Savage Cinderella

Savage Cinderella-Chapter 9-Finding Brinn

Chapter 9

Finding Brinn

The verdant forest thinned as Justin made his way to a cleared trail that finally ended at the ranger station. The rangers had searched for him, but after the heavy rain had found nothing but his backpack. By the third day they assumed he had met with a tragic end and were amazed by his good condition as he limped in after dark. 

He said nothing about Brinn or her tiny cabin hidden in the high wilderness region beyond the state park. He told them only that he had found shelter under a rock overhang until his ankle was healed enough to support his weight. Reminding him how lucky he was, they officially called off the search and a ranger drove him to a hospital in Atlanta, just to have an x-ray done of his foot and to be sure he suffered no ill effects from his ordeal. His BMW, he was told, had been towed to impound. He called his friend Cody to pick him up at the hospital.

By the time he retrieved his car and reached home, all he wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and sleep for a day or two. He pressed the play button on his answering machine. There were six messages from his mother, three from Cody, and fourteen from Charlene. He let out a tired sigh and retreated to the shower. 

He returned calls and briefly related the story of his adventure, which included nothing about his encounter with Brinn. Exhausted, he settled into the warmth of his own bed and slept, dreaming of falling, of dancing bears, and of waking with the slender body of the wild girl wrapped in his arms.

∞∞∞

Justin returned to work at the magazine the next morning, thankful it was Thursday and almost the end of a very long week. Greeted with a swarm of smiling faces, he was bombarded with questions and hugs of relief from coworkers. Charlene dragged him bodily into her office, closed the blinds, and threw her arms around his neck.

"Oh, God, I thought I'd lost you. You have no idea how worried I've been. I knew something like this would happen. You never listen to me. You should have let me come with you, or taken Cody. Why don't you at least get a dog to take with you on these reckless mountain treks of yours?" Her tirade continued for another minute or two before he finally put up his hands in surrender.

"Okay, okay, already. I get it. You were worried, but I'm fine, see?" He waved a hand over his body, dismissing the crutches he’d been issued at the hospital. He smiled amiably at the woman, whose face flushed with the excitement of his return. Charlene had fair skin, which turned instantly red and blotchy when she was upset or excited, a color that matched her hair perfectly. The auburn curls were swept back in a fashionable style and held up by a decorative barrette studded with shiny, colored stones. Her dark eye makeup accentuated her green eyes and she was undeniably pretty, but Justin couldn't help but compare her tight skirt, voluptuous curves, and made-up beauty to the earthy, natural glow of the girl he'd just met. Somehow, he found the overbearing redhead lacking. 

"Tell me every harrowing detail of your experience. Did you get lots of pictures?"

"Sorry to say, I lost my camera when I fell down the mountain. As well as my cell phone,” he added. “I wasn't in any shape to worry about it at the time." 

"That's a shame; the pictures would have added a lot to the story. But don't worry, the magazine will replace your camera and your phone, and I want a copy of the story, complete with all the gruesome details, on my desk by Monday. We'll run it in next week’s edition and then we can do a follow-up in a few weeks when you can make it back to the park to get some shots of where you were and how you survived." She eyed him suspiciously. "You look remarkably well for a man who just spent three days living on ferns and suffering a head injury and a broken ankle."