SavedDragon Read Free Page A

shortly. Put your ankle to the test.”
    “I dunno…”
    “What concerns you, Chloe?”
    “Let’s just say that I don’t quite trust a massage to have me up on my feet yet.”
    “You should make the attempt,” he encouraged her.
    “I’m wearing nothing beneath this sleeping bag but a t-shirt and panties, Saul. Are my pants dry?”
    He sighed in exasperation. “No. Would you sunbathe in anything more while on a beach?”
    “Well no, not really.” In fact, her most recent swimsuit purchase consisted of two tiny triangles over the ass and crotch with patterns of bare skin over her hips. At least her hipsters provided full coverage.
    “Then come.”
    With great patience, he took her by the hand and assisted her onto her feet. At first, she felt a vague twinge of fleeting discomfort, but once Chloe set her full weight on it, all became well again. The man had magic hands, or she’d really done less damage than she previously estimated. After rolling the ankle joint, she took a few experimental steps.
    “Wow! It really does feel better. But now I’m starved.” By the time she had walked to her bag, her ankle caused her no further discomfort at all. It was a miracle, as if he’d laid hands on her and cast all of her pains away. “Wanna share some dinner?”
    A big guy like him had to be starving. He was easily six inches taller than her and built like an Olympic athlete. He probably required as much food in one meal as she consumed in an entire day to feed those muscles.
    “You would share your meal with me?”
    “Well I did offer, silly. Do you want any or not?”
    He nodded at her and settled on the ground again, where he waited until she gathered rainwater for the MREs. Once they were heated, she shook up the pouch and offered him two with a plastic spoon.
    “You’re going to want salt and pepper with that,” she cautioned him.
    He ignored her warning and spooned up a mouthful of soggy vegetables in beef-flavored broth. Within a matter of seconds, his inquisitive expression began to change. His mouth turned down, and he swallowed the first bite like she’d fed him pulped paper.
    “This is horrendous,” Saul commented, spooning through the contents of the pouch as if he expected the mirage to fade and reveal a replacement meal in its place. “How could you honestly claim that this passes for sustenance? What is this foul thing?”
    “Meals Ready-to-Eat beef stew,” Chloe replied.
    “I neither see nor taste a crumb of beef in this ill-prepared morsel of cuisine.”
    “It’s more than you had before I came along,” Chloe shot back.
    “Do you also have a preference for meat, or shall this supposed beef stew be your only meal?”
    Chloe sighed wistfully. “I could go for a steak, yeah, but there isn’t an Outback tucked away in this cavern, you know?”
    Saul rose to his feet and offered his unopened pouch and unfinished meal back to her. “Very well. Rest. Drink. I will return shortly with sustenance of a more… edible quality.”
    The man disappeared into the narrow crevice again. Against her better judgment, Chloe tossed their unfinished pouches into the discarded plastic bag and settled down to rest on her side with her phone. The signal bars had forsaken her, but she at least had a good book to read.

Chapter 2
     
    The smokey-sweet aroma of roasting meat awakened Chloe from her impromptu nap. While the digital romance novel occupying her phone had been filled with spicy sex and sensual mystery, it couldn’t combat the fatigue inspired by falling into a secret tunnel and meeting her own seductive stranger.
    Yawning, she propped her weight onto an elbow, and opened her eyes to find Saul crouched beside the fire. The flames crackled beneath the fragrant haunch of some animal. A deer or mountain goat maybe.
    “Where did you…?” She didn’t see a lick of hunting equipment in sight. Not even a damned blowgun or quiver.
    “It had broken its leg. Hardly a difficult catch when one is hobbled