The Texan's Tennessee Romance (8 page)

The trail began as an old gravel logging road through the forest running alongside a tumbling stream that Natalie called “The Ramsey Prong” of the Little Pigeon River. In the summer, Casey imagined the trail would be shady and very green. As it was, there was still some color in the leaves that rained down on them with every cool breeze.

The gravel road was surrounded by mossy fallen tree trunks and enormous boulders, but not particularly steep yet. She had warned him that it got much steeper when the old road ended and the trail became a worn footpath.

“In the summer there are wildflowers through here,” she said, gesturing toward the leaf-strewn forest floor, her thin digital camera in her other hand. “Little violets and irises and other things I never learned to identify.”

“There are probably more hikers in the summer, too,” he commented, and though he spoke quietly, his voice sounded almost loud in the hushed forest. It felt as if he and Natalie were the only ones on the mountain, but he’d seen a couple other cars in the lot when they’d parked.

“Oh, yes, especially during the weekends. This is nice, isn’t it? Having the trail pretty much to ourselves?”

He put a hand lightly at the small of her back, ostensibly to help her around a boulder, mostly just because he wanted to touch her. “Yeah. It’s very nice.”

It pleased him that she made no effort to move away from his hand as they continued to walk, stepping ahead only when the path grew too narrow to navigate side by side.

He lifted an eyebrow when they came to a footbridge over the stream. The bridge was a long, somewhat bouncy-looking, narrow log with a single handrail. Water tumbled noisily over boulders beneath the bridge—and the water looked cold.

Lowering her camera after taking a shot of the bridge, Natalie looked back at him. “Problem?”

“No. Just hoping the traction on these shoes is all the ads claim it to be.”

She laughed. “Come on. I promise not to push you in. As long as you behave.”

Was that a hint for him to keep his hands to himself? Watching her delicately crossing the bridge, he told himself it might be worth a cold dunking to touch her again.

“Smile,” she said from the other side of the prong.

Posing in the middle of the bridge, he grinned as she snapped his picture.

“Man, these trees are huge,” he commented a few minutes later as the trail wound between massive trunks. Gnarled roots snaked across the worn path, waiting to snag a carelessly placed foot or twist an ankle. Patches of moss added to the challenge, which was why, he supposed, the guidebooks rated this hike as strenuous. That, and the increase in altitude.

Natalie placed her hand on the rough bark of a tree that had to be twelve feet in diameter. “Yellow poplars. This is virgin forest. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Frowning at some initials clumsily carved into the bark of another massive tree, he nodded. “Wonder why some people can’t appreciate nature’s beauty without making their own marks on it.”

“Or leaving their trash behind,” she agreed with a look of distaste. “Nothing makes me madder than to see a beautiful place soiled with beer bottles and aluminum cans.”

They pulled water bottles out of their packs and took a few sips while they looked around. “How far do you think we’ve walked?” he asked, guessing at a couple of miles.

“About two and a half miles, I think,” she hazarded, confirming his own guess. “A little over halfway.”

Capping her water bottle, she returned it to her pack, then raised the camera and focused on a tangle of roots with wild fern growing among them. He’d noticed that she had a flair for photography; she’d taken some interesting shots during their walk so far. He would have to ask for copies.

“Natalie.” He nudged her arm and pointed to where two wild turkeys strutted across the path.

She swung the camera in that direction, snapping a couple of shots before the big birds fluttered into the woods. “Cool,” she said, lowering the camera with a smile.

He took the camera from her hand and stepped back. “Stand in front of those two black cherry trees,” he instructed. “Right between them. Yes, there.”

He took the picture, then glanced at the screen on the back of the camera. “Nice. Now move over there, by the water.”

She shook her head, but obliged, anyway. “I didn’t bring the camera so I’d have a lot of pictures of me.”

“I don’t know why not. You’ve been taking shots of natural beauty all day.”

She groaned and snatched the camera away from him, leaving him grinning as they started walking again. He was almost sure she’d had to struggle not to smile in response to his corny quip.

They crossed another log bridge and walked between two more large poplars, where they encountered a doe quietly foraging for vegetation. She looked up at them, waited politely for Natalie to snap her picture, then bounded away in graceful leaps, leaving her human admirers smiling. A squirrel barked in a tree above them, and Casey looked up to see it watching them and twitching its tail. “The wildlife out here is certainly accustomed to people.”

“Considering how many thousands take this hike every year, it’s no wonder,” Natalie replied. She zipped the front of her bright red vest. “It’s getting cooler as we climb higher, isn’t it?”

“Are you cold? You can wear my jacket.”

“Thanks, but I’m fine. This vest is actually pretty warm. We’ve only got about a mile to go before we reach the falls.”

He stepped carefully over a pile of somewhat slippery rocks. “I’m really glad we decided to do this. It feels good to get away from everything for a while.”

She took the hand he extended to help her over the rocks. “It does feel good,” she acknowledged, and then smiled ruefully. “I have to admit I’m a little out of shape. Too much desk time, not enough gym time the past couple of years.”

It might have been a good time to slip in a question about what she’d done at that desk, but Casey decided to let the moment pass. All he wanted to do now was to enjoy this day. This moment. And he suspected Natalie felt the same way.

“Your shape looks good to me,” he said, earning himself another groan—and another fleeting glimpse of dimples.

She glanced down. “You’re still holding my hand,” she pointed out.

He tightened his fingers just a little. “I know. It’s a very nice hand.”

Lacing her fingers with his, she smiled. “You’re flirting.”

“So, you noticed this time.”

She looked up at him through her lashes, which made his pulse rate flutter a little in response. A typical male response to a very feminine look, he thought, even as she murmured, “I’ve noticed before.”

His face was close to hers now, their lips only a few inches apart. “And did you like it?”

With a laugh, she disentangled their hands and took a step away, lifting her camera to snap his picture. “Let’s keep moving,” she said, turning to head up the trail again.

Grinning in intrigue, he followed her.

The trail narrowed again and rose even more steeply as they neared the end. They’d been accompanied almost all the way by the sounds of water—rushing, tumbling, spilling over small ledges, gurgling in pools—but now Casey could hear a distinctive waterfall roar, as he thought of it. They climbed over a few more fallen trees, hopped across a couple more rocks, and then they were at their destination. And it was everything Natalie had promised it would be.

“Wow,” he said, raising his voice a little to be heard over the noise. “This is amazing.”

Breathing a little hard from the challenge of the last part of the trail, she smiled. “I told you.”

The cascades, formed by the joining of two separate creeks at the top, tumbled ninety feet downward over a series of rock ledges into a clear pool at the bottom. Signs were posted around the area warning hikers not to try to climb the ledges, as several people had died trying to do so. Feeling the cold, breeze-borne spray on his face, Casey wasn’t even tempted to do anything so foolish. Just seeing this place was reward enough for the strenuous hike.

He turned to Natalie, who’d found a flat-topped boulder on which to rest. Her cheeks were red and she was still breathing a bit more quickly than usual, but she seemed to be rapidly recovering. She gazed at the falls with an expression that made him think she was seeing it both in the present and in her memories of earlier hikes with the late cousin she had obviously loved.

Sensing that he was looking at her, she met his eyes with a slight smile. “It didn’t take me as long to catch my breath when I came up here as a kid,” she admitted, wrinkling her nose in a way that he found very appealing. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you aren’t even breathing hard.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been doing a lot of manual labor lately.”

“Not to mention that you’re almost four years younger than I am,” she grumbled.

Laughing, he settled beside her on the boulder. “Like that’s enough to matter.”

She made a sound he couldn’t quite interpret, and then she swung her little backpack around in front of her and pulled out her water bottle again. “Are you hungry?”

“I could eat.”

She dug in the pack and started pulling out the food she’d brought along. They spent the next half hour eating in the damp, chilly air beside the cascades, enjoying the scenery and the companionship. Casey doubted that they’d have been lucky enough to have the site to themselves had it been a weekend, or a summer day. Which made him even more glad that he and Natalie had chosen a November Monday morning for their excursion. He liked being alone with her here.

They stuffed their trash into a plastic bag Natalie had brought for that purpose, then put that back into her backpack, making sure they left no trace of their visit behind. Fully rested now, Natalie took some pictures of the cascades and of Casey posed in front of them, and then he returned the favor, snapping several shots of her.

“That’s enough,” she said when he’d taken the third picture of her. “We’d probably better head back now.”

She started to move toward him, but her left foot slipped on a wet, mossy rock. She stumbled forward, then fell, landing solidly on her right hip.

Casey had tried to catch her, but he just hadn’t been fast enough. He reached her almost the moment she made contact with the ground. “Natalie? Are you okay?”

Looking thoroughly embarrassed, she nodded, reaching for her cap, which had fallen off in her tumble. “I’m fine. Just lost my footing. Stupid.”

“It could have been worse,” he said, his pulse rate still a bit too fast. “You could have fallen backward.”

She glanced at the falls behind them and made a face. “That would definitely have been worse.”

“Can you stand?”

“Of course. I’m fine, Casey, really.”

“Here, let me help you.” Setting the camera aside, he took her left arm and supported her while she rose unsteadily to her feet. The way she winced when she put weight on her right leg told him that she was hurt a bit worse than she wanted him to know, but a few tentative steps convinced him that nothing was broken or even sprained.

He kept his hand on her arm until she was on more even ground. She glanced up at him with an awkward smile. “I really am okay,” she assured him again. “I’m going to have a very colorful bruise, but that’s the extent of it.”

“Probably going to be sore, too.”

She shrugged. “That was already inevitable after the hike.”

She’d put her cap back on a bit crookedly. He reached up to straighten it, tucking her honey-blond hair away from her face. The gesture brought him closer to her and she tipped her head back to look at him from beneath the brim of her red cap. She stood very still as he traced a fingertip down her jawline, wiping a smudge of dirt from her chin.

“Bet you thought I’d be the one to wipe out today,” he teased quietly, hoping to make her smile again.

She did. “I guess we’re both a little accident-prone.”

He chuckled. “Maybe.”

“Of course, the hike isn’t over yet. You could still ‘wipe out.’”

“I do have a tendency to press my luck,” he admitted, his hand still touching her face. He spread his fingers until his palm cupped her cheek. “Gets me in trouble sometimes.”

She made a slight sound that might have been a swallowed laugh. “I can see that.”

“Sometimes it’s worth it,” he murmured, lowering his head. Holding her gaze with his own, he said, “You never answered my question earlier.”

“Which question?” she asked, tilting her head back a little more.

“Do you like it when I flirt with you? Because, you know, I’ll stop if you don’t.”

She gave a little shrug. “There’s no need to stop. I like it well enough.”

Amused by her nonchalant tone, he said, “Let me guess. I’m a pleasant diversion.”

“You could put it that way.”

Grinning, he spoke against her lips. “I’ve got no complaints about that.”