A Wild Rose in the Wilderness

--This story is a continuation of the Wild Rose adventure, and involves infidelity as a theme, if that offends you, please read something else. If you enjoy this piece, please rate it accordingly.

--I would also like to thank the readers who urged me to write more on this story line. I appreciate the encouragement and suggestions. Thank you!

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Rose and Steve would have been the perfect couple, except they were both married to other people. They had everything else going for them, passion, shared hobbies, love for nature, and were well matched in their humor, wit and stamina. They spent more time with each other than each did with their own spouses. Everything was so good...

It was when Rose's husband suddenly died, that they fell apart.

She hadn't even told Steve, he read about it in the paper. He had thought she had needed space, so hadn't pushed her. He had texted a few times. She hadn't responded to any of them. He didn't see her at the gym at her usual time, nor had he seen her on the river. His worry increased when he didn't see her name on the frequent flyers list at the gym for the first time since he had known her name.

Rose never intended to fall in love with someone besides the man she had married, and had not expected how freeing it had been, and how vibrant and alive she would feel. It had just snuck up on her, and now she had a mountain of guilt pressing down on her because she had been together with Steve when her husband had his first and fatal heart attack.

She was sure that it was a message from the universe directed to her personally, Rose always took things personally. She was an avid believer in signs from a higher power and tried her best to interpret them correctly. Her past history spoke for itself when she looked back and found nothing but burned bridges. Eventually all her friendships had fallen by the wayside over time, whether it was she or the other that had walked away, and she was again alone in her own mind. She could only look at herself and her own actions and see if there was anything that she could have done differently, and there was always something, when on discovery, she did her best not to repeat in her future.

Steve wanted desperately to help her, knowing she was struggling with the death of her spouse, but not knowing what she needed from him, and he didn't want to make things worse, so ended up doing nothing, hoping that in time she would reach out to him on her own.

Rose felt she had to place the blame on herself, after all, she was the common denominator in all the scenarios, never mind that it was her life she was looking at and she wasn't the common denominator just because she was in the equation, even so, she thought she must be at fault somehow.

She was determined to accept the fact that she may be destined to be alone in this life. This helped her to give up any expectations she had for others, and begin to truly, rely only on herself.

She especially couldn't bear to be around Steve, even though she longed for him to hold her and comfort her; she knew that she needed to find the strength within herself, to rely only on herself, and just thinking about being with him was a self inflicted torture that her heart couldn't bear.

Rose still dreamt of Steve every night. Her sleep, what there was of it, was riddled with guilt and doubts and a whole lot of what-if's. The more she enjoyed her dreams of Steve, the guiltier she felt upon waking.

The seed of a plan formed in a dark corner of her mind, it stretched its tendrils grasping and pulling itself into the light that was the forefront of her consciousness where it suddenly bloomed large, unable to be ignored.

The world had gone and gotten tilted sideways in a matter of a few months, and she had noticed how much more self centered and unpredictable people had become. She had been fairly friendly, but now people leaned away from others, avoiding contact rather than craving it.

She personally had always had the habit of spending as much time as far away from people as she could, and while she didn't realize it at the time, she was planning her retreat from society and social restraints as she did so. She believed she had a better chance against wild animals than humans, at least with a bear or a cougar, she knew where she stood, and what she would need to do. With people it was never so cut and dried.

She was fortunate that she had cut back her work schedule when her husband had died. Now she only worked two days a week, and could work from anywhere she could get a good wi-fi connection. Most weeks she headed off into the mountains, and although her plan hadn't manifested itself into her consciousness it was firmly rooted in her subconscious, so unknowingly, she started stockpiling supplies.

She always packed as though she would be gone for months, planned for any contingency, and when she found a secluded place, she started leaving extra gear there. Her stash was located twelve miles into the wilderness by hiking trail, almost a full day's hike from the trailhead where she parked her Jeep.

After a few weeks the plan started creeping into her conscious mind, no longer complacent to hide in the dark corners, yearning for the light of her consciousness to acknowledge its existence. It was then that she began to store tools, some food items, extensive first aid gear, and other larger items she might need, but wouldn't want to haul with her day to day if she was living out there.

This plan had been churning in her mind as the world had started its wild change. She spent so much time in the mountains anyway, she could easily live out here for extensive periods of time. Every trip she grew her cache of supplies. She had found a nice solar charging system for her electronics, so she could maintain a thread of connection to the outside world. She stocked up on ammo for her nine-mil. She figured that her hand gun would add insurance against larger residents of the area, mostly bear and cougar.

She had also acquired a compound bow in the past year, and had gotten proficient enough to kill smaller game. She had learned how to clean, skin and in some cases, if the kill was large enough, quarter the kill. She tried not to think about Steve, who had started her interest and in some cases taught her what she knew about hunting.

She started researching meat and hide preservation techniques, so she could plan for the winter months when food may be scarce, and fur clothing would be extra beneficial. She also had her fishing pole and was not opposed to catching bugs or digging for worms to use as bait, preferring to use fresh live bait, but that would not work well in the winter months, so she needed to improve her hunting skills.

She was ahead of the game in that she knew many of the plants in the area that were edible, and those that weren't. Granted, it wasn't five-star dining, but she could survive on what she knew.

It was fortunate that she was fond of mushrooms which grew plentifully in the area, glad that she had paid attention in her mycology class back at the university five years ago, again thankful for the pull of nature on her soul, and her ambition to never stop learning.

She knew which fungi she could eat, which would kill her, and also which would produce hallucinations or be used as medicine. She was exceedingly grateful now, that she had studied botany as a hobby for the past twenty years.

Rose was by no means an average woman either. She was just under six feet in height and was built sturdy, her shoulders broader than most men's. She also had been weightlifting for the past couple of years on top of all the other active hobbies she enjoyed, so her strength was at its peak when she retreated into the mountains.

Rose was exceedingly strong for a woman always being her own competition, because no one else seemed to fit into her ranking, partly because of her size, but also because of her excellent genetics. She could lift twice as much as other women she had seen lift at her gym, and more than most men who didn't lift, or were just starting back up after years. Her long legs were well muscled with thighs built for climbing and sprinting, and she had the stamina to climb quickly for long periods of time which was unusual for sprinters.

Rose's love for nature had been born from her parent's love of nature. They had taken her on her first backpacking trip through Yosemite in California when she was just two years old, and then again every two or three years during her childhood, her family would head off away from civilization and backpack for a month, or more, at a time.

The practice was ingrained in her. She knew what to look for in a good camp and didn't have to think about what needed doing when she found a good spot. Number one on the list of things she looked for was water supply. A camp should never be too far from a water supply. There also needed to be a certain openness to the camp, so some type of clearing. Another important thing to look for were trees. Trees were almost more important than water. Pine needles provided padding under her bedroll, provided added shelter and warmth, and also supplied a safe place for her to hang her pack and her stockpiled food to keep the scavenging from animals to a minimum. The most important thing trees provided was natural insulation from the harsh winds and temperatures. Lastly trees provide fodder for her campfire, so she could keep warm and cure meat and boil water without having to spend too much energy foraging away from camp for burnable wood.

Each night, Rose would dream of Steve. During the day, it was easy to keep him from her mind, she was so busy trying to survive than to dwell on things that had been.

At night, when her mental guard went down, Steve slipped so easily into her thoughts and dreams. The taste of his tongue as they kissed and the tender yet urgency of those kisses as they rained down her body like a summer storm. The memory of his touch seeming random, and sensations that flooded through her, made her body respond with skin raised in goose flesh. She could feel the strength of his arms wrapping around her and felt the warmth, safety, and sensuousness in his embrace. She let herself give in to the fantasy over and over each night. Her memory fresh with the sensations of their lovemaking. Her dreams always felt so real, but made her wakefulness that much more torture, when she woke to find it just a fantasy.

Some mornings she awoke post-orgasm to intense throbbing in her loins, her breath ragged and shallow, her body damp from sweat. She hated that she couldn't give him up fully, wondering what deal she was going to have to make to lay her demons to rest. To her these intimate dreams symbolized a weakness that she needed to fix, because she couldn't make Steve choose between her and his morals. She had made that choice, chosen him, and had seemingly been punished for it.

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--Thank you for reading this excerpt of the Wild Rose adventure. There is more to come. If you liked this please rate it accordingly.

Thank you, ddMcAnn