“No fucking kidding,” he shouted, coming out behind her.
She shivered, and then started laughing. “Oh my goodness, I am so ridiculous.” She chattered and chattered. “What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t,” he said.
And then he moved to her and wrapped an arm around her, bringing her close to his body, which was still warmer than hers, in spite of the fact that he had just gone into the same water. Her hand pressed against his bare chest, his skin wet like hers. She felt his chest hair beneath her fingertips. Her ear was pressed against his heart, and she could hear it thundering fast. And it was like everything stopped making sense. Like the world had been turned on its head. Maybe they had hypothermia. Or at least she did. Because this didn’t feel like it should have. Like it often did to be taken into Justice’s arms. Because he was a man. And their skin was pressed together, and she was really curious about what it was like to lose your mind over somebody. She was afraid to look up at him, but at the same time she was compelled to do it. She tilted her face upward, and he looked down at her.
It was like time stopped. A more heightened version of what had happened to her up on the mountain during their ride. “We’ve got to warm you up,” he said.
She looked away from him then, because she had to. And that was when she saw it. It looked like a cave that she’d never noticed before, nestled just behindthe watering hole. You would have to snake along the rocks to get into it, but she wondered if anyone had.
“Is that...?”
“Don’t,” he said, grabbing hold of her arm and dragging her back, his grip bruising. The look on his face was so unlike Justice. She didn’t even know what to do with it.
“I was just looking,” she said.
“It’s not safe,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”
“To look at a cave?”
“Don’t go in there. You can’t... you can’t go in there.”
“I wasn’t... I wasn’t going to.”
She grabbed her other clothes up off the ground, and held her shoes in her hands as she made her way back to the truck. He followed her, but he didn’t get dressed. He opened up the truck door and got inside, still in only his underwear. And he was allangry. And everything felt strange.
“It’s not you,” he said.
“What? I know it’s not me, you’re freaking out and I didn’t do anything. So I assume you don’t like caves.”
“No. I don’t,” he said. “I... I never mentioned this because it happened before you moved to the ranch. I used to go exploring all around these parts. I went in that cave. There was a cave-in and I was trapped for three days.”
“What?”
She was already completely disoriented and his words didn’t even make sense. He’d never mentioned this. He’d never even hinted at it before.
“Yeah. I was seven. Anyway. I still don’t like closed-in spaces like that.”
She had never actually noticed Justice having a phobia of anything like that, but if she thought about it, there were certain things he didn’t do.
“Why didn’t youtellme?” She was still shivering in spite of the heater in the truck. “Why has it never come up in your family? Why—”
“You know how we are, Rue. You know how things were back then. I don’t even know what all was happening with my brothers all the time at that point. The house was chaotic. Half the time Denver slept out in the barn and Daughtry was always following after Denver. Landry was already obsessed with Fia—whether she knew it yet or not—and he was always loitering wherever she was to try to catch a glimpse of her. Basically, everyone was just trying to survive. Me being lost for a few days? That was just... the kind of thing that happened.” He cleared his throat. “So yeah. It’s just never been that big of a deal.”
“But you got... really upset.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I did. I don’t avoid this place. I live here. I would never go back in that cave, and I would never want anyone else to.”
“Well, that’s why it seems odd you haven’t mentioned it.”
“My brothers know. And not very many people come down here. I’ve never had to worry about you being an exploratory little rat because you’re usually so cautious. So yeah. I don’t normally have to worry about you. But that was kind of a random move on your part.”
“I’m not random,” she said.
“You’re being a little random.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
