Must Love Otters (22 page)

We take turns washing one another’s hair, which is just as hot and sexy and romantic as it is in the movies. I knew it could be. I
knew
it. I feel like I’m going to burst out of this fancy shower and hear someone yell, “Cut!”

Yeah. It’s that hot.

When all the parts have been titillated and scrubbed, Ryan opts to stay in long enough to shave. I dry off and dress in my less-than-clean clothes and find a comb to detangle my hair, quickly plaiting the damp strands so they will dry wavy. “Ryan, can I find some juice in the fridge? I’m parched from all that exercise,” I say into the shower. His face is coated in white foam.

“Help yourself. There might be beer in there too if you want.”

Beer. That sounds mighty nice.

I skip-hop into the kitchen, my ankle mad at me for being so rough with it these last few hours. I can walk on the toes but that heel has no interest in being on the floor unless it is swaddled in tape and my makeshift cast.

Fickle foot.

I indeed find beer, some fine quality microbrews in sweating bottles in the back of the side-by-side stainless fridge. While leaning against the counter, I notice a stack of photos and pick up the top one.

That has to be Tanner. The carbon copy of Ryan, save a few gray hairs instead of Ryan’s dark, thick locks. He’s not as big, easy to see where he stands next to little brother in the subsequent photos. That must be Tanner’s wife. She’s lovely. Blond, not drop-dead gorgeous but certainly someone you’d look at a second time if she walked by. Her Revelation Cove tank top shows she takes care of her body. I’d kill for arms like that.

The next photo in the stack squeezes the beer in my throat. Pushes it against the roof of my mouth, the carbonation stinging my nose.

It’s Ryan. With a woman.

A beautiful woman. In the first photo, she’s standing next to him, her arms wrapped around his waist, her floral-print dress rippling in a breeze, her sun-kissed hair evidence of a nice day.

Don’t panic, Hol. Maybe it’s his sister, the one visiting from Lansing.

The next photo undoes that theory. She’s in Ryan’s arms, the same way he’s carried me on numerous occasions over the very recent past.

I should stop looking through these.

This is not right.

The beer is souring in my stomach.

Especially with the very next shot where her arms are wrapped around Ryan’s neck, his hand at her back, their lips … touching.

They’re kissing.

This is his girlfriend. Fuck, for all I know, it’s his wife. She’s out of town, maybe with Tanner and
his
wife, and they’re all coming back today and that’s why we have to go back.

I feel like I’m going to throw up. My heart is pounding in my chest, and the room is off-kilter.

I flip the photograph over to see if there’s a print date on it. No, no,
no
.

These were taken a month ago.

You’ve got to be kidding me. I knew this was too fucking good to be real.

When I hear the shower turn off, I know it’s now or never. I have to make a choice.

I limp over to the boots, pull on one of the wool socks stuffed in the innards, and force my feet inside. I have to get out of here.

When Ryan asks if I found the beer, his dripping, towel-wrapped, rippled body is met with the slamming of the door as I hobble across the yard and into the woods behind the house.

“Hollie! Hollie! Where the hell are you?”

I hear him, but I don’t turn back. I don’t call out to him, even though I’ve tripped and may have just gone all the way with the ankle because it is screaming profanities at my brain and the boot is tightening to the point that it might have to be cut from my body. Oh, and I did in fact throw up the beer.

First sign of a broken bone.

“Goddammit, Hollie, you’re not safe out here. Please … come back. It’s not what you think.”

“If it’s not what I think, then what the hell is it, Ryan?”

“Say something else—I’ll follow your voice. Are you okay?”

“Don’t come any closer. I want to go back. I want to go home,” I say, no longer able to keep the tears from cascading down my face and strangling my voice.

“Hollie, please … let’s go back into the cabin and we can talk about this. I swear to you …”

I hear something in the woods to my left. Frozen, I listen, waiting for the forest sounds to give me some clue as to what’s waiting, watching. When a crow launches itself off the branch and hops onto the ground across from me, I almost wet my pants.

Even though we’re in broad daylight, these are unfamiliar woods. I have to admit that I’m a little scared.

I pull myself up using the help of a downed tree, yelping when the ankle gives way underneath my weight.

“Are you hurt? Where the hell
are
you?” Ryan yells. His voice is off to my right, but I can’t yet see him. When the trees aren’t close enough for me to use as support between hops, I crawl across the ground, dirtying my formerly pristine, shower-scrubbed hands, the undergrowth thick with discarded pine needles and dropped foliage from the massive Douglas firs. I don’t necessarily have to worry about snakes in this part of the world—at least I hope I don’t—but the bugs are plentiful. Chunky black beetles scurry about like crazed patrons of a burning pancake house when I dislodge their barky hideout.

“Hollie, please!” Ryan shouts again. He’s getting closer. Another branch snaps and I am motionless, listening for what might be tracking me. When Ryan emerges from behind a heavily draped tree, I’m glad it’s him and not a bear, and then pissed off that it’s him and not a bear.

“Leave me alone.”

“I’m not going to leave you alone. I need you to let me help you. I don’t have any bear spray or anything on me, and these woods are very much not empty of wildlife at this time of year.”

“You lied to me.”

“I did not lie to you.”

“Are you—are you married?” My yell dissolves into a choked whisper.

“No, Hollie, I swear to you. I am not married.” He holds up his left hand to show me a bare wedding finger. Which means nothing. He could’ve taken his ring off. Roger Dodger did that. I had zero idea his swimsuit-model wife would be waltzing in on her yacht.

“Proves nothing.”

“My word should be proof enough,” he says. “Please, it’s important for us to go back to the house at least. Let’s talk. I can explain.”

“Who is she, Ryan? Those photos were from a month ago. A month!” I launch a handful of dirt at him.

“If you don’t give me your hand, I’m going to hoist you over my shoulder again.”

“Don’t. Please.”

“Why not?” He kneels in front of me. “Did you … did you throw up?”

“I think I broke it for real this time.”

“Ah, shit, Hollie. Okay, up you go.”

“Ryan …” I’m not even trying to hide the ugly crying at this point. “Who is she?”

He picks me up under my armpits and sets me down on a mossy log.

“Her name is Alyssa. We were together … for a while.”

“How long is a while?”

“Hollie, please—isn’t it enough for me to guarantee to you that it’s over?” His face darkens. “I … we were engaged. But we couldn’t decide on a wedding date that would make everyone happy, so it kept getting pushed back. We’d break up, get back together, then break up again. When I got hurt and left the league, I decided to come up to Revelation Cove. She wasn’t happy.”

“She didn’t like it?”

“Remember the other day when you made a joke about the coach’s daughter?”

“Oh.”

“Daddy made sure she never wanted for anything, so the idea of moving to a remote island with no shopping malls or fancy parties was not her idea of bliss. I couldn’t give her the hockey-wife lifestyle that she wanted.”

“Because you’re not a hockey player anymore.”

“Exactly. When my career ended, my identity had to change. She couldn’t deal with that,” Ryan says.

“But those photos … they were taken recently.”

“They weren’t, though. That’s just when they were printed. Those were taken four or five years ago.”

“But why are they there? Why are they on the counter, now, four or five years later? Were you walking down Memory Lane or something? Sad about your lost love?” I sniff. I need a Kleenex.

Ryan sighs heavily. “Why does this even matter?”

“Because I need to know you’re not lying to me. My track record on this trip so far—not so great.”

“Alyssa got in touch with us a few months back—she had a flood in her storage unit and her scrapbooks all got trashed. She loves scrapbooking, so she wanted us to send whatever photos we have so she can rebuild the books.”

“Sounds like someone’s not over you.”

He slides his hand up to my elbow. “Hollie, I didn’t talk to her. She talked to Tanner and Sarah and my mom. If she wants to spend her time gluing pictures of her old life …”

“But you look the same,” I say.

“Good genes?” he smiles. “If you look closer, you’ll see I don’t look the same. I’m a little heavier now, thanks to my magical knee.”

Now I feel stupid.

“Hey, if you want, we can go back to the cabin, call Alyssa, and you can talk to her new husband. If he’s not at the rink. His team is still in the playoffs.”

“He’s a hockey player …”

“If he’s not available, you can probably talk to her nanny. I’m sure Alyssa’s not the one walking the baby around at night.”

“You’re telling me the truth?” I say, searching his face for evidence of falsehood.

“I have no reason to lie to you.” The moisture in his eyes tells me he’s either a skilled actor or that I’ve just forced him to rehash some really gross shit.

Once again, Hollie Porter rises to the occasion.

Another branch snaps. Ryan’s eyes widen to the point where I fear they will pop out of his head.

“Fuuuuuck,” he whispers. “Hollie. Don’t. Move.” He stands, making himself as big and menacing as he can.

To no avail.

The golden cat springs out of the bush and throws himself at Ryan before I even know what the fuck has happened.

“Hollie, RUN!” he screams at me, fighting and wrestling this huge, powerful cat that is screeching and growling and snapping at his forearm. I scramble over the log and hit the ground running, slamming into trees as I go from the excruciating pain exploding up the side of my ankle. I hear Ryan scream my name again, and it’s in that moment that I realize …

I have to go back.

If I don’t, he’s going to die. That cougar is going to kill him.

I pivot and haul myself as fast as I can back into the small clearing, and before rational thought crosses my mind, I swing the biggest stick I can carry at the tawny cat’s back. It releases Ryan’s arm from its mouth, hisses and screeches at me, swiping a massive paw at my stick.

My chest seizes—those fangs … just like with the orca, there is something about seeing this cat. Her teeth. Her outstretched claws. In real life.

I don’t have a moment to taste the fear, thick like blood against the roof of my mouth. I swing and hit and scream and stab and do everything I can to get this beautiful, deadly beast off Ryan’s body.

“Hol …” His voice is strained but he throws something at me. It bounces across the cushioned forest floor. A pocketknife!

I scramble for it just as the cat returns her attention to Ryan’s arm, biting, scratching, tearing. The fabric of his T-shirt is no protection—thank God he’s wearing jeans—but if I don’t stab this cat, she’s going to clamp onto Ryan’s neck and drag him off into these woods.

I unfold the blade and lunge, making contact with the cougar’s shoulder. She snarls and slaps at me, claws snagging the flesh on and just above my wrist, but I stab again. She spins off Ryan’s torso, back onto the dirt. I thrust again, missing the cat’s now bleeding shoulder, but she seems to relent, turning and bolting off into the woods, leaving nothing behind but clumps of fur and a final glance of her long, golden-tipped tail.

Holy hell, that is a lot of blood.

The lightheaded, woozy, gonna-pass-out feeling shimmers over me like a gauzy curtain falling from its rod. A train speeding at the station with no brakes, my pulse plunders my chest, vessels, into my temple. In slow motion, I hear nothing but my own staccato breathing. See nothing but more blood than should ever be outside a living human being.

Someone’s groaning. “Hollie …” I stare at him, at the blood, at the flesh that is no longer solid and perfect but mangled and striped.

“Hollie … we gotta … we gotta get out of here.” He’s trying to sit up.

And just like that, in the presence of so much carnage, my senses snap back, a huge rubber band popped against my forehead.

“Ryan, Ryan, oh
God
…” Touching him means I pull away drenched in him. Red, sticky, hot.

The side of my left arm is deeply scratched, mixing my blood into his.

His face is coated in crimson. I can’t tell where the wounds are for all the blood. One look at his shredded arm, the bone exposed in the upper portion, the bicep filleted like nothing more than a slab of steak, and I realize we are in very deep trouble.

“Come on. You gotta stand. We can’t stay here. She’ll come back for you …”

Ryan’s eyes are wide. Scared. He needs my help.

I’ve trained for this. I’ve lived around this.

I know this.

Using the pocketknife, I shred the lengths of his jeans and tear the denim into strips. I need to push that flayed skin back together, to close it over the bone until we can get help.

“It’s so shredded …” A moment’s panic flashes behind my eyes.

No time. Go. Move. Act.

I fold the bigger flaps along the front of his left upper arm and wrap the denim under and around, using a smaller strip to tie it in place. Ryan shrieks against the tightening fabric.

“Stay with me, Ryan. Ryan, look at me. Can you breathe?”

I hover over his mouth to listen for airway. He sounds clear but coughs, spitting the blood spilling into his mouth from a slice in his lip. He’s breathing. His airway is intact.

“I’m going to sit you up. Can you walk?”

“Yeah … I think so.”

“I need you to put all your weight on me. As much as you can. Throw your right arm over my shoulders …” I push him into a sitting position—he yowls louder than the cougar—but he’s able to get himself to his knees. My ankle is going to make this a thousand times harder than it should be, but I have to bite down and get through this.

I have to get him help.

If I don’t, he’s going to bleed to death.

“I don’t know … why she was out here …,” Ryan says.

“Come on, my sweet, sweet boy, hang on to me. Let’s do this. One step at a time. She’s gone. We’re going to get you on that boat and back to the lodge and Miss Betty will fix everything.”

Ryan chuckles, but it is not happy. Not funny. It sounds sad.

God, he’s so heavy. This is going to take too long. He’s going to die out here. And it’s all my fucking fault.

Now is not the time. Save him. You can do this.

Ryan seems to perk up slightly as we reach the edge of the forest. We stop only for a second when I have to turn to the side and throw up again. That’s what happens to me when I’m in severe pain. The time I broke my finger in gym class playing volleyball? I barfed on the gym teacher four times before my dad arrived.

Five more steps, and the cabin is ahead. So close. We’re going to be okay.

We can do this.

I ease Ryan onto a huge rock just near the edge of the cabin’s yard. He’s started trembling and his eyes are like marbles in his head. He’s blinking slowly, too slowly. I cup my hands on his cheeks.

“Ryan, honey, look at me. Look at me.” He does, the shuddering of his body and fear in his face giving me a proper glimpse of what he looked like as a child. “Where are the keys to the boat?”

“Inside … on the counter. With my phone.”

“Don’t move.”

I throw myself into motion, three hops to every toe touch that surges bile into my throat. The keys are on the counter, just as he said, next to the photos.

The photos that started this whole fucking thing.

No time for this. Grab the phone. Grab the keys.

I slam the front door behind me. Ryan has fallen over and is now sideways on the ground, on his uninjured right side.

“Ryan! Don’t you leave me! Don’t you fucking die out here!” I say, pulling his head into my lap. I have to get him off the ground.

He opens his eyes. A slow smile crawls across his pallid face. “I was sleepy.”

“No! No sleeping. Come on, we gotta get on the boat.”

“I’m in good hands, aren’t I, Hollie Porter …” He tries to lift his ribboned arm but it is not responding. Pain. Only the pain registers across his forehead.

“You’re in the best hands. I’m going to get you home and we’re going to get you fixed up, and then you’re going to do all those naughty things to me that you did in that shower in there. Okay? Does that sound like a good plan?”

He smiles again, his eyes closing.

“No! Wake up. Come on. Up we go,” I say, pushing and groaning with every last ounce of energy I can find hiding in the recesses of my body. I manage to get him back on his feet but the blood streams off his left arm in rivulets, splatting on the rocky path that leads to the dock like some morbid
Hansel and Gretel
breadcrumb trail.

A horrifying thought settles on me when his shoe catches on the first board of the wooden dock: if he falls in that water, we’re fucked.

“Ryan, lean on me. You cannot fall asleep yet. I need you to get on the boat, okay? We’re almost there. Let’s get on the boat. We can do this.”