by Wilde, Lori
“Emma?” He sounded rather far away. “Emma, speak to me. Are you all right?”
It was the same sensation she’d had the day Ryan told her it was over, and she’d downed half a bottle of chardonnay in three long inhaling swallows. Her head was muzzy, stuffed with wool. “Uh-huh.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
She frowned and stared and tried to concentrate. “Three.”
Relief crossed his face. “Can you sit up?”
“Sure.” She tried to sit up, but dizziness assailed her, and she had to lie back down. “Okay, maybe a little slower this time.”
Trent placed his hand at the base of her head, cradling it in his palm. It felt so good. That hand. So strong and steady. Slowly, he helped ease her to a sitting position.
Emma blinked and glanced around, noticing that the raft had drifted to the shoreline during her little madcap adventure. “I’m fine.”
“I want you to sit here in the rear of the boat with me,” Trent said. “No more paddling for you for the rest of the day.”
“That’s not fair to the others,” she said.
“We’re almost to the campsite. Don’t worry, you can make it up to them by cooking dinner. You do know how to cook, don’t you?”
“If by cook you mean calling for takeout, then yes, yes, I do.”
“I’ll help,” he said.
“You don’t have to coddle me.” The last thing she wanted was a cozy scene making dinner with Trent. How could she resist him if she was doing something as intimate as cooking dinner with him? “I’ll get Izzy to help.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” he said, then addressed the others. “Let’s get paddling, everyone.”
3
Trent rowed the stern of the raft, guiding the boat and its passengers safely over the river. His heart was still in his throat over Emma going into the water. Rafting could be quite dangerous. Something he didn’t know if she fully appreciated, but for the moment, she was behaving herself, sitting quietly beside him.
Her exuberant behavior had been so unexpected. When he’d known her before, she’d been the quintessential good girl to his bad boy, which he supposed was part of the attraction. Now, however, he saw she’d changed.
She was more daring than she used to be. More expressive, as well. He liked this spunky side to her, had always suspected it existed.
She sighed and shifted in the boat, rotating her right shoulder.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Stop mother-henning me,” she said. “You can’t show me favoritism over the others.”
“It’s not favoritism. I would be concerned about any of my passengers who fell in the water. You might have hit your head, and even with the helmet on, you could have suffered an injury.”
“I’m fine, stop fretting. In fact, give me an oar, I want to paddle.”
“Too late,” he said and nodded with his head to a stretch of flat, grassy land on the shoreline to their right. “We’re at the campsite.”
They docked the raft and climbed out. Emma was the last to go ashore. Trent held out his hand to steady her, but she shook him off. “I can do it.”
Sure, he got the message loud and clear. Hands off.
Angie and David had driven in the supplies, but rather than just leave them as they normally would have, they were waiting with concern written all over their faces.
“What’s up?” Trent asked.
“We’ve got some bad news from home for Deanna Price. We waited so we could drive her back to the office.”
Deanna’s face paled, and her friend Jessica put an arm around her shoulder. “What’s happened?”
“The Cincinnati police called. Your fifteen-year-old son has been arrested for stealing a car and going joyriding.”
“Where was his father?” Deanna asked. “He was supposed to be with his father.”
Angie shook her head. “I wasn’t given more information than what I just relayed to you.”
“We’ll cut the trip short,” Jessica soothed Deanna. “Our kids come first.”
“This is terrible, just terrible.” Deanna wrung her hands.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” David assured her. “We’ll gather up your things for you and drive you into Durango tonight.”
Everyone gathered around Deanna, offering her encouragement and support as she and Jessica climbed into David’s SUV.
“Do you remember when we got arrested?” Trent whispered to Emma.
“How could I forget? It was the beginning of the end for us,” she said.
Before Trent could answer, Izzy wandered over. “Too bad for Deanna and Jessica, huh?”
“Too bad,” Emma echoed.
“Our tour group is dropping like flies.” Izzy rubbed her palms together. “First Selena, then Deanna and Jessica. I’m starving. When do we eat?”
“When I get it cooked,” Emma said.
The guests weren’t pampered on this tour. It was up to them to set up their tents, start a fire, and prepare the food. His job as a guide was simply to oversee, give advice, and help out if things didn’t go according to plan. Emma falling into the river, for instance. But the purpose of the trip was to encourage independence and strong self-esteem.
Trent watched Emma trudge over to where the camp stove and food supplies had been set out. She rubbed her shoulders, clearly uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to rowing, and he imagined her muscles were cussing her out pretty good right now. Izzy and Myrtle went to set up the tents while Trent secured the raft and the equipment.
But the news about Deanna’s young son was fresh in his mind. It was true what Emma had said. Their arrest had been the beginning of the end of their relationship. But clearly not the end of his feelings for her.
* * *
“How hard could this be, right?” Emma looked at Izzy.
“You’re asking me? My microwave and I are very friendly for a reason.”
“Well, I have to make amends for falling into the river and causing everyone else problems. Dinner has to be good.”
“Define good.”
“Edible.”
“Oh, we can do edible.” Izzy opened one of the big cardboard boxes containing the food supplies and started pulling stuff out. “Powdered eggs—better save those for breakfast. Cans of tuna. Do you know how to make tuna casserole?”
“I think you need an oven for that.”
“Ah, canned chili. This is a piece of cake, just dump it in a pan and heat.”
“Got any cheese in there?”
“Sadly, no. Apparently we’re not on the gourmet-food rafting tour.”
“Chili it is,” Emma said, then set about trying to figure out how the stove worked.
To her surprise and pleasure, she quickly had the stove up and running and the chili heating. Izzy had found a box of crackers to accompany the dish.
If Emma’s shoulders hadn’t been burning like fire from all the paddling and the bumping against rocks when she’d fallen in the river, things would be going well for a change.
Izzy had wandered off, as Izzy tended to do. She couldn’t sit still for long. Emma had often wondered how she got her comic strip drawn and written in time to meet her deadlines.
Trent sauntered over. “How’s it going?”
“Fine.” Emma shrugged her shoulders, trying to work out the kinks.
“Rough day.”
“Yeah, well, you know. I’ve had worse.”
“Your shoulders are killing you.”
“How’d you guess?”
“You’ve been rubbing them and shrugging ever since we hit shore.”
Trent came around behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. Instantly, she tensed. His body heat radiated from his fingertips into her skin. She was aware of everything. The closeness of his body, the smell of his skin, the cool breeze blowing in with twilight.
Gently, he began massaging her sore muscles. It felt so good, and a small, helpless moan escaped her lips.
“You should take an anti-inflammatory,” he said. “There’s ibuprofen in the first aid kit.”
“You think I’m a wuss, don’t you?”
He chuckled. “Not in the least.”
“Then why are you laughing at me?”
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m amazed at how much you’ve changed. The old Emma wouldn’t even go on a camping trip, much less row a boat over the rapids or cook dinner on a camp stove.”
“It wasn’t that I wouldn’t,” Emma said. “I was just too scared to try.”
“How come you’re not scared now?”
“I’ve learned that life is a lot more fun when you take a few chances,” Emma murmured, purring like a cat as his fingers hit the right spot. “Seriously, you could give up this guide gig and become a masseur. People would pay big bucks for those magic fingers.”
His fingers found a knot in her shoulder muscles, and he used his knuckles to dig in.
“Ow, ow, don’t stop.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes, but in a very good way.” She didn’t realize how seductive the words sounded until they were out of her mouth. Or how dangerous it was to let him massage her neck and shoulders. Already sparks of awareness were lighting up through her body. One small spark and she was ready to catch fire.
He kept massaging circles into her skin. “You know,” he began, “I don’t think I ever apologized for getting you arrested.”
“Water under the bridge,” she said.
“I hated that you got caught up in it.”
“I survived.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But we didn’t.”
“Um...” She stepped away. “That’ll do. Thanks. Thanks so much.”
“Your muscles still stiff?”
“I’ll live.”
He dropped his hands and stepped back. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thanks,” she repeated.
Trent turned and walked away. Emma’s shoulders sagged, and she let out a breath. How in the world was she going to last the rest of the trip with this man?
The only thing she had going for her was that they were not alone in the wilderness. Otherwise, she had no doubt she’d be making the same mistakes she always made. Romanticizing something that should not be romanticized.
And before she could stop herself, her mind was off, spinning fantasies of what could have been, or what could still be.
* * *
While Emma had been cooking, Izzy had set up their tent. Emma had just enough energy to slide in, zip it up, and lie down to sleep. As they lay there listening to the sounds of the night—insects chirping, small animals rustling the leaves, the snores from fellow campers—Izzy suddenly asked, “What happened with you and Trent? Why did you guys break up?”
“We just weren’t compatible.”
“You look pretty good together to me. In what ways are you not compatible?”
“He’s an outdoor guy, and I’m just not that into bugs and spiders and snakes and sleeping on the ground. Plus, in high school, I was college-bound, and he wasn’t. We had different priorities; we were just too different in general.”
“Maybe so, but whenever he sees you, his whole face lights up.”
“It doesn’t.” Emma paused to consider Izzy’s observation and touched her cheeks with her fingertips. “Does it?”
“Yep.”
“Well, there’s the fact that I’m something of an introvert, and he loves people.”
“You love people.”
“Yes, but only one at a time.”
“So what was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Why did you break up?”
“He got me into trouble, and my parents forbade me to go out with him.”
Izzy sat up. “He got you pregnant!”
“Shh, not that kind of trouble.”
“Then what?”
Emma didn’t like to talk about her secret shame, but maybe if she told Izzy, she’d quit pestering her. “He got me arrested.”
“What? You? Miss Goody Two-Shoes?”
“I’m not that good.”
“Well, you’re certainly not bad. You don’t even keep overdue library books.”
“Of course not, I’m a librarian.”
“So, what’d you do? Steal a car and go joyriding like Deanna’s kid? Shoplift?”
“We graffitied a water tower. Or rather, Trent graffitied it. I was just along for the ride.”
“Cool. What did you write?”
Emma paused, remembering that night. She’d sneaked from the house at midnight to meet him. He’d had a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck. Giggling and passing the bottle back and forth, they’d climbed the water tower in the light of the full moon. “In five-foot letters in green neon paint, he wrote ‘Trent loves Emma.’”
“Awww, that’s so sweet.”
“The police chief of Tarrytown didn’t think so.”
“What’s it like in jail?”
“Stinky. Luckily, I wasn’t there long. My dad bailed me out, but he also forbade me to ever go near Trent again.”
“And like a good little girl, you obeyed?”
Emma felt her face flush. “They watched me like a hawk. But one day I did sneak out to see him, but then...” She paused, remembering. But it was too painful to continue, so she said, “Then his dad got a job here in Colorado, and he moved away not long after. I hadn’t seen him again until today.”
“Wow,” Izzy said, “so how are you feeling now?”
“For one thing, I’m ticked off at you. Or at least I was.”
“You’ve forgiven me?”
“I can’t stay mad at you for very long. Besides, I realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“My whacked-out notions about love and romance started with Trent. I poured everything into him, assuming a relationship would make me whole. I never got over that notion. I kept searching for my missing piece. There were Doug and Ryan, but nothing ever felt completely right, and the harder I tried to force things to work, the more it seemed I pushed those guys away. I think from now on I’m going to be more like you, Izz. Take me as I am or leave me alone.”
“I don’t have all the answers, Em,” Izzy whispered. “Far from it. I keep things light because I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
Izzy paused for so long that Emma thought she wasn’t going to say anything at all, but finally she took a deep breath and continued. “That no one will really want me. Not for the long term.”
“C’mon, Izz, of course someone will want you. You’re gorgeous and fun and—”
“A long-term relationship with a quality guy is about more than just having fun. I don’t think I have the staying power, you know? I mean what role models do I have? My mom’s been married four times. Dad is on his third wife. I haven’t a clue what makes a good relationship.”
“Ah, hell, Izz, none of us do.”
“Except Bianca and Madison. I can’t believe how quickly they found guys they’re so sure about.”
“I would be skeptical, too, but they both seem very happy, and Thomaz and Jake are great guys.”
“Why can’t we find guys like that?”
“Beats me,” Emma sighed.
Silence fell between them. Outside the tent they could hear the snap of embers settling in the firepit, smell the smoky scent on the air.
“Do you think that the reason you never felt complete with Doug or Ryan is because you were supposed to be with Trent?” Izzy ventured.
“You mean he’s my soul mate?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in soul mates and destiny and true love and stuff like that.”
“I didn’t think I did, either. Until Bianca and Madison. They make it seem so possible.”
“Yes.” Emma nodded in the darkness, feeling something tighten in her chest. “They do.”
“But you believe in that stuff, right?”
“I used to. Now I’m not sure.”
<
br /> “You know what I heard once?” Izzy asked.
“What’s that?”
“That your soul mate isn’t the one who makes your life easier, but rather the person who challenges you to be your best self.”
“Interesting theory.”
“Neither Doug nor Ryan challenged you, Em. You picked guys who were just like you. You wanted someone you could get along with. You avoided conflict.”
Izzy was right, but Emma didn’t want to tell her that. “I bet that after Trent, you went out of your way to avoid guys who scared you in favor of guys who just went along for the ride.”
“Are you sure you didn’t go to college and sneak in a few psychology classes?” Emma asked.
“Hey, I spend my days analyzing my cartoon character, Cherry Forever. Maybe I absorbed a thing or two about relationships in the process.”
“Great, now we’re taking love advice from your fictional alter ego.” Emma laughed.
“Too bad we’ve got this bet going on.” Izzy sighed. “Otherwise, you could see where this thing with Trent is destined to go.”
“I, for one, am grateful for the bet. It’ll keep me from doing something I might regret later.”
“Hmm,” Izzy said.
“Hmm what?”
“I don’t think anyone would ever regret having sex with Trent.”
That, Emma thought, was an understatement if she’d ever heard one.
* * *
The next morning, Emma crawled slowly out of bed, sorer than she’d ever been in her life. Every muscle in her body ached. Even her teeth ached. She got up just before dawn, unable to stay lying on the cold ground one second longer.
Izzy was sound asleep, curled up in a ball inside her sleeping bag. Emma was a true morning person, and she loved being up before everyone else. She woke up cheerful and wide awake, something none of her boyfriends had ever appreciated.
Except for Trent. He’d been a morning person, too.
She took a bath towel and the eco-friendly soap she’d bought specially—she had read some of the brochure—from her backpack, eased from the tent, careful not to awaken Izzy, and slipped outside. She found her canteen and took a long drink, then used the toilet facilities that had been set up.
