master carpenter, so we grew up playing with toys he’d made for us.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Yeah. Garrett—he’s older than me—runs the business with Dad now, so he did a lot of the custom stuff in here. And Jackson—he’s two years younger than me—he works in insurance during the day and is a frustrated artist at night.”

Inside, we pulled off our hiking boots and stripped out of sweaty T-shirts. I replaced mine with a faded tank. Hunter apparently preferred to wander around bare chested. I realized I was hungry about the same time Hunter turned on the stove to make something for dinner. I wasn’t sure what he could do with canned goods and the wild garlic and few mushrooms he’d picked as we were walking; I was content to sit on a countertop, criticize, and watch him work.

“Don’t you like cooking?” he asked me.

“I do, because cooking makes food,” I said. “But it’s not my favorite activity.”

He laughed and shook his head. “My mom loved teaching us to cook. And bake. I’ve got some amazing cookie recipes stored up here.” He tapped the side of his head with the clean part of his spatula. “I’ve talked about my family enough. Tell me about yours.”

“There’s not a lot to tell,” I said. “I was an only child until I was eleven, when my younger sister came along. I spent most of my early teenage years feeling usurped by her. We’re friends now, but the age difference makes it hard to be close, you know?”

“Sure. Garrett is only eighteen months older than me, and Jacks isn’t far behind. We grew up close. It pissed me off at the time, but I’m grateful for them now.”

“Do you see much of them?”

“I try to. My work takes me all over the place, though, so we mostly stay in contact by phone. How about you? You must travel a lot too.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Three seasons in Mongolia was hard. I mean, it was brilliant, I was out there with a really awesome group of people, so that was good, but you end up missing your family.”

“Where are they?”

“Vancouver.”

He nodded and added some of the dried herbs to the pot of gently simmering tomato, onion, and mushroom sauce. He already had a pot of water getting ready to boil; I assumed pasta would be going in it.

“Smells good,” I said.

“Thanks. Are you out to your parents? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I don’t mind,” I said lightly. “And yes. For a long time.”

“Are they cool?”

“It’s hard to say. Sometimes I think they are, sometimes I think my mom wishes I’d change my mind and settle down with a woman. To be fair, if I married a man and adopted children, I think she’d be happier. She never intended to have a son who was still single in his early thirties.”

Hunter barked a laugh. “Yeah, that sounds familiar. Although both my brothers are married, so that takes the heat off me a bit.”

“I expect Esther’s likely to get married before I do. She’ll probably have kids first too.”

After carefully adding pasta to the now-boiling water, Hunter turned to me and leaned in for a kiss, apparently for no reason at all.

“I’ve got three nieces and one nephew—so far,” he said, picking up the conversation again. “I’m pretty sure Garrett’s wife wants another one. I think that’s the main reason why he comes up here; they visit and nine months later, she pops another kid out.”

“That makes me feel a bit icky about sleeping in that bed….”

“Don’t worry, we’ve got a strict ‘change the sheets’ rule.”

“You’re not going to get me pregnant, are you?”

“I’ll do my best and try,” he said, laughing.

He sliced a few pieces of bread, pulled bowls from a cupboard, and dished up the pasta and sauce. It looked delicious.

Since it was still warm, we sat outside, on the back porch, watching the last rays of the sun slipping over the horizon. We ate in silence, and I tried not to dwell on the fact that I was different around Hunter. I was still working out if that was a good thing or not. I had spent so much of my adult life taking responsibility for other people. It didn’t feel like that with him. I was content not filling each moment with mindless conversation, although we did mindless conversation pretty well too. I was starting to feel happier letting him be in control, letting him be responsible for me, or at least sharing those responsibilities a little bit.

“There are lots of books,” Hunter said as we headed back inside and set about doing the dishes together. He tried to take over, but I insisted on helping. “Or we could put a movie on.”