“No, coyotes. Most likely going after a late dinner. Maybe a rabbit.”
Gradually her grip on his hand loosened. “Okay, I vaguely remember about coyotes from when I lived here as a kid.”
“They won’t hurt you.”
“I know. But let’s leave the flashlight on. If it gives out, it gives out, but having that beam pointing the way makes me feel comfier.”
“Sure, why not. The batteries will probably last.”
They walked along in silence while Tyler made periodic sweeps of the muddy road with the flashlight beam. After they’d gone about a mile, she squeezed Alex’s hand. “Hey. What does this remind you of?” She stuck the flashlight under her chin in Blair Witch Project mode.
He laughed. “Looks like you’re feeling better about being out here in the wilds of Wyoming.”
“You must think I’m such a wimp.”
“Not at all. In fact, it’s nice to know you’re not perfect.”
“Oh, I’m far from perfect, Alex.”
“If you ask me, you’re pretty damn close.”
“Ha! I have a million little irritating habits.”
“You do?” He glanced over at her in surprise. “Like what?”
“I take really long showers and I like to hog the bathroom. So be forewarned, because we’re sharing.”
He’d forgotten that. “Then if you’re taking too long and I need to shower, I’ll just climb in with you.” If he hadn’t been holding her hand, he would have missed the fine tremor that ran through her.
“Um, yeah.” She cleared her throat. “Thanks for planting that idea in my head.”
“You don’t like it?”
“Oh, I like it a lot. Too much, in fact. And we’ve already established that in the middle of the dark woods is a bad place to have sex, so now I get to be frustrated.”
He stroked her palm with his thumb. “Think of it as building the anticipation.”
“Stop it, Alex.” She pulled her hand away. “It’s not fair how you can do that.”
“What?” His masculine ego felt very good right now.
“Make me want to drag you off into the dark woods even though it’s filled with lions and tigers and bears, oh, my.” She swallowed. “I just remembered something. There actually are bears in these woods, aren’t there?”
“There can be.”
“Shitfire.”
He swallowed his laughter, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate it. “I doubt we’ll come across one tonight.”
“Have you seen any since you’ve been here?”
“A couple of times.”
She gave a little wail of distress and grabbed his hand. “Now, that’s scary. Okay, let’s talk about something else, like…like what songs I should perform tomorrow. Obviously not ‘Oklahoma.’ Any ideas after being a DJ in Jackson for a few months?”
“Country is the obvious choice. How are you with country tunes?”
“I know some Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, Martina McBride. Will that work?”
He nodded. “Perfect. Watkins will know all that.”
“I’ll get with him in the morning. What about a sound system?”
He got a kick out of how her tone became more brisk and efficient when she switched into business mode. “We’ll use mine. That was one of the things I had my folks ship out from Chicago last summer. People around here like having a DJ they can hire for parties, so I do gigs on the side. Speaking of that, people still request plenty of John Denver’s stuff.”
“I know a few of his. ‘Annie’s Song,’ ‘Country Roads,’ ‘Rocky Mountain High.’”
“Those are good. He also has one called ‘Song of Wyoming’ and Watkins knows it. If you could learn that, you’d make Jack very happy.”
She laughed. “I promise to learn it if you promise to make sure Jack’s around to hear it. Just my luck he’d be off riding some horse in a demonstration and miss the whole thing.”
“We’ll coordinate. But be sure and sing ‘Annie’s Song’ at some point. Everybody likes that one.” And he shouldn’t have requested that she sing it, he realized after the fact. He didn’t just like that song. He loved it. Now that song would be forever linked to her, and that could be bad.
“I hope I remember all the words,” she said. “I hate having to look at lyrics while I sing.”
“If you don’t know them, I do.” He was into it now, so he might as well help her. If he didn’t give her the correct lyrics, somebody on the ranch would.
“Then I should practice it while you’re here to coach me.” She started singing in her clear, lilting soprano.
The song went right to his heart, as he’d been afraid it would. He doubted she was giving the lyrics any personal meaning, but he couldn’t seem to help doing exactly that. The words fit the way he felt about her. For the first time in his life, a woman filled up his senses exactly as Denver had described in the song.
Now every time he heard it he’d remember walking down the road with her while she sang to him. Great. His favorite tune, ruined. But it would be a crowd-pleaser tomorrow. He might have to find reasons to avoid listening.
He couldn’t avoid listening to it now, though. She stumbled over the line about rain, which seemed sort of telling when he stopped to think about it. He recited the lyric and she sang it, this time without hesitation. Maybe her first screwup had nothing to do with her imagining how the song applied to them. That was probably just his sappy interpretation of her thought process.
“So how was that?” she asked after she finished. “Okay?”
“Wonderful.” His voice sounded rusty and he had to clear his throat. “Terrific. You have a great voice.”
“It’s a nice song,” she said softly. “I’ve always liked it. It speaks of an elemental connection.”
“Yeah.” He felt his heart slide another notch toward the danger zone. “I know.”
“How far do you think we’ve walked?”
“A little over two miles or so. I’d say we’re close to the halfway point. How are you holding up?”
“Great. No worries. And the flashlight is working just fine.” She flicked it over the road and then moved the beam out over the meadow to their right. “What’s that out there? It looks like a big rock.”
A chill went down his spine. “It’s not a rock. Don’t shine the light over there again. And just keep walking.”
“Alex…” The flashlight beam wiggled, indicating she was shaking.
“Don’t panic. Let me have the flashlight.” He took it from her quivering fingers.
“It’s…it’s…”
“Yes.” He squeezed her hand. “It’s a bear.”
Chapter 10
TYLER HAD NEVER hyperventilated before. She’d always wondered what that would be like when she heard other people talk about it. Now she knew. She literally couldn’t breathe.
“Come on.” Alex tugged on her hand. “Just keep walking along the road. Let the bear know we’re just moving through.”
She edged down the road but kept her eyes trained on the indistinct blob that Alex had identified as a bear. Little by little she sucked air into her tortured lungs. “Are you sure it’s not a rock?”
“I saw eyes and fur. It’s not a rock.”
“What if it charges?”
“It looks like a black bear to me, so I doubt it will if we don’t act threatening. It seems to be simply watching us. Walk on the other side of me if that will make you feel better.”
She accepted that invitation, even though it felt cowardly to put him between her and the bear. “B-but what if it ch-charges?” she repeated, needing an answer, wanting to be ready with a strategy.
“Then we’ll both raise our arms and yell at it. The idea is to look as big and menacing as possible to scare it off.”
Despair tightened her chest. She couldn’t imagine facing down a charging bear and she didn’t seem to have enough air in her lungs to create a decent yell. “Is there a plan B?”
“In the first place, I don’t think it will charge. In the second place, yelling should scare it off.”
“But if it doesn’t?” Although she craned her neck to look back over her shoulder, she’d lost track of the blob that was supposed to be the bear. The shadows blended together, and she pictured it moving closer, stalking them.
“Some people say you should lie down, curl up and pretend to be dead.”
“If I did that, I’d probably just go ahead and die of fright.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that, because the bear isn’t coming after us.”
“How do you know that for sure? How do you know it isn’t sneaking up on us?”
“I just…think it would have made a move by now.”
She didn’t want a tentative answer at the moment. “You don’t know a whole lot about bear behavior, do you?”
“Some. Not a lot.”
She could see the internet headline: Couple Mauled by Rampaging Bear. Everyone would click on that. She had the prospect of either dying from her wounds or being hospitalized, but either way, she’d miss the world cruise and her window of opportunity for the promotion.
But then she had another thought. If she didn’t die of her wounds, she’d be hospitalized along with Alex, and if he didn’t die of his wounds, they could recover together. She wouldn’t have to make any decisions about her career because fate would have made them for her. And she could find out whether she and Alex were meant to be.
“I think you can stop worrying now,” Alex said. “We’ve passed a bend in the road, and no bear is lumbering along behind us. I’m sure the one we saw is either still sitting in the meadow or has gone off to forage for grubs under a fallen log.”
“That sounds so Disneyesque. I’ve always loved cartoons about bears, but I have to tell you, when face-to-snout with the real thing, it’s different.”
“I agree.” He let out a breath.
“There, see? You were worried, too.”
“I wasn’t worried for myself, but I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”
“That’s very sweet.” She wouldn’t have wanted to be mauled by a bear, but now that the possibility was receding in the distance, she also had to give up the fantasy that she and Alex would nurture each other back to health and they’d discover in the process if they were suited to each other.
Instead it looked as if she had to carry on with her world cruise and earn that promotion. That was her first choice, of course, but the recovering-in-the-hospital scenario didn’t sound all that bad, either. Staying in Wyoming didn’t feel quite like the prison sentence she would have expected it to feel like, which meant she was still conflicted.
“Want the flashlight back?” he asked.