Page 11 of Stranded
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“Stay put for a day and hope someone saw the fire.”
“And if they didn’t?”
“Then we’ll have to rescue ourselves.” I rose to my feet and placed a hand on his shoulder. Who would have thought this spoiled, childish boy would be so incredibly brave and save the day? Just as I’d feared, there was a lot more to him than the shallow guy who chased dicks around. Life would be so much simpler if he were.
He’d saved my life. If he hadn’t held me back, I would have been caught in the blast.
“You did well, Aiden,” I said, my throat choking up as I acknowledged what he was to me. No matter how much I wished otherwise, he was my stepson. I had to deal with it. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“I had no choice. I’ve said I hated you a lot of times, but I actually don’t. I should never have said that.”
“It’s all right.” I’d said horrible things too. “We have more pressing concerns.”
How to get the hell out of this desert alive? And as fast as possible. Aiden wasn’t built to withstand these direcircumstances like I could. He couldn’t be exposed to the elements for too long. If it’d taken us over an hour to drive to this spot from the RV park we’d passed, it’d take us days on foot. But it was our best bet since I’d deliberately driven to this spot because the trail wasn’t popular.
It could be months before anyone found us out here.
5
AIDEN
“What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?”
Jackson grabbed the bottle of water from my hand that I’d been using to wipe the grime and dust from my body. It was bad enough that we’d been stuck in the desert for two days. I couldn’t survive another minute with my body feeling so crummy. I was already losing my mind just sitting here with nothing but dry land for scenery. No phone. No tablet. No computer. It was all gone—burned in the fire.
And it’d all been my fault. Well, not really, but I’d left my laptop charger plugged in. The cord had been frayed, so the core had been exposed. It must have smoldered on the cushion, and somehow the heat must have caused a spark. At least, that was what Jackson said when he’d looked at the remains. The worst part was, he hadn’t yelled at me once. But neither had he looked at me.
Somehow it made me feel worse that I’d fucked up this badly.
“I’m just washing off the dirt,” I said.
“This”—he shook the bottle at me—“is drinking water. We’re lucky you stopped the fire from spreading with the dirt so we found a case intact. That’s what’s keeping us hydrated. No oneknows how long it will take us to reach somewhere we can get help. We have to conserve our water.”
“I know that, but it doesn’t change that I am dirty. I hate it.”
“Aiden—”
“Don’t.” I scrambled to my feet. “I know what you’re going to say, all right? That I should be grateful that we’re unharmed. That it’s all my fault. But I can’t really think of the fact that we’re going to die right now. I just want a fucking bath.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. I turned my head to the side.
“I know it’s tough for you,” he said softly. Until recently, he hadn’t called me that in years. . “But try to bear it for a little while, will you? Tomorrow we’ll head out on foot and leave a trail in case someone finds the RV. Your mother would know something is wrong and to contact the authorities if she doesn’t hear from us soon.”
“She’ll probably think one of us killed the other.”
I winced and glanced at him. Would he be mad at me for bringing up the way we swiped at each other? For the past two days, we’d had fewer arguments. Hell, we hadn’t fought at all. Why did I have to bring up our disagreements now?
A bark of laughter tore through the air. I jumped in surprise. He so hardly laughed that I didn’t know what to make of it. Had the heat fried his brains?
Only one side of his face moved, but even so, he was still ridiculously handsome. He always had that rugged look about him. The scar just added intrigue to him. It made you want to stay away but also get close to him to learn more about him.
What more could I possibly want to know about this man? I already knew everything.
“You’re right. We can’t sit around and wait for help to come. We’ll have to help ourselves.”
“Do you know which way to go?”
