"Sadie, come on back. We can talk about something else. Herald and Matilda came all this way to see us; they're just worried about us."
"Us?" Sadie whispered back, "this isn't happening to us, it's happening to me so stop pretending I'm not alone in this and you don't all just feel sorry for me."
"You're not. We're not."
Meanwhile, Matilda and Herald had not moved from there places around the fire.
"Are you crying?" Herald suddenly asked, completely flabbergasted.
"No!" Matilda immediately turned to whap him across the head and wipe her face fervently. "Fool, do I look like a crier to you?" and with that she glared ferociously at him until he admitted it must have been the glare of the sun and he was very sorry to have made the mistake.
"Humph. That's right you are." She stated, turning around with her arms crossed defiantly. "I hope Evan never talks to you like that, Sadie." She continued. "Especially with what you saw with your father, I can't even imagine that. The men in this world...I tell you..." she glared at Evan as if he represented all these said men and he cringed under the look.
"Don't look at him like that," Sadie laughed. "he is the best man in the world." She said firmly, turning to look at Evan where he had sat himself behind her. He wrapped his arms tight around her waist and breathed in the scent of her hair. Matilda looked bashfully away and sipped her tea, Herald walked around the campsite, bending down to stroke Shelby's fur, and Sadie sat in Evan's arms for what seemed like mere seconds but was surely mere minutes before he said softly in her ear,
"You're right, we do need more lavender...if I have to lose this scent I don't know what I'll do."
Sadie turned towards him and lunged into his arms. Evan grunted in surprise. They both fell behind the moss covered log and onto the dirt. Sadie landed on top of him with a thump and immediately grasped his thin face in her hands. She gazed at it for a moment, a child-like glint swimming in his deep brown eyes, nothing like the fire she used to fear in her father's, and his mouth was beginning to curl into an almost guilty smile as if he knew exactly what he had been trying to do and had done it perfectly well.
"Are you going to kiss me or kill me?" he murmured against her lips. Matilda cleared her throat and tried to hold back a giggle. Sadie ignored the outside noises and stroked one cheek with her thumb before whispering,
"I don't know yet." and kissed him slowly and deeply on the mouth, holding his face tight in her hands as if it would turn to sand and sink into the ground away from her if she let go. Evan kissed her back fiercely then and was about just tangling his fingers through her hair when_
"Kids today...I tell you Herald, aren't you glad we never had them? Crazy things with their hormones galore...we're heading out kids!" She called to them as Sadie broke the kiss. "Come down to the cottage if you need anything...and I mean anything." She winked at Sadie and Herald shuffled embarrassedly toward her and lead her away.
"See you!" He called.
Evan waved goodbye and Sadie began to walk towards the fire again, brushing dirt off her trousers.
"And just where do you think you're going, my dear." He said tickling her sides.
Sadie collapsed in a fit of laughter and the two of them rolled in the dirt, Shelby making random appearances and pouncing on one or both of them in turn, swatting at their heads and mewing in earnest.
"Yeah, you tell him!" Sadie chuckled before Evan pinned her once and for all to the ground.
"Tell me what?" He said before leaning down and claiming her lips.
YOU ARE READING
Forest Dwellers
General FictionEvan and Sadie have escaped into the forests of Minnesota. From what? Sadie's father, a powerful senator aspiring to be the president. He will stop at nothing to find his daughter and stop her from ruining his name...if he can find them.
