8. Chapter 8 （Hailey）

CHAPTER 8 (HAILEY)

A fter forty-eight hours of lingering in bed—half of those apparently completely passed out—I’m finally strong enough to walk upright again. Which is an immense relief because having to ask a drop-dead gorgeous Viking to take you to the bathroom every time you need to pee is not at all enjoyable. And Nick kept feeding me broth and had me drink tea and water while I couldn’t leave the bed, so the bladder needed to be emptied more often than normal. He says you get dehydrated faster at higher altitudes and I needed the liquids to get better.

He has an enormous bathtub inside the cabin, but the toilet is in a small outhouse a little way away. It’s some sort of fancy composting contraption. He explained it, but I stopped listening when he described the process of how worms speed up the mulching of feces. I’m not a fan of worms or feces and I don’t like thinking about little squiggly creatures waiting for my number two while I sit on the ring.

Nick suggested he’d bring a bucket into the room with the bathtub. But I said nope to that immediately. The only thing worse than having a hot Viking helping you to the outhouse is asking said hot Viking to empty your waste bucket in said outhouse. Nobody needs that.

Especially not since there’s this crackling, sizzling electric tension I feel whenever he’s near. I mean, his long blond hair and piercing blue eyes make him look like a Norse warrior descended from the gods.

And blond stubble covers his rugged face. Stubble that I’m itching to touch to see if it’s soft or rough. I’d be attracted to him no matter where I met him, but to see him wandering around in nature like he belongs here is even more hot, somehow. He’s built the cabin himself and has a completely off-the-grid sustainable lifestyle. It’s as if a super tall Hemsworth brother went a little feral and moved to this mountaintop.

He’s picked a gorgeous location to live. The cabin rests in a clearing right next to the two mountain lakes. And there’s a waterfall cascading into the enormous lake.

One thing I’ve noticed in our brief acquaintance is that Nick’s very particular in his habits. Maybe you have to be when you live in the wilderness and depend on nature’s whims to survive. I followed him around today as he walked the lakes, checking for invasive species and foreign materials. I’m not sure how he would detect either of those, but I can sense he’s some sort of water creature tied to these waters. Maybe his magic speaks specifically to these lakes.

And then we went hunting, but it looked like he deliberately missed several times. We fished in a mountain stream. He set me up with a pole while he went to check some traps. I caught nothing, but Nick did when he returned. We’re having fresh trout for dinner. But before we can cook, he had some other stuff to do. Like chopping wood. I only watched that part and the show was well worth it. The guy has muscles for days. I had to sit down because my hormones flushed so badly, my knees went weak.

Which of course made Nick worry about my health, so he brought me more water and then I had to go pee again. I’m hydrated enough to last for a few years. And judging by how hot this guy makes me by me just looking at him, that’s a good thing.

Right now, he’s checking on his garden that’s at the back of the cabin while I lounge in the sun on his front porch. I offered to help weed, since that is actually something I’ve done before, but he said I should rest. It’s nice soaking up the warmth, but I feel guilty for being idle while he works, so I go look for him.

The garden beds look well kept and there’s no weed anywhere I can see. I also don’t see Nick, so I wander deeper into the clearing. He’s got a lot of firewood piles, which makes me wonder why he chopped more today, but again, maybe he’s just set in his habits. There’s a small pile of fresh vegetables beside one of the garden beds.

There’s a change in the sound of the waterfall’s cascading, so I head that way. Nick’s in the lake, lathering up his skin and hair. He leans back, using the waterfall as a natural shower. As he rinses off his hair, he shakes his head. Water drops surrounding his body glitters in the sunlight like a magical aura.

Holy Mother Nature.

My mouth runs dry as I stare at this sight straight out of an erotic movie. Heat pools between my legs and my panties grow damp. Which makes me feel bad again, because Nick washed my underwear and clothes while I was passed out and now I’ve made them dirty again.

As if he feels me watching, he opens his eyes. Dragging his hand down his chiseled chest to rest on his cut abs, he smiles. “Feel like a swim?” His gaze is open and friendly, as if he has no idea of how he affects me.

Meanwhile, my nipples are about to cut holes in my shirt, and I have to swallow several times before I can answer. “Uh, maybe later?” I squeak out. I would like nothing better than to join him, but I’m not sure he feels the same sizzling attraction I do. And my ego isn’t strong enough to take a rejection right now. Knowing Miriam and Johnny used me as a pawn to find the trident caused an immense blow to my self-confidence.

“Okay,” Nick says. “Just let me know. I don’t want you in the water by yourself until you’ve regained all your strength.” He goes back to rinsing under the waterfall.

I watched for a few second more before I stop torturing myself and return to the cabin.

When he arrives twenty minutes later, I’ve washed the vegetables I saw earlier and set the small table in the kitchen area. Lounging in a chair on the front porch, I’m reading a paperback I found in his bookcase. He has a vast selection of mysteries and thrillers. I have no idea what the book I picked is about because Nick showering in the waterfall is on a loop inside my mind.

“Hey,” he says. “You hungry?” My stomach growls before I reply, and he laughs. The sound comes from deep within him and something inside me stirs. This guy does dangerous things to me and my body. “I’ll have dinner ready in a few.”

“I can help,” I offer.

He shakes his head. “Just stay where you are. I’m going to throw everything on the grill.” He points to the stone built-in barbecue on the side of the porch. “You can keep me company from here.”

It doesn’t take him long to grill the vegetables and the trout. The sun’s still warming the porch when dinner is ready, so we sit in side-by-side in the chairs there, balancing our plates on our knees. Every bite is an explosion of delicious flavors on my tongue. “This is so good,” I exclaim.

Nick smiles. “Straight from the stream and dirt, everything tastes better.” He’s finished his food in just a few bites and puts his plate down with a serious look on his face. “Can I ask you about your…ordeal in the forest?”

Throughout the day, we’ve chatted about inconsequential things and I was grateful for him not asking me any details about how I ended up lost in the woods. It looks like my reprieve is over, though, and honestly, I can’t blame him. A strange hysterical woman shows up on his doorstep, screaming about warm velvet-covered boulders—I’m still embarrassed about that one—and he shelters her and feeds her, expecting nothing in return. I owe him some answers. I swallow the food I just shoveled into my mouth, and then nod. “Yes,” I say out loud.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I want to help you. To do that, I have to know what happened.” He pauses for a moment. “And who hurt you.”

I don’t want him dragged into my mess, so I stall while I think about how much to tell him. “Can I ask you some questions in return?”

“Yes, but only if you will tell me your whole and honest story.” He gives me a gentle smile, the kind you give scared children. “I’ll even let you start.”

I think about all the things I want to know about him. Why does he live off-grid? How long has he lived here? Does he have a girlfriend? Is he attracted to me? But what ends up shooting out of my mouth before I can stop it is, “what does ‘meen scat’ mean?”

He blinks a few times, and then a blush covers his cheeks. He clears his throat. “Um, it’s a term of endearment. It means my treasure.”

My brain glitches on that one. He thinks I’m a treasure.

His. Treasure.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” my mouth spews out before my brain connects back online.

Nick smiles. “I don’t, but now it’s my turn.” His face turns serious again. “Is Johnny your boyfriend?”

Oh, I must have blurted out some things about what happened while in my hypothermic delirium. “No,” I say, and then I tell Nick the entire story about how stupid I was to be flattered to be invited to the magical retreat when all Miriam and Johnny wanted was to exploit my powers and find the trident.

Thinking about Miriam’s death again makes my eyes tear up and I wipe my cheeks as I finish the story.

Nick takes my hands in his and leans forward. His gaze meets mine. “You’re not stupid for going to the retreat. Anyone who got that invitation would have done the same.” He squeezes my hands. “You should put the blame on the people who took advantage of their status, only for their own gain.”

I shrug. “Yeah, but someone more experienced and less flattered would have caught on earlier and could have prevented Miriam’s death.”

“Don’t take that on,” Nick growls. “The only person who’s guilty here is Johnny.”

Hearing him say those words loosens something hard that I’ve been carrying inside me ever since I got out of that whirlpool. My damned eyes won’t stop leaking and I wipe another tear from my cheek.

Nick stands and pulls me into a hug, stroking my back with his strong, warm hands. His body heat surrounds me and I bask in the comfort of it for about two microseconds before my hormones go on full alert and make all my girly parts stand at attention.

Oblivious to how he affects my body, Nick slides back into his chair and pulls me into his lap. I lean against his chest, hiding my face in his neck to stop him from seeing how flushed it is.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” he says. “You were smart and resourceful in how you dealt with these evil people.” He pauses for a while. “I’ll tell you a story about someone young and experienced who did an idiotic thing,” he growls, and I feel the vibrations of his words through his chest wall.