AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“HELP!”
The sound jolts me into action. That’s no animal. Somebody’s in trouble out there. I sprint for the door, following the sound, adrenaline pushing me forward.
“HELP! SOMEBODY!”
The voice is getting louder. I barrel toward it, finally catching sight of a figure in the distance, slumped on the ground.
“It’s alright!” I shout. “I’m coming.”
I’m a few feet away when I stop in my tracks, my heart almost crashing straight out of my chest. Daisy Capello is sitting on the ground, her eyes wide and fearful. There’s a thick piece of rope wrapped tight around her ankle, leaving an angry red mark on her skin.
“Lincoln,” she says, breathing hard. “Thank God.”
Her expression is a mixture of relief and embarrassment as I kneel down beside her, inspecting her ankle.
“Shit, are you okay?” I ask urgently, scrabbling for something to cut through the knot. There’s a Swiss Army knife in my back pocket and I grab it, flicking open the saw blade and starting to slice through the rope, careful not to graze her ankle. “What the hell happened?”
“I was just…just walking and suddenly this…this rope just pulled me to the ground.”
Her voice sounds a little shaky, and she winces as the rope falls away from her ankle. She’s got a nasty rope burn, and I carefully lift her into my arms, avoiding her ankle. She gasps as I grab her, looking a little dazed as I carry her bridal style through the woods. If this was any other situation, it would drive me crazy to be holding her like this, her warm curvy body pressed against my chest, her forehead resting against the side of my neck. But right now, I’m too worried about her to focus on anything but getting her to my cabin where I can clean her up and take care of her burn.
“Why was there a trap like that out here in the woods?” Daisy asks. “What is it for?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. That was a poacher’s knot—it’s a way to snare animals for food…” I cut off with a groan, a memory suddenly hitting me. “Shit. I’m sorry, Daisy. This is my fault.”
“How?” She sounds surprised.
“I took a few people from the Marion Retreat out here. It was a while back, a survival course, how to survive in the woods, that kind of thing. I showed them how to set up a snare with a poacher’s knot. They all tried it themselves and I guess I missed one of the traps when I was clearing up. Fuck.”
Guilt claws at my stomach. Knowing I’m responsible for hurting Daisy makes me feel sick.
“It’s okay, Linc,” she says. “It was just an accident.”
We’re finally approaching the clearing where my cabin is situated, but I can’t hold myself back any longer from asking the obvious question.
“What were you doing out here?”
I hear Daisy inhale sharply. “Walking, like I said. Just walking.”
I frown. “Why were you walking all the way up here?”
“I…I was…well, it’s a free country. This forest is public.”
The defiance in her voice makes me chuckle. “I’m not disputing that, Daisy. I’m just trying to figure out why you’re walking around in the middle of the woods on a Friday afternoon. Don’t you work Fridays?”
“I…well, today I have the afternoon off,” Daisy says sounding unsure. “So I figured I’d go for a walk in the woods.”
“You know it’s freezing out?”
“It’s winter in Colorado. It’s always freezing out.”
I’m not convinced, but we’ve reached my cabin and so I carry Daisy over the threshold, kicking the door shut behind us. It’s toasty in here after the frozen January air outside, and I feel Daisy relax slightly in my arms. I carry her to the bathroom and set her down before grabbing a chair and pulling it up to the bathtub.
“Sit down,” I tell her. “We need to clean that burn.”
She does as she’s told, sitting on the chair and dangling her leg into the bathtub, wincing.
“Where does it hurt? Just your ankle?”
