LOST WITH YOU - Lisa Ann Verge Page 0,48
He heard breathy gasps and the pounding of her feet.
She’s running. He swallowed a shout of relief. She’s not injured.
His knees threatened to buckle again, but he shored them up, getting a grip on himself. He should never have asked her to ride these rapids. He’d been caught up in the thrill of her trust in him. He’d wanted to nurture it, draw her closer, but not like this. Just before the river had sucked him under, he’d caught a glimpse of her tumbling over the side of the canoe. His heart had all but stopped. He’d rolled around in the water, buffeted by the current, struggling to lift his head, to swim toward her as they both were drawn downstream, but there was no swimming in that current. Then he’d been thrown against something so hard that it ripped the life vest off his body. Stars had exploded behind his eyes. He’d lost sight of her in the struggle not to pass out.
Now she broke through the trees, swiping wet hair out of her face. Angry pink scratches crisscrossed her arms. A welt rose on her cheek. Bloody streaks painted her shins.
“Casey.” He extended one arm, beckoning.
She hurled himself at him. He braced himself for the impact, grimacing as she slammed against his chest. He threw his arm around her to band her close, protecting his injured side. She smelled of river and tree bark. She trembled against him, burrowing deep.
Oh, God, Casey.
He was a damned fool, all over again.
He said, “Are you injured?”
“I’m one big bruise.” She shifted closer against him, swell against hollow, skin against skin. “Everything aches.”
He spoke against her hair. “But you’re all right.”
“No.” She made a glottal sound. “No broken bones, but I’m definitely not all right, Dylan MacCabe.”
He held her tighter, despite a new stab in his side. The sight of her running across the space toward him was burned into his mind. He would choke down a hundred grunts of pain to have her throw herself at him like that again. Maybe she was hanging on to him out of panic. He didn’t care. He wanted to wrap her up and keep her safe like this forever.
“Don’t do that again.” Her voice was muffled against his chest. “Not ever.”
“Do…what?”
“Disappear,” she said. “When I needed you most.”
He ran his hand up her back and gripped the slender nape of her neck. It flexed against his palm as she swallowed hard.
“You’re here, with me,” he said, forcing the pain out of his voice. “We’re safe now.”
“There is no ‘safe.’” Between them, her hands curled into hard, tight fists. “Safe is an illusion, Dylan. It always will be.”
Words banked in the back of his throat. His vision went blurry. She was thinking about the life she’d lost. The one that had propelled her away from her old home. Was that it, then? Only an hour or so ago, she’d given him a glimmer of hope when she’d said, in her sideways kind of way, that she was willing to give this relationship a go. Was that hope crushed now, so quickly? When they returned to his cabin, would she make a beeline to her van and haul out, leaving nothing but dust in her wake?
He held Casey in silence, his mind racing. Now was not the time to ask these questions. She was in shock, shaking in his arms. He was in shock, too, and not just from the accident he’d been in in his teens when he’d met his ex on a trip similar to this. Youthful crushes could be powerful…he’d been in over his head, just like now. But now he knew that what he’d shared with his ex-wife had never been equal. It had never been shared. This was real love flooding through him as Casey moved within his embrace. This feeling had so many contradictions. Tenderness and determination. Yearning and deep satisfaction. A sharpness of conviction and an unquestioned trust. He didn’t give a damn if Anne would tease him until the end of days. He was bringing home from this expedition the woman with whom he intended to spend the rest of his life.
If Casey would have him.
He closed his eyes, pushing away the urge to divulge all of this, to try to convince her that she could build a new home with him. No trite, reassuring words would convince this woman, after all she’d suffered, that it was safe to surrender her heart again.
She would have to come to