CHAPTER 8
KISSING LILY WAS like…well, Jared didn’t really know because there was nothing like it. Nothing. He experienced the unique, rushing thrill of hearing her drop the two pots at her feet, as if she couldn’t concentrate on both his mouth and a single other thing.
Oh, yeah, he liked that.
And then there was the way her hands came up and sank in his barely there hair, tight, like maybe she didn’t want him to get away until she was completely finished with him.
Ditto.
God. Her lips had been a little chilled at their first touch but they warmed quickly beneath his.
Another thrill.
As was the feel of her tongue as it slid to his. Definitely he could drown in her, just let himself go right under, and, happily doing just that, he leaned into her, a move that sandwiched her between the tree and his own body, pressing her snugly against him. His hands free, he slid them up her body, groaning at the hot, tight feel of her, and given the sexy little sounds that escaped her throat, she was drowning, too.
Never coming up for air, he thought, never, and frustrated by the layers between them, he slid his hands beneath her shirt to find warm, silky skin. Oh, yeah—
A scream shattered the night, and they both jerked free.
“Shit,” Lily gasped, and shoving her shirt back down, went running back into camp, with him right on her heels.
They skidded into the clearing around the campfire, taking in the situation. It looked as if everyone had dropped whatever they were doing to rush over to Jack and Michelle’s tent, including Jack, who was now holding a sobbing Michelle.
“What happened?” Lily demanded, after pushing in front of Rose and Rock.
Everyone started talking at once, including Jack, but Lily held up her hand. “Wait. Michelle?”
Michelle hiccupped and kept her face buried in Jack’s T-shirt.
Jack rolled his eyes, and at the movement, Jared sensed Lily relax. If Jack was annoyed, then Michelle wasn’t dying.
Probably.
“Michelle,” Lily said, dropping to her knees besides them. “Talk to me.”
“A spider,” she gulped, tightening the fisted grip she had on Jack’s shirt, making him wince. “A big, fat, hairy, humungous spider!”
“Okay.” Lily glanced back at Jared, but somehow managed to keep a straight face. “There are a lot of spiders out here, we’re in their territory.”
Michelle shook her head. “You’ve got to get it out of there!”
Jack sighed. “Michelle.”
Lily patted the sobbing Michelle on the back. “Listen, don’t make yourself sick. Where’s the spider?”
“On my pillow! I’m never going to sleep on that pillow again!”
“So I carted it seven miles up this mountain for nothing?” Jack asked.
Michelle pushed him away from her. “This is not a time for jokes, Jack.”
“Who was joking?”
Lily ignored both of them to duck into the tent. She reappeared a moment later.
“Your hands are empty,” Michelle said, her voice tight with panic. “Lily, your hands are empty.”
“It’s gone,” Lily said regretfully.
“Probably your screaming scared him off—What?” Jack asked when Michelle stopped crying to smack him. “That’s a good thing, right?”
“I think so,” Lily said, nodding. “A really good thing.”
Jared glanced down at the door of the tent. “Hey. Look.” He grabbed a stick and nudged the indeed big, black, fat, hairy spider onto it. “Got him.”
Michelle screamed again and buried her face against her husband’s chest.
“I’ll take it into the woods,” Jared said quickly, and moved to the far edge of camp. By the time he’d turned back, Michelle had a new horror—the chances that the spider had laid babies in her tent.
“Doubtful,” Lily was saying. “Very doubtful.”
“Doubtful, but possible, right?”
Lily shook her head. “They don’t lay babies at night.” She said this with an utterly straight face.
Jack nodded his agreement. “That’s right. I read that somewhere.”
“Yeah?” Michelle rounded on him. “Where did you read it?”
Rock stepped forward. “Look, you guys can switch tents with me.”
Jack shook his head. “That’s not necessary—”
“Thank you,” Michelle said gratefully, and with a scathing look at her husband, stalked off toward Rock’s tent.
Jack sighed. “Sorry,” he said to Rock, who shrugged.
“No sweat.”
“We should all get to bed,” Lily said into the silence. “We have an early start tomorrow morning, so we all need to sleep tight—”
“And not let the bedbugs bite,” Jack joked, only to have Michelle whirl back in horror from Rock’s tent.
“Just kidding,” he said. “Just kidding!” And he headed to his new tent for the night.
When it was just Lily and Jared, she looked at him. “It’s getting to be that maybe I should get you on the payroll for this expedition.”
“It was just a spider removal.”
“A timely one.”
“No big deal.” He shrugged, and watched a lizard dart beneath a manzanita bush at the edge of the fire. “Hope she doesn’t see that little guy.”
“She’s bound to see plenty of things she doesn’t like.” She didn’t come any closer, he noted. Because she didn’t trust herself? He sort of liked the thought of that.
“Thanks,” she said. “For tonight.”
“No thanks required. But if you want to be grateful…”
Her smile went just a little guarded when he stepped around the fire to get closer.
“Jared.”
“Don’t say it was a mistake,” he said quietly, and they both knew they were no longer talking about the spider.
“Not a mistake,” she said. “Just not wise.”
“Then why did it feel so good?”
“Good doesn’t always equal right. Look…” She turned in a slow circle, clearly searching for words. “I’ve always tried to be in charge of my destiny, you know?”
“So?”
“So, right now my destiny is kicking me in the ass.”
“Because you can’t be a firefighter?”
“Because I don’t know what I want to be.” She tossed up her hands. “Or who I am. I came here to try to start over, back at the beginning, to try to figure it all out.” At that, she shook her head. “And I have no idea why I tell you such things.”
“Because it’s a natural fit between us.”
“A natural fit?” She frowned. “That makes it sound like we’re a thing.”
He smiled.
“Oh, no.” With a little laugh, she shook her head. “No thing.”
“We kissed,” he reminded her. “That felt like a thing, a big one.”
She shook her head again. “I don’t know why I kissed you.”
“I know.” He cupped her jaw for the sheer pleasure of touching her again. “I don’t know what exactly what it is about you either. But I’m willing to find out.” He looked into her beautiful eyes. “And as for you not knowing who you are, you’ll figure it out.”
She stared up at him. “Have you always been so self-assured, always known exactly who you are?”
At that, he laughed. Had he always known? Try never—until recently.
“I take that as a no.”
“A hell no,” he corrected. “I grew up a small, skinny, sickly, self-conscious nerd.”
“Nerd made good,” she said softly.
“It took a while. Years. And then, when it all came right down to it, none of it meant a damn. Not the success, the huge corporation, the money in the bank accounts, nothing. I couldn’t have taken a thing with me.”
“Except this.” Surprising him, she put her hand over his heart, and he covered it with one of his own.
“You know what?” she whispered.
“What?” he whispered back, unbearably moved, wanting her to keep her hand on him all night long.
Her smile shimmered. “Every minute you spend in these mountains, you seem to lose a little bit of that city boy.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how you’re doing it…” She ran her hand up his chest, his throat, to his jaw, the pads of her fingers making a rasping sound over his day-old growth. “But you sure are tougher than I imagined when I first saw you.”
Bringing her hand up to his mouth, he pressed his lips to her palm. “Know what I thought when I first saw you?”
“That I was going to steal your parking spot?” she whispered.
“Well, that, and also…” His gaze met hers. “That you were the sexiest woman I’d ever laid my eyes on.”
“I was frowning at you,” she reminded him.
“Ah, yes. The frown. I think that clinched it for me.”
She tried to tug free. “Stop it.”
He held on and smiled. “Serious. Sexiest woman ever.”
“Wow.” Her voice sounded a little shaken. “I think it’s bedtime. ’Night, Jared.” Turning away, she went still, then glanced back. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
He knew a dismissal when he heard one. “Maybe it will make better sense in the morning.”
“The bedbugs?”
“No.”
Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “The kiss?”
“All of it.”
“Including the reasons why we shouldn’t do any of it again?”
He wanted to say the hell with that, but she’d turned away to deal with putting the fire out.
He went into his tent and lay down, surrounded by night noises that he was extremely unused to. Crickets chirped their odd song. From the hills came a lonely, edgy howl.
He knew the feeling.
Then came an answering howl, a pause, and then both of them together.
As one.
With a sigh, Jared turned over and wished it was that simple, that he could simply toss back his head and let loose with a howl and have Lily appear right here next to him. But he wasn’t an animal, he was a human, and supposedly they’d evolved way past such a thing.
* * *
LILY DIDN’T SLEEP as hard as she’d have liked. First, she kept jerking awake to check on the campfire.
But she’d put it out completely, and she had nothing to worry about.
Other things though…other things kept bouncing through her head.
Jared.
Cancer.
He hadn’t come right out and said it, but she knew, and it’d been bad. So bad he’d seemed just a little surprised to still be around, and if that didn’t grab her by the throat and hold on tight…
But he’d made it, and she was fiercely glad and proud and overwhelmed with a newfound sense of wonder. It was far too easy to forget how fragile life could be, how short, how absolutely, stunningly beautiful.
She for one wouldn’t waste the reminder, and the next morning, with thoughts of Jared, of life in general, still on her mind, she got up early.
Up at this altitude, dawn came as a rose strip where the streaked sky met the spiky black ridges. The breathtaking view wouldn’t last more than a moment, but she’d lived her life by the moment, without too much thought to the past or future. She certainly didn’t have a list in her pocket of things she wanted to experience. The thought of a predetermined plan like that had always seemed completely beyond her.
But Jared had a list, and this trip was on it. That meant she was going to make sure that these four days would never be forgotten.
A little heat filled her cheeks at that, because hadn’t she already maybe done that?
Oh, yes, she had.
She went to the water and took a quick bath. Then she busied her hands, and her mouth, with breakfast. As always, the scents of coffee and bacon cooking over an open fire drew everyone out of their tents, and she put a smile on her face, determined to make today a great one, spiders or skinny-dipping, or whatever came her way.
Jared showed up first, his short hair sticking straight up in classic bedhead that should have looked ridiculous but somehow seemed sexily rumpled instead. In direct contrast, his sweatshirt and jeans were clean and neat, not a wrinkle anywhere to indicate that they’d been in a backpack overnight. He seemed rested and warm and just a little bit groggy, which she found even more sexy, and her brain disconnected from logic again as a small part of her wished it was just the two of them, that she could have crawled into his sleeping bag to see his eyes open on her.
Those eyes landed right on her anyway, dark and sleepy-lidded, and she wondered what he was thinking.
He didn’t look away, didn’t shutter his gaze, just let her see the truth—that what he was thinking about was being with her, preferably naked and writhing and sweaty, and, oh God, she had to take a deep breath and look away.
He went to the water, passing Rock, who appeared in his black gear, looking freshly clean, hair still wet. He had a hopeful expression as he circled the frying pan filled with sizzling bacon. “You, Lily Peterson, are a goddess.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Although you should probably wait until after today’s hike to see if you still feel that way. And careful,” she warned as he poured himself coffee, “it’s hot.”
“Tough hike today, then?”
“Nothing you can’t handle,” she promised. “We’re going to take a trail that bisects Rainbow Ridge. There’s a handful of lakes only a blink away from the top. Good thing, too, ’cause we’ll be wanting a swim by then. Careful,” she said again as he lifted the mug to his lips. “It’s—”
He hissed out a breath when he burned his tongue.
And Lily just sighed.
Rose actually poked her head out next. “Gimme,” she said, honing in on the coffeepot with an eagle eye. “Gimme quick, before I remember I have no makeup on, or that there’s no hair straightener in sight.”
Rock rushed to give her his mug, waiting until she’d had a big gulp before he smiled at her. “You don’t need makeup, Rose. Or a hair straightener.”
She looked at him as she continued to sip the steaming brew. “No?”
“No way.”
She looked at him some more. “Do lines like that usually work for you?”
“Lines?”
“Uh-huh.” Rose took another long sip of the caffeinated brew. “Where did you learn to sweet-talk a woman like that anyway?”
Rock blushed. “I’m not—I don’t know.”
Rose laughed and handed him back the mug as she climbed out of her tent, wearing low-slung shorts and another halter top. “God, how is it you’re still so sweet?” She rumpled his hair. “Hasn’t any woman ever screwed you over?”
“No, ma’am.” He tried to pretend he wasn’t staring at her body. “At least, I don’t think so.”
On the far side of the fire, Jack backed out of his tent. Michelle followed. She looked a little worse for wear, but Jack poured her some coffee.
She looked down at the steaming brew. “No cappuccino right?”
Jack’s mouth tightened. “Michelle—”
She laughed, the first time Lily had even heard that sound from her. “Just kidding, Jack. Jeez, lighten up.”
Jack stared at Michelle until she ran a self-conscious hand over her own tousled hair. “What? Is my hair crazy? I told you—”
“No, it’s just that you look so pretty when you smile.”
And Michelle’s smile brightened. “Really? Thanks.”
Lily moved in to feed everyone. “Eat up,” she said, enjoying that, for the moment at least, everyone seemed relaxed and happy. “We’ve got a hike to get to.”
* * *
THE DAY’S SIX-MILE hike was tough but went smoothly, and at the end of it, everyone dropped their packs and changed into their bathing suits behind the trees. Michelle, still in her yellow raingear, dragged Jack with her to “protect” her from spiders.
Lily thought she’d do better to worry about sunburn with that tiny bikini she came back in, but then Rose came out in an even smaller itty-bitty set of black strings and blinded the men.
Jared came out from behind his tree in nothing but a dark-blue pair of swim trunks that started well below his abs and fell to his knees, the CEO within him nowhere to be found—not in the two-day growth on his jaw or his finger-combed hair, and without a single piece of digital equipment on him.
He handed something to Rose and Michelle, who thanked him profusely, and then in the next moment, music filled the air.
Okay, almost no digital equipment on him.
“iPod,” he said as he sat next to her. “They’ve been begging me.”
“Uh-huh.”
Unperturbed, Jared sighed in bliss and leaned back on his elbows. “My mom and sisters would never have wanted to hike for two days to get here, but they’d sure love this view. We did a lot of sitting at the beach in my youth.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Oh, sure. My sisters would bury me in the sand and force-feed me seaweed. Nice.”
She laughed. “My mom didn’t like to travel.”
“But you do.”
“Yeah, well, it’s hereditary.” She rolled her eyes, a little uncomfortable with the revelation. “Got it from my father.” As she had a lot of things, apparently.
“He’s a guide, too?”
“Nope. A travel writer.” All Lily’s life she’d been told she was just like him, and all her life that had brought her a mixture of great pride and also a healthy dose of uneasiness.
“He must be proud of you.”
“I wouldn’t know. He only managed to stay with us until I was one. I understand that was a record for him.”
“He just up and left you both?”
He sounded horrified, and after the way he’d grown up, surrounded by family and swaddled in affection, she could understand why, and felt a little pathetic. “He went to Italy,” she said lightly. “Then France. I think he’s in Germany now.”
“Did your mom ever remarry?”
She closed her eyes and leaned back, too, more comfortable when she couldn’t watch him watch her. “Hard to, since she’s still married to my dad. He coaxes her to him just often enough to keep her in love with him.”
He was quiet a moment. “So was it just you and your mom?”
“Oh, no. She runs an inn in Santa Monica, so there were new people in and out of our lives all the time.”
“My house felt like an inn with four sisters and all their friends coming and going,” he said. “But really, it was always the same people all the time.”
She opened her eyes. The others were sunning, swimming, having a good time. Enjoying themselves. And despite the fact she was talking about herself—never easy—so was she, she realized. Enjoying herself. “We’re different, you know. As in night-and-day different.”
Jared let out a slow grin. “I have to admit, some of those differences I’m grateful for.”
She arched a brow at the teasing note in his voice. “Isn’t it time for you to go swimming?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.” Standing, he tossed his glasses to the grass and leapt into the water with an ease that told her he hadn’t been all work and no play, no matter what he’d said about himself.
And she had to admit that while he looked extremely fine in his extremely fine hiking gear, he looked even finer in far less.
She had no idea what it was about him, but the tougher the going got, the more alpha he became. And the more attractive.
And sexier…
Oh, boy. She was in deep trouble here.
Rose and Michelle stretched out on the shore and slathered each other in suntan lotion. As they watched the two women do each other’s backs, Rock’s and Jack’s tongues hung out as if they were watching a porno flick.
Jared appeared at Lily’s side, dripping wet, of course, and, hunkering down, smiled into her face. “Hey.”
“Hey back.”
“Sun feels good, huh?”
It did, but that wasn’t what went through her mind as she looked up at him. She’d managed to stay ahead of him most of the hike today, because she’d needed time to process.
But all she’d processed was this…she wanted another yummy kiss.
“Why don’t you go in for a swim?” he asked.
“I’m not quite ready—Hey!” was all she had time to squeak when he simply bent and hoisted her up in his arms, his wet arms, arms that were far stronger than she’d given him credit for.
From above, on the rocks, Michelle and Rose laughed. Jack and Rock yelled for Jared to dunk her.
“Jared, don’t be silly,” Lily said quickly. “Put me down.”
An evil grin flashed across his features. “Well, all right, if you say so.”
And the next thing she knew, she was flying into the air, then landing with a splash into the lake.
The water closed around her.
Going to kill him, she thought, breaking the surface, just as another huge splash had her treading water and closing her eyes to the wild cheers on the shore.
Jared surfaced next to her. He shook his head like a shaggy dog and grinned at her. “Well, hello.”
“I suppose you think you’re funny.”
“You screamed like a girl.”
“Did not.”
“Oh, yeah, you did,” Jack yelled helpfully from the shore.
Rock, grinning, nodded.
“Our fearless leader,” Jared laughed, and snagged her close. “Squealing for her life.”
“I did not squeal.”
“Want to bet?” His eyes turned daring. “Anything. You name it.”
She wouldn’t take that bet. She never took sucker bets.
The water was cool, but Jared’s body against hers brought a warmth that couldn’t entirely be attributed to sheer physics.
He grinned, waiting her out.
Oh, boy. There was chemistry involved here, plenty, and for a long moment she let her body bump up against his, belly to belly, thigh to thigh…and everything in between.
Either he was carrying something in his pocket, or he’d gotten hard. And even as she thought it, his grin slowly faded, his eyes heated. Flamed.
An answering shiver came from deep inside her. It’d been so long since she’d experienced the feeling, it took a moment to recognize.
Sheer, sensual, earthy, sexual anticipation.
His hands went to her hips as he treaded water, keeping them both afloat with an ease that startled her. Where was her beta-electronic-city-boy geek? She needed him to make an appearance, damn it, so that she could come to her senses.
But he was nowhere to be found. In his place was a confident, strong, easygoing alpha male whom she was finding harder and harder to resist. And speaking of hard…she nudged up against him for the sheer pleasure of feeling him again. Oh, boy. “Who are you?” she whispered.
“Just a guy, Lily. A guy who’s looking at you. Seeing you.”
“Jared.”
“Wanting you.”
“Please,” she whispered.
“Too much, too soon?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. Well, that I can fix.” With a flashing grin that should have been her warning, he let go of her, put a hand on her head, and dunked her.
Okay, that was it, she thought, sputtering as he just cracked up. He was dead.
And thus began the wildest, most fun water fight she’d ever had.
By the time it was over, they were all in the water—well, except for Michelle, who’d remained sunning on her rock—all of them having the time of their lives.
Mission accomplished, Lily thought with a pleased weariness.
And finally they dragged themselves out of the lake and onto the shore, lying there gasping for breath, happily exhausted as two monarch butterflies fluttered through the air over them, alighting on the rocks, fanning their bright orange wings.
“Ah,” Rose said. “This is the life.”
Jared smiled at Lily, his eyes agreeing.
Lily herself had to admit, it was nice, very nice.
And then, far above, a head appeared over the ridge, and an arm waved.
Lily sat up. Their first drop of supplies had arrived, which had been expected.
What hadn’t been expected…it was Keith handling the delivery.