by Helen Conrad
She ignored his comment. Putting her hand in his, she got back on her feet. “How much farther to this Mecca of yours?”
“We’re almost there,” he said.
“A likely story,” she muttered under her breath as she gingerly tested her foot. It ached just a little. “Lead on,” she instructed.
“There” turned out to be a tree-lined lake with a huge waterfall at one end as a backdrop. Its waters cascaded down onto a pattern of rocks and let out into an area surrounded with the last flowers of summer. The flowers vied for space amid the newly fallen leaves that covered the ground like a multicolored patchwork quilt. Shane imagined that the Garden of Eden must have looked this way in early fall.
And here she was with Adam, she thought, glancing at Nick. Not another soul was in sight. It made her feel romantic—and uneasy at the same time.
“Was it worth it?” Nick asked.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It’s worth it.”
He looked at her curiously. She realized that from her tone it was obvious that she wasn’t just talking about the trek to the stream. And she wasn’t. Somewhere along the line, she had unconsciously decided that she should savor what was to be and not weigh the consequences so heavily. A lot worse things could happen to her than having Nick Rutledge make love to her.
Yes, a small voice echoed. She could fall deeply in love. That would be much, much worse. That, she reminded herself, would be a disaster with no fairy-tale happy ending in sight.
“So what do we do now?” she asked, struggling out of the straps of her backpack. Instantly, she felt better—at least physically.
“Now,” he told her, “we set up camp and start thinking about lunch.”
Lunch. At the mere sound of the word, her stomach rumbled expectantly. She glanced at Nick to see if he had heard the embarrassing noise. He had. He was grinning at her. “So where is it?” she asked, bending down to open her knapsack. Nothing but a coffeepot and a frying pan greeted her, along with some miscellaneous items she didn’t recognize.
“Out there,” Nick told her, pointing toward the stream as he took out several pieces of what looked to Shane like a jigsaw puzzle. After a few twists of the hand and the jigsaw puzzle turned into a fishing pole. “You’ve got one too,” Nick said, nodding toward her knapsack.
Shane looked in again. So that was what those pieces of wood were, she thought, taking them out. It took her a lot longer to put hers together, but finally she joined him, triumphantly showing off her handiwork.
“Very good,” he said. “Now cast out your line and sit down next to me.”
Casting was another story. The line refused, at first, even to enter the water, getting caught on an overhead branch instead. Nick disentangled her, having the good grace not to laugh out loud.
“Maybe you weren’t cut out for this sort of thing,” he said sympathetically.
Which was just what she needed to hear. Thus challenged, Shane did not give up until she finally got her hook in the water, not all that far from Nick’s.
“There,” she said smugly, burying the hilt of her fishing rod in the ground the way he did. “Never tell me I can’t do anything,” she said, “because I categorically refuse to recognize the word ‘can’t’ as part of my vocabulary.”
A sensuous smile played on his lips. “You can’t make love to me,” he said, watching her face.
She hadn’t expected him to say such a thing, and after an initial hesitation, she started to laugh. “Oh, no, I’m not falling into that trap.”
“Why not?” he said softly. “I have.”
His breath caressed her cheek, and somehow she found herself in his arms. Raw passion sprang up as their lips met. They dropped to the ground as one, and Shane pulled him closer to her, glorying in the weight of his body against hers. His fingers raked her hair, drawing her even closer to him. His tongue explored the sweetness offered to him, and Shane tingled with excitement as she felt the quick, sensual darting motions inside her mouth. His tongue familiarized itself with her tongue, teeth, lips, just as his hands learned the contours of her body. Her jacket had long been discarded in face of the growing noonday heat, and now her blouse was parting from her skin as Nick’s sensitive fingers grazed along her breastbone, going ever lower on her burning skin.
She moved beneath him, wanting him, wanting the exquisite sensations that he was producing to grow and last forever. His mouth left hers, as it skimmed along the pulsating hollow of her throat, making her arch her back insistently toward him. She moved his hand to her breast, aching to have him touch her, to hold her, to feed this flame that glowed inside. But the ache only grew worse as his hand went inside her bra, teasing and tantalizing her breast. His hands moved deftly to her back to rid her of her bra. Instantly, her freed nipples hardened against the smooth skin of the palm of his hand. He fondled her breasts gently.
Fire coursed through her veins as her heart pounded harder, mingling with the beat of Nick’s own. His lips ceased kissing the points of her shoulders and dipped lower, his tongue teasing the tips of her rosy nipples, making her smother a cry of ecstasy. Without thinking, she pulled his shirt, wanting him free of it, wanting his hard, warm flesh pressing against hers. She tore a button lose, and it flew into the tall grass.
Nick sat up for a moment, flinging the shirt off his body in a fluid motion. “That better?” he asked.
She had no voice with which to answer, and only nodded. All her senses were filled with him as she raised her hands in supplication. Within a moment, he had her bare back down on the carpet of grass as he covered her chest with his own.
The hot tingle of mingling flesh excited her even more, as did the path of his wandering hand. The zipper of her jeans was sliding down and Shane felt his fingertips coast softly along the waistband of her bikini underwear, pulling the elastic down farther and farther. She lifted her hips slightly as he tugged her jeans away from her buttocks.
“Your boots, milady,” Nick teased in a husky voice when her jeans would yield no further. Obligingly, encased in a mist of churning emotion, she raised first one leg and then the other, enabling him to pull off her boots and then slip off her jeans. She had nothing left except the tiny lace panties. The light blue nylon material seemed to melt away in the heat of his gaze.
Nick lowered his head, reclaiming the trail he had blazed along her quivering abdomen, his tongue momentarily playing with her navel before it forged onward. Almost playfully, his passion nearly hidden save for the sounds of his heavier breathing, Nick lifted the scant material in his teeth, pulling the translucent fabric lower, away from its rightful place. His breath mingled with her throbbing skin, becoming one with it as he rained kisses along the outline. Shane dug her fingers into his hair, savoring the wild bursts of rapture exploding within the center of her being. His tongue claimed her, making her cry for more, but Nick raised himself on his elbow and once more covered her mouth with his own. The assault was a mixture of tender passion and burning desire.
Urgently, she gripped his belt and almost jerked it free, then pulled open the snap that held his jeans in place, her ardor compelling her to go on where common sense, had it been alive at that moment, would have forbidden her to go. Some inner restraint, still strangely alive in the wake of her desire, caused her to stop for a moment. Nick’s strong fingers closed over her hand and guided it down farther, so that it cupped him intimately.
The breath she drew in was audible to both of them. He smiled teasingly. And then the smile was gone, replaced by a look of unbelievable tenderness. “Oh God, Shane,” he murmured, pressing her close, “I’ve wanted you so badly.” The last words were whispered into her hair, and the length of his body covered hers.
Shane welcomed his weight gladly, shifting on the grassy bed to merge better with his flesh. The heat that pulsed from him mingled with her own as she felt his hands slip down beneath her hips, pressing them into him. With more eagerness than she had ever suspected of herself, she accepted him, moaning his name
as her fingers dug into his back.
A frenzy of passion seized them both, and they moved with wild beauty and great urgency. Shane felt as though she were being pulled upward into paradise. Exquisite pleasure burst through her like a towering flower in full bloom. She trembled violently, calling Nick’s name. The petals of the flower reached out and covered her then, soothing all her senses as she returned to earth.
The first thing she was aware of was Nick’s warm smile. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi yourself,” she murmured, savoring the feel of his arms and his body against hers. She felt wonderful. More wonderful than she ever had before. This was what heaven was all about—loving a man like this.
Nick hugged her and chuckled. “I think we caught a fish.”
Shane blinked. The words did not penetrate. “What?”
“There,” he said, pointing. Shane turned her head slightly, seeing that one of the two poles was bent and straining.
“Lunch,” she acknowledged.
Nick pushed a few strands of hair away from her flushed face.
“Could I interest you in some more dessert first?” he asked mischievously.
To answer him, Shane pulled his head down to meet hers, her eager lips parted and waiting.
Lunch had faded into dinner by the time they got around to eating anything. Nick had indeed caught a fish, as did she eventually, landing it only after he had caught two more. Nick had made a campfire, and the fish sizzled on the open flame, arranged on the frying pan Shane had carried in her backpack.
“Just like in the westerns,” she commented, sitting cross-legged on the ground and hungrily eating her share. She couldn’t remember when she had felt so happy.
Nick sat down beside her. “Used to do this sort of thing all the time. Red Wing and I would come down every chance we’d get and camp around here,” he said, a smile on his face.
“Red Wing?” she asked, curious.
“That was his tribal name. He used ‘Harry’ in school. Never thought of him as Harry, though. He was a full-blooded Ute. Taught me everything he knew about the forest, what signs to look for, all the things you hear about in Indian movies. It was almost as if he had some sort of unspoken communion with the forest.” Nick attempted to shake the serious effect his thoughts appeared to have on him. “I met him when I was nine. He was my best friend.”
“Where is he now?” Shane asked.
“In the Ute burial grounds,” Nick said, his voice strangely devoid of emotion. He put aside his tin dish.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, reaching out to touch his hand. “What happened to him?”
“He was in my unit in Iraq. He wasn’t as lucky as I was,” Nick said, and from his tone, she could see that the discussion was over.
It began growing dark soon after that, and Shane became more and more jumpy. The night sounds were unnerving to her, and she drew closer and closer to Nick. They sat under a tree, and Nick put his arm around her.
“Nervous?” he asked.
“This isn’t the kind of night life I’m used to,” she told him as they heard leaves rustle around them. A terrible sound pierced the air. “What was that?”
“A screech owl.”
“Good name,” she commented, looking around in all directions. She swallowed hard and licked her lips, which were terribly dry. “Nick, about bears—“
“There’s one sure way to keep them away,” he interrupted, his tone solemn.
“How?”
“I know for a fact they never attack two in a sleeping bag.”
It was a moment before his teasing words sank in. “Never, huh?”
“Nope.”
“Well, don’t just sit there,” she said, giving him a little push in the direction of his knapsack. “Get your sleeping bag ready.”
He saluted, his eyes twinkling in the firelight. “Yes, ma’am.”
Soon the fear of intruding bears wasn’t even a faint threat to Shane.
Chapter Seven
“Now I know why you like to go camping so much,” Shane said to Nick the next morning as she rolled up his sleeping bag.
He laughed, taking hold of her by the waist. He pulled her close to him and nibbled affectionately on her ear. “I will have you know, milady, that you are the very first woman I have ever had out in the wilderness, er, I mean been out camping with.”
“Ha! I heard that Freudian slip!”
“Scoff if you like; it’s true. Most women don’t like to get their nails chipped.”
His words made her look down at her own hands. The pink polish had retreated in jagged strips, and two nails were broken. “My nails,” she wailed, then looked up at Nick. A smile crept onto her lips. Her nails were all dirty and broken, but dear heaven, it had been worth it.
“Sorry you came?” he asked, helping her up.
The length of his body caressed her as he gently swayed against her. “I plead the Fifth.”
“Spoken like a true journalist.”
“Well, I am,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d have never come on this journey into the Wild Kingdom.”
“How important is your work to you?” he asked, unbuttoning his shirt.
“Very,” she answered, watching him. What was he up to now? “I worked long and hard to get where I am. I intend to work longer and harder.”
“To get to where?” he asked casually. The shirt was discarded as he stepped out of his pants, leaving him clad in beige briefs with white piping. The sight of his trim, muscular body held her eyes captive. She couldn’t seem to get her fill.
“The top,” she answered distractedly. “What are you doing?” she finally asked.
“Getting ready for a morning swim,” he said playfully. “Care to join me?” Without waiting for a reply, he began to open her blouse for her.
“But it’s cold,” she protested.
“You’ll be hot soon enough,” he promised with a wicked wink, tugging at the snap on her jeans.
And she was. The more Nick stripped from her, the warmer she grew, until they both locked in an embrace, clothed in nothing but passion.
“C’mon, before I forget all about the water,” he said, taking her hand.
“Is this how you do it? First you make love to them and then you drown them?” she asked, eyeing the water nervously.
“No. Now, stop hanging back. Look, you can easily see the bottom. The water here is only waist-deep.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” she asked nervously. The cool air raised goose bumps along her body.
His eyes raked over every inch of her body, but she was far from self-conscious. She liked the light of passion that sprang into them. “Oh, well,” he said, drawing away from the stream’s edge. “There are other ways to get an early-morning pick-me-up,” he added, his tone only half playful.
Before Shane knew it, it was time to turn back. She found herself really sorry about leaving this idyllic place. Nick lifted her chin with his finger.
“Don’t look so sad,” he said. “We can come back the next chance we get.”
Shane stared at him, not daring to ask the question that had sprung into her mind. Was he just talking, or did he really intend to bring her back? And if so, what did that mean? Did they have an unspoken understanding? Were they having a relationship, or just a pleasant weekend? Pleasant? Now, there was an understatement. The word “fantastic” didn’t even begin to cover it.
“You look very serious,” Nick said, looking up from his task as if he sensed her watching him. “I don’t like my women frowning.”
“My women,” she echoed. “Sounds like a club,” she said tersely, trying to be flippant but not succeeding.
He rose and put his arms about her, the gesture a warm and protective one. “A very, very exclusive club,” he told her. His eyes were unfathomable. “Right now, you have the only key.”
Right now, she thought. What of later? Later comes later, she told herself stoically.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he asked sudd
enly, helping her on with her knapsack.
“I don’t like leaving myself vulnerable,” she said honestly.
He turned her around to face him. “It’s a curious thing about the word ‘vulnerable,’ “ he commented. “It has no gender. It can be applied to both the male and female of the species. And,” he said, no longer serious, “I’m impulsive, remember? I always know what I want, and it doesn’t take me a long time to make up my mind. I wanted you from the moment I saw you. Now, let’s go, before Jake gives up on us and leaves.” He gave her rear a friendly slap to propel her on her way.
Shane was left to ponder the full meaning of his words in silence as she trudged up the incline after him.
Scottie met them at the airport, and the look on his face was a mixture of concern and relief. “Boy, am I glad you’re back,” he said before they even reached the car. He threw open the back door. “It’s been crazy!”
“Start at the beginning, Scottie,” Nick said patiently, tossing his knapsack as well as Shane’s into the trunk. He slammed down the lid and followed Shane into the car. Scottie took the wheel.
“They’re at the house, waiting for you. They’ve been there for hours,” Scottie told him, guiding the car out of the parking lot.
“Who has been there for hours?” Nick asked.
“The photographers and the extras,” Scottie said, the words shooting over his shoulder.
Shane stared from Nick to Scottie, trying to figure out what was going on. Obviously the mystery had been cleared up for Nick, as he closed his eyes and sighed. “The layout! I forget all about it.”
“What layout?” Shane asked.
“I promised to do some promotional shots for a magazine,” he explained, “as a favor to my producer on this film.”
“I thought you didn’t do interviews,” she said in surprise.
He shook his head. “This isn’t an interview. These are just a few pictures. Step on it, Scottie,” he instructed, leaning forward. “Let’s see if we can smooth their ruffled feathers.”
