Three Months Ago…

Sandy Templesmith stood on an outcropping of rock that looked out over the vast wonder of The Shoshone National Forest, one hand held to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the magnificent sun.

“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in your life?” she asked, dropping her hand. She tilted her face up to the sun, letting its warmth fill her and radiate out from her soul. This was exactly what she needed. Fresh air, sunshine, and an escape from the cares of the world that practically lived on her shoulder. And something even better than that too.

A series of staccato clicks from a few yards up the sloping hillside pulled her attention back from the glory and peace of nature. The simple sound sent a giddy thrill through her, and laughter bubbled up from her lungs. She turned to face her companion.

“What kind of an answer is that?” she asked.

“The best kind. The purest kind,” Jogi answered, sending her a smile and a wink, then snapping another pic.

Joginder Sandhu. Her partner for Paradise Space Flight’s ridiculous orienteering competition. Even the sound of his name ringing around her brain brought zips of excitement to her weary bones and a sense that all was right with the world. The Man Gods must have been smiling down on her the day they’d paired her and Jogi for this competition. Jogi—right up there with the sunshine and canopy of blue sky—was just what the doctor ordered.

“Howie knocked it out of the park with these cameras he gave us,” Jogi went on, moving slowly down the hillside toward her, turning the camera over in his hands. “I’m used to using a Hasselblad for my own work. I’ve always considered them the best on the market for pure quality and sharpness. But this Pentax 645 is nothing to sneeze at. I wonder what it could do with a top-notch lens.”

If anyone else had prattled on about cameras the way Jogi did, Sandy would have rolled her eyes and moved on. But there was something in the smooth lilt of Jogi’s voice—just enough of an accent to hint at his Indian heritage, but enough American twang to give away that he was second generation—and the spark in his eyes. He had scintillating eyes—large, dark, almond-shaped. The fading evening light set off the caramel tones of his skin. She couldn’t think of many men besides him who looked as sexy with a couple days’ growth of dark beard either. And even though he was one of the IT nerds from PSF, the man knew how to wear khakis and a t-shirt like the best of them. The soft cotton of his long-sleeve tee molded in all the right ways over a physique that Sandy was dying to explore the way they’d been exploring the mountains and forests of the park.

“I don’t know the first thing about cameras,” she said, hopping down from the rock she’d climbed on to get a look at the landscape. “Dad gave me and my sister Rita cameras when we were kids, but I could never load mine without exposing the film and ruining the whole thing.”

Jogi glanced up at her, his grin warm and teasing. “Lucky for you, almost no one uses film anymore. Even the pros use digital cameras.”

“Interesting.” She sidled closer to him.

Not to be outdone, Jogi twisted to stand side-by-side with her and slipped one arm around her waist. He held the camera up, lens facing them, pressed his cheek against hers, made a goofy face, and snapped a selfie. Sandy laughed and swatted his arm, then posed for a few more silly pictures.

Silliness. Now there was something she hadn’t indulged in for a long time.

“I can’t believe I’m out in the middle of nowhere, taking selfies with an old-fashioned camera,” she said, giving Jogi a squeeze, then moving away to finish setting up their camp.

“This is hardly old-fashioned,” Jogi protested, following to give her a hand. The fact that he set the camera down and helped unpack their backpacks and set things up so they could build a fire without being asked, scored him extra points in her book. “That there is a genuine Digital Photographer top pick camera.”

Sandy laughed. “I wouldn’t know the difference between a pic taken with the best camera in the world and my own cell phone, I’m sorry to say.” She pulled her waterproof matches out of the front pocket of her backpack—the one where she’d found some extra-special, foil-wrapped treats from Howie in the form of PSF condoms—and moved them to the side of the fire pit Jogi had just finished digging.

“Cell phones can produce some amazing pictures,” Jogi said. “But most of those stunning images you see in advertisements and online? They’ve been digitally enhanced.” He unrolled his sleeping bag, shook it out, and spread it over a scrubby patch of grass. As he did, a flash of something tempting came to his eyes as they raked over her. But he rambled on with, “The very best images are composites of as many as a couple dozen individual shots. I have a program on one of my computers back home that lets me combine the best of the raw footage I’ve taken.”

“Ooh.” She straightened from the fire pit and swayed her way over to him. “I like the sound of anything raw.” She put a little extra growl and a zing in the last word.

Jogi grinned, the expression making his cheeks round enough to seem boyish. But she liked that about him. He was every bit a man, but he had retained just enough of that youthful excitement and charm to make her want to take care of him.

In every way.

“You know,” she began, well aware of the purr in her voice. “We could always zip our sleeping bags up together tonight.”

His grin grew even wider. “To keep out snakes and convince bears we’re one big animal, and not worth getting in a fight with?”

“Yeah, something like that.” She slid her arms over his shoulders and traced a finger across his cheek, along the line of his lips. Far be it from her to mince words or be shy about what she wanted.

And she wanted Jogi. She’d wanted him since the first day of training for the orienteering event. Sure, up until that point, all she’d known about him was that he was the geeky, cliché, Indian IT guy working with some of her new friends at Paradise Space Flight. He’d tripped all over himself, metaphorically, the first few times they’d met, so she hadn’t given him much thought. Until he’d arrived at that first training class dressed in something other than a button-down shirt. And then he’d gone on to impress her with his rock-climbing and bench-pressing skills. The nerdy boy had something serious going on under that computer geek surface.

She pressed herself against him, lifting up just enough on her toes to bring her lips into contact with his. A couple days out in the wilderness had done nothing for either of their personal hygiene, but somehow Jogi still managed to taste like the exotic spices she craved. He hummed as his arms closed around her. The other surprise she’d gotten as the two of them grew closer during training was that Jogi could kiss. Not just like an eager dweeb overjoyed to have a girl in his arms, but like a pro who had done as much research about kissing techniques as he had about camera lenses.

She threw herself into it, lifting one leg to rub the inside of her thigh against the outside of his. One of his hands dropped to her backside, and heat and tension flooded her core. She ran her fingers through his hair, and even as his talented mouth distracted her, she scrambled to figure out how to get naked with him as soon as possible.

“We should probably finish setting up camp and light a fire,” he growled against her mouth, hoarse with arousal, but still managing to be a gentleman.

Sandy laughed, loosened her hold on him, and patted his backside. “I thought that’s what I was doing, sweetie.”

His expression pinched for a split-second, like she’d said the wrong thing. He turned and marched to where their supplies were stacked in a relatively flat area under a sheltering tree, sexy smile gone.

A blip. It was just a blip. His reaction to her term of endearment was nothing. “Sweetie” was just a name people got called. It wasn’t demeaning or aggressive or anything, like Rita tended to tell her.

Sandy’s thoughts flattened. Damn Rita and her snobby cautions about being too aggressive with guys. Her sister needed to spend more time minding her own business and less interfering with others. Sandy knew who she was, what she wanted, what she was worth, what she wasn’t willing to put up with, and if anyone didn’t like it, they could hit the road.

She forced herself to take a breath and let go of her resentment. The endless cycles of aggression and self-defense for standing up for herself were exactly the sort of things she’d hoped to leave behind by signing up for the orienteering event in the first place. And thanks to Jogi, that plan had been a success. She was probably just imagining his sudden stiffness anyhow.

She let out a breath and turned to survey their campsite. It was rugged at best, in spite of the natural beauty on all sides. She never thought she would have enjoyed wilderness so much. If she were honest, without Jogi’s company, she probably would have been miserable. It was high time she focused on the fun they were having instead of letting the tension of her life haunt her.

“So, I don’t think I’ve ever asked,” she said as she walked to the fire pit and began stacking kindling and the few logs they’d scavenged earlier. “How long have you been into photography?”

“Ages,” Jogi answered. His smile was back, which hit a tender chord in Sandy’s chest. As a lawyer, she wasn’t used to people cutting her slack and letting things go when she said the wrong thing. Her whole body felt warm just watching him as he unzipped a compartment in his backpack and fished out a pre-packaged dinner. “My dad bought me my first camera when I was eight.”

“Me too.” Sandy lit up, reaching for the bottle of water and energy bar she’d set beside the fire earlier. “Only I was twelve.”

“You don’t want to try to catch and cook something?” he asked, pulling out his own water and the set of tin utensils they’d been given.

Sandy snorted. “No, thank you.”

Jogi chuckled and brought his food to her side, reaching for the matches. Once he had them, his expression hardened into the determined look of concentration that gave her stomach butterflies. Sandy sat and opened her water as Jogi worked to get the fire lit.

“I really took to photography,” he went on. “I don’t know why exactly, there were just always things around that I wanted to take pictures of.”

“In San Jose?” she asked, referring to where he had grown up.

He nodded. “At least until I got my driver’s license. Then I would drive out either to the coast or up into the mountains looking for subjects.”

“That’s so cool.” She took a long drink from her bottle, studying the way his t-shirt hugged the muscles of his back and arms as he leaned over to get the fire started. No wonder he had such a smokin’ hot bod if he went searching for beautiful landscapes to photograph. He must have done a lot of walking and hiking. Maybe he’d even wrestled a bear or two. “Did you ever think about going into photography as a profession?” she asked, tilting her head to get a better look at his backside.

“Of course,” he laughed, concentrating on the fire as it got going. “I spent most of high school begging my mom and dad to let me take photography classes after school or in college.”

Sandy blinked. “And they didn’t let you?” She couldn’t imagine anyone letting a guy as sweet as Jogi not do something.

Jogi answered with a wry laugh. “They didn’t think photography was worth my time. I know it’s cliché, but they always hounded me to be a doctor or an engineer or something that would make the family proud.”

“Parents, eh?” Sandy snorted.

“Indian parents,” Jogi corrected with mock solemnity. “Lucky for them, I was interested in computers too.”

“I guess that’s lucky,” she said, but at the same time, her gut clenched at the thought of him compromising. She wouldn’t have been caught dead compromising at that age, or now.

Jogi shrugged as the flames of their campfire took hold and burned higher. “Even back then, I knew that digital photography was the wave of the future, and learning all the computer programs that would help me produce better pictures was worth my time. It was an easy transition to mastering computer science in college.”

“But why did you bother with all that? Why not just become a professional photographer?”

He glanced up at her at last. Something in the angles of his eyes and the lines of his mouth made Sandy feel like he was laughing at her. Or at least that he was incredulous.

“There’s this thing called paying rent and putting food on the table that I find I enjoy doing,” he said, eyes teasing. “IT is a handy way to do that.”

“But you could have followed your passion,” she argued. “You could have put food on the table as a photographer.”

“Sure, if I wanted to work at some department store portrait studio or as a wedding photographer.” He rocked back to sit beside her as the fire heated up enough for them to boil water. “I have no interest in snapping pics of babies all day.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said, irritation welling up in her. It felt too much like arguing a court case, but even with the wilderness around her, she couldn’t push the instinct away. “I mean, you could have pursued your art. Art photography is a big thing.”

“Yeah,” he agreed as if explaining basic math to a fifth-grader. “It’s a big thing to a tiny group of people. The competition is ridiculously fierce.”

“But you could have competed,” she insisted. “You could have fought your way up the ladder and made a name for yourself.”

“Maybe.” He spoke slower still, and she could tell he was getting as annoyed as she was. “But I actually enjoy living on my own and eating without turning to my parents for money all the time.”

In an instant, her back was up, and the lawyer she thought she’d left in Haskell returned. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Flashes of all the times people had scoffed at her for relying on her family’s money pricked her.

“It means that I would rather be independent and work in IT at PSF while taking photographs on the side than struggle to be a full-time artist while living off of someone else’s money.” The solid, broad lines of his body and face took on a harsher aspect.

“I don’t live off of my parents’ money,” she insisted. “I made my own way in this world.”

Jogi blinked, genuinely surprised, and swayed back. “I never said you did. All I said was that I don’t want to do that.”

“But you’re compromising.” She tried to push her embarrassment at applying his statement to herself and her aggravations that he’d said it in the first place to the side so she could focus on helping him, but she had a feeling she was digging the hole deeper.

“It’s not a compromise.” His voice was strained, raised enough to put her on the defense. “I’m doing what I want to do.”

“You could be doing more.” She shifted to face him fully. “Hasn’t anyone ever encouraged you to go after your dreams? Hasn’t anyone ever pushed you to excel?”

“I certainly feel like I’m being pushed now,” he snapped back.

Sandy sucked in a breath, no idea if she felt insulted or guilty for crossing a line. But no, she wasn’t crossing a line. There was something brewing between her and Jogi. There had been for weeks now. What kind of woman would she be if she didn’t help him to achieve his fullest potential? The man needed a little nudge.

“All I’m saying is that you clearly have a deep love of photography,” she pressed on. “And from what little I’ve seen of your work, you’ve got talent too.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, pouring water from his bottle into the tin pot he’d left by the campfire earlier.

“No, I mean it. You’ve got to fight for what you want, Jogi. You can’t just settle for something that will pay the bills, not when your love lies elsewhere.”

“I love my job,” he said, half laughing, half exasperated. “PSF is an awesome company to work for, and I’ve made a lot of friends there. I have no problem with my life the way it is.”

“How can you say that when you’ve got a talent, a passion, that you’re not developing?”

“Look, let’s drop this,” he insisted, suddenly tired. “We’re out here to have fun, not to get into…whatever this is. I work for PSF. Photography is my hobby. And yes, I love it, but I’m a realist.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” She couldn't let it go. As much as she knew she probably should, it was a tragedy to her to see Jogi giving up on his dreams for something as mundane as practicality.

“It means that life isn’t always about chasing rainbows,” he said, meeting her eyes with harsh steadiness. “Not everyone has to struggle to achieve greatness. Some of us are perfectly happy to live an ordinary life with a few fun hobbies on the side. I’m fine the way things are.”

“But why settle for fine when you have the tools in your hands to be extraordinary?” As loud as the voice in her head screamed for her to let it go, her heart just couldn’t. Her heart burned. And because her genitals were so keen to get involved, it burned even hotter.

“I’m done talking about this,” he said abruptly, shaking his head. “We’re out in the wilderness, and we have to get along if we’re going to make it to the end of this thing.”

“We do get along,” she said in a far quieter voice, praying it was still true. “We get along really well…don’t we?”

She hated sounding vulnerable. She hated being vulnerable. But she waited for Jogi’s answer with a gaping dread in her chest. Dread worse than any of the times when she was an awkward, gangly teen, the only black girl in her class, desperate to have the cute boys like her, as different as she was, and for Ronny Bonneville to leave her alone.

Jogi let out a breath and scrubbed a hand over his face. A weak smile spread across his lips. “We do get along,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that.”

The knot of insecurity that had formed in Sandy’s gut loosened, and she smiled. “And don’t you forget it.” She fell back on sass to boost her confidence.

Lucky for her, it worked. Jogi’s shoulders loosened and he laughed, cheeks going pink. “Now what do you say we kick back and enjoy the brilliant sunset that’s starting over there while dining on the finest dehydrated beef stroganoff that Howie’s money could buy?”

Sandy laughed. “I’ll stick to my energy bar, thank you very much.” She held up the bar in question and her water bottle along with it. “But I’ll take you up on that sunset.”

“Are you sure?” Jogi waved the envelope of “food” in front of her, tempting her, the boyishness back in his smile. “I’d love to get an action shot of your reaction when you taste this stuff.”

Sandy laughed outright and made the face she was sure Jogi wanted to capture. Whatever bump they’d hit in the road, they’d sailed past it. She breathed a huge inner sigh of relief and playfully pushed his outstretched hand and the dehydrated meal away.

“Seriously. As gorgeous as it is out here—and as desperately as we both know I need a break to unwind—” She sent him a knowing look that he returned with a sympathetic smile. “—I can’t wait until we get back to civilized dining.”

“Tell me about it,” Jogi agreed. He grinned at the fire, then turned to smile at her. “I tell you what. Once we’re back home, I’ll take you out for the finest wining and dining experience Haskell can provide.”

“Steaks at the Cattleman Hotel?” She feigned surprise and excitement.

“Absolutely.” Jogi winked. “It’s a date.”

“Yes, it is,” Sandy replied, grinning and wondering how she’d gotten lucky enough to be paired with him. Jogi was just the breath of fresh air she needed.