Completely Smitten Part 2

When she was done, she frowned at him. "I've never encountered a ranger at the trailhead before."

"Just waiting for a friend, ma'am," he had said, and for an odd moment, she was afraid he'd give her a salute. But instead, he nodded at her and wished her well.

And so she started down the trail, feeling disconcerted, as if time had gone out of sync.

The feeling really hadn't left her. It was the morning of her third day and she was almost halfway through the trip. This night would be spent at a hot springs often used by rafters. She had thought it would be a good idea to stop at public sites a few times along the way, to see people, just in case she did run into trouble.

She hadn't so far. The weather was lovely--cool in the evenings, warm during the day. The sun was out all the time, but it was thin at this alt.i.tude, and it wasn't as hot as she had expected, considering she was making the trip in July.

Her backpack--in which she carried everything she needed--was comfortable, and the wilderness area was lovelier than she had been prepared for.

For the last two days, the trail had run above the river. Two thousand feet below, the river's waters frothed over rocks and down waterfalls. Rafters went by, the guides looking serious and the rafters themselves screaming or laughing and having a good time. They almost never looked up and saw her, and she was grateful.

Ariel always did best alone. She had learned that after her parents died. Before that, she had been a coddled only child, touched by fairy dust, as her mother used to say. The world had seemed safe and easy.

Then, three days after her twelfth birthday, her parents' car had been hit by a truck that had crossed the median, and there had been nothing left--of the car, of her parents, of her life.

Ariel had gone to live with her unmarried aunt in Monterey Bay. By the age of thirteen, she had made no friends. She had come home one afternoon to hear her aunt talking to Social Services.

"She's such a strange child," her aunt had said. "Never speaks, just watches television. I don't even think she's cried. I have no idea what to do with her."

"Are you able to care for her?"

"Well enough, I suppose," her aunt said. "After all, she should stay with family, although G.o.d knows I never wanted children."

That was all Ariel heard. She dropped her books, banged out the back door, and ran as far from the house as she could get. Midway through her mad dash, she realized that running felt good. It made her feel like a strong human being--one who could survive on her own.

From that moment on, Ariel became determined to be the strongest girl in her cla.s.s. She could out-run, out-jump, outride, and out-swim all the girls and most of the boys. Her aunt hated the athletics, saying they weren't feminine, but Ariel loved them and refused to give them up.

Which was why she was here, on this mountainside, all alone. Every time she hit a setback, she spent some time by herself, proving her own strength. This hike would allow her to focus on her future. She had some important choices to make.

The rotator cuff injury was too severe. Her doctors had ruled out any more compet.i.tive swimming. They might have allowed her to partic.i.p.ate in a sprint tri, but she wasn't good at the short length. Her strength was the Ironman--a 2.5-mile swim, followed by a 100-mile bike ride, and ending with a 26.2-mile run--all done within a single day.

She loved the challenge of it, pus.h.i.+ng her body to extremes. That was why she was here.

Walking through the primitive area of Idaho alone was an extreme.

And it was strange. That morning, it had gotten even stranger. As dawn's thin light was just filtering through the evergreen branches, she had crawled out of her tent to pee. Dew glistened silver on the gra.s.s, and overhead she could hear birds chirping.

She had tiptoed across the cold ground toward the two rocks she had designated the night before as her bathroom site, when she saw a man pointing a bow and arrow at her.

He was short, bathed in gold, and he had little wings on his back. Gold curls rimmed the bottom of his skull like a skirt, but he was bald on top. Wrinkles covered his face, and it looked as if his nose had been flattened by a steamroller. He had a scar on his shoulder, and in his mouth he clenched a half-smoked cigar.

"For this," he said, "I come out of retirement. Like I still owe the Fates something. I was drunk that night I told the 'Enquirer' everything. It wasn't like I blew too many secrets. A single one-time punishment, they said. Jeez. What kind of trick will they pull next time they need a marksman, I ask you?"

He grimaced at Ariel.

"Why am I asking you? You, who are so uneducated as to have no clue who I am. You, who fail to realize you are in the presence of greatness."

Then he released the arrow.

That snapped her out of her reverie. She ran for the trees, her breath coming hard, her body working without warm-up. She moved faster than she ever had--she was not a sprinter--and finally she found an outcropping of rock that protected her.

When she looked back, the little man was still there, cursing. The arrow was stuck in the ground. He bent over and grabbed the shaft, tugging at it.

"Like those three harpies will ever know," he was mumbling. "As if I wanted to help him in the first place. Why they a.s.sumed we'd become friends, I have no idea."

He pulled, and the arrow finally came loose. He looked at it and frowned. Then he broke the arrow over his knee. Wisps of smoke, in the shape of red hearts, floated out of the arrow's center, and then faded as if they never were.

"Good enough," he said, and shoved the broken pieces of arrow back in his quiver. Then, in a blinding flash of white light, he disappeared.

Ariel rubbed her eyes. She was crouched on the damp ground, behind the rock cropping, breathing hard. Dawn's light still filtered through the evergreen boughs, and dew still covered the gra.s.s--except in the places where her footsteps had disturbed it. Footsteps that made it look like she had been running.

But there was no little man with a cigar and wings, and there was no broken arrow that created smoky red hearts. She must have been asleep and dreaming.

Sleep-running.

That was a new one, and a bit disturbing too, especially since most of her campsites from now on would be near the river. What if she sleep-ran into the water--or over the edge of a cliff?

That was the thought that had been worrying her all day. She really wasn't thinking about compet.i.tive swimming or torn rotator cuffs. She was wondering if the stress of the last few months had damaged her mind.

Twigs, leaves, and broken branches covered the dirt path. Even though the hiking trail had been open for a month, no one had bothered to clear the winter debris. A sign, posted at the fork, warned of slides and unstable rocks, but Ariel didn't plan to dislodge any of them.

She was smart enough to keep an eye on her surroundings at all times. People died every year in Idaho's River of No Return Wilderness Area. She didn't plan on being one of them.

She planned to come out of this trip refreshed, her confidence in her body's abilities renewed. The rotator cuff injury had shaken her, and the loss of the Ironman--particularly when she'd been favored to win Hawaii this year--was especially hard.

Some of the other tri-geeks, people she'd known since she started running tris in high school, told her to swim through the pain. But she had done some research on her own. If she did, she might lose the use of her arm altogether. She planned on living another seven decades, and she felt that the use of her arm was more important than being in some record book as the winner of the Hawaii Ironman.

Even if it did come with endors.e.m.e.nts and great publicity. She hadn't been doing triathlons for the money anyway. She had been doing it for the challenge.

Hiking was a challenge. It was just a different kind of challenge, one that she hadn't tried before.

Physical activity had always been her escape in the past.

She saw no reason why it wouldn't work now.

Darius sat on a hillside, feeling grumpy. He had no reason to feel grumpy. The day was beautiful--the sky a clear blue, the sun s.h.i.+ning down through the pine trees. The air smelled fresh and clear, summer in the mountains. In the distance he could hear the roar of the river, and it wasn't even accompanied by the screams of rafters.

The hiking trail was empty. He hadn't seen anyone all day except, of course, Cupid.

Cupid had shown up at Darius's front doorstep shortly after dawn, looking angry, disgruntled, and generally out of sorts. Darius's greeting hadn't helped.

"They still making you wear diapers?" Darius said as he peered through the screen door.

"Fine way to greet a man you haven't seen in five hundred years." Cupid's voice rasped from too many cigars. The b.u.t.t of his last one stuck to his lower lip and moved when he talked.

"h.e.l.lo, Cupid," Darius had said. "I thought you gave up the arrows and wings around the birth of Christ."

"I thought so too. d.a.m.ned Fates decided I needed a refresher course. They slapped the wings on me last night. I think they're just drunk with power."

"They have been holding the same job for a very long time."

"Too long, if you ask me." Cupid shuddered. "You know it's cold up here at this time of the day. May I come in?"

Darius looked at Cupid's wings. "If you don't shed."

Cupid snapped his fingers, but the wings didn't disappear. He sighed. "Guess I haven't finished my little task. Or is there a mandatory time limit on form-altering spells?"

"I have no idea," Darius said as he held the screen door open.

Cupid stepped inside. "I'd heard that the Fates made you four feet tall with a long white beard and a hideous mug."

Darius started. He hadn't realized any of the magical knew about that part of his sentence. They knew about the other part, of course. He was a laughingstock because it had been nearly three thousand years and he still hadn't put a hundred soul mates together.

He'd just finished the ninety-ninth couple a few months before and he had come to his Idaho house as a getaway. The Fates granted him two weeks every year--taken either in whole or in part whenever he chose--when he got to look like himself. For the last few years, he'd been taking a week in solitude, up here.

"But you look just like you always did," Cupid was saying. "How'd you keep from losing your hair?"

Darius didn't answer that question. Instead, he asked, "Where'd you hear that I got slapped with a different body?"

Cupid shrugged. "Bacchus, maybe. Or whats.h.i.+sname, later called himself Rasputin--c.r.a.p. The brain's going."

"So are the wings," Darius said, looking pointedly at the feathers covering his hardwood floor.

"They'll be gone by the end of the day, I'm sure," Cupid said. "And none too soon. They itch."

He sat on Darius's overstuffed couch and put his feet on the coffee table Darius had made out of a tree stump.

Darius debated whether or not to offer him food. The sooner he got Cupid out of the house, the sooner he'd be alone again. "To what do I owe this visit?"

"Old times," Cupid said, pulling the ancient wool blanket Darius had on the couch over his torso. "Do you know there're not a lot of folks who can remember Ancient Greece anymore?"

"You just mentioned Bacchus."

"The last time I saw him was Spain four hundred years ago. He did something to really p.i.s.s off the Fates and disappeared into deep storage around then."

"What about Pan?"

"Went legit about ten years ago. Does concerts in the style of Yanni. Makes a mint, and doesn't like talking to the riff-raff."

"Hermes?"

Cupid rolled his eyes. "I don't talk to Hermes anymore."

"You never willingly talked to me either," Darius said. "I interfered with your sentence from the Fates, or so you said."

"So they said. Seems to me that's why you've been playing matchmaker for most of your life." Cupid leaned back on the couch, then exclaimed with pain as he crushed his wings. "Still not used to the d.a.m.n things. Listen, offer me breakfast, and then I'll get out of your way. I'm too d.a.m.n tired to whisk myself back to Monte Carlo."

"What're you doing in Monte Carlo?" Darius asked.

"Running a casino." Cupid took the cigar out of his mouth. "Don't look so surprised. Casinos are safe. They're one of the few places in the world where young lovers are scarce."

"What does Psyche think about this?"

"Psyche?" Cupid grinned. "She loves the games, man. It was her idea to open the place. She's a lot more adventurous than she looks."

He leaned back and closed his eyes. Within thirty seconds, he was snoring. Darius sighed and stood. He and Cupid had reached a sort of peace five hundred years ago. Of course, it had come at a price. Cupid had spent most of that last visit laughing at Darius for failing to complete his sentence. Cupid seemed pleased that Darius was still paying for the things that had happened two millennia ago.

Darius still didn't like the little creep. Breakfast was all he was willing to do. He made pancakes and sausages and poured some of his homemade syrup into a pitcher.

When he finally served the food, Cupid was too busy stuffing his face to talk. He'd made Darius get up three times to bring him more syrup and then, when they'd finished eating, Cupid had disappeared without a real good-bye.

But he'd never been good on manners. It was one of the many things that Darius still disliked about him. The other was the stench of cigars that he couldn't seem to get out of the house.

Darius had come to his favorite reflecting spot just so that he could get some fresh air. He still didn't see the point in Cupid's visit. They hadn't talked about old times. They hadn't talked about much at all. Darius got a sense that Cupid had remembered why their mutual dislike was ... well, mutual.

A twig snapped, pulling Darius out of his reverie. He sighed and hoped this hiker wasn't in trouble. The last few were so relieved at seeing a house, they stopped just for conversation. After this morning's visitor, the last thing Darius wanted was conversation.

Then a woman emerged from the trees. She was too thin. He could see the bones in her arm even from this distance.

But it wasn't a thinness caused by excessive dieting or illness. This was an athlete's thinness, the kind that came from pus.h.i.+ng a body to its very limit. A kind he both recognized and respected. The body he wore at the moment-- his original body--had that kind of thinness.

He had always found that look extremely attractive.

With a shrug of her shoulders, she adjusted her backpack. It looked heavy--at least fifty pounds--and she carried it as if it weighed only five. Within easy access she had rope, a knife, a flashlight, and a bottle of water. She was prepared.

She wore her auburn hair pulled back from her face. Darius strained to see her features but couldn't make them out clearly.

She moved with an athlete's grace, with a confidence that very few people ever attained.

He inched closer to the tree, peering around it so that he could see her better. She walked with her head up, taking in the beauty of her surroundings. He looked too, trying to see this familiar vista through her eyes: the jagged mountain peaks, the bright summer suns.h.i.+ne, the ribbon of water running through the valley below.

She was conquering this place, hiking through it alone, making it her own. He, on the other hand, came here to hide. He used an airstrip that had existed since the 1930s, and he had never hiked in, not once, in the more than one hundred years he'd owned the house, hidden in the woods above him.

She had just pa.s.sed beneath him when he heard a snap and then a rustle. He stiffened, hoping the sound didn't portend what he thought it did.

He looked down, saw tiny rocks sliding toward her. She saw them too, and tried to step backward, but it was too late.

The path disintegrated beneath her and suddenly she was falling toward the raging river, a thousand feet below.

*Three*