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Gathering her things with haste, she dropped her pen. She was leaning over the log to get it, searching in the plants, when the entire side of the trail suddenly gave way and Chris went tumbling down. The log rolled out from under her and she caught at a tree root as she went flying down the side of the forest wall.
Hanging there, suspended, the icy rain coming down on top of her, her feet touching nothing and not being able to see anything below or above her, she prayed for help. “Tynan,” she whispered, not able to hear herself above the rain crashing down.
“Tynan!” she shouted.
Her hands were beginning to slip. She tried to keep a cool head about where she was and how she could get out of this mess. If she could only see how far it was to the bottom of the drop. For all she knew, she could be six inches from the ground.
Twisting, she tried to look below her, but the rising mist made it impossible to see anything. One of her hands slipped.
After several long minutes of struggle, she got both hands back on the tree root. She could feel the skin begin to tear away. She tried to swing forward, hoping to get her foot into the mud and rocks of the bank.
“Curse all the Montgomery women for being short,” she said when she couldn’t reach the bank.
Suddenly, she stopped as she thought she heard a sound above her.
“Tynan,” she yelled with all her might. “Tynan. Tynan. Tynan.”
She hadn’t finished her last scream before he was there beside her, his back sunk into the mud of the bank, his long arms reaching for her and pulling her to him.
She clung to him like a monkey to a tree, wrapping her body around his, her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.
He began to go down the side of the bank, scooting along, pushing debris out of the way as he moved. Chris held to him, her face buried in his neck. Even when he started walking, she didn’t let go.
“Here,” he said at last, peeling her off of him.
When he stood her on the ground, she found that her legs were weak. Both their bodies were covered in mud.
“Sit there for a while and rest.” He pointed to an outcropping of rock behind her, and, gratefully, she sat down, out of the pelting rain.
As she looked up at Ty, the misty, cold rain coming down behind his head, she knew she’d never seen anything as welcome in her life. Quite naturally, she put up her arms to him.
He came to her, holding her so tightly she could barely breath. “I knew it was going to rain,” he said. “I was getting the tents up when you walked off. I thought you’d have sense enough to come back when it started. God, Chris, you’re going to be the death of me. It’s a wonder I found you.”
Chris was so happy that she was safe and that he was here that she began kissing his neck exuberantly. “I knew you’d find me. I knew it from the moment the ground fell away. One minute I was sitting there and the next I was falling. I wasn’t even sure it was raining.”
Ty forcibly pulled her arms from around his neck—and he looked like a man in great pain. “Chris,” he said in a pleading voice, “have you ever seen a grown man cry? I mean really cry? Like a brokenhearted two-year-old?”
“No, I don’t believe I have or that I want to.” She was reaching for him again. “Ty,” she said.
He caught her hands in his, holding them together in front of him. “Then please stop this,” he said. “Please leave me alone. Don’t follow me, don’t touch me, don’t mother me, don’t put salve on my back, don’t cry when I get mad at you. Don’t do anything. I’m begging you, please.”
Chris leaned toward him. “It doesn’t matter to me that you were in prison. You may think that I’m of a different class than you but I’m not. Ty, I think I may be in love—”
He put his hand over her mouth. “Don’t say it. Don’t ever say it. I couldn’t bear to hear it. We’ve only known each other for a few days and in a few more we’ll never see each other again.”
“The number of days doesn’t matter. Do you know how many men have asked me to marry them? I receive proposals in the mail. I’ve been to dinner parties and had two proposals by the end of the meal, but I’ve never even been tempted—not by marriage or by their attempts at seduction. But you, Tynan, you’re the man I want.”
Ty’s face went through one contortion after another and for just a moment, he leaned toward her as if he meant to kiss her. But the next second, he ran from the dry rock cropping, out into the rain.
“Don’t you understand that I CAN’T? Ican’tmake love to you. Now get up! We’re going back to camp and don’t come near me again.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her out into the rain with him, then half pushed her up the steep bank. Once on the trail again, he didn’t touch her, just pointed the way back to the camp.
Chris knew that some of the water on her face was a deluge of tears but she didn’t know how much until she reached the camp. There were three tents set up, one for each of them. Under a tree, its opening facing away from the other two tents, was a tarpaulin that she knew was Tynan’s.
Ty stood back, arms folded over his chest while she went into the tent he pointed to.
It took Chris an hour to change into dry clothes, because her tears kept running down her cheeks. She cried all night long. The first man she’d ever loved and this had to happen.
When morning came, her face was red and swollen, her nose half again its usual size and her head was aching. When Tynan came to tell her that they’d stay in the tents until the rain stopped, she couldn’t look at him, but just kept her head down and nodded.
