Free Listed: Volume IV by Noelle Adams Page A

halfway between the stick and…” She
trailed off, looking puzzled.
    Paul
gave a huff of amusement, although it was mingled with frustration. “Between
the stick and the shadow?” he asked dubiously.
    She
scowled at him. “Don't be snide. There is a trick. I just can’t remember it.”
    “Well,
it wouldn’t matter. There’s so much tree cover here and cloud cover today,
there’s not much in the way of shadows to use anyway. If we had shadows, I
could just make a sundial.”
    “Damn
it,” Emily said, shaking her head as if the most obvious idea had just come to
her. “We can’t be that far from the beach. I’m just going to climb a tree. I
should be able to see the ocean if I get high enough.”
    “No,”
Paul objected, stiffening at the idea. “You might get hurt.”
    “For
God’s sake, Paul, I was climbing trees when I was five years old. I’m not going
to get hurt.”
    “I’ll
climb one,” he said, resigning himself to the fact that climbing a tree was the
only appropriate way for this wretched hiking expedition to end. “If someone
has to do it, I will.”
    “Why
should you do it?” Emily demanded. She was bristling now as much as he was, and
her eyes flashed with indignation. “I’m a lot lighter than you. I’ll be able to
get higher up more safely. I’m not an invalid. I can climb a damned tree!”
    “This
is my fault,” he said, not about to budge on this. “We’re lost because of me.
So I’m the one who—”
    “That’s
crap. Paul, listen to yourself.  I’m the one who suggested we come here, so I
can play the blame-game as much as you. But that’s not the point. You don't
have to get annoyed because everything is not going perfectly, and you don't
have to climb the tree for me. You don’t have to rescue me. You don’t have to
fix everything. I’m not expecting you to do that. I’ve never expected
you to do that.”
    Paul
froze, slammed by her words, by what they meant.
    She
was right. He did want to rescue her. He did want to fix her.
    And
he couldn’t do so in the way that really mattered.
    “Paul,”
Emily said, her voice softening. She reached out and put a hand on his chest. “I
didn’t marry you because I expected you do everything for me. I married you
because I thought you could help me do the things I wanted to do.”
    Paul
stared at her, breathing heavily and conflicted in ways he didn’t understand.
He loved her. She was his. To him, that had always meant wrapping her tightly
with his protection. If he was capable of climbing a tree, then he should do it
and not her.
    But
he understood what she was saying. Deeply. And suddenly he realized he would
feel the same way, if he was abruptly forced into helplessness because of an
illness he couldn’t control. He wouldn’t want to give up all of his agency
either, even to someone who loved him, who wanted to help him.
    Emily
was beautiful and radiant and resilient and sweet. But, in many ways that
mattered, she wasn’t all that different from him.
    For
some reason, he'd never quite realized that before.
    “Okay,”
he forced out, the word harder than it should have been to say. “Okay.”
    She
blinked at him, her eyes anxious and somehow tender as well. “Okay?”
    “Climb
the tree. Be careful.”
    Her
face changed, twisted slightly with emotion, but it was so brief he couldn’t
really put a name to it. Then she looked around at the trees surrounding them.
"Which one do you think is the tallest?”
    Paul
spotted a huge birch tree several feet away. It had a thick trunk and several
low branches. The leaves, unlike on the pine trees, wouldn’t get in the way of
climbing.
    Emily
saw the tree too and ran over to it. “Perfect.” She reached for one of the
branches and started to swing herself up.
    Paul
grabbed her by the waist and gave her a boost.  Despite the other things on his
mind, he couldn’t help but appreciate the way her lush ass appeared in her
faded jeans as she crawled up onto the first