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“You gonna help a lady up?” I ask, lifting a hand toward the angry giant.
With dusk creeping in and the shadows between trees lengthening, it’s hard to read the man’s face in any great detail. But I’m fairly certain I catch an eye roll. As if my need for a helping hand is a serious inconvenience to his day.
Despite his attitude he steps forward to help me up.
My dad always used to say that I have nimble fingers. Strong but delicately slim. He’d always meant it as a compliment, praising how easily I can reach through gaps and crevices. How I can stroke the working parts of an engine with more finesse than most men can. I’d never much believed him… until the wild stranger takes hold of my hand.
His palm engulfs mine. Truly engulfs it. My fingers are lost entirely in his hand and the tips of his reach around and along my wrist. I feel my pulse sputter against his touch and the heat of his body dart down through his arm and into mine. It’s like he’s taken control of my entire being by just holding my hand.
It lasts only a second. Just one pull and I’m lifted clear of the bushes and placed squarely on my feet. Despite my head rush, the man releases me as soon as I’m upright again. I notice him brushing his palm against his jeans. Had he felt the same tingles of heat course between our hands? Or is touching a stranger just that unpleasant?
“Thanks,” I murmur.
A low rumble from the base of his chest is all the answer I get. A quirking curl at the corner of his mouth seems to pass judgment. Again.
“What?” I demand.
He frowns back, all confused innocence. My annoyance spikes.
“Look,” I say, hands out in an olive branch gesture. “I’m thankful you were around to help me out. You’re a real hero and all that, but I could do without all of that.”
“All of… what?” he grumbles.
I wave an open hand around the vicinity of his face.
“All of that judgy attitude. I know I’m lost, I know I’m an out-of-towner and yes, I was just on my butt in the mud. But there’s no need to be rude. Civility comes highly recommended, you know?”
“That’s what you’re being now, is it?” The man asks. For a moment, he seems surprised that he’s responding, like he’s being drawn into the conversation beyond his control. “Civil?”
“No, right now I’m being nervous, which means I talk too much.”
“No argument, here.” Again, he seems to wish the words back the moment they’re spoken.
I recall how some men take the brooding quiet trope to heart and wonder if silence is a more natural state for the man.
He certainly seems the type to live a solitary life. He’d been hiking through the woods alone, near nightfall, and obviously detested small talk. You don’t live out in the wilds of the mountains if you enjoy human socialization.
“You should be nervous,” the man feels obliged to add. The awkward roll of his shoulders betrays his normally antisocial nature. “I could have been anyone. A criminal, a predator… Hell, a damn axe murderer.”
It’s now my turn to roll my eyes.
I spot the handle of my suitcase protruding from a nearby bush, then dust down my jeans and go to rescue it.
“You’d make a fairly inept one, don’t you think?” I throw over my shoulder. I take the plastic in hand and begin a tug-of-war battle for my case.
“An inept what?”
My luggage is stuck on something and I have to heave again on the handle. It budges perhaps an inch.
“An axe murderer.” I puff, frustrated. Pausing for breath, I point to his empty hands. “No axe.”
Annoyed at me before, the man now just looks exasperated. He glances off into the trees, rubs a palm over tousled hair and seems to pray for some kind of guidance on how to handle the bizarre blonde who’d stumbled into his woods.
He watches me struggle with the bag, take a branch to the face, and then bump my knee before he eventually snaps.
He takes three long strides toward me and invades my personal space like a wall of warmth. I’m engulfed in the subtle scent of pine, body heat, and the spicy tang of fresh sweat. Something clenches low in my gut and I try not to skedaddle backwards.
The stranger drives a hand deep into the bush. He grunts a little, as if surprised by the weight of my luggage, and then suddenly lifts the entire thing clear of the brush and into the air. He sets it on the ground at my feet where I stare at it, dumbfounded.
