Small Town Love

Chapter 9

In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.

John Muir

"This is my life now. I have climbed this hill and now I will die upon it," Ollie exclaimed dramatically, lifting his arms over his head.

They had decided to go hiking on Sunday morning after Saturday had mostly been spent doing homework and in the evening going for a run in the forest.

Daphne had not been excited about the hike at all. If anything she had and still was a bit snappy at him about it. He hadn't quite known how to take it.

"Shut up, we've only been hiking for twenty minutes," Grace snorted. Everybody knew that it was just theatrics from Ollie because these 20 minutes even up the mountain were nothing for any of them. The only one who's breathing had become harsher was Daphne who had spent the last 20 minutes silently at his side.

Every time he made one step, Daphne needed to take two, her legs not being able to keep up with his much longer once easily.

"How is your knee?" Daphne finally asked, irritation clear in her voice and he turned to see her stare in front of her, stress markers weaved in her scent.

She was...worried? About him?

He couldn't help but feel the warmth in his chest bloom at that.

His mate was worried about him.

And it upset her, which pushed the warmth down just as quickly as it had come.

Damn. He should have thought about it. Any of them should have thought about this, that for her it had looked like Kyle had seriously injuries him and that he was taking that injury lightly.

His knew was still twinging but after spending Saturday mostly sitting down so that he could do homework and spend time with Ollie, Grace and Daphne, it was fine now. The bruise was an ugly yellow colour by now and the swelling had gone down.

"It's just a bruise," Luke said, trying to soothe her. She looked at him then, suddenly, violet eyes boring in his, a fine eyebrow raised.

Apparently, that didn't work.

"It didn't look like just a bruise on Friday," she challenged him. He was taken aback by the sudden bravado that had clearly overcome her and so was she, because she looked down again, her shoulders hunching in on herself.

She nearly flinched, clearly expecting him to get angry and he wanted to tell her that he would never use his anger against her like that.

"Matthew would have never let me go if it was something bad," he told her truthfully. He kept his voice carefully even not wanting her to think that he was angry at her questioning him. Finally, she was starting to give back as good as she got and stopped just taking it.

And that's what he wanted her to do.

Suddenly, he heard her stumble and he reached out reflexively, grabbing the back of her backpack to hold her upright.

She had her school backpack strapped to her back, filled with god knows what, but the thing was full. He had offered to swap with her but she had stared at him like he had grown a second head.

The moment he did that, there came a pained gasp from her, but at least she didn't manage to land face first in the dirt.

There were conifers all around them, and the ground was hard with rocks embedded into it, not the best place to take a tumble.