Married to the Devil

Chapter 22

I struggled to even my breathing as Derek's warm hands covered about half my face.

Yes they were that big.

"Where are we going?" I half-whispered.

"You'll see soon enough, don't worry," Derek said firmly.

He sounded slightly nervous and it made me anxious. Derek was never nervous. He always knew what he was doing, where he was going, always sure of the next step. Why was he even making me close my eyes?

A thought struck me that maybe I was worrying too much. After all, it was the night of our anniversary after spending the entire day together talking, cuddling, and laughing. There couldn't be anything wrong with this day. Everything about it was fantastic. Spending moment after moment with Derek was simply an adventure on its own.

God I forgot how much fun he was.

All I knew was that he had made me close my eyes and driven me off to someplace I didn't know. In the spur of the moment, I half wondered if he was planning on kidnapping me and holing me up somewhere desolate and unknown.

After we'd arrived, he'd opened my car door and helped me out while my eyes remained closed. As if to ensure it, he covered them with his hands and was guiding me along what had to be grass on my bare feet.

It was a real surprise when he'd asked me, I was still wearing my rugged home clothes and didn't even have time to put on a decent pair of shoes before Derek raced us in the car, instructed me to shut my eyes, and drove off into the night.

The cool, crisp air of the night tickled my senses deliciously. The hoot of owls far off in the distance nicely contrasted with the chirp of the crickets whizzing past my toes. I envisioned a blanket of a zillion stars all shining at different magnitudes across the darkness of the California sky.

I clutched the bottoms of my shirt, half excited from wonderment, the other half undecided as to how much longer I was to be left without knowing.

"Derek?" I asked unsurely.

His response was almost immediate, firm and full, sending my skirting thoughts to rest, "Almost there," he replied deeply, his voice right at the tops of my ears.

We walked for a few more minutes through the grass before he finally released his hands from me. The sudden loss of warmth had me shivering and Derek instantly enveloped himself around me, making me smile against him.

I didn't need to ask where we were. I knew it the moment I looked up at the metal arch above our heads with half the letters still missing and rusted, just as they had the last time we'd come here together, ten years ago.

W_lcome to Ca_t_rf_eld_ For_st

I couldn't hide the moistness behind my eyelids. This place held meaning for the both of us in so many different ways. As kids we'd visited it together on a number of occasions as our own secret hideaway that no one else knew about.

"Remember this place?" Derek whispered.

A flood gate opened and a wash off memories hit me like a thunder bolt, knocking the breath out of me. I turned to him and simply nodded, opening my arms to him and hugging him tightly.

Derek smiled and guided me along an all too familiar path. It was the same one we always used. Our road together, the two of us unstoppable as long as we with the other along the same weathered path.

I boldly slid my hand into his and smiled as I did it. It was a thrilling feeling as if the two of us were 17 again, not yet adults but so close to being there.