“I’ll see you, girls, later. You know that I’m out of sorts unless I get in my daily two and a half K’s.”
“Are you sure you can find your way back to the campsite, Louise?”
“Sure Mallory, the GPS will bring me right back to this spot. It’s never failed me yet.”
“You make us all look like lazy hens, Lou. Nonetheless, we’ll save some breakfast for you.”
“Knowing how you girls like to talk, and how fast I am, I’ll be back before you even start cleaning up.”
“If you say so, Lou. Stick to the trail. It wouldn’t kill you to relax. That’s the point of this girl’s adventure in the first place.”
“Then you shouldn’t have broken your ankle.”
“Fuck you!”
“Fine! I’ll make your crutches but then I want you out of here.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Since you are unwilling to give an inch, you can go back out into the woods from whence you came. Hobble out to your old life on your own.”
“But I’ll die!”
“So?”
Louise rolled her eyes and then focused on Chris once more.
“All right, you big ox, but you keep your clothes on.”
“Deal!”
For the next several hours, Chris carved two crutches out of tree branches and spare wood from around his cabin. Louise tried them out and was soon moving about the cabin and using the toilet unassisted. She had to conclude that Chris was quite gifted in practical skills. The work also reminded her of something that male presence again. The presence was warm and masculine in a way she would not recall a father or a sibling. It must be her boyfriend. Louise felt sure that she had a boyfriend, but she could recall nothing about him. It was all so frustrating. Was he even now out with search parties, scouring the forest to locate her? Was his heart breaking? And if his was, why wasn’t hers?”
For the first time since her fall, Louise made her way outside. Chris showed her the spot where he found her.
“The trees broke your fall, but what saved you was this bit of marshy ground. It’s fed from the same spring where I get my water. Someone must have been looking out for you. Anywhere else and you would have been a corpse.”
“I came from up there?” asked Louise as she pointed to the mountainside,
“Unless your name is Icarus, yes. You can see why I call you Angel.”
“I was dressed for running. Do people run up there?”
“On the mountainside? Not unless they want to fall or are suicidal, and you don’t strike me as someone with a death wish, nor do I think you are stupid.”
“Then what was I doing up there?”
“Hell, if I know.”
“I’m not stupid, I went to college.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know!”
“Let’s get back in the cabin. It will be dark soon. The bugs will eat us alive, and dinner is already late.”
Chris made roast venison and a salad derived from plants growing in proximity to the cabin. Louise found both wonderful. Whatever else his faults, Chris was no slouch as a cook.
“I like to live off the grid. Urban life just brought me down. I acquired a small inheritance that allowed me to buy this cabin and retire, so long as I lived frugally. Every great once and a while I go to town for the few supplies I need and to get better booze than I can make myself. I also chase the filles, with some success, I might ad.”
“Do you ever bring them back here?”
“You’re the first female guest I’ve had since I moved in.”
‘You must get lonely out here all alone.”
“Oh, it’s not too bad. I DO miss getting laid regularly.”
“Can we please change the subject, Chris?”
“Too close to home, eh? I’ll bet you never hurt for male company, Angel.”
“That’s none of your business!”
“How would you know? All I know is that a girl like you is bound to draw male attention wherever she goes. I mean, just look at you! I’ll have you know that it was a mighty hard struggle for me to remain a detached professional once I got your clothes off and started treating you.”
“For which I am eternally grateful, Chris.”
“How grateful?”
“Not grateful in the way you hope me to be. You’re a whiz at everything, why don’t you whip up some saltpeter and take a massive dose!”
Chris guffawed.
“I’ll wait you out. You are bound to get mighty horny sooner or later.”
“You are so full of yourself, aren’t you?”
“No, Angel I’m a realist. I’ve met lots of citified, college girls like you. Most of them have handsome, personable boyfriends who have white-collar jobs or respectable jobs. They keep their women warm at night and buy them tokens of appreciation but there isn’t a real man among them. When I hit town, when they encounter a real man, they forget all about their boyfriends and husbands. They let me take them home and turn them into melted butter between their sheets as they take the Lord’s name in vain. In the morning, over breakfast, they are their old selves, tentative, torn between unsatisfying domestic life with all its comforts and the desire to turn loose, to let their hair down and take a man as a man takes them. They see me as their escape from the here and now. They see me as chances past. They want to run to me and beg me to take them away and love them always. And then, they remember the office, the bills that are due, that safe and secure husband or boyfriend, and they turn turtle. Withdrawing into the familiar and the known. Their book clubs, their crappy careers, the disappointing cocks of every other man in their lives. They hug me, hold me ever so tight, kiss me deeply, and send me off with a frown. I can feel them staring at my back as I walk away. They want to run. They want to catch me and beg me to take them with me to take them away from themselves, but they just can’t get their feet to respond to their desires.
Years from now, when they are bouncing some other man’s baby on their knee, when the nights are cold and their man just isn’t warm enough, when the day has gone horribly wrong from morning alarm to midnight, they will recall the time they spent with me and smile. Beneath the smiles, they have only one thought, “If only.”
Louise looked at Chris open-mouthed. She wanted to tell him that he was full of shit. That he was so full of himself that it was a wonder that he could walk and chew gum at the same time. She wanted to call him an arrogant, sexist jerk. She wanted to call him a lot of things, but she saw the sincerity and simple honesty in his deep brown eyes, and she realized he had spoken an abiding and unassailable truth. A shiver went through her even though the cabin was rather warm.
Chris noted that he had snuck past Louise’s defenses. “It’s time for bed, Angel. We rise and set by the sun in my world.”
He had a spare toothbrush. He had a hairbrush and combs. Louise used them all before she exited the bathroom. Why had she agreed to let him share the bed? Even fully clothed he posed a danger. Louise recalled, faintly, a warning some woman (her mother?) had given her about playing with matches. Unconsciously, her fingertips became white-hot.
She kept all her clothes on. Chris proceeded to strip down to his boxers. With him exposed like this, he was even more impressive. A dark-haired mountain man come to life as if he stepped right out of a trashy romance novel!
“That wasn’t our deal!” protested Louise.
“Sure, it was, anymore whining and I lose the underwear too.”
“When a woman says no, she means no, Chris!”
“I won’t lay a hand on you. Now go to sleep and no hogging the covers.”
Louise sighed and turned her back to Chris, what choice did she have?
Chris lied about his not being a snorer. His noises woke her up. Moonlight filtered into the cabin through the window above the bed. Louise poked Chris in the ribs with her elbow and he rolled over on his back. His snoring stopped, at least for the moment. As he lay chest towards the ceiling, Louise noted a considerable bulge rising from the middle of the bed. She peeked her head under the covers. Chris’s enormous penis had escaped the confines of his boxers and was at full mast. Louise knew that she had never seen anything approaching its dimensions in her past. “Oh my God!” she cried softly before turning and facing the wall once more. Ardently she prayed that her memory would return in the morning.
Chris allowed her to sleep in before bringing Louise breakfast in bed. He was a perfect gentleman allowing her to go about her business. Frustratingly, he decided to don only a wifebeater in addition to new boxers.
“Could you put something on, please?” asked Louise around two in the afternoon.
“I’m wearing the same amount of clothing as you are, Angel.”
“I didn’t have any choice in the matter. Now for God’s sake, put or some pants at least.”
“I’m rather comfy this way.”
“You aren’t turning me on, Chris, you are annoying me.”
“OK, I’ll put something on if you take something off.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Pervert!”
“Is that a yes or a, no?”
“Chris!”
“All right.”
He was soon sporting jeans and a denim shirt.
“Is this better?”
“Much!”
Louise tried concentrating on a movie, yet she found herself making sidelong glances at Chris’s really great butt which was greatly accentuated by his tight jeans.
“Oh, murder!” said Louise softly out of Chris’s earshot, “I don’t know how much I can take.”
Chris waiting on her hand and foot when he was inside the cabin, put Louise in a genial mood. She knew that she should be working or getting things herself to maintain as much independence as she could but what woman doesn’t adore being waited or by a handsome man so in tune with your desires that he anticipates your wishes?
After another stupendous dinner, Chris sat down on the couch next to Louise. He had two glasses of wine with him.
“A little alcohol is good for you medically.”
“Is this a ploy to get me drunk?”
“Oh, Angel, I’m cut to the quick! It’s just one glass of wine. We won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”
Louise nodded.
“How’s the memory today, Angel?”
“No better. I think that I don’t live anywhere near here.”
“How do you know?”
“I think I was or some sort of vacation or trip.”
“With a man?”
“No. Women. Maybe they were women runners in town for a race. Are you sure there wasn’t a road race somewhere nearby?”
“There might well have been. I keep my nose pretty close to the ground around here. I am, by design, off the tourist areas. Before I settled down on this spot I was all over those mountains. A sane person simply does not go jogging or those trails, they have a habit of dropping off without warning, especially after the rains we had lake last week. No way in hell would there be an organized race on those trails.”
“Yet I was dressed for jogging.”
“You don’t strike me as an insane person, Angel. Why would you jog in such a dangerous area?”
“Maybe I was unaware of the danger. Or I wasn’t jogging and just out for a hike and I was chased by something, a bear?”
“Maybe, but those mostly steer clear of people.”
“Then what? I wish I could remember.”
“It will come back to you, eventually.”
“I worked in an office or something like it.”
“Doing what?”
“It’s all pretty fuzzy. There were a lot of bright colors, it’s weird. I’m tired of thinking about it. How about you pick the movie, Chris?”
The woodsman surprised Louise by selecting a film that Louise felt certain must be one of her favorites. It had moments of romance and tension and humor. Louise laughed along with Chris at the jokes, found herself clinging tight to him during the tense scenes, and settling her head or Chris’s shoulder during the romantic scenes. Chris poured a second glass of wine, Then, a third. Louise had the sweetest buzz by the time the movie concluded. She kissed Chris on her own initiative, immediately questioned it, and recoiled. Chris drew her close. Louise found her defenses weakening. He had saved her life after all. He had treated her injuries and been a darling she reasoned. The quieter voices pointing out that he was essentially keeping her prisoner and often refused to listen to her were subsumed by Louise’s incredible buzz and the undeniable fact that she was tremendously turned on.
“What’s the big deal?” Louise asked herself, “it’s like I’m a virgin or anything.”
She found herself exchanging deep passionate kisses with the bearded giant. His arms felt so good and so powerful around her middle. She slid onto his lap. She could feel his incredibly thick and girthy wood pressing against her bum. She recalled the vision of it the night before. She wondered now what it tasted like, what it would feel like in her hands, how deep it could push inside her. He stole a kiss. She kissed him back. He really was handsome, and so good with his hands in so many ways.
She felt his hands upon her breasts. He squeezed them and tweaked her nipples with assurance and intensity. There was nothing tentative about Chris! She slipped her hands inside his shirt, savoring the feel of his pectorals and tight abdominals. She started toying with the buttons.
Her shirt was off now, Chris savored the sight of her full, firm round breasts, with their light brown areolas and chance pint nipples. He began teasing them with his lips and teeth. Louise exhaled sharply. She tugged Chris’s shirt open, and Chris shrugged it the rest of the way off. She embraced him as her breasts went flat against his face and chest. She ran her fingers through his wavy hair. His hands strayed into her pants. He gently stroked her scarlet curled box. One of his fingers entered her and Louise shivered. They were prone on the couch, she above him. Louise was naked. Mindful of her leg, Chris effortlessly maneuvered her so that her womanhood was above his face. He noticed the dampness there in her pubic thatch. Her frenzied fingers set to work or his belt buckle as Chris’s tongue entered her. His cock was out, firm, and rigid, and thick, she took a tentative lick. He tasted very good indeed. Memories that Louise didn’t know she had, came into play as she opened her mouth and took all of him in. He worked expertly on her kitty. He seemed to have a second sight as to how she wanted her clit teased and licked. It was difficult to focus on her own task at hand, Chris was terrific! Briefly, Louise considered all those other women Chris had bedded. The housewives, the college, students, the lonely businesswomen. He must have made every last one ecstatically happy. No doubt, they did mourn him, deeply. Louise found herself edging closer and closer to something both familiar and strange. She was on the cusp of orgasm, that was familiar, but the intensity that this one promised, was clearly unfamiliar territory. He grunted, Louise’s mouth was filled with savory cum. A fraction of a moment later she herself came she gasped with delight, sending the cum in an arc all over Chris’s thighs, and then she erupted in giggles as the orgasm coursed through her.
“Holy shit!” gasped Chris as he deftly spun Louise around once more before kissing her deeply.
For the longest, while they lay there catching their breath between long succulent kisses. Chris kicked his pants off the rest of the way. Louise lay on his chest, sated. Without a word, he rose impressively to his feet while keeping a firm hold on the svelte redhead. He cradled her and made a bee line for the bedroom.
The part of Louise that was capable of protesting, was subsumed in the afterglow and the curiosity of what this incredible physical specimen would feel like inside her. She knew she had never slept with a man like Chris. Big, handsome men, certainly, but utter and complete maleness? Never! Her lips sought his and found them. In only a few strides he set her down upon the bed. The freshly laundered, sun-dried sheets smelled of mountain air. Chris kissed her deeply and then his lips, teeth, and tongue took a tour of her beguiling anatomy. He worked his magic on her breasts. His magma-hot lips danced over her ribcage, circled the attractive navel in her flat, toned stomach. He worked his way down her leg to her cast. On her healthy leg, he suckled each toe or her dainty feet with delicate high arches. His face was in her crotch a second time. Louise quickly realized that Chris’s first foray into oral love was no fluke. He was an entire infantry storming the battlements and she was the lone defender. She felt herself on the cusp of orgasm and was reminded of the sensation of falling that she had before her mind went blank days ago. Chris reared up and slid his huge cock into her unresisting secret place. He began to pump steadily, deeply, profoundly. She knew she had never been fucked like this before and wondered if she ever would be again. He sighed with triumph as his manhood emptied itself deep inside her. A moment later, she was flying and then falling, her landing this time was soft and gentle, she cried out, “Jesus!” and giggled the satisfaction of pure erotic joy. He grinned at her. She grinned back. Utter bliss and contentment filled her. With a final sigh, she fainted dead away into blissful sleep.
**
In the morning, Louise awoke with a start. She was hungover and a bit ashamed. How could she have fallen right into Chris’s trap? That man was no gentleman. He had schemed and plotted to get into her pants from day one and Louise had allowed him. True, he weakened her resolve with the wine and had taken advantage of her illness, but Louise was not blind to her own willing participation in the lovemaking. The lovemaking! Oh, God the lovemaking!
Chris strode into the room with a breakfast tray and a smile.
Louise looked at him hotly and spat, “Men like you should be illegal!”
“That’s not what you said last night.”
“You took advantage of me!”
“Only a little, the rest of it was you.”
“Fuck off!”
“Upset your applecart, have I?”
“That won’t happen again!”
“You’ll think differently in a few hours. In the meantime, your breakfast is getting cold.”
He set the tray down upon the stool and left the room. Louise had to force herself from not focusing on his incredible backside as his form receded. She focused her hunger instead upon the food. As she dined, she realized that the genie was out of the bottle. Even as Louise tried to convince herself that she was done with Chris; now that they both had gotten out of their systems… The attempt at self-conviction ended when Louise realized that she could no more resist Chris’s sexual entreaties than a moth could avoid a flame. He was beyond good. Louise knew that she wanted more of what she had experienced the previous evening. She hated herself and her heart ached, yet she knew that it was true. She was falling for him fast and the longer she stayed in this cabin, the further and further away the ground would become.
She gazed at her splinted leg. “Weeks! By then, I won’t be anything besides his love zombie!” she said in frustration to the emptiness about her. When her conscience responded with, “So, what?” Louise cried an agonizing sob. She knew she was a strong, independent woman with a life that included a job, hobbies, friends, men who weren’t Chris. She wanted to recall the woman she was. If not for her broken ankle, she felt sure that she would already be running from this cabin, the consequences be damned. Once Chris took possession of her mind and spirit, it wouldn’t matter who she was or who she had been, she’d be his until the end of her days! That realization simultaneously thrilled and appalled her. She stayed in the bedroom for most of the rest of the day, in a funk she could neither escape nor solve.
Chris was able to coax her out to the kitchen/main room for supper.
“A penny for your thoughts?” he asked.
“As if you didn’t know, you bastard!”
“There is no shame in enjoying a man’s company, Angel.”
“Call me Angel one more time, and I am going to kick you in the nuts!”
“I have to call you something.”
“You selecting a name for me is just one more mark of control and domination.”
“Someone has taken feminist theory 101.”
“Shut the fuck up! Since day one you’ve lied to me schemed to seduce me and done everything in your power to weaken my resolve.”
“You certainly didn’t seem to be unhappy when we were making love.”
“That’s not the point! You failed to respect me. You said you would do one thing and then did the opposite. You are so frustrating! I hate you!”
Chris sighed and rose from his chair to stand above Louise.
“You don’t hate me, Angel. You hate yourself for being a female with desires. You hate the fact that you have lost all your moorings and don’t know how to process what is happening to you. You fear letting your guard down again because you know where that path leads. We both know that we are very good together that we mesh like we are meant for each other. I’ve given you something you never had before. Even with your memory temporarily absent, you know I’m the best you ever had or ever will have. As for me, I’ve spent much of my adult life dreaming of a woman just like you. I’m not the least bit religious but you literally falling into my life almost seems like an answered prayer. I can’t help but be in love with you.”
Louise took a long moment before answering.
“The world is full of coincidences, Chris. I can’t deny what happened last night, but you are a man full of yourself. You don’t listen to my desires and my plain and simple request that you leave me alone. This isn’t my destiny, Chris. There is my life that will return with my memory. I intend to reclaim that life. As soon as my ankle heals, I’m out of here, even if it means hiking miles and miles in my bare feet. You have taken something that is not yours, Chris. You’ve taken something from me. Something I will never get back. Don’t press me, Chris or I will fall. If I fall, I’ll lose myself. The life of a wild man living off the grid may appeal to you, but I know it is not for me. I know you are envisioning me, barefoot and pregnant, raising wild children, all of us in your thrall. It doesn’t wash, Chris. It just doesn’t wash. With my memory coming back in snatches, I’m more convinced than ever that we can never be together. Yes, you are a superlative lover, the best I’ve ever had, but all the hottest sex in the universe isn’t enough for a woman like me. I need the city, I need my job, even if it is crappy, and I need my book club and my female friends even if they don’t actually like me. I may never again reach the heights I did last night, and I can live with that. Please don’t press me, Chris. Please respect my space, respect ME! It’s such a small thing really.”
“Look at it from my perspective, Angel.”
“I have. I need you to be a gentleman, Chris. I’ll move to the couch. You can have the bed. Let’s just agree to share this cabin until I’m fully healed. Do that and you will have my undying devotion and appreciation. Those are all I can give you.”
“Not good enough, Angel.”
He closed the distance between them. He swept up Louise in an embrace.
“No, Chris! No!”
He kissed her protesting lips firmly, silencing her. Louise beat her fists against his chest. And then his unambiguous, utter maleness overwhelmed her. He was a force of nature, a windstorm. She was the dust being stirred up by his path. Her resistance deserted her,
“Oh, Chris!” she cried with a forlorn voice when he broke their osculation. “Oh, Chris!” she gasped. She kissed him back, ran her fingers over his anatomy. Her desire for him was overwhelming. This is what she feared. The last of her resistance left, taking with it something she knew was priceless but suddenly did not care about. He carried her to the bedroom. Louise understood without question that he would do everything he asked of her and more. Her independence, her old life, half-remembered as it was, collapsed upon her like a crumbling wall.
He expected her to beg him to take her and she complied pleading with him to take her any way he wanted. She delighted when he took her from behind. She cried tears of joy when he took her ass. She swallowed his cum and smiled when he used another load to paint his initials on her flat, toned, tummy. When he was done, she thanked him like a sated wanton and fell into the slumber of the dead.
**
Louise wondered if she had ever been this happy. She and Chris made love sometimes as many as six times a day. Her memory seemed in no hurry to return. Louise wondered if all the orgasmic bliss was erasing the old her entirely. At first, that bothered her, now, two weeks since she had first awoken in this cabin, she was bothered less and less. Sometimes she even wondered if she had lost anything important with her memories. If they never came back? She could get quite used to being called Angel.
Chris was outside the cabin chopping wood. Louise had discovered an old “Smithsonian” magazine and decided to try and solve the crossword. She went looking for a pen or pencil. She pulled open a drawer and noted… “BOB!” she cried out loud. It all came back to her, her longed-for bolt from the blue. She was Louise MacDonald, she worked for an entertainment and bridal party service, in Buffalo, New York, and this was Bob’s ring. Her fiancé’s ring! Bob was tall and broad and had the cutest smile. He was compassionate and caring, was in great shape, and had a goofy but endearing sense of humor and her time with Chris had completely ruined him in her mind!
“CHRIS!” she wailed.
He burst back into the cabin. Louise held up the incriminating platinum diamond-studded band.
Chris’s face fell.
“You bastard! When were you going to tell me the truth? When were you going to admit that when I entered your life, you knew I was spoken for, that I wasn’t yours? What happened, was I delirious and revealed the fact that I had amnesia? Or did you take the calculated risk that I would forget all about the man who loved me? You planned my seduction and debasement from day one. You almost succeeded you, asshole! My name is Louise MacDonald, and this ring belongs to the man I am going to marry! You are pathetic, Chris, little better than a rapist.”
“Rape? What has been passing through us for all this time is the furthest thing from rape!”
“I had no memory! I was injured and vulnerable! I was at your complete mercy! No, you didn’t force me, but I think the cops would take a very dim view of your actions!”
“Baby!”
“Don’t “baby” me, you jerk!”
“If you expect me to apologize for doing what you wanted to do…”
“That’s how you see this, don’t you, Chris? Super macho man can never be wrong? God’s gift to women! Hah! Those women you told me about. The college girls, the wayward wives? They weren’t mourning, you, Chris, they were thinking good riddance! All you are good for; Chris is spectacular sex. You could never hope to give a woman what she really needs in addition to that, compassion, understanding, self-actualization, equality, and partnership. Everything is over between us. I’m on the couch like I suggested so long ago and don’t you dare lay a finger on me! You need to make me some sandals or shoes or moccasins to wear for the day the splint comes off my leg. You are going to escort me to civilization. In exchange, I will tell the outside world that you were my hero. My knight in shining armor and keep the fact that you have been a monstrous cad to myself.
“Ang…Louise, be reasonable!”
“I AM being reasonable. I’m the only one in this cabin who has been reasonable. Now give me space and stay out of my way. It won’t be long until I am fully healed. If you don’t want the cops crashing down upon you and ending the life you have here, you will be nothing less than a gentleman from this moment forward.”
Chris’s mouth opened and closed like a stuck fish. For the first time in his life, he was in a situation where the woman wielded all the power. It was an uncomfortable feeling.
**
Louise had to give Chris a modicum of credit. He respected her wishes at last. He could in fact be a gentleman for more than a few hours. The only time he touched her was to remove Louise’s splint. Once it was off, Louise realized that she needed at least a week to regain full strength and mobility in the joint. It felt wonderful to cast the crutches aside. A week and a half later, Louise clad in one of Chris’s hoodie sweatshirts, tried out the new moccasins he had made for her. They felt pretty good, and the soles, made from abandoned car tires were firm enough the guard against stones, pebbles, and thorns along the route to the secluded cave where Chris kept his jeep. Chris restored the battery to his jeep, made sure the tires were fully inflated, and inched it out from under the camouflage netting. Louise clambered into the passenger seat and allowed Chris to hold her hand when he wasn’t operating the vehicle.
After a surprisingly long drive, Chris announced, “The ranger station is just around this corner.”
“Pull over for a second, Chris.”
“Sure.”
“I owe you a lot, Chris, for which I am thankful. I can understand, a bit, why you did what you did. That does not mean that I forgive you. We are both going to have to deal with a lot of questions, me from Bob and my friends, you from the outside world. I trust you to be circumspect and protect my privacy as best you can. Do you understand what I’m asking?”
“Yes, I do, Louise. I realize now that I was a bit of a rat, but I will protect you.”
“A bit of a rat?” Louise followed this by a laugh and then said, “Let’s seal the deal, Chris with one last kiss.”
The mountain man was only too happy to oblige.
“That was nice,” he said.
“Yes, it was. I know I read you the riot act for the last couple of weeks, Chris, but seriously, never change. A force of nature does not respond well to fences.”
“While you would die without your picket white fence surrounded ranch house.”
“Yes, I would. Had I stayed with you, I could have dulled my senses and lied to myself for a while, but in the end, I would have done anything to get away from you, even if it meant throwing myself off a mountain again.”
“What the devil were you doing up there anyway. Louise?”
“Trying to get a couple of K’s in before breakfast.”
“Alone?”
“Hey, even smart people make dumb mistakes.”
“Falling into my life was not a mistake.”
“Well, parts of it weren’t at any rate.”
The two shared a laugh before Chris placed the idling jeep back in gear and onto the winding mountain road. He leaned on the horn to alert the rangers to his arrival.