That sounded positively primeval. This place was primeval though and the man I had been paired up with was fully primal. My own reactions to everything seemed primal.

I'd turned my back to him and now I turned back as I heard him doing something. He was making a fire. He quickly added wood to the blaze that had already started up and we both turned with a gasp at the sight of the twinkling gleam of the fire's light off of the heaped up mounds of trunks overflowing with treasure. A King's ransom lay sprawled out before us.

As if I was asleep and distant from reality I approached the glittering treasure.

"Don't! It's probably……"

I screamed as I fell through space. I came to an abrupt jerking stop that caused me to scream out again, only this time in pain.

Colt had caught me, but he'd done so by grabbing my hair. I cried out again as I was moved upward. A hand grabbed my arm and I was hauled up the rest of the way far less painfully.

"I'm sorry!!! I …. Oh God that had to hurt, but I had to! You were gone so fast and it was all that I had to grab a hold of. Oh darn it your scalp is bleeding! I love your hair, I'm so……"

My head hurt, but I blinked past the tears of pain in order to grasp his forearm lightly and say, "It hurts, but I'm alive. Thank you!"

We sat on the ground several feet back from the unseen abyss that lay just before the glittering pile of jewels. His arms about me were secure and I sat in a dazed shock as I contemplated my newest encounter with death.

Once again I'd been snatched out of the jaws of the grave by Colt. It was becoming a habit.

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"I'm still sorry." Colt said softly as he continued to hold me.

He cared of all things about my hair? It wasn't an act he was putting on either.

So many thoughts and scenarios were coming out of nowhere all of a sudden and it was giving birth to a whole new range of emotion and desire that I'd never before imagined had even existed within me.

"Is your hair going to fall out now?" He asked in a mournful tone.

Despite the stinging pain I smiled slightly and said, "Probably not, but if it does it'll grow back I promise."

Suddenly awkward by it all I quickly withdrew myself and stood up. Colt got up and went back to the fire. He was back with a burning branch within a moment.