He reached out and grabbed hold of her arms, steadying her.
She looked up at him, and he could feel it echo all through his body.
She was a wreck. She looked feeble and weak, and he should not be lusting after her. Shouldn’t be doing it if she were in tiptop shape, either. But he really shouldn’t be doing it now.
“You need some survival training,” he said.
He hadn’t meant to say that, but it was true.
“I do?”
“Yes. Hell, you should never go out without basic survival gear.”
“It was just a trail…”
“And look what happened. If you’d had a backpack with a flare, a blanket, a radio… Well, things could’ve gone differently for you.”
“I did get found.”
“Yeah. I know you did. But maybe you wouldn’t have been, and then what?”
“I had my phone, it’s not like I was being stupid.”
“I didn’t say that you were being stupid. But I think that it’s smart to always take survival gear with you.”
“I’ve never seen Cody do that.”
“Cody has different life experiences than I do. I trained in wilderness survival, and I know how to survive in all kinds of different terrain. I also know what you might want to have with you. I can teachyou.”
He really hadn’t meant to say that. That was the dumbest shit he could’ve possibly said.
The stupidest thing that could’ve come out of his mouth.
“You’ll teach me?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I will because I don’t want you to never go out again. You just moved here, and I think what you need is to feel prepared. I think that would serve you a hell of a lot better than being too afraid to go out and hike, or afraid to ride horses.”
“I don’t like horses,” she said.
“Well, that’s going to have to change.”
“Does it have to change?”
“In my opinion.”
“What if I don’t share your opinion?”
“If you let me be your teacher, then you’ll figure out that my opinion is generally right.”
Maybe this was actually smart. Maybe if he did this, then he would feel like he had a task when it came to her. A purpose to the interaction so it wouldn’t slide into banter or flirtation, or whatever the hell this was.
One thing he knew was that he didn’t like the idea of her wandering around out and about without any further training. He didn’t want her to be vulnerable like she had been.
Didn’t want her to be caught off guard like that ever again.
Now that he had the inclination to try to fix it, to try to make sure that she was protected, he couldn’t let it go.
It was pathological for him.
