Happily Ever After: A Contemporary Romance Boxed Set

by Piper Rayne

“He didn’t make it,” Annika interrupts, her eyes narrowing.

  Grady chuckles. “I was ahead, but I happened to look back in time to see the front of his boat shoot straight up.” His palm leaps skyward.

  “Everyone was okay, right?” Annika asks.

  “Yeah,” Caleb says with a shrug. “In fact, they gave him a fat tip, the prick. I was the one who rescued his swimmers.”

  “At least it was hot today.” My face is practically glowing with the heat from the water, which feels hotter now. I’m hoping they get out first because I’m not about to show myself.

  Caleb tips his beer can at me. “That’s what saved us. If it had been one of those windy, cool days like we had last week, forget it.”

  “We can’t afford any bad reviews,” Annika says, suddenly serious.

  “Relax,” Caleb says with a subtle roll of his eyes, though his shoulders don’t look relaxed.

  He breaks the tension by turning his blue eyes to me. “Where you from, Lori?”

  “Uh, Berkley,” I chastise my tongue for the stutter. Be bold. Be adventurous.

  “That’s a long way from home,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “Why trek all the way to Penny Creek? Surely you could be doing something much more exciting.”

  I ignore what this does to my stomach. I’m not about to spill my sordid story here—now … or ever. “I wanted an adventure.”

  His eyebrows arch, like I’ve just given him some kind of invitation.

  Gulp.

  “And I like teaching these kinds of kids.” This is a bit of a lie—I came here with no experience besides growing up with my half-brothers and sailing for most of my life, but I’ve since found I enjoy the challenge of teaching kids with learning disabilities. Especially a skill like sailing.

  He nods. “Better you than me.” He knocks back the last of his beer. “Thank God we don’t take kids under the age of eight. Too fussy.”

  I silently vow to not be anyone Caleb Morgan would deem “fussy.”

  “We’re running Rogue Canyon tomorrow,” Caleb adds. “Me, Grady, and Jules. We could use two more. It’s running at twelve thousand CFS. It’s perfect. You guys want to join us?”

  Tomorrow is my one day off between camp sessions, my only day to do laundry, read, and take a shower I don’t have to rush through.

  But I’m the “yes” girl this summer. “Sounds like an adventure.”

  “That’s pretty much a guarantee.” Grady crosses his arms.

  Annika’s face tightens like she’s anxious. A silent look passes between her and Caleb.

  “He wouldn’t want Rogue Canyon to be off limits just because of what happened,” Caleb says to her.

  “You’re right.” Annika’s face says something different.

  I try to read between the lines, but Annika gives me a look which says, Are you in?

  I shrug my answer.

  Annika points a finger at her brother. “No flipping us this time.”

  The boys give us both a smug look. “That was a total accident.”

  “Oh sure, it had nothing to do with seeing that chick you invited in a wet t-shirt.”

  Caleb shrugs and a sly grin takes over his face. “She loved it.”

  Annika gives a huff. “I’ll bet.”

  She glances at me. “Rogue is a little...” She forces down a tight swallow. “Wild.”

  I hide my grimace by chewing on my lip. Hopefully this adventure doesn’t require any special rafting skill because I have none. But I can fake it with the best of them.

  I risk a glance at Caleb. His gaze is asking me: Do you like it wild?

  “Who-ee I’m hot,” Annika says. “Ready for a jump in the river?” she asks me.

  My already red face explodes. “What?” I choke out.

  Annika frowns, like I’m slow or something. “It’s the best part. You get all hot and then you jump in the cold river to cool off.”

  “Oh,” I say as I realize that I’m about to get out of the tub in front of the guys, that they’ll see me.

  Annika rises from the tub and swings her legs over the side, using a big cobble resting against the side to climb down to the gravel bar.

  The hot flush in my cheeks rises to my hair follicles. “You guys going in?” I ask hopefully. Don’t be a freak.

  “I’m not quite hot enough yet,” Caleb raises his eyebrow.

  I look away and try to gather my courage.

  “Go ahead. You’ll love it, Adventure Girl,” Caleb says with a lift of his chiseled jaw.

  “Okay,” I say with a heartiness I don’t feel, then quickly stand and flip my legs over the edge of the tub then drop over the side. My feet land painfully between two large cobbles, but I bite back my cry. Thankfully, the boys don’t make any rude comment.

  Ahead of me, Annika is hurrying across the gravel bar, her arms extended for balance. Then she wades into the creek and suddenly disappears into a deep eddy pool. She comes up shrieking. I follow, wincing as my slippery feet slide into the grooves between the rocks, then plunge in.

  The frigid cold makes me gasp, but Caleb was right—I do love it. I glance over my shoulder at the metal tub where he’s watching me from the edge with a hunger in his eyes, like he can read all my secrets.

  If only he wasn’t my new bestie’s older brother, because Caleb Morgan would make a perfect first-time fling.

  2

  Caleb

  “All forward!” I call from the bow of the raft as I sweep us into the current with my paddle. The roar of the river intensifies as we enter the ribbon of white-green water and pick up speed.

  My ragtag crew digs in, stroking forward on either side of the raft, Grady and Annika on the right pontoon, long-time raft guide, Jules, and the new girl, Lori, on the left. We put her behind Jules so she can follow her lead, and it’s a good thing because it’s obvious she’s never paddled a day in her life.

  She’s also the only one without a wetsuit top. I scolded Annika for this—she should have known better, but Annika said her spare didn’t fit Lori. This sounds like bullshit because as far as I can tell, Lori’s no bigger than my sister. Our outfitting shop is too far away from the put in for Rogue Canyon, so Lori will just have to shiver a little. I vow to keep an eye on her. People can still get hypothermia, even in the summer.

  Lori’s spirited “sounds like an adventure” from last night keeps looping through my brain. But as Annika’s friend, I need to cool my jets. However, my cock didn’t get that memo because I’ve been sporting a semi since I saw her this morning in short shorts, her eager eyes bright. She even looks cute in a life jacket.

  I still can’t figure out why she bolted out of the teacup last night, as if in a hurry to get away from me. It doesn’t make sense because, damn. Those lean legs and the way her long, honey-brown hair whipped around her slender shoulders stirred me right the fuck awake.

  Maybe she’s just shy. I release a groan, but thankfully, nobody hears it over the sound of the river.

  Spray from the wave train hits my face and arms, but it’s too chilly at this late hour to be refreshing. Instead, it only heightens my awareness, that sense of being truly alive. A shiver of excitement pricks my skin into goose flesh. It’s the first time we’ve been in Rogue Canyon since what happened last spring—thirteen months ago.

  My oldest brother, Pete, looked at me like I was crazy when I told him I was running this today. Last night in the teacup, I saw Annika debating too. In the end I knew she’d come. That’s one thing about my little sis. She never backs down from a challenge.

  The wave train dumps us into a wide, shallow section that even at this flooding water level is riddled with a minefield of boulders. The raft jostles beneath us as we bump over them. The splashy water popping up from the current mists our legs and arms.

  “All forward!” I call as we round a wide bend and enter the wave train that will dump us into our first rapid: Sourdough Creek, a Class III that ends with a giant wave. I grin. Everyone’s about to get wet.

  Gr
ady gives me a brilliant smile before stroking forward with the crew. The mineral smells of the water roaring all around me hit my senses. I practically chew on it, relishing the way it connects me to this place. Though now, since the accident, it’s almost too much.

  I lean back hard on my paddle to steer us around a giant hole in the center of the river, then swing us left to rejoin the main current.

  “Hard forward, hard forward!” I call out, needing a burst of speed to avoid the next obstacle, a sleeper rock barely visible at this water level. If we hit it, we’ll grind to a stop and the current will spin us, and I’m not about to send us backwards into the drop.

  The crew reaches and pulls through the current, and we scrape by the giant pillow of water rushing over the hidden rock. I straighten us out and we drop into the rolling wave train, each wave bigger than the last, until the final wave. The bow tips down into the trough. My stomach bottoms out while a burst of elation rushes through me. Above the bow, the final wave looms like a giant green tongue.

  Someone screams as—crash!—the wave explodes over the bow. My crew momentarily disappears in the mess of white water as the boat punches through it. I draw hard with my paddle to make sure the wave doesn’t flip us, and then I’m shaking my wet head like a dog and belting a feral cry into the evening air.

  Annika glances back at me. She’s soaked but from the way her eyes are glinting, she’s thrilled.

  “You okay?” I ask Lori.

  She looks back at me with water dripping down her face and her arms peppered with goose flesh. Then she smiles. It’s a tentative, shy kind of smile, and fuck if it doesn’t make my engine purr.

  “High five everyone,” I call out.

  Obediently, my crew raises their paddles. We tap blades in a salute above our heads, then it’s time to paddle again because this is the part of the river that gets exciting.

  We pass through a short, splashy rapid, then round another bend. The next two rapids are bigger, the last one with a giant house-sized rock smack dab in the middle of a powerful wave train. If we hit Rogue Rock, the current will pin the boat against it, and we’ll all be swimming. If we pass by too close, the hole on the other side will suck us into a dangerous hydraulic.

  “Left side, three strokes!” I call out, executing a firm sweep of my paddle to keep us away from the bank that’s undercut by the swift current. Jules and Lori stroke, their arm muscles straining, and we squeak by the edge.

  “Strainer!” Grady calls in alarm.

  I spot the giant logjam piled up middle-right. Adrenaline floods my muscles as I stand to get a better look at the pattern of water, searching for a way around it. Fuck, it’s going to be tight.

  “Back paddle, back paddle!” I bark the order as I sit back down and tuck my toes beneath the pontoon to anchor me while all four paddles jump to action.

  I strain against the current to steer us to river left. “Okay, hard left!” I call out.

  As if he can read my mind, Grady jumps to the left side and digs in behind Lori. She startles and when she glances back, I see fear in her eyes.

  I move to the right corner of the stern and Annika leans out, both of us counterbalancing Grady’s weight. It’s risky but the alternative is the boat getting sucked under the logjam.

  The river roars in my ears, blocking out my heaving breaths. If I lose a boat, or fuck … if anyone here gets hurt … not only will my brothers kill me, I’ll probably never get to drive a boat again.

  “Hard left!” I call out again because we’re too close. The current is too strong. I should have scouted the river this morning. But we haven’t had a strainer on this stretch in years. It must have been that big windstorm we had back in February. It probably blew down these big trees, sent them downstream until they piled up here, resisting the twelve thousand cubic feet of water slamming into it every second.

  The left side crew is pulling with all their might while I’m cranking hard against the current to steer us to safety. Stray branches from the downed trees brush against the bow. I sweep my rudder. Annika drops to the floor to avoid getting speared by a stray branch.

  “Dig!” I cry to my crew.

  The raft lurches forward as a surge of current lifts us. We scrape past the downed logs but the danger’s not over yet as there’s a powerful sucker hole waiting on the other side.

  “All forward!” I order, sliding to the center of the stern.

  Grady jumps back to the right and all four of my crew slams their paddles into the water.

  The raft tips dangerously to the right but our speed carries us, and we sneak by the turbulent, frothy-green hole.

  “Fuck that was close,” Grady mutters, eyeing me.

  I huff a relieved breath. “Yeah,” I say. “Do you think we should scout the rest?”

  He frowns. “Where? There’s no place to pull out.”

  He’s right—there are a few gravel bars where we could rest, but the canyon narrows here so we can’t hike ahead to scout for more surprises. We’re committed.

  Annika turns back. “Maybe that one trapped all the wood coming down.”

  I nod, hoping it’s true. “Everyone good?” I ask.

  Lori hasn’t looked at me yet, so call her name.

  She nods—still not looking at me. Is she scared? Fuck. I hope I haven’t frightened her off of river running for life.

  The next rapid goes smoothly, though we do get another dousing. A niggling worry is growing in my chest. I’ve been a raft guide for four years, starting when I was sixteen, so I know the warning signs of when a client’s fun tickets start to run out. It doesn’t happen often, thank goodness, but sometimes people get panicked.

  Just don’t cry, I beg Lori silently. I get all tongue-tied when girls cry.

  The final rapid takes all of our power, and every ounce of my focus. I call out orders like a drill sergeant and heave and draw on my paddle. Wave upon wave crashes over us, hitting my crew full-on in the face and filling the boat. The final wave slaps my visor off my head and leaves me gasping for air.

  Grady belts a rumbling war cry. Jules and Annika join in as I angle us toward the take-out, a broad gravel bar of smooth gray cobbles. The bow glides over them, and Grady hops out to hold us steady while the others exit the boat. I watch Lori but Annika and Jules close in on her.

  Grady and I pull the boat further onto the rocky beach.

  “That w-was awesome,” a voice says as I drop the boat and lift the cooler from the center.

  I spin to see Lori watching me, lips blue, her skin turned to goose flesh.

  “Glad you enjoyed it,” I say as a warm glow heats my insides. There’s a little bit of hero worship which comes with this job sometimes. I’m not going to deny I don’t enjoy it. It’s a nice change of pace from my usual role as the Morgan family fuckup. At least boating and customer satisfaction I can do well.

  But I’m worried. Lori’s not just shivering, she’s convulsing.

  “Did you bring any extra clothes?” I ask, setting down the cooler so the rest of the crew can help themselves. Grady has brought out the dry bag containing whatever each of us packed to wear after the run, and the group stands on the sunbaked cobbles trading their life jackets and wetsuit tops for warm layers and jackets.

  She watches everyone change with obvious envy. “Um, I b-b-brought a t-shirt,” she says.

  “Here, take this,” I say, and offer her my fleece coat.

  “No, I’ll be f-f-fine,” she says. Her eyes sparkle. They’re a color I’ve never seen before, a rich brown flecked with gold. As a kid, I used to go prospecting with my dad, and the tiny flecks catching the sunlight in my pan look exactly like what I see in her eyes.

  I give her my once-over frown. “I’ve got extras in the rig,” I say, and tip my head in the direction of the Suburban that’s parked just beyond the bank. “Come on.”

  I catch Grady’s attention. His eyes fill with concern when he sees Lori, then he nods at me with acknowledgement. We plan to build a fire eventually, make
an evening of it, but with Lori needing warmth, I’m sure he’ll hurry to get the fire going now.

  As I lead Lori from the group, I notice Annika’s snuck a beer. She’s also broken out the batch of her peanut butter cookies. My stomach rumbles.

  “Was this your first time?” I ask as Lori and I make our way across the gravel bar.

  Her head snaps up. “What?”

  “Rafting,” I add, confused by her reaction.

  “Oh, y-yeah.” She scowls at the cobbles, as if they require her ultimate focus.

  “You’re a natural,” I say.

  She stumbles and I’m quick to steady her.

  Her skin is cold. Fuck. If I don’t get her warm, this could get serious. “Okay?” I ask.

  She nods, her suddenly serious gaze darting away.

  The cobbles turn to sand and we climb the short rise to the grassy bank. As the sound of the river fades, her chattering breaths make me hurry my pace. After crossing the sandy turnaround to the rusty Suburban, I yank open the back doors and reach for the Tupperware tub containing emergency supplies. I sift through the contents, looking for something suitable.

  “Here,” I say, handing her a black fleece pullover and a pair of kelly-green fleece pants sewn by my mom back when she used to do things like that. The pants will be way too big for her, but it’s critical we get her dry.

  “It’s best to take off anything wet,” I say, hoping the edge in my voice doesn’t spook her.

  She nods, a little frown line above her eyes tightening. “Um, w-would you…”

  “Oh, sorry,” I say, kicking myself for forgetting my manners. “I’ll wait on the side of the rig.”

  “Th-thanks,” she says while her entire body shivers.

  I step around to the side and cross my arms to wait for her. “So, are you liking Camp Osprey?” I ask to distract her.

  “Um…can you help me?” she calls out in a meek voice.

  I hurry around the open back doors to find her shaking fingers fumbling with tight clips on her life jacket.

  “Of course,” I say, and hurry to unclip them and finish the last of the zipper.