Safe and soaking wet.
No tall trees meant no natural shelter from the rain.
I dropped my pack on the ground and started going through it. If I’d had my full gear bag, I could set up the camping equivalent of a five-star hotel. Unfortunately, that bag was on a plane going who knew where. I pulled out my raincoat and put it on, then dug through all the side pockets on the bag, finding one survival blanket folded up small.
That was it.
Great.
“You have anything we can use to stay dry?” I asked over my shoulder where Wren was digging through her pack too.
“This was supposed to be a leisurely hike,” she huffed as she dug. “I’ve got spare socks and a raincoat.” She put on the raincoat then set her bag to the side.
The coat was bright red and she looked like a sad soggy tomato.
“Here, we can share this to stay sort of dry.” I spread out the survival blanket on a log. We sat on the edge then pulled the rest over us like a half-assed shelter.
It wasn’t much but it would have to do.
We had both been too stubborn to work together and now we were paying for it.
Chapter Five
Wren
The wind was steady, but it was hitting us from the back, so Jasper’s emergency blanket was doing its job. “Thank you for sharing the blanket,” I said, begrudgingly.
We’d done nothing but argue since we met, but I appreciated we were in this together.
“I wouldn’t have left you out in the cold. I’d have let you in the cabin.”
I bumped his shoulder with mine and smirked. In the heat of the moment, when he wanted to go back to the condemned looking cabin and I wanted to aim for Kara’s place, I was ready to argue into the ground. Now, as we sat here soggy knowing that neither of our plans would have worked, the heat of the issue had died.
“There were probably mice in there anyway,” he said.
“Spiders too…and going back to Kara’s place is overrated.”
He stretched out his long legs then pulled them back under our little shelter. “Who wants beer and steak anyway.”
“Exactly.”
We were quiet for a while, just listening to the sound of the drops hitting the canopy. “Where do you work in search and rescue?” I asked. “Will we have your coworkers come looking for us if we aren’t home by dark?”
He laughed. “I’d never live that down, but no, Springwood, BC, Canada is where I work. Most people haven’t heard of it.”
“I’ve fought fires all over the world, I’ve worked in that region a few times.”
“Really, what made you want to—”
“Run toward the thing everyone else is sprinting away from?” I finished for him, picking at a hangnail. “I don’t know. It’s… simple, in a way. Working with people can be draining and complicated. They have ulterior motives and agendas. Fire is just a problem to solve. They’re honest if that makes sense.”
Jasper huffed out a quiet laugh. “Honest is one word for it.”
I shrugged, a small smile tugging at my lips. “Okay, maybe brutally honest. But I like knowing where I stand.”
He nodded and stared at his hands too. “Search and rescue isn’t that different,” he said after a moment. “The specifics can be complicated, but the big picture is simple. No time to overthink it. No time to second guess.”
“Just react,” I said.
