Bring On the Dusk by Buchman M. L

Author:Buchman, M. L. [Buchman, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc
Published: 2015-01-05T17:09:07+00:00

Chapter 13

They’d woken with the birds at dawn. They were wrapped together, naked together in two sleeping bags zipped together. Claudia didn’t remember falling asleep. The last thing she could sort out of her sleepy mind was Michael stripping them both naked before climbing into the hammock. She had burrowed against his warmth and let the shivers take her until she slept.

Aboard ship, they’d always returned to their own berths. She’d never woken in his arms, not after a night together. Definitely not to the sounds of birdsong.

Well, there was a potential advantage to their current state of undress. She kissed him awake, enjoying his rapid shift from sleep through surprise and into full participation. They didn’t need any words afterward to agree that it was a glorious way to wake up.

Their clothes, strewn about beneath the hammock, were damp with dew. Resigned, she shrugged into them and did her best to warm up with a cup of instant coffee while Michael packed the Treeboat.

“Treeboat?”

“The best hammocks made, designed specifically for tree climbers. Four-point harness made of four-thousand-pound test nylon webbing with…” And he was off on one of his geek rants. Damn, but the man knew how to charm her even if he didn’t know he knew.

It took two more hours of march and scrabble as tough as any route ever set by the most hard-assed drill sergeant before they reached where Michael was headed. At the bottom of a notch canyon—a stream trickled by not a dozen feet from her toes, hidden behind a wall of sword ferns and lesser trees—stood a monster.

“I found and measured this tree when I was fourteen. She ranks as the true Titan, the tallest tree ever measured. I haven’t even told the other climbers how to find her. By chance she was also the first tree I ever pioneered in a solo climb.”

Claudia gazed upward. “You climbed that at fourteen?” She couldn’t even imagine climbing the tree now.

“I named her Nell.”

She looked back down at Michael. “And who the hell is Nell that she gets such a huge tree named after her?”

“Uh, Nell Fenwick.”

“And who was she?” She could feel herself steaming up again. What was wrong with her emotions that they’d gone all chaotic on her?

“The true love of Dudley Do-Right.”

She opened her mouth but, not knowing what to say with it, closed it again.

“Mom and Pop are huge fans of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. They had all five seasons on VHS way back when, then got the DVDs when the old tapes wore out. I kind of grew up with them.”

More like he grew up to be him. Michael was everything Dudley had aspired to be: handsome, trustworthy, and ever victorious.

“Guess I fell a little in love with Nell Fenwick myself. Me and Horse.”

Claudia bit the inside of her cheek. Laughing in the man’s face probably wasn’t the best of choices, but it was hard to resist.

“You look a bit like her actually. Taller and more beautiful, but you do.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.