​Chapter 14
            A few days later, Nicole took the mail and headed to the post office. She dropped the mail in the mail slot and opened the post office box for the motel mail. Inside was one envelope from Blackhawk and Jenkins, Criminal Defense. Her hand shook as she surveyed the envelope. Did he send her a note? She ripped the envelope open and pulled the content out. It was just one piece of paper. A check, for thirty thousand. No note, no thank you, nothing.
            She took the check and immediately headed to Butte Falls Community Bank to make a deposit. She didn’t know what she was going to do with her life. Go back to school? Move away or maybe move to Arizona to be near her parents? All the options scared her and made her tired thinking of them. Plus, she’d been sick every morning, throwing up and an upset stomach. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Was she so upset emotionally that she made herself ill?
            When she had missed her period, she knew in the back of her mind. I’m pregnant. She brought herself a home pregnancy test, and the results came back positive. She was going to have to find a doctor and prepare for the baby. Somehow, the idea of having Marcus’s baby brought her out of her despair and gave her a secret joy. Out of her one night of passion with the man she loved, they had conceived a baby. She hadn’t decided yet if she was going to tell him. He had the right to know, but he was a prominent lawyer, and he had arranged to get custody of Nathan, would he find her unfit for a mother and try to take her baby away from her? There was no way that he was going to do that if she had anything to say and do with it. She’d fight her last dying breath if she had to.
            “Nicole, you’ve been sick a lot lately, are you okay?” Debbie asked.
            “Ugh yeah. I’m okay.”
            “What is going on?”
            Nicole sat down at the kitchen table with Debbie. “Um, Debbie, do you know a good gynecologist and obstetrics?”
            Debbie’s eyes opened widely as she sat there. “Well, yeah, I think I have a good gynecologist, why?”
            “I..I think I’m pregnant.”
            “You’re what? Who’s the father?”
            “The father is Marcus Blackhawk.”
            “Oh, my. Are you sure you’re pregnant?”
            “I took a home pregnancy test, and it came back positive. I guess I need to go to a doctor to find out for sure and what my next step is.”
            “Wow, Nicole. I didn’t know you had an affair with him.”
            “It wasn’t an affair. We slept together one night. That night we were trapped in the cave. I think he only had sex with me to calm me down. I was kind of freaked out about being in a cave with no way out.”
            “Are you going to tell him?”
            “I haven’t decided on that yet.”
            “You are going to keep the baby, right?”
            “Oh yes. I’m not going to abort or give the baby away.” It’s my only connection to Marcus.
            Debbie got up and walked to her roll top desk and opened it. She reached into one of the cubby holes and pulled out a business card. “Here’s my doctor and phone number. If you let me know when you are scheduled to go, I’ll go with you. You are going to need someone to lean on during this time. I doubt Ronnie would know what to do. What about your parents? Are you going to tell them?”
            “Eventually, I will tell them. But just not right now.”
            “I understand.” Debbie reached over and squeezed Nicole’s hand.
            “I had no idea this happened. He did seem like a really nice guy.”
            “He is. We got to know each other pretty well while hiking.”
            “You know, he’s a lawyer, and he seemed like a good one, I’m sure he would help you financially if he knew.”
            “I don’t want his financial help. I want something else. Something he’s not going to give me, so I don’t want anything else from him.”
            “What did you want that he’s not going to give you?”
            Nicole placed her hands on the table, palms up, staring at them. “I..I want him to love me like I love him.”
            “Oh, Nicole. I’m so sorry. You really fell for him, didn’t you?”
            “Yes. I did. But it was all my own fault. I should have known that someone as worldly as he was, would not be interested in anything from the likes of me.”
            “Hey, don’t talk about yourself like that. I happen to think you are a great human being and deserve to find love and happiness. As far as I’m concern, he’s the loser.”
            Nicole sniffed, “Thanks.”
* * * *
            Her pregnancy seemed to be coming along well, and she was into her third month. She notified her parents, and Ronnie. They all seemed supportive of her, and her parents suggested that she move down to be near them so they could help her. Nicole had contemplated the idea but decided she didn’t want to make a move just yet.
Nicole woke up in the middle of the night with sharp pains. She got up and noticed that she had blood on her sheets and on her pajamas. Something was not right. She called Debbie. “H’llo?” Debbie answered on the fourth ring.
            “Debbie, it’s Nicole. I’m cramping really bad, and there’s blood everywhere. Can you take me to the hospital?”
            “I’ll be right there.”
            In five minutes, Debbie was knocking at her door. Nicole had managed to get herself dressed in between bouts of severe abdominal pain. She opened the door and doubled over at the same time. Debbie came in and grabbed her and helped her to the chair. “Why don’t I call an ambulance?”
            “I’d rather not go by ambulance.”
            “I’ll follow behind the ambulance. You won’t be alone. They can get you to the hospital quicker.”
            Nicole had another wave of pain rippled through her stomach. “I..I just need to get to the hospital,” she said between the sharp pains.
            “Okay. I’m calling an ambulance.”
            Within ten minutes, the fire department and ambulance arrived, and Ronnie came running out of their home. “What the hell is going on?” he rasped.
            “Nicole is in pain, and she’s bleeding. The ambulance is taking her to the hospital.”
            “I’m going too,” he said.
            “Okay, you ride with her in the ambulance, and I’ll follow with our vehicle.”
            They tucked Nicole in the ambulance and allowed Ronnie to sit next to her and hold her hand.
            “Ronnie, I don’t want to lose my baby.” Nicole whimpered.
            “I know, sis. We’ll do all we can for you, you know that.” Ronnie reassured her. “Are you sure you don’t want me to contact the baby’s father?”
            “No. I don’t want him to know anything.”
            “Okay.”
            Three days later, Nicole returned home from the hospital. All her dreams dashed. She lost her baby and was consumed with grief.
* * * *
            Marcus arrived at the restaurant a few minutes late. “Sorry, I’m late, David, have you been waiting long?”
            “No, not too long. How’s it going?” David’s eyes roamed over Marcus.
            “It’s okay.”
            “Since you’ve been back from Mason, I’ve noticed a change in you. You seem quiet, subdued as if something is bothering you. Tell me about it.”
            The server came and took their food order and brought them their drinks. Marcus took a sip of coffee. He sat back in the chair and crossed his leg over the other.
            “I think I really screwed something up, badly.”
            “What do you think you screwed up?”
            “While I was in Mason. I came upon this woman. Her name is Nicole. She is a beautiful woman. She took to Nathan like magnet. She was the one that helped me find the Sacred Arrows, and we hiked the mountains nearby where she said she found the arrows. In the course of the trek, we got to know each other pretty well, and I was her first lover.” Marcus stopped talking.
            “So, you made love to her. She must be pretty special if she’s still on your mind.”
            “David. From the first night I set my eyes on her, I’ve dreamed of her every night. The dreams progress, from the moment I met her, to marrying her, to having a family with her, and so on.”
            “Your conscious is telling you something.”
            “I think so, too.”
            “What do you think it’s telling you?”
            “I found my mate?”
            “I think that is what it’s telling you too. You’re in love with her, and you love her. Those are two separate things. In a way, your dreams are like your premonitions. Now, you have to follow your heart and go to her.”
            “I can’t.”
            “Why not?”
            “We made love in the cave. And I told her the next day that it was a mistake and shouldn’t have happened. I couldn’t even look at her, I was so consumed with guilt. Then we were rescued and after that, I left town within two hours after being rescued. I hurt her really bad.”
            “If she is your true mate, and she is destined to be with you, she will forgive you because she knows that the two of you should be together.”
            “I don’t think she’ll accept that. Her self-esteem is a bit fragile. She had never had a loving relationship with a man before. I was her first, and now I’ve scarred her for life.”
            “You say you were consumed with guilt. What did you feel guilty about?”
            “That I took advantage of her that night, and took something from her, with no intention of it lasting or becoming anything more and she deserved more. I knew I had to come back here. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.”
            “What are you going to do about this?” David asked.
            “I’m not planning to do anything about it. I think I hurt her too badly, and I screwed it all up.”
            “I think, you need to forgive yourself, and then ask her for forgiveness, and see where it leads. If it’s a true relationship. It will hold up and stand this test.”

​Chapter 13
            Oh. My. God. This is wonderful. His lips were on hers, and she thought she had died and went to heaven. His tongue sent shivers of desire through her body. He pulled her in tight, and she could feel her breasts against his chest. They were singing in anticipation of his touch. Soon, his tongue entered her mouth and went exploring. She had never had a man’s tongue in her before, and it was — intoxicating. The fiery sensations shot all through her body. Deep down, in the very core of her, she felt a stirring. Something that wanted more. She brought her hand up and wrapped her arm around his neck. She stroked his hair, just as he was undoing her braid. Her skin was growing hot and balmy. He continued to kiss her lips, her face, and then he traveled her jawline to her neck. He brought his hand around and unbuttoned her shirt. He slid the shirt off, and she thrust her chest forward as his lips trailed her shoulder. His hand reached around and unhooked the bra, and flung it off. Her breasts were fully exposed to him, and she wanted him to kiss them. His lips left a wet trail from her shoulders down to her right breast. Her breasts surged at the intimacy of his touch. His lips nipped all around her globe, but not touching her nipples. Finally, his tongue tantalized the buds which had swollen to their fullest. It was wonderful. His licking and nipping her buds sent pleasant jolts through her. The lower part of her body felt hot. She knew she needed him in her to complete the final crescendo, but she didn’t want him to stop what he was doing to her tits. He finished suckling one nipple, and slowly, left a wet trail to the other one and teasing it.
            “Don’t you know how beautiful your tits are? They are like tiny rosebuds,” he whispered. She knew that if they were in the light, he’d find her cheeks red as flame.
            His hand came down and undid the button at her pants. Then he unzipped them, and slid them down over her hips, setting off more fireworks. His hands slid across her silken belly and slid down to her underpants. He slipped his hands inside her underpants and slid them over her hips and down her legs to her feet, and he tossed them aside.
            He brought one hand slowly up her thigh. He whispered to her, “Will you let me see you?”
            The heady sensation of his hand on her thigh made her squirmed with pleasure she had never felt before.
            “Yeah. What do you want me to do?” she whispered back.
            He brought his hand to claim the spot between her legs. He moved her legs apart. “I want to see this.” He touched her labia, and she thought she was going to go over the top from the spiraling ecstasy she was experiencing. She spread her legs as wide as she could so he could move in and look at her. He saw her labia and her vagina, and his hand stroked the skin softly, causing her to moan. He could see her very core by the light from the fire. He leaned over and kissed her belly, and slowly, he left tantalizing wet kisses from her belly until he reached her hairline. “I’m going to do something you’ve never experience before,” he whispered. She didn’t care, she knew she could trust him, and she was hot, hot, hot. His lips traveled down to her labia, and he started licking her folds. Another round of pleasure coursed through her body. She didn’t know if she could handle much more pleasure. She felt his finger at her vagina. His finger gently circled her vagina before it slipped into her. The walls of her vagina immediately contracted, holding his finger in her. He began to stroke her clit. She was squirming, hot, and her body was convulsing with one pleasure after another. But it never peaked. He massaged her vagina, her clit, and labia and soaking it with her juices and his wet tongue. “Honey, do you want to go into the tent and finish this?”
            “No. No. Please, don’t stop.”
            “It’ll be more comfortable if you laid on the pad.”
            “I’m fine. Please, I don’t want you to stop.”
            She watched as he pulled his shirt off, then unzipped his pants and slid them off. She saw his manhood in the firelight. Oh gosh, it was so big! He situated himself between her legs and went back to massaging her. “Are you sure you want this? Since this is your first time, it could be painful for you.”
            “I’m sure. Please, please enter me,” she begged. “I’m so hot. The sensations are shooting all over me.”
            She felt his maleness on her stomach. She opened her eyes and saw his eyes boring directly into hers. He kissed her again, and she could taste her private parts on his lips. He began to pump her up more, raising her to a fever pitch she had never felt in her life. She felt his hard body on hers, and she allowed her hands to roam all over his back. She could feel the scars that he had from his time in Iraq. Finally, she had reached the point that he was satisfied she was ready. He lifted himself slightly, and she felt his manhood at the tip of her vagina. The moment she had been waiting all her life for. He entered her. She felt immediate pain, as in her vagina was ripping open to receive him.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. She tilted her hips forward to receive more of him. He went in a little further, and the pain started to ebb. He was in far enough for her to wrap her legs around his waist. He began a rocking motion, coming to the edge of her vagina, and then going in. Each time he went a little deeper.
“Are you enjoying this?”
“Yes. Yes. I am. Oh my God, I’ve never felt anything like this before. I didn’t think I could get any more pleasure, and yet, yet, I need more,” she whispered into his ear. The rhythm became stronger, and she met thrust after thrust. His expert touch sent her to even higher levels of ecstasy until she catapulted in a million glowing stars. Wave after wave of ecstasy throbbed through her. He continued to move in and out until finally, he had his release. The hot tide of passion raged through the both of them. They laid panting, their chests heaving heavily from the excursion.
“Come on, honey. Let’s get inside the tent. It’ll be more comfortable there.” He stood up and pulled her up with him. “You, you want me to lay with you?” she stuttered.
“Of course.”
He unzipped the entrance, and they climbed into the tent. All her dreams were coming true. She gave him her virginity, and it was wonderful, and now she got to snuggle up next to him. What she didn’t realize was that sleep was the last thing he had in mind. Just as soon as they laid down, he started to kiss her again. The lovemaking started all over again. Only, he had things to teach her. He grabbed both her hands and led them down to his aroused staff. She had never touched a man’s private parts, much less, see it. She had only imagined it before tonight. She stroked the edge then she gently wrapped her hand around it, moving her hand along the length of it. She felt his soft hair and rested her hand there for a few seconds before she touched the scrotum.
“Like what you feel?” he asked hoarsely.
“Yeah. It feels hard and vibrating.”
“It is hard and vibrating. It wants to be in you again.”
“I want it to be in me again.”
“Let’s get you ready to receive it.”
He moved his hand down to her hairline, and she felt his palm rub her labia gently, and a finger going in between her folds. The contact created instant sparks that ran wildly through her veins. This man was like magic to her body. He teased and tormented her body until she was ready to explode. He entered her, and she came to such an explosive release, she felt exhausted afterward. Later in the night, as they laid together, legs intertwined, she felt a tender soreness between her legs. She knew it was because it was her first time. Something she never thought would ever happen to her. She wondered if the feeling she felt at the very core of her would ever go away or would she always feel that need for sexual release now that she was no longer a virgin. She looked over at Marcus, who appeared to be in a deep sleep. She ran her hand gently down the side of his face, to his neck, and then his chest. She had always wanted to feel a man’s chest, and she had uninterrupted access to his. She ran her hands down his arms, and across to his belly. Feeling the smooth skin under her fingers. When she went lower, she was surprised to feel his manhood aroused. She looked up at him and found him staring at her. She leaned over and placed her bare chest on his, and kissed him on his lips. He wrapped his arm around her and held her there, and kissed her back. This time, they took the time to explore, to arouse, and to give each other pleasure. Off into the dark night, the wolves began to howl as part of their nightly habit.
* * * *
            Marcus woke up with a start. He thought he heard something, and he bolted upright. He looked around his surroundings and saw her sleeping contently next to him. Damn. He shouldn’t have done what he did to her last night. He shouldn’t have made love to her. He felt guilty, and he felt bad because he knew he’d have to leave her once they got out of the cave. He wouldn’t be able to continue any kind of a relationship with her. She deserved better than this. He thought he heard choppers outside the cave. He shook Nicole. “Nicole, come on. I think we’re being rescued.”
            “Huh?” She opened her eyes and sat up. She rubbed the sleep critters from her eyes. “Let’s get moving, I think we’re about to be rescued.”
            “Marcus,” she said.
            “What?”
            “About last night.”
            “It should have never happened.”
            “Wha-What do you mean?”
            Marcus could not even look at her, he felt so guilty.
            “Last night should not have happened. I’m sorry.”
            “Why not? I loved it. I enjoyed it very much. I’m not ashamed of what happened.”
            “I took advantage of your vulnerability and did something that only the man you love should have done.”
            “But, Marcus, I do...”
            “Let’s do the talk later, Nicole. We have to hurry and be prepared for a blast if they decide to detonate the entrance.”
            Nicole meekly did as she was told and had her backpack ready and on her back. Marcus went to the front of the cave to see if he could hear anything more. He heard voices, and he hollered out. “How are you guys going to open this cave?”
            A voice came hollered back, “We’re going to blast the entrance. Get as far away as you can possibly get. I’ll give you ten minutes.”
            “Okay.”
            Marcus ran back to where Nicole was standing. “Come on, Nicole. They are going to blast the entrance in ten minutes. We need to get as far as possible from the explosion.”
            They ran until they were two hundred feet from the cave. Marcus had pulled out his sleeping blanket and covered them both and Sierra. They huddled down close to the floor. A blast went off, and it shook the cave and the ground they were sitting on. They felt the small rocks as it pummeled them on top of the sleeping bag.
            Soon they heard voices. “Is anyone hurt in here?” A search and rescue member called into the cave.
            “No. We’re not hurt.” Marcus hollered back. “Come on, Nicole. Let’s head out.”
            As they approached the cave entrance, they came to six search and rescue team members.
            “That was a fast search and rescue. We were caved in late yesterday afternoon.”
            “Well, a Ron Lancaster called us and gave us the coordinates when he apparently did not hear from his sister when she was supposed to call him. How did it cave in on you?”
            “I stupidly leaned against the dead tree and its roots,” Nicole said before Marcus could answer.
            “There are several caves in this area, so you’re using a log and marking the place cut the time of rescue to just minutes instead of hours. Let me help you guys out of here. There is a helicopter over to the right where there is a clear landing area.”
            Marcus, Nicole, and Sierra, along with the rescue workers left the cave and headed to the helicopter. The blades were still whirling, waiting for the team and the couple. Once they were inside and strapped into their seats, it lifted, and they were landing ten minutes later on a track of land that was flat near the motel.
            Nicole and Marcus thanked the rescue team and quietly headed toward the motel. Debbie and Ronnie came out to greet them and hugged Nicole.
            “I knew there was something wrong when you didn’t call me back,” Ronnie said.
            “Yes. We were trapped in a cave.” Nicole glanced up at Marcus, but couldn’t read him as he had put his sunglasses on.
            “You have some visitors waiting for you at the motel, Mr. Blackhawk.”
            “I do?” he asked.
            Debbie smiled and nodded.
            “Your son and wife are here,” Ronnie said. He looked at Nicole and then at Marcus then back at Nicole again. Nicole looked away. They all walked toward the motel, and a little figure came running out. “Daddy, daddy. I missed you.”
            Nicole smiled when she saw Nathan running. Marcus stepped up his pace and got ahead of the group to lift his son up and hugged him. Soon, a beautiful woman started walking toward them. Nicole’s heart sank. She knew it was all over, and it hadn’t really begun. She could feel the tears forming at the corner of her eyes. She felt the true love of her heart just slipped out of her reach.
            Ronnie and Debbie asked all kinds of questions about the hike and the cave, and Nicole had all she could do to mumble short yes and no answers, with little elaboration. They got to the motel and Debbie said, “I have some homemade donuts, Nicole. Come on in and have some coffee and donuts and tell us about your adventure.”
            “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go to my room, take a shower, and rest for a bit. We..I didn’t get much sleep out there.”
            “Okay then, when you get up from your rest, come on over.” Debbie smiled.
            Nicole entered her room and peeked out from behind her drapes. She watched as Marcus and his wife stood talking, and he was still carrying Nathan. Is he going to go back to her? Why did he think last night shouldn’t have happened? She thought it was the best thing in her life. She loved every moment of it, and she’d do it again. She would do the whole hike all over again, just to be with him. She enjoyed the whole experience, even though they were on a mission to get something.
            She went and took a long hot shower, and put on a pair of purple pajamas and climbed into her bed. She was asleep instantly. When she woke up, she looked at the clock, and it was 4:00 PM. She had slept almost the whole day away. She got up and looked out her window and saw that Marcus’s ex-wife’s vehicle was gone, and she knew he was gone. He didn’t leave her a note, try to wake her up to say goodbye, didn’t bring Nathan to see her, nothing. She realized that he probably felt guilty because he knew he was just going to leave and never see her again. Her heart broke in two. She went and laid back down on the bed, and sobbed her heart out.
* * * *
            “Marcus, I don’t understand why you don’t want to at least try and see if we can make our relationship work. Especially for Nathan’s sake.” Rayanne pouted her lips.
            “We both know that you don’t care for Nathan and his needs. What happened to your latest lover? Got tired of him too?”
            “No. We just were not suited for each other and parted ways.”
            “Like us.”
            “Marcus, we were always suited for each other. It’s just that you spent so much time at work and never enough time with Nathan and me.”
            “Don’t use Nathan as your defense. The fact that I was building a law firm didn’t matter to you. But now that I’m a successful lawyer with money, you want to crawl you way back into our lives.”
            “I’m not that shallow.”
            “Yes, you are. Why don’t you just give Nathan up, and leave him — leave us, alone.”
            “I’d never give up my son.”
            “You already gave him up when you went traipsing across the earth.” Marcus was getting tired of arguing with her. She had a damn answer for everything. He couldn’t seem to make her understand that he was not interested in her, and he did not want Nathan to be hurt again by her.
            “How much money will it take for you to sign off on Nathan and leave us alone?”
            “What?”
            “Jesus, Rayanne, are you deaf too? I said, how much money will it take for you to sign off on Nathan and leave us alone?”
            “You think I want your money?”
            “You always do.”
            “What will it take for you to understand that I really want to be a part of your and Nathan’s life?” she cried.
            “It probably wouldn’t take anything for me to understand if I believed you and anything that came out of your mouth. Besides, how do I know you wouldn’t start up another affair? You have a perchance of doing that.”
            “I learned my lesson, Marcus. I promise I would never do that again to you.”
            “You promised that the first time, remember? When we said our wedding vows? Rayanne, I just can’t stand liars, and you’re lying to me now. I’d like you to leave.” Marcus’s anger was rising.
            “I’ll take Nathan with me.”
            “Oh, hell you will. I have sole custody of him.”
            “A boy needs his mother, Marcus.”
            “He needs me too. However, you walked away from that responsibility and left him to me. I’ll fight you every step of the way and then some to keep him from going with you. You just don’t have what it takes to be a mother.” Nicole would be a great mom for him. Marcus immediately shifted his thoughts away from Nicole. That was another matter he didn’t know how to fix yet.
            “Who is she?” Rayanne asked.
            “Who are you talking about?”
            “That creature that came out of the woods with you back in Mason. You obviously have a thing for her, who is she?”
            “She is none of your business,” Marcus growled at her.
            “Oh, come on, Marcus. You are in love with a silly, unworldly, unsophisticated woman. Is that the kind of woman you want to parade around as your wife? At least I have class and beauty, and I could make every man in the room envious of you.”
            “Get. Out.”
            “Daddy, daddy. Why are you sending mommy away?” Nathan came out of his bedroom, running down the hall to him. He wrapped his arm around Marcus’s leg.
            “Mommy has things she has to do, son. She can’t stay here and live with us anymore.”
* * * *
            Marcus stood at the entrance of the Arrow Tipi and in the presence of the male elders of the tribe. Chief David Whitetail stood in the middle between Marcus and Issac Bluebird, the arrow keeper. The Chief lifted his arms and reached to the sky, thanking and saying prayers to Maheo, the God of Creation as is their custom. When the prayers were done, Marcus handed Issac the Sacred Arrows. He, in turn, placed them in their rightful place inside the arrow tipi. After the ceremony, there was a great celebration among the elders of the tribe, who were thankful for the dedicated work of Marcus in pursuing and finding the Sacred Arrows.
            Before he returned the arrows to the tribe, he arranged for a DNA analyst and fingerprinting in the hope that they would find the individual or persons who stole them.
            When he returned home, he found a note that Nathan had been taken to Shana’s for the night and that Rayanne had left and gone to North Carolina. He had left a check for her on the table, for seventy-five thousand. It cleaned out his savings, but it was worth it if she was removed from their lives. He told her to think about it, and if she took the money, she was not to come back and make any attempts to see Nathan again. If any time after Nathan turned eighteen, that he wanted to see his mother, Marcus would arrange for him to contact her. He saw that the check was gone, and so were all her things.
            His next task was dealing with Nicole. He finally allowed himself to think about her and to sort out his feelings for her. He had come to realized that he loved her, and all those dreams he had about her was his consciousness trying to tell him that. But he knew he hurt her deeply. He should have been more careful in how he dealt with what had happened between them in that cave. He feared he scarred her for life. He packed his stuff, and they left the motel within two hours of being rescued. He couldn’t even bring himself to knock at her door to say goodbye and thank her for leading him to the arrows. What kind of an ass was he that he’d hurt her like that. He took the coward’s way out, and she deserved so much more.
            That afternoon before the ceremony, he put the check for thirty thousand in an envelope and had his secretary put it in the mail.

​Chapter 12
            That evening after they ate dinner and retired for the night, he put his arms behind his head as a pillow and thought about all the incidents that happened that day. Despite them all, they were still on track and have walked another twenty-five miles. Nicole had indicated that she thought they would be at the cave by three tomorrow afternoon if everything goes as planned. As they trekked higher into the mountains, they began to walk through more snow. Parts of the snowy mountains were two and three feet deep, but they were fortunate to be able to walk along the edge of the deep snow rather than through it. Wildlife at night is just as loud as wildlife during the day. Sometimes, looking up in the trees, he saw eyes glimmering.
            Is he going to dream about her again tonight? Why did she continue to invade his space? Was he supposed to be searching for something, besides the Sacred Arrows? He really didn’t have time for a serious relationship. The last few dreams he’s had of Nicole, she was very much a part of his intimate life. After lying there for a few hours, he finally drifted off to sleep.
“Come on dad, let’s go fishing,” a small voice called out to him. He sat up in his bed and saw his son, Nathan, now ten years old, and a younger boy, about four or five years old. Hanging on to the bedposts. The younger one’s name was Marc, named after him. He had a lighter complexion, and his hair was more dark brown than black, but he had dark brown eyes. “Okay, let’s get ready.” He turned around in the bed and saw his wife, Nicole, nursing his newborn son. They named him David, after the Cheyenne tribal chief and his best friend.The babe was suckling greedily on her breast. Her hair was sprawled out over the pillow. “Are you going to be okay love, while I take the boys out for a while?”
            “I’ll be fine. You go ahead.”
            He looked in on them again before he left with the boys. Nicole and the baby were sound asleep. He smiled. His heart was glad, he was happy, his children were happy, his wife was happy. He had his family, what he always wanted.
            He woke from the dream and laid there staring at the top of his tent. Were his dreams telling him something? Was he supposed to marry this woman? Why are the dreams so intense? So — real? It was like he could just reach out and touch her. He had been thinking of asking her to be a nanny for Nathan. Maybe she was supposed to be his wife instead? Why is he even thinking of marriage? He had no time for that, Nathan took all his free time.
            “Oh my God. Ugh. Get out Sierra. Come on.” He heard her unzip her tent.
            He poked his head out his tent window. “What’s the matter?”
            “Spiders. Lots of them. They are black spiders.”
            Marcus quickly pulled his pants on and came out of his tent while she was going through her backpack for bug repellent. She found the repellent and started spraying her tent.
            “You’re not going to be able to get back in your tent and sleep after you get done with that, the repellent will make you sick.”
            “What do you suggest?” she asked as she continued to spray the tent.
            “Guess you’ll have to camp in my tent with me.”
            Nicole stopped and looked at her watch. “It’s almost three in the morning. We still need to get a little rest before we start up again.”
            By her body language, he could tell that she was nervous about lying next to him. “Did you get bit by any of the spiders?”
            “No. Not that I can tell. I hope Sierra doesn’t have any spiders biting on her.”
            “Well, just in case she does have some on her, she’ll have to sleep outside.”
            “Okay.”
            Marcus opened the tent flap, and Nicole slipped in. He couldn’t figure out why she would have insulated underwear on unless she just sleeps in them. She laid down on the tent floor, and he laid down next to her and pulled the sleeping blanket over the both of them.
            “Have you ever slept outside the tent, on the ground by the campfire?” Nicole asked.
            “Yes, I have done that many times. Have you?
            “No. I’m too afraid to. I have visions of wildlife picking me for their gourmet meal.”
            Marcus chuckled. “It’s different from sleeping in a tent. Your senses are more alert. At least, mine is, and I don’t get a good sound sleep. Part of it I think is because I’ve become accustomed to a soft bed. One night my friend, Chief David Whitetail and I were sleeping outside because it was a hot summer day and it felt cooler sleeping than sleeping in a tent, and I woke up and looked over at him to see a wolf sitting right next to him. That was an interesting event.”
            “Oh wow. I bet. What did you do?”
            “The wolf had his eyes fixated on me, and I kept giving David bird calls to wake him up. I didn’t know what the hell the wolf would do, and after ten minutes of bird calling and just about anything else I could do to get his attention, he finally woke up, and he said to me, ‘What the hell are you caterwauling about?’ I said, ‘Look what is sitting next to you.’ He damn near jumped out of his sleeping bag. He said, ‘Holy shit, what the hell and I going to do now?’ I said, ‘You’re a chief, you don’t know what to do?’ Years later, we laugh when we talk about it, but at the time, it was a precarious situation. Eventually, the wolf just wandered off.”
            Nicole rolled over to her side, facing Marcus. She rested the side of her face on her arm. He could see her blue eyes as they lit up in the tent. “I remember years ago when I was just a young teenager, my parents, Ronnie and I went camping at Flathead Lake. It was dark, and late at night, we were sitting around the campfire and dad was telling us stories. I glanced to the left of me and had this green monster sitting next to me. I immediately high-tailed it over the campfire and got between my parents. It turned out that the people that were camping next to us, they had a Saint Bernard dog, and the kids had painted the poor dog green. He was just visiting us, but geez, it put the fear of God in me for a few minutes. I’ve always loved those times when mom and dad took us camping.”
            “Made you think there was a real green-eyed monster for a few minutes, huh?” Marcus laughed quietly.
            “It did. I have a lot of happy memories with mom and dad.”
            “That’s good. I hope that when Nathan gets older, he can say the same about me. I want to make all his life memorable and happy.”
            “I think you do. He sure seems to be a happy little boy to me. Why do you have custody? Was your ex-wife not a good mother?”
            “No. She wasn’t, really. We had a brief affair when she told me she was pregnant. So I married her. She was not cut out to be a mother and really didn’t want to be. She had an affair with another man and then asked for a divorce. At first, she had custody, but then she decided she wanted to run across the country with her new lover and didn’t want Nathan. I petitioned the court and got full custody of him.”
            “I can’t imagine anyone giving up a sweet little boy like Nathan. I think he’s just adorable.”
            “Too bad his mother didn’t feel the same.”
            “Does he still believe in Santa Claus?”
            “I think so, although I don’t encourage it. We don’t really celebrate those kind of things.” Marcus chuckled. “His birthday is in November, and last year, I got him a telescope. On Christmas Eve, he was looking through it and came running down the stairs to me all excited, telling me, “Dad, I think I saw Rudolph’s paws!”
            Nicole laughed. “How precious. I can remember one year, and I was about Nathan’s age, and we went to town at Christmas time to visit Santa. I sat on his lap and told him what I wanted, and then after Ronnie and I did that, we out the front door of the Ben Franklin store where he was at, and saw the parade. Lo and behold, here came Santa Claus at the end of the parade.” Nicole laughed. “My parents had a lot of explaining to do then.”
            “Two jolly old Saint Nick’s.” Marcus quipped.
            “I think that was probably the year Ronnie and I started questioning those things.”
            They laid there quiet for a few minutes. “Did you always want to be a lawyer?”
            “Yes. I always like the law. I spent a lot of time in the public library reading up on cases and reading the law books. I went to law school and got my degree, and started work at a law firm. I mentioned before, I was, I am, a member of the Dog Soldiers in the Cheyenne Nation. In 2003, the U.S. Government recruited us to serve in the Iraq war. I served two tours before getting injured three months before I was to be discharged. I spent a one year recuperating from the injuries before a friend and I established our law firm.”
            “How big is your law firm?”
            “It’s a mid-size law firm. My friend, Mike Jenkins, and I are the senior partners. We have five associates, who we employ, but they are not owners. They have less experience than Mike and I have. We occasionally have contract lawyers for things that are outside the criminal practice that we have, and we have a team of seven law clerks that do the research and assist us in preparing for cases. Both Mike and I have our individual paralegals, and we each have our own legal secretaries. Since our business has really taken off, we just hired a receptionist to answer phones and greet the clients. We have on contract, private investigators, a laboratory for DNA analysis and other lab work, and a forensic pathologist that can analyze the lab work and testify in court if needed.”
            “Needless to say, you probably don’t have a nine to five job.”
            Marcus smiled in the dark. “No. My hours are not set in stone. We both have done weekends, and in a few instances, we both worked on the same case because it called for the extra help.”
            Marcus’s lips were close to Nicole’s. He really did want to kiss her. His body was on fire with desire to make love to her. Quick, think. He had to get on to a different subject so he didn’t give in to his need to make love to her. He wanted to so bad, but he knew she was not experienced in lovemaking, and he loved passion. If he was going to make love to her, he wanted her to feel the passion, the pleasure, and the enjoyment of sex. It’s not just a wham bam, we’re done thing as it had become with his ex-wife. Her first time should be as enjoyable and pleasant as possible, to set the tone for the rest of her life as far as sex was concerned. If she didn’t find it pleasurable her first time, she might not ever find it pleasurable.
            “What about you?” He asked, breaking the silence.
            “What about me?” Nicole asked.
            “What have you done with your life?”
            “Nothing, really. I graduated from high school, but mom and dad didn’t have any money for me to go to college, so I didn’t go. As it turned out, my mom has debilitating arthritis in her hands and knees, so I took care of her most of the time while my dad was still working. When he finally retired, I went and got different menial jobs to support myself. Then my dad brought the mining business here in Mason, and I went to work for him for a number of years before he sold it and he and mom moved to Arizona so she could get some relief from her arthritis pain. Ronnie and Debbie brought the motel from another couple, and they asked me to help run it in exchange for a small pay and a free room. I clean the rooms and do the wash. When they want to take off, I handle the registration and everything else that comes up.”
            “How old are you, Nicole?”
            “I’m thirty-four.”
            “You’d be good with a handful of kids running underfoot.”
            “Fat chance of that happening.”
            “Why?”
            “No one in my life to commit to and raise a family with.”
            “You’re still young, there is still a chance for you.”
            “You know, we’ve laid here and talked this whole time, and it’s almost time for us to get up.”
            Marcus looked at his watch. He was amazed at how the time just flew by, and neither of them got any zzz’s. “Yeah, may as well get up, eat and get moving.” He sat up in the tent, and stretched his arms and yawned.
            “I’m sorry I didn’t let you get any sleep,” Nicole said.
            “Nothing to be sorry for. I don’t think either of us could get any sleep anyway. It was nice to have the company and just lay here and talk.”
            Marcus unzipped the tent and got out. Nicole followed after him. He threw some sticks in the embers to rekindle the fire, then he slipped a tee-shirt on while Nicole went into her tent and put her clothing on. When she was dressed, she came out.
“Ick. Everything smells like repellent.”
He felt a ripple of mirth. “At least you won’t have any spiders.”
She smiled at him. “Oh, hardee har har. Let’s see, today I think I’m going to have the breakfast skillet. Is there something you’d like me to fix you to eat?”
“I think I’ll just have my oatmeal again. Did you say there is a river on our route? I need to get some fresh water.”
“Yeah, we’ll pass by it. It’s a few miles away.”
Nicole fixed the breakfasts and fed Sierra while Marcus took down his tent and put it in the backpack.
* * * *
            After eating breakfast, Nicole took her tent down. She was giddy almost the whole time she laid down next to Marcus. She had all she could do to keep from reaching up and stroking his face in the dark while they laid in his tent. She wanted desperately to have his arms around her, to feel him touch her, to feel his lips on hers. Her heart swelled with love for the man. A kind of love she had never felt before.
            When she was ready, she let out a small sigh and looked at Marcus, who was tying up his boot laces. “I think I’m ready. Looks like we’ll have to use our headlamps for a while.”
            “Yeah, it’s just daylight enough to walk into something if we’re not careful.”
            They walked several hours, and it started to snow. At times, it was heavy, other times it was light. Neither of them spoke much. Nicole kept recapping their conversations from when they were in the tent. She had to wonder if other couples shared intimate stories and discuss things as she and Marcus did early this morning in his tent. She felt like she knew him well by now, and that he shared things with her that he would probably not share with others. She treasured the conversations they had and vowed she would always hold them near her heart.
            Off in the distance, they heard a horse neighing. Nicole stopped and waited for Marcus to catch up with her. Sierra was walking around them in circles, yipping. Marcus took a quiet walk to the left of where she stood and went about eighty feet before he turned and motion for her to join him. She came up next to him and saw them. There was a clearing in the distance, and in the clearing stood one proud white, stallion. He stood between them and the herd of horses on the other side of him. There were two young colts and four adult horses. The white stallion stomped his foot on the ground repeatedly until the other wild horses took off running in the opposite direction. When they were well hidden in the forest, he then trotted off behind them.
            “He seemed pretty protective of his harem.”
            “The males always are. They are a beautiful creature. They should always be left alone to run the wild, as in their nature to do.”
            “So we’ve come across elk, deer, bear, and wild horses. That’s a lot of wildlife.” Nicole started walking again.
            “We’re fortunate we haven’t had to defend ourselves from any of them.”
            By late afternoon, they came upon a summit. Nicole looked around to see if she could find any landmarks that would tell her that they arrived at the cave. They saw two caves, but one was a small stand up cave that looked more like a rock that had been cut out. You could take about five steps and come out on the other side. The other cave was more of a hole in the earth, big enough to put her in it, but not Marcus. She knew that was not the cave.
            “Let’s walk over this way and see what we find. I do not recognize any of this.”
            They had walked another four hundred feet before they came upon a clearing and on the other side of the summit.
            “Here it is,” she said.
            The cave had a mammoth opening and a large, dead tree that sat on top of it with roots all around the cave. She marked the place with her GPS, and then called her brother and left him a message that they had arrived at the cave and that they were getting ready to go into it. She said she’d call him back in an hour to let him know they were out of the cave.
            She pulled out her notebook and paper, and let a note and tied it to another tree nearby, as recommended by the Department of Natural Resources.
            Nicole pulled her knitted hat out and put it on with her headlamp. She got out her flashlight, and Marcus did the same. “Well, are you ready?”
            “Yes. Let’s go.”
            They walked in slowly, Using their headlamps and flashlights to see the walls and the floor of the cave. Sierra seemed able to have perfect vision, as she ventured ahead of them both like she was leading them to something. It was pit black and cold. There were jagged rocks under their feet.
            “How far in do you recall the Sacred Arrows to be?”
            “Not too far in. I don’t venture deep into caves. I’m afraid I’d get caved in and die.”
            They went in three hundred feet, and it was black all around them except for the opening of the cave, which was by now a small white speck.
            “We should be coming upon it. I hope it’s here. I don’t recall going much further than this.”
            Marcus walked pass Nicole and headed deeper into the cave. “Here it is,” Marcus said softly.
            She came up behind him. “Yes, those are the arrows I saw. Are they yours?”
            “Yes.” Marcus pulled his backpack off his shoulders, and unzipped one of the panels and pulled out a leather style bag. He unwrapped the bag and opened the top of it wide. He picked up the leather pouch with the arrows, and carefully placed them in the leather bag and secured them. He looked around at the footprints. “It doesn’t look like anyone has been in the cave in years. I want to handle these are careful as possible because I hoped that I can get some DNA off of it to lead me to the perpetrator that stole them. Plus, they have been sitting in this dust for years and have become fragile.”
            They made their way back to the entrance of the cave and stood just inside of it. It had just started snowing again, and it was a complete white-out. “I think we should probably stay inside this cave until the storm passes,” Nicole said.
Marcus stood in the middle of the entrance looking out at the snow. He had the leather bag attached to his backpack, and the ends of the arrows were sticking out at the top of the bag.
She leaned her shoulder against the cave wall, watching it snow. She absentmindedly patted Sierra, who was standing next to her. Suddenly, it felt like the earth was moving. The rotted tree collapsed along with mountains of dirt. Marcus grabbed Nicole and pulled her out of the way as the cave entrance became blocked.
“Nicole, what the hell did you do?” Marcus’s voice hissed.
“N-Nothing. I was just leaning —.” She looked over at what used to be the wall next to the entrance to the cave. “Oh. My. God. We’re trapped. We can’t get out. I don’t think there is an opening at the other end. There are bats in here. Oh. My. God.” Nicole started to panic.
“We’re okay, Nicole. We’ll get out.” Marcus grabbed her arm.
“No, Marcus, you don’t understand. There is no other way out of here.”
“Do you know that for sure?”
“No. I-I never went all the way through, but it’s a long one. Marcus, I don’t think we’ll get out.”
“Calm down, Nicole. We’ll be fine. Just don’t panic.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Well, we got enough food for a few days. You already notified your brother and told him to expect a call back from you in an hour. My guess if he doesn’t hear from you, he will start a search and rescue. You left a log outside the cave, so they should be able to find it. You said you have a tracking device on your cell phone, and you gave him the GPS location. I expect we’ll hear them outside in a day or two.”
“What if we don’t make it out alive? What about Nathan? I’m never going to go in a cave ever again.”
“Are you sure there isn’t a small opening deeper in the cave?” Did you go all the way back?” Marcus asked.
“I don’t want to get ate by bats!”
“You won’t get ate by bats.”
Oh. My. God. This is awful, my worst nightmare.” She started pacing.
“Sit down and relax. Come on, sit,” Marcus demanded.
Nicole went and sat down on the jagged rocks and dirt in the floor of the cave.
“Now, take a deep breath, let it out slowly. Do it again, let it out slowly. Now think logically on this. Your brother is going to send us help. You know this.”
“It’s so dark in here.” Nicole wrapped her arms around the front of her and rubbed her forearms.
“Well, we’ll need to go into the cave about fifty, sixty feet, in case they decide to blast the opening. Let’s go.”
They walked fifty feet into the cave. “This is good. Let me walk around a bit to see if I can find some loose roots and sticks to build us a fire. I will also try to get to the other end and see if there is an opening. You sit here and wait.”
Marcus and Sierra went further into the cave. “Stay cool. You’ll be okay.” She huddled on the rocky cave floor trying to suppress the panicky feeling that threatened to resurface. Why did you do something so stupid? I’m not alone, he’ll be back soon. The rugged and weary walls seemed to closed in on her.
* * * *
            Great. Good fucking great. We’re inside the damn cave, no way to get out. I can only hope her brother is smart enough to send help right away. Damn cellphones don’t work, GPS don’t work, Shit. What the hell was she doing anyway? Leaning against the cave wall. Something you don’t do.
            “Come on, Sierra, let's walk as far as well can to see if there is an opening.” As if she knew what he said, she began to walk alongside him. Jesus Christ. She was right, there are bats in here. He could hear the clicking noises as he ventured into the area where they were hanging upside down from the ceiling of the cave and on the walls. These bats are going to be flying around tonight, trying to get out of the cave.
            Marcus stopped and reached around to pull his hood out from the pouch at the back of his jacket, and pulled it up over his head. He didn’t want bat shit in his hair. The further he went into the cave, the more ominous it seemed. He had walked a mile, and it seemed like it went forever, when he finally came to the end. There were no openings to get out. Shit, shit, shit. They couldn’t get lucky just once and be in a cave that had an opening at the other end. Marcus was getting more irritated by the minute. He turned and started walking back, grabbing a few sticks or roots as he walked. He did remember to pack a trowel, and a knife and he was pretty sure that Nicole packed a trowel as well. If he didn’t hear any rescue operations going on outside the cave in the next day or so, they would have to try to dig themselves out.
            He finally made it back to where he left Nicole and put the kindling down. He gathered a bunch of rocks and formed a circle with them. He put the kindling down in the center and started a fire. It was a chilly, constant forty-five degrees in the cave. Soon the fire was going, and it warmed up their area.
            “I’m sorry, Marcus. I leaned against that dead tree. It’s all my fault.”
            “Don’t start blaming yourself. These things happen. We’ll get out.”
            They could hear the wind howling outside. “At least we’ll be dry,” Marcus commented. “Let’s get the tents set up, and get some dinner going.” He figured that would keep her busy and her mind off the circumstances. Yes, it could be very serious. We have the potential of not being rescued for days. If it doesn’t stop snowing, it’ll take a while before the helicopters can land and that’s the only kind of rescue he thought would be able to get to them.
            They got their tents up, and Nicole made their dinner, and they sat and ate. The bats were starting to come alive and flew to the front entrance of the cave wanting to get out. Nicole kept ducking as if she was afraid one of them would dive on her. “Bats don’t bite unless cornered,” Marcus said.
            “They are cornered. They can’t get out.”
            “But they can fly back to the middle or end of the cave to get away from us.” Marcus felt bad for Nicole. She was obviously afraid. “Come over here, Nicole.” Marcus patted the spot next to him. At first, she looked as if she was going to resist, but she got up and came and sat down next to him. He put his arm around her shoulders and held her close to him. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get out,” he kept reassuring her.
            “That was a stupid thing, I did,” she cast her head down.
            “You had no idea the cave was going to fall in. Neither did I. So don’t blame yourself. Let’s just concentrate on staying warm for tonight and hopefully they will get us out tomorrow. Plus tomorrow, we can look at our own resources and see what we can do about digging ourselves out.”
            In an effort to help her get her mind off the problems they were facing, he asked her, “Are you involved with anyone?”
            “No.”
            “I take it that you haven’t been married. Have you had any serious relationships?”
            “No.”
            “Why not?”
            “Well, hello. You see me?” She brought both hands out and jerked her thumbs inwards.  “I’m not exactly Marilyn Monroe. I’m not attractive to men, and besides, none of them have peaked my interest either.”
            “What makes you think you’re not attractive? I find you attractive.”
            Nicole’s eyes drew wide. “You — You do?”
            “Yes. Hasn’t anyone ever told you how attractive you are?” He wasn’t surprised by her answer or her reaction.
            “No. What do you find attractive about me?”
            “You have beautiful blue eyes, a soft, gentle face, and beautiful long, blonde hair. You have a beautiful body shape, and your skin is smooth looking.” He stopped for a few seconds, “And delicate.” He watched her eyes as they stared back at him. He knew that she probably couldn’t believe that he found her attractive. She just didn’t have much in her self-esteem to see herself that way.
            “In fact,” He moved over closer to her until their bodies touched. “I find your mauve colored lips extremely attractive.” He leaned in closer, their faces just less than an inch apart. She opened her lips slightly as she studied his face.
            He kissed her then drew back a half-inch, then kissed her again, then again until she responded by kissing him back. She brought her hand up and rest it softly on his chest. He brought his left arm around and pulled her to him so her breasts were touching his shirt. He could feel the points of them through the fabric. He was glad that she took off her jacket before she started their dinner. He loved the feel of her tits against him. He knew he should stop, but he didn’t want to. He loved her softness. He continued to kiss the contours of her lips. His tongue traced the soft fullness of her lips. 

​Chapter 11
            About 6:00 PM that evening, Marcus suggested, “Let’s stop for the night and make camp. We’ll need the daylight to set up our tents and to eat our dinners.”
            “Okay. I think we should go over here more and get some shelter from the trees.”
            After getting their tents up, Marcus went around nearby grabbing rocks and sticks to build a campfire. The temperature only got up to about fifty-five degrees today so they will need the heat from the campfire to keep them warm tonight. He placed the rocks in a circle and put the sticks in the middle. Nicole pulled out zip lock bag with matches in it and handed it to Marcus.
            While he started the fire, Nicole pulled out the dry dog food and put it in a dish for Sierra with some water. She pulled out a dehydrated chicken and rice for herself and a camp stove. “If you give me your meal and a pot, I’ll heat your dinner along with mine.”
            “Okay.” Marcus pulled on a dehydrated shepherd’s pie and a pot to cook it in and handed it to her. After Marcus got the fire going, she put the camp stove on it. Then she mixed the dehydrated food and put them on the stove to heat them up. She pulled out a box of plastic silverware and got out two knives, forks, and spoons. While waiting for the food to head and become hydrated, she opened her self-inflated sleeping pad and spread her sleeping bag liner on it and then her sleeping bag. She pulled out her anti-bacterial body wipes along with her toothbrush and toothpaste, to clean herself up after they ate. She started to hum a tune she remembered her mother used to sing to her when she was young, called “Walking After Midnight” by Patsy Cline. Marcus turned on his haunches and watched her as she twittered away at setting up camp. She turned and looked at him. Puzzled, she said, “What?”
            “What’s that tune your singing?”
            “Walking After Midnight. My mom used to sing it to me when I was little.”
            He smiled, and then went back to setting his stuff inside his tent. His tent was larger than hers because it could sleep two while hers only slept one.
            He felt comfortable with Nicole. She kept herself busy with getting the camp set up, and being in close proximity to her, his senses became more astute to being around her. He watched as she unbraided her hair and let it hang loose. He admired her red-gold hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. He doubted that she knew how beautiful she really was. It appeared she’s had a sheltered life, and was not experienced with men. In a way, he was glad about that even though he really didn’t think he’d want to get entangled with a virgin. Or, did he? He had a feeling that bonding and mating with her would be an odyssey that would be out of this world. He could bring her to the brink of ecstasy beyond anything she had ever had, and it would culminate with his own passion and pleasure.
            “I think dinner is ready.” Nicole put his food on a paper plate and handed it to him and then put hers on another paper plate.
            “Okay. Thank you.” He took the plate from her. He noticed her fingernails. They were slender fingers, with beautiful, pinkest color and just a little bit of white at the tips. Everything about her was petite. For being such a small woman, she was quite strong. She’d have to be, only the strong can really survive in the backcountry, off the hiking trail and away from everyone.
            They sat cross-legged and next to each other as they ate their dinner. She brought out her bottled water and uncapped it. “Do you want some water?” She handed the bottle over to him.
            “No, I’m fine. I have my own water.”
            “It looks like we’ve covered at least twenty-two miles today.”
            “Yes, that’s pretty good for the first day and on the terrain we’ve been walking on.”
            “The other side, where I usually hike, isn’t as soft as the soil is here.”
            “Don’t you have to report into your brother?”
            “Yes, I told him that I’d report into him about eight PM each night we’re out here. I also have a tracker on my phone, so he kind of knows where I am at all time.”
            “That is extremely valuable when you are off hiking by yourself.”
            After they had finished eating, they cleaned up the area and Marcus added more sticks to the fire. The sun was starting to go down, and the air was cooling. When they were finished, she handed Marcus an anti-bacterial body wipe to wash his hands and a quick-dry towel to dry himself, and she did the same. They sat down again next to each other, and Sierra laid down beside Nicole and went to sleep. She called her brother and advised him where she was and how things were progressing.
            “Do you believe in shapeshifters?” Nicole asked as she looked around the darken forest. The light faded, and it created shadows that seemed to move in the dark.
            “No. But the Navajo believes in it. They believe that men can be changed into creatures usually called skinwalkers. A person who wishes to be a skinwalker would go through a ceremony that would give them the power to transform into a creature. Many say that the skinwalkers are not very good people and considered devil worshippers. Why do you ask?”
            “I see shadows move all around me here in the forest at night. Do you think these are shapeshifters?”
            “I doubt it.”
            “Sometimes when I think I’m seeing shadows, Sierra starts barking.”
            “Are you afraid of the dark?”
            “No. I’m not afraid, I’m just saying what I think I see at night.”
            “Fire can cast shadows on the trees in the forest and make it seem like you’re seeing a shadow of someone.”
            “You believe that?”
            “Yes. Unless you’ve come across a shapeshifter mimicking a human being and pissed him or her off, there would be no reason to believe that a shapeshifter is out here in the shadow lurking about you.”
            Nicole stood up and looked over to where the moon was. It was at that time of the night where it was huge, and a full moon. She grabbed her camera and went off about ten feet from the camp, and took some pictures. “The moon sure is big and beautiful.”
            Not as beautiful as you are. Marcus smiled. “Yes, it is.” He decided he needed to get to bed. He was afraid that if he stayed up any later, he’d end up making a move on Nicole, and he didn’t think she was ready for any kind of a relationship with him, or even just sex. “Nicole, I’m going to turn in now.”
            She turned around, looking disappointed. “Okay. I probably should too. What time do you want to get up tomorrow?”
            “I’ll be up at dusk.”
            “You bring a clock with you?”
            He laughed. “I have an alarm on my watch, but no, I just automatically wake up at five-thirty in the mornings.”
            “Okay, well I’ll try to get up that early so we don’t waste any time getting started. Good night.”
            Marcus got into his tent and took his clothes off. He laid on top of the sleeping blanket, letting the cold air cool off his body. He heard Nicole get into her tent and zipped it up. “No Sierra, you’re not sleeping on my pad. You sleep here.” She murmured. Marcus smiled in the dark as he heard movement in her tent.
            He drifted off to sleep.
            He lifted up his head from the kiss and looked deeply into her eyes. Her body looked like a silhouette in the moonlight. He looked over to his left and saw their shadow. A Native American man and his woman. Deeply in love, mated for life, always together. He kissed her again. His lips trailed from her mouth alongside her jaw to her neck. Such delicate features. He loved the feel of her soft skin, soft as a baby’s bottom and he never got tired of it. He pulled the hood off the top of her head, and he was shocked. He looked into her blue eyes and saw nothing but love. The kind of love that lasts a lifetime. Her beautiful long blonde hair was floating in the wind. Nicole. Nicole was his wife. His life partner. She was mated to him for life. She carried his children, she mothered Nathan. His heart swelled with love for the woman. He can never picture his life without her.
            He heard a zipper unzipped. He was immediately awake, and he lifted the flap of the tent window and looked out. She had let Sierra out, obviously to let her go to the bathroom. He laid back down, trying to figure out why he had that dream. Man, I need to get through the next week with her, am I going to make it? He couldn’t figure out why all of a sudden since he’s met Nicole, that he’s started dreaming about her. He looked at his watch. Damn, it’s only four AM. I may as well get up and meditate. He put on his pants, socks, and boots, unzipped the tent and stepped outside. The cold air against his bare chest felt invigorating. He threw in some more sticks and rekindled the fire and felt the warm heat as it came back to life. Sierra came and laid down beside him.
* * * *
            Nicole let Sierra out and then laid back down. She was restless and couldn’t sleep. The more she got to know Marcus, the more she wondered if it was too soon to fall in love. She loved being out here in the mountains with him. They liked the same things and the more they talked, the more relaxed she became and enjoyed being with him. He shared a lot of information with her and seemed patience and willing to explain stuff to her. He talks about his people and their way of life. Not being experienced in these things and not ever having been in love, it was all new to her. Finally, she drifted off to sleep.
            She woke up and wondered what time it was. She slowly dressed, trying to be quiet and not wake Marcus up. Finally dressed, she unzipped her tent and stepped out. She looked around and was surprised to see Marcus sitting in front of his tent, half dressed. It was barely daylight out, and she could make out his bare chest. Something deep inside her began churning at the sight of him. He sat there with his eyes closed as if he was either asleep sitting up, or just resting his eyes.
            “Good morning,” she said quietly to him, not wanting to startle him.
            It took him a few minutes before he opened his eyes and looked over at her. He looked dazed. Finally, he said, “Good morning.”
            “Did you sleep well?” she asked.
            “Yes. Did you?”
            “Once I got settled and let Sierra out. Usually, she loves to sleep in the tent with me, but for some reason, she was restless, and I finally just let her out. I hope she didn’t bother you. I see you have a nice fire going, would you like some coffee and breakfast?”
            She looked over at him when he didn’t answer. He had unzipped his tent and pulled stuff out of his backpack.
            “Let me fix the meal this time. Give me your breakfast and I’ll heat it up. I have coffee too.”
            “Okay.” She peered at him. He seemed subdued. She hoped she didn’t do anything to make him pull away from her. While he made the coffee and breakfast, she got food out for Sierra, along with her water and food dish. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
            He glanced up at her. “Yes, everything is fine.” He fixed her dehydrated eggs with sausage while he ate oatmeal. He handed her breakfast and some instant coffee in her plastic coffee cup. After they had eaten, she asked, “Have you talked to Nathan since we left?”
            “No.”
            “Why don’t you give him a call? I’m sure he wants to hear from you, and I know you want to talk to him,” Nicole suggested.
            “I’m trying to save the juice on my iPhone in case of emergency.”
            “I’ve got my phone here, and it’s got a tracker on it. We’ll be fine, go ahead and call him.” Nicole said encouragingly.
            Marcus stood up and grabbed his iPhone. “I’ll be over here for a few minutes.”
            Nicole cleaned the area up a bit and washed his cup and heating pot as well as hers before she packed her stuff in her backpack. She started to dismantle her tent when she heard his voice, and he was on his iPhone.
            She figured he missed his son and needed to talk to him. She couldn’t understand why a mother would give up a little guy like Nathan. He was an adorable six-year-old with a very active mind, and he looked very much like his father. She immediately bonded with the little tyke and wondered if she would ever see him again.
            “Okay, Nathan. I’ll see you in a few days.”
            She looked up at Marcus as he returned to the camp.
            “I love you, son. Talk to you soon. Bye.” He disconnected the call and looked over at Nicole.
            “You feel better now?” she asked.
            “Yeah. It was good to hear his voice. I see you are almost all packed and ready to leave.”
            “Yes. Here’s your cup and cooking pot. I cleaned them for you.”
            “Okay. Thanks.” He went into his tent.
            She could hear him moving about in the tent, and soon, he came back out with his backpack. He dismantled his tent and packed it. While waiting for him, she braided her hair again stuck it up under a cap.
            Nicole went off a little ways where he couldn’t see her, and relieved herself. When she returned, he was ready.
            It was that time between dusk, and the morning sun when they started back into their hike. Neither of them spoke for the first hour of the hiking. The mountains were becoming steeper as they climbed. The sun began to peak out from behind the eastern side of Elkhorn mountains.
They came upon a clearing when Marcus said. “Do you want to stop and take a quick break?”
            “Okay.” There were no logs nearby for them to sit, so they sat down on the slopey hill and removed their backpacks. They watched as the sun cleared the mountaintop. They could hear nature teeming with life. The birds twittered, insects buzzed, they could hear elk calling echoing from a distance. A herd of mule deer ran across the opened area, and Sierra started to yip while watching them. Rabbits hopped across in front of them.
            “I hear water,” Marcus said.
            “You do?”
            “Yes. It’s off that way.” He pointed to the east.
            “Your hearing must be really good.”
            “It’s normal, I’m just attuned to all this when I’m hiking.”
            “We will come to a river about ten miles from here, but we are headed more south, then east.”
            “Do you know the name of the river?”
            “Yes, it’s the continuation of Butte Falls river. I probably should say it’s more of a creek than a river, and if memory serves me right, there is also a beautiful waterfall that we will get to see.”
            Nicole remembered that Marcus mentioned the Rockies having a beautiful waterfall and the idea of her hiking with him the next time to see them. She wondered if he really meant that or if he was just making conversation. He doesn’t seem the person to just say something and not mean it. She’d love to hike the Rockies with him. That sensual feeling at the very core of her gave rise again. She had a vision of the two of them jumping in the water near the waterfall. She glanced over at him, and her cheeks grew warm.
            She stood up and walked over to the edge where the clearing came to an almost abrupt vertical drop. Her foot slipped, and she went down hard. She let out a yelp, and the momentum caused her to roll down the hill. She rolled and slid down twenty feet before she could stop herself from going any further. She inhaled the smelly, wet-soaked earth. Marcus came running over to where she stood and then came down the hill sideways so he wouldn’t pitch over as well.
            “Are you okay?” he asked when he got to her.
            “I..I think so.” She laid there stunned.
            “Let me check for broken bones or cuts before you get up. Stay here for a minute, I’m going to go and get the first aid kit.”
            He climbed back up the hill to where they sat. A few moments later, he returned with the first aid kit.
            “Can you sit up okay?” he asked.
            She turned around from her stomach around and sat. “Yeah, but it hurts like heck.”
            “I bet it does. This soil contains a lot of rocks. Let’s get your jacket off so I can look at your arms.”
            She slipped out of her jacket. “Oh, crap,” she said.
            “What?”
            “My jacket is torn.” She showed him where the tear was.
            “Well, you have an excuse to go and buy yourself a new one.” He smiled slightly.
            “I supposed.”
            He checked her arms and flexed them to be sure nothing was out of alignment. He ran his hands down her sides and across the front of her, checking for rib fractures or other injury. While she sat there, Sierra strolled up beside her and started licking her face.
            “Ugh, Sierra, not now.” She gently pushed the dog away. Sierra walked around them in circles, wagging her tail.
            Nicole’s heart hammered hard in her chest. She didn’t know if it was from the fall, or from his hands being on her body. She still had that inkling feeling deep inside her, that she finally concluded that it could be sexual arousal.
            “So far, no broken bones. You’ll need to take your pants off.”
            “Uh, I don’t think so.”
            “Nicole, I need to see if you have any injuries to your legs.”
            “Let me see if I can stand up and walk.”
            “No. If you are injured, we don’t want to add more injury. Come on, I’ll help you.”
            Before she could respond, he had unzipped her pants and started to pull them down over her hips. Oh, this is so embarrassing.
            “Lift up,” he commanded.
            She lifted her bottom, and he slid the pants down her thighs to her ankles. She sat on the earth, feeling a prickly plant through her underpants. She reached under her bottom to pull out the irritating plant, it was a tiny branch from a pine tree that had just started to grow up through the ground. She tossed that aside and sat down at the same time. “Oww,” she said.
“What’s the matter?”
“I just sat on a little pine tree stump.” She used her hands and scooted off the protruding half inch stump.
He smiled slightly as he scrutinized her legs closely, then flexed them to be sure nothing was broke.
            “No broken skin or bones here. Let me look at your feet.”
            He untied her boots and slid off her boots and socks. He inspected her ankles and her feet. He’s got to be loving this. But, maybe not. He had not shown any interest in her other than a kiss he gave her in his vehicle the other day when he picked her up on her way home from the saloon. That little kiss sparked her doormat sexual feelings and left her with sensations she never knew existed before.
            Satisfied that she didn’t have any broken bones, he stood up and held out his hand for her to stand up. “Okay, nothing appeared to be broken, so let’s have you stand up and see if anything hurts.”
            In her underpants? Really. She grabbed his extended hand, and he pulled her up. She stood for a few minutes. Her bare feet feeling rocks and sinking into the earthly soil. “I think I’m okay. I’ll probably have some bruising soon, I’m sure.”
            “Okay. Let’s get you dressed.” He bent over and grabbed her pants and gave them to her. She held on to his arm while she used her other hand to drop the pants so she could put her legs in them. She finally pulled the pants up and zipped them. She sat back down and put her socks and boots on. When she was finished, he grabbed her hand and helped her as they climbed back up the hill to their backpacks.
            “Now that all the excitement is over with, are you sure you’re ready to start walking again?” The beginning of a smile tipped the corners of his mouth.
            “Yes,” she muttered under her breath.
            As they continued the walk, Nicole was getting a bit warm at the back of her neck. She took her baseball cap off, and her braid swung free down her back. She continued walking, and something caught her attention to the right. As she looked, she continued to walk until she ran practically into a pine tree. The limb in her path went through her hair, getting it tangled up and becoming a mess.
            “Crap.”
            “You’re a mess now,” the voice behind her said. “Why did you take your cap off?” He came up behind her and set his backpack down, took off his gloves, and began to untangle her hair.
            “I was getting a little warm, so I took it off for a few minutes. I thought I saw something move off to the right, and wasn’t paying attention to the pine tree.”
            “So far, you’ve had an interesting morning.” He continued to untangle her hair from the pine needles.
            “No kidding.” However, she was enjoying the part where his hands were running through her hair to pull out the limb.
            “You’re going to have to unbraid your hair and rebraid it again, but the tree is out now.”
            “Thanks.”
            “No problem.” He grinned at her.
            They continued on. “What did Nathan have to say when you called him?” She turned slightly and looked behind at him.
            “He can’t wait for me to get home so I can buy him a Chappie robot. He seemed totally fixated on that right now.”
            “I heard that the action figures are all the rave now among children.”
            “Yes, it is, and he’s got just about every one of them. His real love, though, is the Transformers. I got him six new Transformers for Christmas last year. They were just released in limited quantities at Toys R Us, and I thought they would be a good buy and gift for him, and I was right. He sat there for hours, putting each one of those Transformers together. He did it all by himself, and he did them all right.”
            “Does he like Superman, Batman, and all those kind of action heroes?”
            “Yes. He’s got quite a selection of Batman. Not as much of Superman.”
            “Really. Not spoiled much, huh?” Nicole laughed.
            “Oh he’s spoiled, I know. But I’ve purposely spoiled him. I’ve determined that he was not going to have the kind of upbringing that I had, and that includes his having the toys that he desires.”
            “Did you have a bad childhood?”
            “Not bad in the sense of abuse in any way. Just poor. My parents had a hard time supporting us seven kids.”
            “Seven? Wow. Are you the oldest, youngest, middle?”
            “I’m the third oldest. There is one brother older than me, and an older sister. Then there are two more brothers and sisters after me.”
            “Are your parents still alive?”
            “Yes. They are still alive, and after years of sacrifice and giving, they are finally living comfortably. My oldest brother and I give them money and whatever else they need.”
            “How about you? I know you have at least one brother,” Marcus asked.
            “Yes. It’s just my brother and me. My parents are in Arizona.”
            “Nicole, stop,” Marcus said abruptly.
            “What?” She spun around.
            “These footprints are from a bear. There’s also bear shit here, and it looks fresh. Pay attention to your surroundings.”
            “Okay.”
            As they continued on, Sierra suddenly took off running ahead of Nicole and barking. “I think she’s probably found the bear.”
            “I hope it’s not a mother with cubs. She’ll charge Sierra.”
            They followed in the direction that Sierra went. They came to a small clearing, and Sierra was running back and forth, barking. Nicole looked up and on a large boulder, a black bear was sitting, looking down at Sierra.
            “You better call Sierra. It looks like the bear is by himself, but we don’t want to agitate it or draw it’s attention on us.”
            Nicole whistled. “Come on, girl. Let’s leave the bear alone.” Sierra stopped and hesitated. Nicole whistled again and called out. “Come on. We’re going this way. Let’s go.” Sierra took off on a dead run toward them and when she got to Nicole. Nicole patted her head and gave her a bone. “Good girl. Let’s not bother the bear.”
            “Guess we’ve had enough excitement for the morning. Are you ready to sit down and eat lunch?” Marcus asked.
            “Yes. I’m starving.”
            After they had finished their lunch, they continued eastward, turning slowly to the south. Suddenly, both Nicole and Marcus stopped. They heard the rattlers, and Sierra started growling.
            “Hush, girl.” Nicole patted Sierra on the head to quiet her.
            Marcus looked around until he found what looked like a small cave and there was what looked like a potful of rattlesnakes.
            “Let’s head east a bit, away from the rattlers and then we’ll go south again,” Marcus suggested, his voice was soft.
            “Okay. They looked like baby rattlers,” she whispered.
            “There was a family of them.”
            “You know, sometimes I go hiking, and I’m lucky if I see a rabbit or a deer. Other times it seems as if the mountain is teeming with life and I see it all over.”
            “Do you just not see the wildlife or are you not attuned to it?” Marcus asked.
            “Well, I guess I’m not as attuned to it as you are. That’s why I take Sierra with me. Did you learn to become that aware of things around you or did it come naturally?”
            “I learned it. Just because I’m Native American doesn’t mean these processes just happens to be there. I’ve spent years climbing and hiking the Rockies and learning to listen to nature. Nicole, stop.”
            She spun around and looked at him. Suddenly, Sierra took off running back the direction where they came from. Soon she was barking. Marcus and Nicole went back to see what it was. Sierra was chasing the black bear away from them.
            “Is that the same bear we saw this morning?” Nicole asked.
            “It looks like it. He must be hungry and following the food source.”
            “Well, Sierra will run him off a long way. It was pretty close.”
            “Yes, it was. That’s why I think it was following us. We’ll have to be extra careful tonight when we settle down. I have visions of black bears lying on top of me while I sleep.”
            “Think of sugar plums instead.” Nicole smiled.
            They continued walking, and eventually, Sierra came back and caught up with them. Nicole turned slightly and saw that Marcus had walked up closely behind her, and she saw his shoulders. More than anything in the world, she wanted to hug him, and be hugged by him. She wanted to lay her head on his shoulders and listen to his heartbeat. She wanted to feel his strong arms around her, holding her close. She wanted to hold his hand as they walked through the mountainside. She let out a small sigh. Life just didn’t seem fair to her. He hasn’t made any kind of romantic move toward her. When he touched her legs, it was strictly checking for injuries, although his hands on her thighs and across her ribs elicit a variety of different sensations.
            Either she really was not very attractive, or he had great control over his feelings and emotions. Maybe the kiss they shared in his vehicle turned him off, totally. She ran like a coward, instead of staying and confronting him. Her lost since she didn’t bother to find out if he was married or not. Sometimes she felt like her life was totally screwed. Miss opportunities and lonely nights.

​Chapter 10
They reached the end of the tunnel and stepped out into the sunlight. Marcus looked around and surveyed the area. They were already at an elevation of fifty-five hundred feet, and the view looking down where the two mountains met looked just as beautiful as the mountains that went up higher. There were rows and rows of pine trees for as far as he can see. Off in the distance, there were rain clouds on the mountains. Tumbleweeds grew everywhere, and there were occasionally some aspen trees that have started to show new light green growth. Bushes of wild spirea plants scattered the landscape as well as thickets.
“Well, are you ready to begin?” Marcus scanned Nicole from head to toe.
“Yes, I’m ready.” Nicole took the lead with Sierra in tow, and Marcus followed behind her, admiring her lovely curves even with a backpack on her that looked like it was too heavy for her. They walked the rough terrain in silence for a while, and then Nicole said, “I think I need to sit for a few minutes and rest.”
“Okay.” They found a long log that was broken off on the ground and rested on another stump. They sat down to rest for a few minutes.
“I’m surprised your wife would let you go camping like this and be gone from the home for the length of time you’ll be gone. Especially with three boys to deal with.”
“What makes you think I’m married?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Did you forget that you had your wife and three boys here last weekend?”
Now things began to click. “The woman that came here last weekend was not my wife. Two of the boys are her boys, Nathan is my only son.”
A look of shock crossed her face. “I’m still surprised that even your girlfriend would be comfortable with you going hiking with another single woman.”
“I don’t have another girlfriend. Shana is my sister.” Marcus smiled, now he knew why she turned cold. She thought he was married.
Nicole twisted off the cap of her water bottle and drank half the bottle while staring at Marcus. He saw a wave of different expressions cross her face, but couldn’t tell if she was glad, sad, indifferent, excited, or anything.
“So, all this time you thought I was married.” He cocked his head to look at her and hooded his eyes like those of a hawk.
“Well, yeah. I mean, she shows up in a car, you hug her and the boys, and…what other conclusions could I draw?”
“You could have just asked, not draw conclusions.”
“It really was none of my business,” she said defensively.
“That is true, but it would have kept you from drawing the wrong conclusion about me all this time.”
“I’m ready to get back to walking. Let’s go Sierra,” she said abruptly. She got up and started to walk away. He knew she didn’t want to talk about the subject anymore.
Probably going to be a long lonely twenty-five-mile walk. He kept his pace a few feet behind her. He noticed that she was very observant of her surroundings, and used her hiking stick to move things in front of her so she didn’t happen upon a snake or any kind of reptile. There were a lot of birds in the area, and it reminded him of a bird sanctuary. He had to admire her hiking skills. The soil they walked on was soft, and it made hiking more difficult, but she carried on with minimal difficulty and with determination.
After a two hour hike, they came to a wide clearing teeming with flowers in bloom.
“Let’s stop and eat lunch,” Marcus said as he came up behind Nicole.
“Okay. Such beautiful flowers.”
            “Yes, they are pretty. Do you know what they are?”
            “No. I’m not familiar with spring flowers. I only hike in the summer.”
            Marcus reached down and picked a flower and handed it to her. “These are called Sagebrush Buttercup.” He pointed at the other flower nearby and said, “Those are Yellowbells.”
            Nicole took the flower from him and sniffed it. “It has a sweet smell.”
            They sat down on a fallen log and searched through their backpacks for lunch. He looked around and could see the underbrush, ferns, moss, ivies and berry bushes.
            “How are you holding up? We’ve kept a pretty brisk pace, going about three miles an hour. Do you need to slow down?” Marcus asked.
            “I’m doing fine. Great, actually. If I were carrying a lighter load, and just on a weekend trip, I’d be walking a lot faster than I am now. Am I moving too fast for you?”
            Marcus smiled slightly. “No.”
            Nicole pulled out Sierra’s water dish and put the some water in it for her. She lapped it up, then Nicole gave her a couple of bone treats.
            “Look like we’ll have a little bit of clearing.”
            “Yes, we’ll come across a couple of clearings before we reach the cave. I’ve noticed a definite change in the temperature.”
            Marcus looked at his thermometer. “It’s currently forty-three degrees out.” It was starting to get warmer. “The temperature will peak at about two PM.”
            Marcus leaned back against a stump and snacked on an energy bar. “So what else does Nicole like to do besides read and hike?”
* * * *
            She did not want to talk about herself. She had a hard time with the realization that he was not married and very much single, and he had an adorable little boy. All through the walk thus far, since he told her he was single, she had a hard time staying on track and not letting her mind wander off. She had to stay focused, or they could get lost. It had been a while since she had walked this side of the mountains, and nothing was familiar to her. She had to constantly check her GPS coordinates and her compass to be sure she was leading him on the right path. She glanced at him and realized that he was waiting for her to answer. “Oh, I like to go to the different outfitters stores and shop around. Check out the latest equipment and stuff. I like to sit around a campfire up in the mountains when the moon is out. Sometimes I think I could just reach out and touch it.”
            She reached out and petted Sierra. She didn’t know what else to tell him, she lived a sheltered life and never really ventured out and experienced the world. She was nervous when she went to Butte or Helena because big cities scared her. She loved open spaces and minimal populations. She was afraid he’d think she was naïve or antisocial, or something.
            “What’s the one place in the world you’d like to visit?” He seemed really interested in learning more about her. But she was nervous about revealing too much about herself. “I think I’d like to scale the Rocky Mountains sometime.”
            “As much as you like to hike, that is one trip you would never regret. I can attest to the beauty of the Rockies, and I find great joy when I’m there.”
            “Do you like mountain climbing or hiking?” Nicole asked.
            “I like the hiking. I have not gotten into mountain climbing. That is more of a sport.”
            “Do you hike the trails or do you venture out on your own?”
            “I venture out on my own. There is so much backcountry beauty to see off the beaten path.”
            “I heard that the Rockies has some pretty spectacular waterfalls.”
            “They do. Maybe the next time I go on a hiking expedition, I’ll let you know, and you can join me.” He smiled at her and she felt like she’d just melt. Oh, she’d love to go on a hiking trip in the Rockies with him.
            “Do you take Nathan with you?”
            “I’ve taken him on short hiking trails, and I do stay on the trails that the National Park has created for hikers. He’s still a little young to travel the backcountry off the main path.”
            “I bet he loved it.”
            “Yes, he does. He gets really excited about going and hates it when we have to head home.”
            “Do you have joint custody or have him on weekends?”
            “I have full custody. His mother has gone off with her boyfriend to travel the world and left him with me.”
            “I don’t know how anyone could take off and leave a sweet little boy like him behind.”
            “Do you want to settle down and have a family?”
            She looked at him. With you, it would be heavens. She didn’t really know how to answer that question. At one time she had envisioned herself with a couple of kids and a loving husband, but as she got older, that vision became faint.
            “I used to think I’d like to settle down and raise a family. Now, not so much.”
            “Why?”
            “I’m getting older, and meeting someone is less lightly. Do you want to meet someone and settle down again?”
            Marcus ate the last of his energy bar and watched Nicole before answering her. “Sometimes I think I would. But, between my work and raising my son, I don’t have the time it takes to invest in a relationship that could lead to marriage and additional children.”
            Nicole didn’t know why she felt down by his statement. It kind of hurt. Why did it hurt? Did she really fancy herself falling in love with him, marrying him and helping him to raise his son and having children of their own? She found him so sexy. She loved the idea of waking up next to him every morning. Suddenly, she felt incredibly lonely. No one in her life, no prospects of having someone in her life. That part of her life just seemed to be passing her by.
            “Are you ready to start walking again?” Marcus seemed to be studying her face.
            “Yes, let’s go.”
            They put their things away in their backpacks and started their hike.
            Nicole thought about the Cheyenne tribe and tried to remember what she had learned about them in school without much success.
            “Can you tell me a little bit about your tribe?” She turned and looked back at him a second.
            “Cheyenne are a Native American tribe that lives in two places. Montana and Oklahoma. We use to live in Minnesota, but we migrated to the Great Plains. Settlers started to take over our land and even though we signed treaties, the settlers and the government repeatedly broke the treaties and forced us onto the reservations.”
            “Do you live on the reservation now?”
            “No. I live outside the reservation, but I’m still very active in the tribe.”
            They walked for a distance before Nicole asked. “What language did your people speak?”
            “We had our own language and spoke in part, the Algonquian language. The Sioux called us Cheyenne because it meant we spoke a different language.”
            Sierra brought a stick to Nicole that she found, and Nicole threw it in front of her so that Sierra could play her fetch game she always loved to play.
            “I seem to remember reading in my history book that your tribe fought in the battle at Little Big Horn.”
            “We did. We had a group called the Dog Soldiers, that fought with the Arapaho and Lakota against George Custer and the U.S. Army. We led the attack on Custer’s army and killed Custer and then joined the two other tribes and wiped out the U.S. 7th Calvary.”
            “Dog Soldiers, I’ve heard of them.”
            “The Dog Soldiers were a fighting group of men not to be reckoned with. They are revered by our people and our young men are still recruited into this clan.”
            “There are Dog Soldiers even today?”
            “Yes. We have served in both world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf war and the Iraq war.”
            “Are you a member of the Dog Soldiers?”
            “Yes, I am. My group, myself included, served in the Iraq war.”
            “How long did you serve?”
            “Almost four years. My platoon got ambush, and I sustained shrapnel injury to my shoulder and back.”
            Nicole wondered if Marcus was to marry a white woman, and they had children, would the children be able to participate in things such as becoming a Dog Soldier.
            “What would happen, Marcus, if you married a non-Native American.”
            “What do you mean?”
            “If you married a non-Native American woman, and had children, would the children still be considered a part of the tribe and be able to participate in all the activities and be a part of the group?”
            “Of course. We would never keep our children out of being a member of the tribe.”
            “Even though they would be considered only half Native American?”
            “Yes, even if they are half Native American.”
            “I find your history interesting. Your people seem more accepting of people in different races than white people do.”
            Marcus didn’t respond. One of the birds were tweeting quite loudly as if there was some sort of danger. “Nicole, stop for a few minutes,” he said, slightly above a whisper. \
            Nicole stopped and turned to face him. He was looking around. She immediately became alarmed, and Sierra started to yip. “What is it?”
            “I hear the birds squawking loudly which indicates that there is something around them. Even Sierra senses something. Let me walk ahead of you so I can see where the threat is.” He walked passed her and went forward about fifty feet then stopped. “Here it is,” he whispered to her.
            Nicole walked up to where he was standing, and off another seventy-five feet was a herd of elk grazing in the tall grass.
            “Wow, you could find something like that by listening to the birds?”
            “Yes. Always listen to the birds. There are tweets, and then there are warning tweets, indicating something is amiss. They use their tweets to warn other birds, but we can also learn and use their language to recognize danger.”
            “We will be going this way, so we’ll be moving away from them. Will that remove us from the danger? I’ve never been this close to elk before.” She didn’t want him to think she didn’t know anything about danger.
            “Yes, going a different direction will keep us out of danger. The usual thing to do is not to make sudden movements, or run away. Respect them and give them their space. Do not, and I emphasize this, do not come near a female and her calves. They will threaten and charge you. It’s not a good idea to have Sierra here. Hopefully, she will not charge them.”
            “Sierra won’t charge anything unless I give her a command. The most she would do is bark, growl or, as in this case, she also sensed something and yipped.”
            “That’s good. You don’t want her to chase after wild animals. It could get her killed. Let’s go.”
            “I bring her along, because, like you, she has the ability to hear and sense something is wrong or dangerous. Plus, she keeps me from getting scared out here at night. Sometimes the night can be — disconcerting.”
            They continued on their trek until it was 2:00 PM. Occasionally, they came upon patches of melting snow, ravines, a couple of creeks with wild mushrooms nearby. “Might as well stop and take a break. It’s getting warm out here,” Nicole said as she stopped next to a creek that had fast, running cold water.
            Marcus came and stood next to her. Her senses went on overdrive, having him near her. He unsnapped the front of his backpack and slid it off his back.
            They sat down on another tree log, and Nicole ate a snack bar and gave Sierra a bone to chew on. Marcus sat down next to her and stretched his legs out in front of him.
            “So, now it’s your turn. Apart from hiking the Rockies and your son, Nathan. What else do you like to do?”
            Marcus reached down and brushed the weeds and dust particles off his pants. “I’m very passionate about law. It’s my life’s work.”
            “Nathan said you like to put bad people in jail.”
            He smiled. “Most of my clients are people who have been caught in a criminal situation. Some people think I get criminals off easy, but it’s not that. I represent them so they get only what they deserve and nothing more.”
            “What if the person is accused of doing something that he or she did not do? Do you represent them too?”
            “Yes. I do represent them, that is if they can afford my fees.”
            “You charge a high rate?”
            “Most people think I do. But I am totally vested in their defense, and I spare no money or resources to prove they are innocent. All that costs money, and someone has to pay for it. I’m also one of three lawyers that represent the Cheyenne Nation.”
            Maybe he didn’t have much of a life outside of work and his son, just as she didn’t have much of a life outside her work at the motel and the restaurant. Maybe they have more in common than she initially thought. She would love to wrap up in his arms around the campfire at night and gaze up at the moon and stars. The more she got to know him, the more she really liked him and wanted to be with him. She would love just to walk side by side with him, holding his hand. Do I even stand a chance to win the heart of a lawyer, one who is worldly and sophisticated?
            “What are you thinking about?” he asked.
            Inside her own thoughts, she barely heard. She realized again, for the umpteenth time, that she was staring at him. She quickly turned her head and stared out in front of her, at the small pine trees that were blowing gently in the wind. “Nothing important. Just — enjoying the afternoon sun and the company.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. At first, she was nervous to be around him, but as she got to know him, she felt more and more at eased.
            He brought his left hand up and kneaded his shoulder on his right side, touching her in the process. He then leaned forward and scratched his lower leg. The movement and feeling of his arm against hers spread warmth and sizzling sensations throughout her body. God, just to be touched by him, just to feel the warmth of a hand or a stroke on her arm, or even his hand going through her hair. Just sensual touches, to make her feel like a woman and to come alive, to feel what so many women experienced when with a man, that she had never felt before. She hated that she was virgin, and didn’t know how to reach out to any man, much less the one that sat next to her. She couldn’t expect that an experienced man such as Marcus would be willing to teach her, or experiment with her, or even be willing to take her virginity. She didn’t think he’d be interested in any of that. He’d want a woman that knew how to handle herself and knew what she wanted, and knew the feelings and emotions of being with a man. Something she had none of except, she did know what she wanted. She just didn’t know how to articulate it.
            Here she was, thirty-four years old, inexperienced, a virgin, a plain looking woman, with no experience of worldly things. Just a local.
            A soft breeze whispered through her hair and lifted the ends up, and they landed on Marcus’s jacket sleeve. She lifted her chin up so she could breathe in the fresh, piney smell that had been carried through the air by the breeze.
            Before they got back to the hike, Nicole grabbed her portable pump-style water filter and filled it with the water from the creek. She pumped the water from the creek through the filter and it came out the other hose and into her bottle.

 

Chapter 9
            Marcus sat down at a booth and looked at his iPhone. He knew people were staring at him. He was used to it, and just ignored it. He was concerned for his son. He wouldn’t be able to communicate with him while he was on the mountain. They would have to save all the juice in their cellphones in case of emergencies. He knew how much his son liked to talk to him on the phone when he was not home, and he wondered if maybe he should go to town and get a couple of prepaid cellphones just to have as a backup.
            The waitress brought his drink over and took his order. He brought some work papers in and started to read them. The DNA evidence came back in one case, and it wasn’t his client’s DNA. Now they would have to petition the court and show them the new evidence. He’ll file those papers when he got back to the office. The next case he still was not convinced on. The guy said he did not break in and steal the artwork from the museum, but he’s a common petty thief, and Marcus just didn’t like his demeanor. I’m going to have to really get in his face about the issue.
            Marcus’s iPhone rang, and he looked to see who was calling him. It was Shana’s number. “Hello.”
            “Daddy, I thought I’d call you today,’ the little voice said to him.
            “I see. How are you doing, Nathan?”
            “I’m doing good. Are you coming home?”
            “No, not yet, son. I’m going to be gone for a while. You won’t be able to call me and talk to me for a few days.”
            “Why?”
            “I have to go into the mountains to get the Sacred Arrows. Remember I told you the story about them?”
            “Yeah.”
            “Well, we know where they are, so I have to go and get them in the mountains, and I won’t be able to use the phone except for emergencies only.”
            “Is Nicole going to go with you, Daddy?”
            Now, why would his son ask a question like that? “Yes, she is leading me to the arrows.”
            “Oh. I like her.”
            “You do, huh. How come?”
            “She’s nice, and she has a dog.”
            Marcus smiled, “I see. You like her because of the dog?”
            “Yeah, but I like her not because of the dog too. When will I see her again?”
            “Why do you want to see her again?”
            “She likes gummy bears too.”
            “So you shared your gummy bears with her?” If Nathan shared his gummy bears with her, that meant something.
            “Yep. And she liked the red ones!”
            “How was school today?” Marcus put his elbow on the table and rest his chin on his hand.
            “It was okay.”
            “Still studying the dinosaurs?”
            “Yeah, we’re looking at T-Rex now.”
            “You’re going on a class field trip next week, am I right?”
            “Yep, Bryan is too, so is Aunt Shana.”
            “Now what was the name of the place where you’re going?”
            “Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum,” Nathan said excitedly. “Did you forget, dad?”
            “Yeah, I must have.” Marcus chuckled quietly.
            “Dad, can you imagine how big a dinosaur poop is?”
            “I can only imagine.” Marcus rolled his eyes.
            The waitress brought his food to the table and set it in front of him. Just the subject I want to talk about when I’m getting ready to eat.
            “They eat all the time. They can eat trees.”
            “Just like you eat all the time.” Marcus kidded.
            “But, dad, I’m not big like the dinosaurs are.”
            “That is true. You are not big.”
            “What are you doing, dad?”
            “I’m trying to eat my dinner.”
            “Oh. Aunt Shana is making us macaroni and cheese today.”
            “That sounds good.”
            “Yeah, she makes it the way I like it.”
            “Meaning you don’t like the way I make it?”
            “No. Yours is okay. I like it with lots of cheese.”
            “I see. So the next time I make it, I need to add more cheese, is that what you’re saying?”
            “Daddy, I miss you, I wish you could come home.”
            “I know son, I miss you too. I will be home just as soon as I can.”
            Just as Marcus was disconnecting the call with his son, he looked up and around the restaurant and spotted Nicole sitting with her brother and his wife, staring at him. He stared back at her until she realized she was looking at him, and her cheeks grew pink. She hastily turned her eyes to her brother. He didn’t realize that they were at the restaurant when he walked in. Not that it mattered much. He wasn’t sure what he thought about Nicole. His son took a keen interest in her and seemed to like her a lot. He liked her too, except for the one lie, and all it takes is one lie to ruin your reputation. He couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t get past that. He watched her at the outfitter’s store, and she seemed conservative in her spending, only getting the items that she needed for the excursion. She picked eight various hydrated chicken and rice meals. Chicken fried rice, noodles and chicken, chicken breast with mash potatoes and so on. Along with some breakfast skillet meals and energy snack bars. She also grabbed some batteries and some film for her camera. No doubt, she planned to take some pictures as well. He wasn’t going to be delayed by her stopping every few feet to take pictures. While he knew she was good at taking them and liked photography, he was on a mission and wanted to get it done and over with as soon as possible. No matter how badly he wanted to get the trip done with, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of doom. Like something was going to happen to them if they didn’t be careful. When he went hiking in the Rockies, either he went alone, or he went with his friend, David. They were both experienced hikers and knew how to take care of themselves. Nicole seemed experienced as well, but just how experienced she is, he didn’t know. He guessed he’d find out when they got out there.
            He watched Nicole as she left the restaurant with her brother and sister-in-law She didn’t look at him when they walked out. He could have sworn that her impression on him changed after his sister, his son and her two boys showed up. But, maybe he just imagined it. When he was finished with his meal, he paid for it and then entered the bar through the door that stood between the café and saloon. There was not much to do around here, and he didn’t feel like going through any more paperwork from the office. He sat down at the bar and Cherry, the bartender asked him, “What will you have?”
            “Scots and water, please.”
            He sipped his drink and sat on the bar stool reflecting. He knew he rarely ever dreamed. Or, if he did, he never remembered them. Yet, since he’s been here, all he does is dream of Nicole deep in the night, and he wakes up hot and ready to go off. He didn’t even have to be with her, all he had to do was dream of her, and he’d get a hard on. He didn’t know her, and he only kissed her once. What’s the hell is going on with his body? This was not normal for him. He hated being out of his comfort zone. The whole thing seemed bizarre to him, and he couldn’t wait until he could get back home to his son and his work.
* * * *
            Nicole got up at five-thirty Friday morning and packed her backpack. She weighed her backpack after she finished packing it, and it weighed in at twenty-two pounds. When she was finished, she took a shower, and then braided her hair down her back. She agreed to meet Marcus outside at his vehicle at seven AM. She was as nervous as all get-out about the whole trip.
            She grabbed her trekking pole and her backpack and called Sierra. “Come on girl, let’s go.” Sierra jumped around like a kid excited. Almost as if she knew what the backpack and trekking pole meant. They headed out the door to his vehicle. Marcus was already there moving his stuff over so she could put her stuff in. “Good morning,” she mumbled as if she was trying not to wake anyone up.
            “Good morning. Are you ready?” Marcus asked, seeming anxious. He had on a pair of nice hiking pants with a matching jacket, still unzipped. A suede shirt under the jacket, and boots. He had his hair back in a ponytail, and a red band around his head and tied in the back and his sunglasses rested on top of his head. He took her breath away as she looked him over.
            “Yes.”
            He took her backpack from her and loaded it along with her trekking pole. “Hop in, Sierra,” Marcus said. As if she understood, she jumped into the back of the vehicle.
            They entered the SUV and buckled their seatbelts when Marcus asked, “Where are we headed to start our trip?”
            “Go down this road to the overpass, and go over the overpass and pass the exit to get on the northbound highway. Just pass the highway exit is an old cattle road. We’ll take that about a half mile down, and there is a place that I’ll show you, where you can park your vehicle.”
            “Okay.”
            They drove down the rough, cattle road, avoiding the holes in the road. The road then turned from paved to dirt and the creek was flowing fast along the right side.
            “You can park here.” Nicole pointed ahead on the right.
            There was a spot of land that looked as if other vehicles had parked there in the past. Marcus pulled up and parked. The road and the river took a sharp turn to the left and went under the highway. They got out of the vehicle and Nicole looked around. There was a stoned like manmade bridge going over the creek, but the water was up high, and they would just barely make it.
            They put their backpacks on, and Nicole grabbed her trekking pole, and along with Sierra, they went down to the creek. Marcus turned and used his remote to lock his vehicle. Nicole looked up and down the creek before she ventured out over the rocks to cross over. Sierra followed behind her, and then Marcus. The mountains that were on the other side of the creek made a straight vertical climb up. The pine trees peppered the landscape.
            “We had a pine beetle invasion a few years ago. That’s why we have a lot of dead pine trees now.” Nicole gazed over the mountains.
            “Yes, it wiped out a lot of trees. But, it’s all a part of the ecosystem,” Marcus commented. “This looks like a path.”
            “It is, and we will follow it to the tunnel.”
            Sierra ran around Nicole and put herself in the lead down the path. Occasionally, she’d stop to sniff something or ran off the path looking for something, but never went very far away.
            Even though there was a path, it was fraught with massive boulders, rocks, tree trunks and limbs, and the ground was uneven. There were a lot of pine trees that had been toppled and laid across the path. The mountain floor was covered with tall, yellow dead weeds and brush, and exposed roots from trees, but occasionally there were some spring flowers blooming. The smell was a sickly stink of rotted wood.
            As they continued to walk, Nicole asked, “What exactly do the arrows mean and what do you do with them?”
            Marcus was quiet. Finally, he spoke. “The Sacred Arrows were a gift from the Great Spirit, who gave them to Sweet Medicine when he went to the Sacred Mountain. From time to time, the Cheyenne bands gather together for a ceremony which we perform rituals to renew the arrows. It’s a four-day ceremony that we do in the summer solstice.”
            “Why can’t women participate in the ceremony?”
            “Women can’t participate or look upon the arrows out of respect. They must stay in their tipis for the duration of the ceremony. Only the men can participate in the ceremony and the purpose of the ceremony is to empower them.”
            “What about me?”
            “What about you?”
            “I’ve seen the arrows, you said that we can’t look upon them.”
            “You are not Native American.”
            “So the fact that I’ve looked upon them won’t affect the power of the arrows or the rituals?”
            “No.”
            “Oh. That’s good, then. I knew when I saw them that I needed to leave them alone and not touch them.”
            The noise around them buzzed with wildlife. Birds were chirping, and wild rabbits were hopping across their path, branches were creaking, and squirrels chattering. Nicole looked off to the left and saw a small herd of mule deer. She stopped for a second to watch them, and Marcus came and stood next to her. “I love to see wildlife in their natural habitat.” She smiled as she took a picture of them.
            They came upon the south entrance of the concrete-lined tunnel that Nicole had mentioned they would be going through to get to the other side of the mountain. There were a lot of trees, wood, and debris around the entrance to the tunnel. There were two large boulders one on each side of the entrance, and the ground was covered in rocks. The tunnel opening was shaped like an arch so that the train, when it ran through, could fit into it. Above the arch was the year it was built, 1912. Above the year was what looked like a shelf that the mountain rested upon. Just on the inside of the tunnel, there was graffiti sprayed on the walls kids had painted on them. It was dark and very narrow, but you could see a light at the other end. The rail tracks had long ago been removed. She stopped and put her wool hat over her head with her headlamp. Marcus did the same. They both pulled their flashlights out of the backpack. “We have to be careful of snakes,” Nicole said.
            “Do you hike going in this direction and to the cave where we are headed to often?”
            “I haven’t been hiking this way in a year or so. Last year I spent my hiking time going on the mountains behind the motel. The trek is much easier than it is here.”
The tunnel was fairly flat and easy to walk on. Occasionally there would be some debris that they had to walk around.
“How is the trek easier on that side versus on this side?”
“The hills are easier to climb. There are spots all over where you can stop and take a rest and look around you. On this side, you have a lot of straight vertical drops, with huge boulders made of limestone. It’s amazing to me to see two and three feet pine trees that look like they literally sprung up from inside the rock. The mountains on this side also contain a different kind of soil. You see red, gray, black and gold silt. I sometimes wonder if that is what they call Diatomaceous earth in its natural form. But, history says that the rocks were formed about eighty-one million years ago due to the Farallon tectonic plate.”

Chapter 10
They reached the end of the tunnel and stepped out into the sunlight. Marcus looked around and surveyed the area. They were already at an elevation of fifty-five hundred feet, and the view looking down where the two mountains met looked just as beautiful as the mountains that went up higher. There were rows and rows of pine trees for as far as he can see. Off in the distance, there were rain clouds on the mountains. Tumbleweeds grew everywhere, and there were occasionally some aspen trees that have started to show new light green growth. Bushes of wild spirea plants scattered the landscape as well as thickets.
“Well, are you ready to begin?” Marcus scanned Nicole from head to toe.
“Yes, I’m ready.” Nicole took the lead with Sierra in tow, and Marcus followed behind her, admiring her lovely curves even with a backpack on her that looked like it was too heavy for her. They walked the rough terrain in silence for a while, and then Nicole said, “I think I need to sit for a few minutes and rest.”
“Okay.” They found a long log that was broken off on the ground and rested on another stump. They sat down to rest for a few minutes.
“I’m surprised your wife would let you go camping like this and be gone from the home for the length of time you’ll be gone. Especially with three boys to deal with.”
“What makes you think I’m married?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Did you forget that you had your wife and three boys here last weekend?”
Now things began to click. “The woman that came here last weekend was not my wife. Two of the boys are her boys, Nathan is my only son.”
A look of shock crossed her face. “I’m still surprised that even your girlfriend would be comfortable with you going hiking with another single woman.”
“I don’t have another girlfriend. Shana is my sister.” Marcus smiled, now he knew why she turned cold. She thought he was married.
Nicole twisted off the cap of her water bottle and drank half the bottle while staring at Marcus. He saw a wave of different expressions cross her face, but couldn’t tell if she was glad, sad, indifferent, excited, or anything.
“So, all this time you thought I was married.” He cocked his head to look at her and hooded his eyes like those of a hawk.
“Well, yeah. I mean, she shows up in a car, you hug her and the boys, and…what other conclusions could I draw?”
“You could have just asked, not draw conclusions.”
“It really was none of my business,” she said defensively.
“That is true, but it would have kept you from drawing the wrong conclusion about me all this time.”
“I’m ready to get back to walking. Let’s go Sierra,” she said abruptly. She got up and started to walk away. He knew she didn’t want to talk about the subject anymore.
Probably going to be a long lonely twenty-five-mile walk. He kept his pace a few feet behind her. He noticed that she was very observant of her surroundings, and used her hiking stick to move things in front of her so she didn’t happen upon a snake or any kind of reptile. There were a lot of birds in the area, and it reminded him of a bird sanctuary. He had to admire her hiking skills. The soil they walked on was soft, and it made hiking more difficult, but she carried on with minimal difficulty and with determination.
After a two hour hike, they came to a wide clearing teeming with flowers in bloom.
“Let’s stop and eat lunch,” Marcus said as he came up behind Nicole.
“Okay. Such beautiful flowers.”
            “Yes, they are pretty. Do you know what they are?”
            “No. I’m not familiar with spring flowers. I only hike in the summer.”
            Marcus reached down and picked a flower and handed it to her. “These are called Sagebrush Buttercup.” He pointed at the other flower nearby and said, “Those are Yellowbells.”
            Nicole took the flower from him and sniffed it. “It has a sweet smell.”
            They sat down on a fallen log and searched through their backpacks for lunch. He looked around and could see the underbrush, ferns, moss, ivies and berry bushes.
            “How are you holding up? We’ve kept a pretty brisk pace, going about three miles an hour. Do you need to slow down?” Marcus asked.
            “I’m doing fine. Great, actually. If I were carrying a lighter load, and just on a weekend trip, I’d be walking a lot faster than I am now. Am I moving too fast for you?”
            Marcus smiled slightly. “No.”
            Nicole pulled out Sierra’s water dish and put the some water in it for her. She lapped it up, then Nicole gave her a couple of bone treats.
            “Look like we’ll have a little bit of clearing.”
            “Yes, we’ll come across a couple of clearings before we reach the cave. I’ve noticed a definite change in the temperature.”
            Marcus looked at his thermometer. “It’s currently forty-three degrees out.” It was starting to get warmer. “The temperature will peak at about two PM.”
            Marcus leaned back against a stump and snacked on an energy bar. “So what else does Nicole like to do besides read and hike?”
* * * *
            She did not want to talk about herself. She had a hard time with the realization that he was not married and very much single, and he had an adorable little boy. All through the walk thus far, since he told her he was single, she had a hard time staying on track and not letting her mind wander off. She had to stay focused, or they could get lost. It had been a while since she had walked this side of the mountains, and nothing was familiar to her. She had to constantly check her GPS coordinates and her compass to be sure she was leading him on the right path. She glanced at him and realized that he was waiting for her to answer. “Oh, I like to go to the different outfitters stores and shop around. Check out the latest equipment and stuff. I like to sit around a campfire up in the mountains when the moon is out. Sometimes I think I could just reach out and touch it.”
            She reached out and petted Sierra. She didn’t know what else to tell him, she lived a sheltered life and never really ventured out and experienced the world. She was nervous when she went to Butte or Helena because big cities scared her. She loved open spaces and minimal populations. She was afraid he’d think she was naïve or antisocial, or something.
            “What’s the one place in the world you’d like to visit?” He seemed really interested in learning more about her. But she was nervous about revealing too much about herself. “I think I’d like to scale the Rocky Mountains sometime.”
            “As much as you like to hike, that is one trip you would never regret. I can attest to the beauty of the Rockies, and I find great joy when I’m there.”
            “Do you like mountain climbing or hiking?” Nicole asked.
            “I like the hiking. I have not gotten into mountain climbing. That is more of a sport.”
            “Do you hike the trails or do you venture out on your own?”
            “I venture out on my own. There is so much backcountry beauty to see off the beaten path.”
            “I heard that the Rockies has some pretty spectacular waterfalls.”
            “They do. Maybe the next time I go on a hiking expedition, I’ll let you know, and you can join me.” He smiled at her and she felt like she’d just melt. Oh, she’d love to go on a hiking trip in the Rockies with him.
            “Do you take Nathan with you?”
            “I’ve taken him on short hiking trails, and I do stay on the trails that the National Park has created for hikers. He’s still a little young to travel the backcountry off the main path.”
            “I bet he loved it.”
            “Yes, he does. He gets really excited about going and hates it when we have to head home.”
            “Do you have joint custody or have him on weekends?”
            “I have full custody. His mother has gone off with her boyfriend to travel the world and left him with me.”
            “I don’t know how anyone could take off and leave a sweet little boy like him behind.”
            “Do you want to settle down and have a family?”
            She looked at him. With you, it would be heavens. She didn’t really know how to answer that question. At one time she had envisioned herself with a couple of kids and a loving husband, but as she got older, that vision became faint.
            “I used to think I’d like to settle down and raise a family. Now, not so much.”
            “Why?”
            “I’m getting older, and meeting someone is less lightly. Do you want to meet someone and settle down again?”
            Marcus ate the last of his energy bar and watched Nicole before answering her. “Sometimes I think I would. But, between my work and raising my son, I don’t have the time it takes to invest in a relationship that could lead to marriage and additional children.”
            Nicole didn’t know why she felt down by his statement. It kind of hurt. Why did it hurt? Did she really fancy herself falling in love with him, marrying him and helping him to raise his son and having children of their own? She found him so sexy. She loved the idea of waking up next to him every morning. Suddenly, she felt incredibly lonely. No one in her life, no prospects of having someone in her life. That part of her life just seemed to be passing her by.
            “Are you ready to start walking again?” Marcus seemed to be studying her face.
            “Yes, let’s go.”
            They put their things away in their backpacks and started their hike.
            Nicole thought about the Cheyenne tribe and tried to remember what she had learned about them in school without much success.
            “Can you tell me a little bit about your tribe?” She turned and looked back at him a second.
            “Cheyenne are a Native American tribe that lives in two places. Montana and Oklahoma. We use to live in Minnesota, but we migrated to the Great Plains. Settlers started to take over our land and even though we signed treaties, the settlers and the government repeatedly broke the treaties and forced us onto the reservations.”
            “Do you live on the reservation now?”
            “No. I live outside the reservation, but I’m still very active in the tribe.”
            They walked for a distance before Nicole asked. “What language did your people speak?”
            “We had our own language and spoke in part, the Algonquian language. The Sioux called us Cheyenne because it meant we spoke a different language.”
            Sierra brought a stick to Nicole that she found, and Nicole threw it in front of her so that Sierra could play her fetch game she always loved to play.
            “I seem to remember reading in my history book that your tribe fought in the battle at Little Big Horn.”
            “We did. We had a group called the Dog Soldiers, that fought with the Arapaho and Lakota against George Custer and the U.S. Army. We led the attack on Custer’s army and killed Custer and then joined the two other tribes and wiped out the U.S. 7th Calvary.”
            “Dog Soldiers, I’ve heard of them.”
            “The Dog Soldiers were a fighting group of men not to be reckoned with. They are revered by our people and our young men are still recruited into this clan.”
            “There are Dog Soldiers even today?”
            “Yes. We have served in both world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf war and the Iraq war.”
            “Are you a member of the Dog Soldiers?”
            “Yes, I am. My group, myself included, served in the Iraq war.”
            “How long did you serve?”
            “Almost four years. My platoon got ambush, and I sustained shrapnel injury to my shoulder and back.”
            Nicole wondered if Marcus was to marry a white woman, and they had children, would the children be able to participate in things such as becoming a Dog Soldier.
            “What would happen, Marcus, if you married a non-Native American.”
            “What do you mean?”
            “If you married a non-Native American woman, and had children, would the children still be considered a part of the tribe and be able to participate in all the activities and be a part of the group?”
            “Of course. We would never keep our children out of being a member of the tribe.”
            “Even though they would be considered only half Native American?”
            “Yes, even if they are half Native American.”
            “I find your history interesting. Your people seem more accepting of people in different races than white people do.”
            Marcus didn’t respond. One of the birds were tweeting quite loudly as if there was some sort of danger. “Nicole, stop for a few minutes,” he said, slightly above a whisper. \
            Nicole stopped and turned to face him. He was looking around. She immediately became alarmed, and Sierra started to yip. “What is it?”
            “I hear the birds squawking loudly which indicates that there is something around them. Even Sierra senses something. Let me walk ahead of you so I can see where the threat is.” He walked passed her and went forward about fifty feet then stopped. “Here it is,” he whispered to her.
            Nicole walked up to where he was standing, and off another seventy-five feet was a herd of elk grazing in the tall grass.
            “Wow, you could find something like that by listening to the birds?”
            “Yes. Always listen to the birds. There are tweets, and then there are warning tweets, indicating something is amiss. They use their tweets to warn other birds, but we can also learn and use their language to recognize danger.”
            “We will be going this way, so we’ll be moving away from them. Will that remove us from the danger? I’ve never been this close to elk before.” She didn’t want him to think she didn’t know anything about danger.
            “Yes, going a different direction will keep us out of danger. The usual thing to do is not to make sudden movements, or run away. Respect them and give them their space. Do not, and I emphasize this, do not come near a female and her calves. They will threaten and charge you. It’s not a good idea to have Sierra here. Hopefully, she will not charge them.”
            “Sierra won’t charge anything unless I give her a command. The most she would do is bark, growl or, as in this case, she also sensed something and yipped.”
            “That’s good. You don’t want her to chase after wild animals. It could get her killed. Let’s go.”
            “I bring her along, because, like you, she has the ability to hear and sense something is wrong or dangerous. Plus, she keeps me from getting scared out here at night. Sometimes the night can be — disconcerting.”
            They continued on their trek until it was 2:00 PM. Occasionally, they came upon patches of melting snow, ravines, a couple of creeks with wild mushrooms nearby. “Might as well stop and take a break. It’s getting warm out here,” Nicole said as she stopped next to a creek that had fast, running cold water.
            Marcus came and stood next to her. Her senses went on overdrive, having him near her. He unsnapped the front of his backpack and slid it off his back.
            They sat down on another tree log, and Nicole ate a snack bar and gave Sierra a bone to chew on. Marcus sat down next to her and stretched his legs out in front of him.
            “So, now it’s your turn. Apart from hiking the Rockies and your son, Nathan. What else do you like to do?”
            Marcus reached down and brushed the weeds and dust particles off his pants. “I’m very passionate about law. It’s my life’s work.”
            “Nathan said you like to put bad people in jail.”
            He smiled. “Most of my clients are people who have been caught in a criminal situation. Some people think I get criminals off easy, but it’s not that. I represent them so they get only what they deserve and nothing more.”
            “What if the person is accused of doing something that he or she did not do? Do you represent them too?”
            “Yes. I do represent them, that is if they can afford my fees.”
            “You charge a high rate?”
            “Most people think I do. But I am totally vested in their defense, and I spare no money or resources to prove they are innocent. All that costs money, and someone has to pay for it. I’m also one of three lawyers that represent the Cheyenne Nation.”
            Maybe he didn’t have much of a life outside of work and his son, just as she didn’t have much of a life outside her work at the motel and the restaurant. Maybe they have more in common than she initially thought. She would love to wrap up in his arms around the campfire at night and gaze up at the moon and stars. The more she got to know him, the more she really liked him and wanted to be with him. She would love just to walk side by side with him, holding his hand. Do I even stand a chance to win the heart of a lawyer, one who is worldly and sophisticated?
            “What are you thinking about?” he asked.
            Inside her own thoughts, she barely heard. She realized again, for the umpteenth time, that she was staring at him. She quickly turned her head and stared out in front of her, at the small pine trees that were blowing gently in the wind. “Nothing important. Just — enjoying the afternoon sun and the company.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. At first, she was nervous to be around him, but as she got to know him, she felt more and more at eased.
            He brought his left hand up and kneaded his shoulder on his right side, touching her in the process. He then leaned forward and scratched his lower leg. The movement and feeling of his arm against hers spread warmth and sizzling sensations throughout her body. God, just to be touched by him, just to feel the warmth of a hand or a stroke on her arm, or even his hand going through her hair. Just sensual touches, to make her feel like a woman and to come alive, to feel what so many women experienced when with a man, that she had never felt before. She hated that she was virgin, and didn’t know how to reach out to any man, much less the one that sat next to her. She couldn’t expect that an experienced man such as Marcus would be willing to teach her, or experiment with her, or even be willing to take her virginity. She didn’t think he’d be interested in any of that. He’d want a woman that knew how to handle herself and knew what she wanted, and knew the feelings and emotions of being with a man. Something she had none of except, she did know what she wanted. She just didn’t know how to articulate it.
            Here she was, thirty-four years old, inexperienced, a virgin, a plain looking woman, with no experience of worldly things. Just a local.
            A soft breeze whispered through her hair and lifted the ends up, and they landed on Marcus’s jacket sleeve. She lifted her chin up so she could breathe in the fresh, piney smell that had been carried through the air by the breeze.
            Before they got back to the hike, Nicole grabbed her portable pump-style water filter and filled it with the water from the creek. She pumped the water from the creek through the filter and it came out the other hose and into her bottle.

​Chapter 8
Marcus hated liars. Ever since Rayanne lied to him about her affair with another man, he’d been hell bent on going after people when he finds out they lied to him. He wouldn’t tolerate it with his clients, nor with his family and friends. So just exactly where does Nicole fit in all this? Probably a client since he’s paying for her services. Even someone who appeared to be innocent, as she did, lied. What a stupid excuse she gave too. Didn’t want him drilling her. Where the hell did that come? He hadn’t drilled her when he started to ask her questions. She didn’t know what the hell drilling someone meant. She had never seen him in action, and if she thought she was scared now, she best hope she doesn’t lie to him again because he would really put the screws on her and show her exactly what it was like to be drilled by a top-notched criminal lawyer. The other thing he hated was wasting time. He had been wasting his time all weekend long because of her lie. They could have been somewhere close to the cave by now if she had told him Friday what she told him today.
            Aw hell. He couldn’t stand to be in the motel room, and he couldn’t stand himself whenever he’s in this kind of mood. He got up and grabbed his keys and walked out the door. He pulled his SUV out of the parking lot and drove toward Mason. He stopped at the stop sign and instead of going forward to the town, he turned and went over the expressway. He came to another stop on the over side of the bridge and turned left. He drove slowly down the road.
It looked like a road they didn’t maintain very often, a side road for ranchers to go to the side of the mountains and bring their cattle back. Montana had an open ranged law still on the books, and cattle could go anywhere they want. That was the reason they have cattle guards when you turn on and off the highway, and all interstate roads. Alongside on his right was the river. He noticed the river was high and running fast. There were a lot of rapids. A lot of rocks too, large rocks.
He could see where the rail tracks had once been laid. The state pulled the tracks and dismantled the rail bridges, but up ahead and he saw the one tunnel that Nicole had told him about. He pulled his SUV along a strip of land and got out. He went out and sat on a large boulder by the river. The rapids in the river were loud but soothing to him.  
As he calmed himself down, he had to ask, did he overreact to her? What was the real reason she lied to him? He thought back over the events since he arrived here, and she seemed to have become withdrawn or uptight when his family arrived here. Was she put off by the kids? She was affectionate toward his son but didn’t seem to interact with the others as much. When he kissed her last night, she seemed to have enjoyed it and was responding to him, and then suddenly, she bolted.
He wasn’t really interested in her romantically. At least, that was what he kept telling himself. He did dream about her last night, and he saw her in the moonlight and thought she was beautiful. He really needed her to help him in his endeavor. He needed her expertise and her help in finding these arrows. Now that he was this close to getting them, he didn’t want to waste any more time. He was going to have to put off his clients another week. He could not afford to have an intimate relationship with her. Maybe he should take a more gentle approach with her and ask her to lead him to the arrows. Deep inside he knew that she did not make a habit of lying to anyone. She was too down to earth and honest about that. Plus, she actually did tell him, today. So, that raised her creditability a notch.
* * * *
            Nicole was nervous about her meeting with Marcus again at noon the next day. She had thought about it all and decided that she’d take him to the cave. The only stipulation was that he had to carry his own backpack, with his own camping gear. She wondered if he even knew how to camp. Over the years of hiking and camping, she had a wealth of knowledge of what to take and how to pack. If he didn’t know any of this, then she’d have to give him a crash course on it all. And he wanted to hike to the site, in the next day or so. Even she couldn’t be ready in that short of time. She had to make a trip to Butte to an outfitter’s store to get stuff, and get everything out to check it, and pack it. She was looking at three days for preparation, at the earliest.
            The moment of dread came, when she walked out to meet him at the picnic table. The air was a chilly forty-five degrees, and the sky was overcast. They were predicting snow. In April, often the snow came and the next day it melted, but in the mountains, it takes a lot longer.
            Marcus was already sitting down at the picnic table when she arrived.
            “Hello, Nicole,” he said crisply.
            “Hi.”
            “So, what is your decision.”
            Nothing like cutting to the chase. She sat down across from him and shoved her hands in her coat pocket. “I will take you to the cave where the arrows are at. However, you will have to prepare your own backpack, hiking gear and keep your hands and body to yourself. Do you know anything about camping and hiking in the mountains?”
            Marcus smile was smug. “Yes, I’ve a lot of experience with hiking and camping in the mountains. I’ve hiked all over the Rocky Mountains. I have all my camping gear and backpack in my vehicle. I’m just not familiar with these particular mountains.”
            “Oh,” Nicole said. “Um, we’ll need to go to the outfitter’s store to get stuff.”
            “I’m aware of that. We can go today if you want.”
            “It’s going to be a day or so before I can get all my camping equipment out and packed. It’s all been put away for the winter.”
            “Today is Wednesday. Can you be ready to leave in two days?”
            “Yes. We could leave early Friday morning. I figured we’d do twenty-five miles a day, give or take. So it would be at least three days to get there. Plus the same amount of days to get back.”
            “I’m well aware of that. I’ve had to reschedule my client’s meetings and extend my stay here.” Nicole looked at him. He’s blaming her for the delay, but it’s really his choice to stay and do this now when she had advised it would be better to do in the summer.
            “It is your choice to do this now, not mine. I recommended you wait until the summer.” She leveled her gaze at him. “You also should prepare yourself for the possibility that they may have been moved.”
            “I am prepared for that. Just don’t think you can screw me over, Nicole.” Marcus warned.
            “I’ve never intentionally or unintentionally screwed anyone over in my life.” That stung. How dare he threaten her. She had agreed to do this for him, she really didn’t want to.
            “Is payment of thirty thousand agreed upon, or have you raised your price?”
            “No. I haven’t raised the price.”
            “Let’s not waste any more time. Shall we head to the outfitter’s store?”
* * * *
            “Which outfitter are you going to?” Nicole asked as Marcus guided the SUV onto the highway heading to Butte.
            “Stockman’s Outfitters.”
            “I bet the Rocky Mountains are as beautiful as Elkhorn. Which part of the Rocky Mountains have you hiked?”
            “Mostly the northern Rockies in Montana. I’ve been at Yellowstone as well, but I haven’t been there as often as I’d like.”
            Nicole pulled out her check off list and went through it, checking those items she knew she had to get. By the time she had finished the two-page list, they had arrived at Stockman’s Outfitters.
            “Is that your list of what you need to get?” Marcus asked.
            “Yes.”
            “Okay. Let me pay for it when you’re ready to check out.”
            “You don’t have to do that.”
            “I know, but I will.”
            Stockman’s Outfitters reminded Nicole of Cabela’s in Billings. It was a huge store with everything you could think of for every kind of outdoor activity and then some. They had everything for hunting, shooting, fishing, boating, camping, auto and ATV, clothing, footwear, home and cabin, and hobby stuff. She could get lost in the store and spend hours just roaming around.
            They arrived at the outfitter’s store and entered. Nicole went straight to the dried/dehydrated food section and got breakfast and dinner, enough for eight days, to be on the safe side, and some snack bars. She looked at her list and headed to another part of the store to get other items.
            Marcus came up behind Nicole while she was looking at a couple of items she needed.
            “You do know how to dress for winter hiking don’t you?” he asked.
            “Yes.”
            “You have everything you need for it? Wool socks, insulated underwear, winter jacket?”
            “Yes, I have all those things and then some. Do you?”
            “Yes, I’m well equipped.”
            “Did you get some hydrated food?” She looked into his shopping basket.
            “Yes. Can I look at your list to be sure I haven’t forgotten something?” he asked.
            “Yeah, sure.” She handed him her list, and he scanned it. He handed it back to her. “Looks like I got everything I need.”
            “Good. I need to get some batteries and dog food, and then I think I’m all done.”
            “You’re taken your dog?”
            “Yes, she helps me to ward off danger. She rarely ventures away from me when we are hiking.”
            “Okay.”
            It’s just too bad he’s married. It would be most enjoyable to go on a winter hiking trip in the Rockies with him. Nicole let out a sigh. Wonder if his wife likes to go hiking and camping with him or if he’s ever taken his boys? She could picture Nathan having the time of his life hiking and camping.
            “Do you have a good tent to sleep in?” Marcus broke into her thoughts.
            “Yes. I have a very small tent that sleeps one and is easy to carry. Do you?”
            Marcus nodded as he surveyed the newest tents on the market.
            “Is there a hiking trail or river flowing through that we would be following?”
            “No hiking trail. Everything is strictly backcountry. There are rivers, and streams where we can get water. I carry a pump-style water filter. I get a little leery about the water because, in some sections, there are old gold and silver mines where the water had been contaminated.”
            After making the purchases, they headed back to Mason. Nicole grabbed her stuff from the back seat of his SUV.
            “I’m going to go to my room and start pulling my stuff out and getting packed.”
            Marcus nodded as he headed to his own room.
            Nicole dumped the meals and stuff she got from the outfitter’s store on her table. She was going to have to tell Debbie and Ronnie. She didn’t mind telling Debbie, but Ronnie would be a different matter.
            Debbie knocked at Nicole’s back door, and she went to answer it. “Hey, come on in,” Nicole said.
            “We’re going to go to the Mason Café for dinner and wanted to get you to go along with us.”
            “Oh, okay. I’ve something to discuss with you and Ronnie, and a public place would be best where he can’t make a big scene.”
            “So, you’re going to take Mr. Blackhawk into the mountains?”
            “Yes, I decided to take him up on the offer. After talking to you and thinking about it all night, I decided I really could use the money and like you said, go to school and get a degree.”
            “Good. I think it’s a good idea. I know what you mean about Ronnie. He’s probably not going to be too happy about it.”
            Ronnie tooted the horn to his truck. Debbie and Nicole walked out of her room. Debbie climbed in next to Ronnie, and Nicole climbed in next to Debbie.
            They sat down in the middle of the restaurant at a table and ordered their drinks. Lori and Doug were sitting at a booth nearby. Sandy was working the tables that evening. She walked up to Lori and Doug and served them their food.
            “Hey, Sandy, do you happen to have a pick fork I could use?” Doug asked.
            “Yeah, I think I do. It’s flat on one end and a point on the other end, right?”
            “Yes. I have one but the handle came off it.”
            “Okay, sure, I’ll pull it out and bring it to you tomorrow morning, is that okay?”
            “That’s fine.”
            Sandy disappeared into the kitchen area to pick up another order and delivered it out to another couple sitting at the back of the restaurant. She came by Lori and Doug and asked, “What did you want a pick fork for?”
            “Got some people I don’t like.” Doug quipped.
            “Oh my God, Doug,” Lori said, laughing.
            Sandy laughed as she walked over to get the coffee pot. Nicole, Ronnie, and Debbie joined in the laughter.
            Lori and Doug were new to the town, having moved here a few months ago. They were a nice, funny couple and Doug had become known for his dry wit.
            “I’m going sapphire digging and needed to dig the top layer off before I can get down to bedrock.”
            Nicole had done some sapphire hunting, as well as gold panning. She knew what to look for, her dad owned the Winchester gold mine before he closed it up. She wished that he didn’t have to shut down the mine, she always loved going through it. She looked over at Ronnie. “I have something to tell you, Ronnie.”
            “What’s that?” He cocked his head her way.
            “I’m going to be gone for about six days starting Friday. I’m taking Mr. Blackhawk into Elkhorn mountains to the site where I found those arrows a few years ago.”
            “You’re what?” He arched an eyebrow, his voice elevated.
            “I’m taking Mr. Blackhawk to a cave in Elkhorn mountains to get those arrows I told you about a few years ago. He’s paying me thirty thousand to do this.”
            Ronnie sat there staring at Nicole. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Nicole. For one thing, the weather, and for another thing, how do you know he won’t take you up there to take advantage of you and leave you high and dry?”
            “You also know that I can take care of myself up there, plus I’ll have my GPS and my cellphone. I will keep in touch at least once a day with you or Debbie, and tell you the coordinates where I’m at. You also got a tracking device on your phone that is linked to mine, so you know where I am at all times when I go hiking. I’m well aware of the weather conditions there and what we could walk into. But, Mr. Blackhawk wants his arrows, and he’s offered to pay me a lot of money to get him to those arrows and back.”
            “What the hell is it about those arrows he’d pay that kind of money for and risk his neck and yours to get?”
            “They are called Sacred Arrows and are apparently valued very highly and considered holy. I read up on it through the internet and you know, women are not even supposed to look upon them. I hope I didn’t devalue the arrows by my looking on them and taking pictures of them when I saw them.”
            “Wouldn’t Mr. Blackhawk had said something to you about that if you did?” Debbie asked.
            Nicole shrugged. “I don’t know if he would’ve or not. It doesn’t pertain to white people, just Native Americans.”
“I guess I can’t tell you what to do, Nicole, but I do want to warn you to be careful. Not just the weather, but with him too. You aren’t going into the cave, are you?” Ronnie’s face showed a frown.
“Yes, probably. To show him where they are.”
“You need to one, call me and let me know when you are entering the cave because cellphones and GPS won’t work in the caves, as you already know. Two, leave a notepad outside the cave so we know where you are should we have to get in to rescue you. We’ll set a length of time, and if I don’t hear back from you within that period of time, I will start a search and rescue operation. You need to do pretty much what we’ve always done in the past when you’ve gone hiking, but going into a cave, well, that’s something else. Anything can happen in those caves.”
After Sandy had served them their food, the door opened, and Marcus walked in. He looked around and saw a booth available and went and sat down.
All Nicole could do was stare at him. How am I going to get through six days with him?