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I needed to be off this mountainside.
With my pack slung back over my shoulder, I began moving back down the trail just as more droplets made their way from the clouds to the earth. I picked up the pace, trying to watch my step on the rocks and boulders. Last thing a big girl like me needs is a busted ankle while fleeing an incoming storm.
The rain thinned for a moment, with droplets wetting my t-shirt across my shoulders and into my pack. I turned around. Maybe the storm would calm and just pass over as I hurried back to my Jeep for no reason.
A gust of wind followed by the angry booming of thunder rattled my teeth. The trees above me swayed, creaking and groaning. Pine needles were seized by the wind sticking to my hair, and dry dirt caught in my eyes.
A stream of lightning in the distance. I waited with my breath caught in my throat as rain spattered my face. The valley lit up below in that flash.
“10 seconds...” I waited, “15 seconds...” trying to keep my calm in the count. Thunder within 30 seconds was a warning to get indoors. If indoors were not available, then a hard topped vehicle. “21 seconds...” The grumbling roar echoed throughout the valley, the sky sparkling with lightning deep in the darkening sky.
I would not die out here.
“Bad, this is bad!” Turning, my feet sliding against a large damp rock in the middle of the trail.” Shit, shit, shit..." I muttered, trying to keep my calm and hurry. The trees waved in the wind, my hair sticking to my now wet cheeks and brow.
Lightning flashed again, growing closer with the roar of thunder getting closer and closer.
I had to think of something else. I could not outrun this storm. Getting back to my Jeep before the storm was directly above me was not possible.
With the rain growing stronger, my desperate tears hid in the streaks of rain down my cheeks. All I wanted to do was hike. Why had this become so problematic? Now I was scrambling between trees and rocky outcroppings, trying to get away from the incoming storm.
“Fuck’s sake!” I screamed out. “I just wanted to gohiking!” Thunder boomed around me as wind whipped hard against my skin, the rain striking hard and fast.
“Lana!” Called a voice beneath the thunder. A sound that brought warmth to my skin and my heart.
Hayden?
“Lana!” Again his voice. I could not see him. But his voice was out there, calling me.
“Hayden!” I shrieked back, my cry laced with panic. “Hayden, I’m here!”
I scrambled back the way I came, slipping against the trail, which was now nothing but mud. A flash lit up the sky. I paused, the sound of wind and rain in my ears, the booming thunder not far behind making my skin tremor.
“Hayden!” I cried out one last time.
Sprinting down the trail, soaked and muddy, there he was. Lightning flashes lighting him up like a mountain god. He reached for me and pulled me hard against his body. I could feel the warmth of him against my cool skin.
He was actually here. He found me.
Hayden pulled back from the embrace and I could feel the cold seep into my bones once again. His face darkened with rain, but eyes were as bright as the lightning in the sky. He bent down, a calloused hand against my cheek, and kissed me. Lips hard against mine, slick with the rain from the storm.
Breaking from the kiss, I looked into his eyes, as dark as the surrounding storm. True to his name. “What are you doing here?” I had to ask.
Hayden held my face in his hands, gentle but firm. “Lana, I am not letting you go again.”
“How did you find me?”
“Adrian, the park ranger at the front gate. He told me where you had headed.” That smile, that grin of relief and desire. “Lucky guess you would be over here.”
Words caught in my throat, emotion overwhelming me. Hayden was here. Even with the booming roar of lightning mixed with the whistling wind, he brought a warm calm to my heart. The hand against my cheek went to my shoulder, tugging the pack from me. He slung it over his own and grabbed my wrist, as tight and filled with need as that first time.
“The storm is here,” He started, his gaze slipping from passion to a wild stare of a man boiling with determination. “Lana, we need to go. We need to gonow!”
