Page 3 of Shadow of Hope
Not only watching her, but the guys, too. As a former military intelligence officer, he didn’t relax around strangers. Especially ones who might lean toward the far side of society’s norms, like many of the people who came to their off-grid survival training camp.
She spit on her hands to better grip the spindle, another act he couldn’t imagine this very feminine, pink-toenailed woman willingly doing. Yeah, he was putting her in a box. Maybe one he wanted her in. It’d been a long time since he’d had any real interest in a woman like this. And if she fit his criteria, maybe he could consider pursuing something once she graduated this week.
Ifshe graduated. Today didn’t bode well for her.
Her hands traveled down the spindle, and she started back at the top, holding on to the spindle with one hand as he’d taught her. She’d remembered all the directions to this point except dropping the spindle.
Come on, God. How about cutting her a break? Let this work.
Micha asked, but God didn’t always make things easy in life. His sister Tristin and her freak accident were a perfect example, one that he had yet to reconcile. Why did she have to lose the use of her legs—be wheelchair-bound, maybe for life? Sure, he knew God grew people under pressure. Shaped them. Molded them. Micha should know. He’d been molded under pressure for far too long. Since childhood in foster care, trying to keep his sister safe. Time she caught a break, wasn’t it?
The hearth board smoked.
“There you go.” He put as much enthusiasm as he could muster into his tone to cheer her on. “You got it. Now put down the spindle. Use the tiny stick you cut to transfer the coal to your tinder bundle.”
She shot a hand out for the large leaf holding the spark, or what they called the coal.
“Careful. Slow down. Make sure to keep it in one piece.” He held his breath as she moved the very fragile object.
She slid the tiny coal onto the top of the bundle of shredded cedar bark.
“Now hold the bottom and blow gently. Very gently.”
She pursed her lips that had started the day with a pale pink lipstick, and a flame emerged. Her large blue eyes widened. “I did it.”
“Not quite yet. You have a flame, but you still don’t have a fire. Set it down and start with your smallest sticks to form a teepee over it.” He’d had the clients gather dry sticks and break them into small pieces, then lay them out in size order. That allowed them to begin with the smallest size and work their way to the larger ones.
She gradually added the larger sticks until she had a nice teepee formed and a strong fire going.
She shot up a fist to bump with him.
“Finally. I was about to die of old age waiting.” Ernie chuckled.
She laughed, a sweet sound that wound through Micha like the warble of the songbirds they encountered in their wilderness hikes, freeing him from his past and making him hope for a future he didn’t think he would have while his sister was paralyzed.
Why did it even have to happen? She’d already suffered so much in foster care. But then she’d finally had it all. Was happily married. Lived in a big house. Had a beautiful daughter. The ideal life. Which, after foster care, didn’t often happen. And now? Now it was all gone. Poof, vanished in a flash of time that changed her life forever. Just like when their parents died.
Enough.He had work to do. No time to consider his own potential happiness at the expense of the other participants. “Now, as the last one to master fire-starting, you get to cook dinner.”
“Hey, wait.” Jamal Thomason uncrossed his legs and sat forward. “The website said the meals were catered.”
“Some are.”
“But not ours?” He cast a suspicious look at Micha through dark eyes, a look the twenty-five-year-old mechanic had worn since he’d arrived. “I paid good money to be here and not to have to cook my own food.”
“You paid to be trained in survival skills in a one-week immersive course, and that includes procuring and prepping your own meals. We’ll start out by providing the food, but you’ll soon be hunting for your own.”
His eyes brightened. “Yeah, the hunting I understood. Not so much the cooking it for our meals.”
Micha took a breath to maintain his patience over this guy’s erroneous take on the week. “Some of the longer coursesdostart with catered meals, and we take longer to get to the nitty gritty, but not this one.”
Jamal crossed his arms. “Not what the website says.”
“I’m not that familiar with the website, but I can mention it to one of the owners, and he’ll get back with you.”
“Yeah, well.” He stuck out his chin. “I’d show you where I read it, but you confiscated my phone.”
“We all had to turn them in,” Kari said. “Something they told us to be prepared to do.”
