CHAPTER 6
IN DISBELIEF, JARED ran to the very edge of the cliff, his arms flapping to keep him from falling over in his rush.
She was gone.
Gone.
As he watched in horror, a screaming—and naked—Rose appeared, then just as fast, disappeared over the second falls and into the river below.
Lily surfaced in the first pool, tossing her hair and water from her face as she searched around her.
Letting out his pent-up breath, Jared cupped his hands around his mouth. “Lily! She went over the second falls!” he yelled, pointing.
Nodding, she swam toward the second waterfall.
Jesus. No one admired bravery more than him, because bravery had been what had gotten him through the past year. Well, that and a healthy fear of dying, but that was another story.
Lily had guts in spades, and it fascinated him. She fascinated him. “Wait here,” Jared told everyone else, and took off on the trail, heading back down.
Because down was the way a screaming Rose was headed, and Lily would be right after her.
He intended to be there as well.
* * *
THE WATER CLOSED over Rose’s head and her first thought was, uh-oh.
Then she was caught in the current, which carried her over the second waterfall, tumbling her head over heels, again and again, until she couldn’t decide which way was up and which was down, and her next thought was Oh, shit, now I’ve done it.
Yeah. Jumping had seemed like a fun adventure to have, but maybe she could have thought this out a little better.
Too bad thinking ahead wasn’t her strong suit. Just ask her ex-husband. If it had been, she wouldn’t be here…camping. But she’d been bored at work selling second homes to rich techies in the Bay Area, tired of flirting—and sleeping with—the same techies. She wanted to mix things up a bit, and going on an outdoor adventure had seemed like a good idea.
Given the way Rock looked at her, it had been a great idea.
She wanted him. She wanted to play with him for the duration, then say bye-bye and walk away.
Her specialty.
Walk when the magic fades, and you could never get hurt. She liked that, she thought, kicking to the surface and opening her eyes. Oh, my God, the sky was a sharp blue, the rest of the landscape a glorious green-and-brown blur—
Blur.
Oh, shit, the river was moving fast, and because she was in it, so was she.
Definitely not her best move. She grabbed for a branch, and missed. Two tries later she managed to grab on to a loose one. Shoving her hair out of her eyes, she surveyed the situation. She was naked in a rushing river, holding on to a branch that didn’t feel all that stable, and shore seemed pretty damn far away.
So where the hunks were when she needed them? Jack with his quick smile, even if that smile was mostly directed at his sweet, spoiled wife. Jared with that laid-back, easygoing wit that was somehow much sexier than muscles, though he had those, too… Unfortunately for her, he hadn’t taken his gaze off Lily since they’d started this hike. Mostly, she hoped for Rock, because he had a body meant for nibbling, and eyes that made her melt, eyes that spent a gratifying amount of time glued to her ass, but at this point—that being she was getting cold and the branch had just cracked ominously—she’d take any of them.
Leaning back, she let the sun beam down on her face and her breasts, and that felt good. She supposed she could just hang on and sunbathe for a few—
Crack went the branch, and broke.
* * *
LILY WENT OVER the second falls, plunging beneath the surface, held there for an interminably long moment by a vicious current.
Pain blossomed through her body, each muscle screaming in protest at the activity.
It’d been a while since she’d swum in pure snowmelt, and she was less than thrilled at doing it now as the cold seeped into her newly repaired bones, making them stiff, leaving them hurting like hell.
She was going to kill Rose, if the river didn’t do it first.
Kicking to the surface in the deep river, she gulped in air as she searched around her for the other woman. It wasn’t hard to find her, she simply followed the sudden scream echoing and bouncing off the rock canyon walls.
Lily sped up her stroke toward the sound. Why couldn’t people follow directions?
Then the scream abruptly cut off.
Oh, God.
Heart in her throat, Lily whipped around a curve in the river, nearly decapitating herself on a fallen log.
But then she was treading water, in shock as she focused on Jared—not where she’d left him and told him to stay, but on the river’s edge—holding a naked Rose in his arms.
Obviously he hadn’t listened to her any more than Rose had, an epidemic today, which really pissed her off. He’d clearly run back down the trail—at the speed of light if he’d gotten here that quick—and had jumped into the river to save the screaming, misbehaving Rose himself.
Rose practically climbed up Jared’s body to glue herself against him tighter than shrink wrap. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she was saying over and over, kissing his face, still bare-ass naked, mind you, with breasts she’d most definitely not been born with bouncing all over the place.
Jared, not seeming to mind, sank to the ground, his arms full. He’d lost his glasses and was squinting like crazy when he lifted his head and looked over at Lily with a smile. “Got her.”
Yeah, she could see that. She wouldn’t have guessed he’d have the strength for it, but he’d proven her wrong. He’d probably laugh, and say she was judging a book by its cover again, and she’d definitely have to agree.
She was going to have to start redefining what she saw as strength.
It definitely didn’t have to come from muscles.
Gritting her chattering teeth, she began to swim to the edge, her body protesting by shooting pain through every inch. The current was a bitch, and she could definitely see how Rose had gotten herself in trouble. She was breathing like a misused racehorse herself, though a good part of that was adrenaline.
And temper.
Oh, and pain.
Setting her feet down, she made her way out of the water. Jared looked at her as he tried, unsuccessfully, to pull Rose’s arms from his neck.
Probably Rose was practically strangling him. Good.
“What if you’d fallen in, too?” she asked, collapsing exhausted to the shore before he could see she was trembly. “I’d still be out there, trying to save both of you.”
“You’re welcome.” Jared had either dropped his outer shirt before he’d jumped in, or he’d lost it in the water. He pulled off the T-shirt that was clinging to his every inch, tugging it over his head with the one easy motion that guys were so good at, and then handed it to Rose.
“It’s wet,” Rose said in a voice that said she wasn’t thinking about the wet shirt so much as his bare chest, which she was now practically lapping up.
“It’s a cover,” Jared pointed out, standing there just a little bit attitude-ridden and a whole lot more tough and less skinny than Lily had thought.
Like Rose, she took a second look.
And okay, maybe a third and a fourth, because, um, wow.
With a low oath, Jared tried to stuff Rose into his T-shirt himself. He was blinking rapidly, and without his glasses, still squinting.
Lily watched him shove Rose’s arms into the sleeves, wondering why the hell she cared if he had to touch Rose’s nude and extremely gorgeous, lush body to do it.
Because she absolutely did not care.
Not one little bit.
Nope, she had other things to worry about, thank you very much. Things such as the fact that for the first time, she’d come close to losing someone on her watch. What did that say about her ability to do this? Not much. Shoving her hair out of her face, she put her hands on her hips. “And what the hell was that, Rose? The taking-off-your-clothes-and-jumping-off-a-cliff thing?”
Rose smoothed down the T-shirt that now covered her to midthigh, clinging to every inch of her curvy body as if she’d just been in a wet T-shirt contest. “Yeah, sorry. That got a little crazy.”
“A little?”
She shrugged. “The water looked so inviting.”
“You might have gotten Jared killed.” The thought made Lily’s blood run cold, and she whirled on him as well. “And you…”
He blinked some more.
“I told you to stay.”
“Again, you’re welcome,” he said, squinting adorably.
“Damn it, your glasses. Did you lose them?” That was all she needed, him half blind for the next four days.
“No, they’re fine. I dropped them at the top with my pack.” He shook his head like a dog, and water droplets showered around him. He shoved his fingers through the short mop, but all that accomplished was to make the dark ends stand straight up.
Jack and Rock came running into the clearing then, having clearly made their way down the path. In Rock’s hands were Rose’s clothes, and he skidded to a stop in front of her, panting, sweating, utterly speechless at the sight of her in Jared’s wet T-shirt.
Apparently knowing exactly how stop-traffic-amazing she looked, and probably having caused more than her fair share of speechlessness before, Rose patted his arm in understanding and sympathy. Yeah, she seemed to be used to making men into stupid blathering idiots. “Thanks, sugar.” She winked at him as she stepped into her mini skirt and shimmied it up her hips. “Sweet of you.”
Lily looked up both sets of falls to where she could just make out Michelle’s outline, undoubtedly anxious. Not necessarily for Rose’s health, but her own, because she wouldn’t like to be alone.
Not that she’d risk a second climb back up the hill in order not to be alone. No, staying up there by herself was apparently the lesser of two evils. “All right,” Lily said wearily. “Let’s get back up to our stuff. We’ll just camp there for the night and regroup.” And take a bottle of ibuprofen. “Start fresh—” she looked at Rose “—and dry, in the morning.”
Rose had the good grace to look chagrined. “Yeah. Sorry about that, honey.” She snuggled into poor Rock for some of his body warmth, making his expression go from worry to looking as if he’d won the lotto.
Lily sighed. She’d known coming into this thing that this group had little wildness experience and she’d taken them on anyway. It was fine, it was her job to show them a good time out here, and she loved doing that.
And in four days they would be gone out of her life, and she’d be onto a new group. That was the beauty of this job, everything being so temporary—but she had the unsettling feeling that maybe, just maybe, temporary no longer suited her. “Let’s go.” She led the way back, stopping along the way at the four men sitting on the edge of the river fishing. They were the first people they’d seen all day, and they had a full bucket of trout with them. For an easy price, Lily negotiated dinner—five trout she could cook to go along with the pasta she had in her gear.
She led her group back up the winding path, dripping water on the switchbacks as she carried the fish. She was in a good amount of pain now, and didn’t glance back. She knew the men would make sure Rose got back up the hill just fine.
Honestly. Men were so stupid, letting themselves be led around by their penises. Thank God she was female.
“Hey.”
She heard Jared, but kept walking, wringing water out of her braid rather than have it drip down her back and chill her further.
“Hey,” he said again, and grabbed her arm, pulling her around to face him.
“Don’t worry,” she said, lifting the trout. “I promise they won’t be slimy.”
His mouth quirked at the reference to his list of things to do. His hair was still standing straight up, and at some point today he’d gotten quite a bit of sun, which had bronzed his cheekbones.
He had his shirt back from Rose, but it was wadded in his hand and not on his dry torso, so she couldn’t stop her gaze from taking itself on a happy little tour, skimming over his shoulders, which were broader than she’d have guessed, and his chest, which had just the right amount of hair, not too much and not too little.
Not that she noticed.
Good Lord. Had she bumped her head in the dive? What other reason could there possibly be for her gaze to dip even farther and lock on his belly?
Flat and ridged, it rose and fell from the exertion of the tough walk.
And then there were his jeans.
God, she was a sucker for a man in jeans, and these were still wet and just loose enough that they’d slipped low, dangerously low actually, on his narrow hips, gaping away from his abs with every breath he took.
A woman, if she was so inclined, could slip her entire hand down into that loose waistband and—
“I didn’t realize this had turned into a race back up to the top,” he said.
“Sorry.”
Reaching out, Jared slid his hand along her jaw, lifting her face, which he then frowned into, his gaze locked on her cheekbone.
“What?” She slapped his hand away.
His lips curved slightly. “You just also have a—”
“What?”
He waggled a finger, pointing to her face, then reaching in—
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, and on that, I’m completely one hundred percent in agreement, but you have a little…” Looking into her eyes, smiling, he pulled something off her cheek. A leaf, probably stuck there with dirt as well.
She swiped at her face, groaning when his smile widened. “I just smeared dirt around, right?”
“If it helps, you look extremely cute with it on your face.”
Extremely cute? She didn’t know quite how to take that. Hell, she didn’t know how to take him. Half the time he made her want to smile, the other half of the time he made her yearn and burn for some nameless thing… Ack, the man made her crazy. Unable to come up with any kind of reasonable response, Lily turned and began walking again.
“Are you okay?” he asked, keeping pace with her.
“Why?”
He was quiet a moment. “Your limp, it’s more pronounced.”
“I’m good.” And to prove it, she sped up. At the top of the hill, she ordered Rose and Jared to change while she made camp and got everyone settled. This involved getting a fire going so she could get a now-chilled Rose warm again. As always now with a fire, she stared into the flames and felt a creepy, unwanted flashback to another fire, one that had almost cost her everything, but she beat that back. This wasn’t a campfire made by some reckless idiot. She knew what she was doing, and there would be no falling asleep until it was as out as it could be.
No flare-ups.
“What about bears?” Michelle asked nervously, her teeth chattering along with Rose’s. “Th-think bears’ll find us?”
Jared pulled something out of his pocket. That PDA again. With a couple of taps of his thumb, he looked up. “No bears in the vicinity,” he promised, and showed them the screen. It was a global positioning satellite, complete with a heat-seeking system. “It’d tell us if something alive was around here breathing.”
Nothing was lit up in their vicinity but the six of them.
“Wow,” Michelle said. “I want one of those.”
Jared shook his head. “Prototype.” He glanced at Lily, who was feeling torn between extreme irritation at his toys, and the fact that it had actually seemed to ease Michelle’s mind.
With the fire crackling, and Rose hunched in front of the flames, Lily put Rock on Rose’s tent detail, which thrilled him.
Too bad he had no idea what he was doing, and she had to help him. And then Michelle and Jack as well.
After that, she turned to help Jared, assuming that he, like the others, would have no idea how to erect his tent despite the fact that they’d been given their equipment days ago with directions to practice and become proficient.
Only, once again, he managed to surprise her. His tent was already erected, and as she watched, he came out of it, walking directly behind her to set something on her shoulders.
A large towel.
“What’s this?” she asked.
He tugged playfully on her hair and slid an arm around her, sharing his body heat. “You made sure everyone else changed and got warm, but you never did. You’re still wet.” His hands slid down her shoulders along her arms, big and warm as he gently squeezed, sharing that warmth with her.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“We’ve already agreed that you are as fine as they come.”
His voice tended to do something funny to her belly, and it tightened. Was she… No. She was absolutely not lusting.
Oh, God, but she was.
He ran his hands back up her arms, and she actually shivered again.
Definitely lusting. Big-time.
“See,” he murmured in her ear, his jaw brushing hers, making her eyes want to flutter closed in order to savor the sensation. “You were cold.”
“No,” she said. A lie, of course. Just try me, she’d said to Keith, and now she wanted to say that very thing to Jared.
Just try me…
When he flashed a quick grin that she could feel against her skin, she could have kicked herself.
Because she’d just admitted it wasn’t a chill making her shiver, but him.
Oh, boy. She’d wanted to claim her life again, and she was. Only she was beginning to discover she was getting much more than she’d bargained for.
She clamped her mouth shut tight so she couldn’t inadvertently give anything else away. But it was too late, and he laughed softly. “So if you’re not cold…” His voice was lower now, husky…pleased. “Then it’s me making you shiver.”
Nope.
Not saying a word here, not a single one, not when her brain had so clearly disconnected from her mouth.
His lips skimmed over her skin, in that delicate, oh-so-sensitive spot just beneath her lobe, and damn it, she shivered again.
“I’m tired, that’s all,” she said quickly to negate it. “And sore from the dive and swim.”
“Need me to kiss you all better?” he whispered in a voice hot enough to set the surrounding trees on fire. “Because it worked last time…”