by Jill Shalvis
decided that love is the path to go, just don’t expect me to follow.”
Annie eyed him. “You’re laughing at love?”
“Yes.”
His aunt shook her head. “You know you just tempted fate right? Dangled a carrot in front of that bitch karma?”
TJ patted Not-Abigail. “You have way too many hormones going on. Listen, I get that you’re all in a different place than me, but I like my place just fine.”
When he left the office, there was a beat of silence.
“Idiot,” Stone said affectionately.
“And to think,” Cam said thoughtfully. “I always thought he was the smart one.”
CHAPTER 5
TJ was hiking down Weststar, the video footage for their new client safe in his pack, eyeing the wall of dark clouds coming over the east summit, when he saw the figure far below. He stepped to the edge of the cliff for a better look, surprised because he’d been out there for three hours and hadn’t seen another soul. As always, his breath caught at the sight of the jagged Sierras sprawled out in front of him. To the north, the land carved upward past the tree line to ancient granite peaks, to the south flowed the Squaw River.
In between were glassy alpine lakes, weather-beaten slopes, and colorful meadows, as far as the eye could see. The sun filtered through the clouds and a thick umbrella of pine branches, creating dappled and lacy patterns at his feet, but something about the person far below had him pulling out his binoculars. When he focused in on shiny blond hair and a sweet, curvy body, he went still.
Harley.
She was on a trail below him to the southwest, several miles away, heading toward the western entrance to Desolation Wilderness.
A day early.
Harley had just passed the trailhead marker for the entrance into Desolation when she heard a series of familiar yet eerie yips.
Coyotes.
She checked her GPS. Seemed as if some of her blue group were on the move. The yelping didn’t signify a hunt like sharp barks would have, nor was it a territorial howl of “I am claiming my area.” Nope, the loud, mischievous yelping usually meant some sort of play amongst a pack.
Still, she made certain to make plenty of noise as she walked. She didn’t want to surprise them. Tipping her head back, she eyed the dark clouds gathering and churning to the east. The air was still midday hot and unusually damp, and around her the forest pulsed with the oncoming storm. Kamikaze squirrels screeched at each other, racing frantically from branch to branch. She could hear the thumping cry of a group of tree frogs, looking forward to the impending rain.
The fire road she was on continued through White Wolf Woods. She had a drop of about sixty feet off to her left. To her right was dense forest. As she climbed, the fire road narrowed into almost nothing. She took a moment to consult her maps and the GPS. It looked like she was on target to the two malfunctioning cameras.
The survey she was working on for the conservation agency had several goals. The biggest was to nail down how many coyotes were indigenous in the Sierras, and whether the population was stable or growing. They wanted to figure out the best management strategies for the coyote population to coexist with the growing—and spreading—human population. There was plenty of room for both humans and coyotes out there, but for most places in the state, that wasn’t the case.
Clouds rolled. Above her, the sharp report of thunder cracked in the distance. She jumped but kept going. It felt good to be out. Sitting at her laptop doing research didn’t exactly promote health. Sometimes she jogged in the evenings if she felt that her jeans were too snug, but overall she skipped any organized form of exercise. But she liked hiking.
She’d been at it for several hours, and was as comfortable as she could be with the unaccustomed weight of the backpack. She wore a pair of hip-hugging cargo pants, a white stretchy tee, and hiking boots. So far so good, but then she heard an odd sound behind her. “TJ!” she gasped, whipping around, taking a quick step backwards—too quick, because she tripped over her own feet and fell to her ass.
“Christ.” He dropped to his knees in front of her and reached out. “Are you okay?”
Pissed, heart pounding, she smacked his hands away. “No, I’m not okay!” It was the damn backpack. Feeling like a beached whale, she had to roll to her hands and knees to get to her feet, but before she could, TJ got his hands beneath her and tugged her up.
“You need a bell around your neck, you know that?” She brushed her hands over her butt and glared at him. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“Bears don’t wear a bell.”
She sighed and shook her head, knowing he was right. “I’d have seen a bear. You move more stealthily than that, like a cat, a big, sleek, stupid cat.”
“You should look around once in a while. Be more aware of your surroundings.”
She was incredibly aware of him—of his big, tough body, of his gaze on hers, of how her body was reacting. He wore a baseball cap, dark sunglasses, and a pair of old Levi’s, battered and beloved, the denim snug over hard thighs and probably his perfect ass, too. His light blue T-shirt stretched taut across his shoulders, biceps, and upper chest, looser over his zero-fat stomach. Bastard. “Yeah, well, chalk it up to a rookie mistake,” she said. “Why are you here?”
“Saw you from Weststar.” He pointed to the peak above them.
“You expect me to believe this is a chance meeting?”
“It is. I was hiking back after taking video for a client when I saw you.”
“How could you tell it was me?”
“Binoculars.”
“Wow. Good thing I wasn’t having wild sex against a tree or something.”
He arched a brow. “By yourself?”
She blew out a sigh. Sex with herself was all she had lately. As if she’d admit that.
He grinned, making her realize her thoughts were all over her face.
“Okay, look,” she said. “You’ve seen for yourself I’m fine. So thanks for the concern, but feel free to continue on your merry way.”
“I thought maybe you’d want company.”
“Yours?” she asked.
“No, the Tooth Fairy’s. Yes, mine.”
Above them, clouds bumped and exploded in a burst of lightning, and she tipped her head up to look at the churning sky. Huh. That storm had moved in quickly. “Are we supposed to count one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, or just—”
The sonic boom of thunder shook the ground beneath their feet, and she jumped. Holy smokes. Without meaning to, she shifted a step toward TJ, who looked like he was thinking about smiling again.
“Are you scared?” he asked.
“Of course not.” She was far closer to terrified.
“Are you prepared for rain?”
“I’m prepared for anything, TJ.” Theoretically, anyway. “I’m also wearing my Supergirl panties. So really, you can go home.”
“You’re right.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “You have a way of taking care of yourself. I have no idea why I feel the need to do it for you.”
“You could just stop.”
He pulled off his baseball cap and shoved a hand through his hair. “It’s not that easy. I…think about you.”
This made her blink. “You do?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t you think about me?”
Far too often. She thought about why he was always gone, she thought about what made him need to be gone, and wondered if it was the same restlessness that sat low in her gut, the same nameless ache.
Probably it wasn’t. Because her ache was for him to touch her the way he had that long ago night, the night he didn’t remember. “But we’re nothing to each other,” she whispered.
“I don’t believe that.” He shook his head. “And I don’t think you do, either. You’ve been a part of my life since high school.”
“Yes. I know. I remember. In fact, I wish I could forget as easily as you.”
“What?”
There went her b
rain running away from her mouth again. “Nothing.” She turned away to start walking again. “It’s nothing.” Let it go. Please just let it go.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to him. “It’s something.”
“Okay, it’s something, but nothing I want to get into right now.” Or ever. “Go home, TJ. Please?”
He pulled off her sunglasses to see her face. “Maybe later.” As he continued to tug her in, she set a hand to his abs for balance and her fingers brushed the hard ridges of his six-pack. Make that an eight-pack. She could have pulled back, but her fingers suddenly weren’t listening to her brain any more than her mouth had. Not good.
In fact, this was bad. Very, very bad. He wasn’t going anywhere. She got why, she really did. She’d inadvertently triggered his protective nature, and thanks to what he’d suffered through with Sam, there was no easy way to get rid of him.
But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. She had to, because she knew herself. She wasn’t strong enough to fight off the asinine, juvenile attraction she had for him, and she wasn’t in the mood to make a fool of herself. “I have to make a phone call.”
“Okay,” he said. “Go ahead.”
“It’s private.”
When he didn’t budge, she walked off, not exactly sure of which she hoped for more, that he’d go home…
Or follow her.
TJ watched Harley vanish up the trail, then pulled out his cell phone as well. He had a new text from Nick.
Warning—you’re Annie’s new Worry Obsession. Fix it so she doesn’t worry herself into early labor.
TJ called his client first. He had the video to show him, but he rescheduled their late afternoon meeting so that he’d be free to stay with Harley.
He called Stone next. “Today’s afternoon meeting’s cancelled. I’m with Harley.”
Stone let that sink in. “When she kills you, tell her to call me. I’ll help her hide your body. I know this great spot just off—”
With a sigh, TJ disconnected, then called Annie. “I’m fine.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Good. Because if you’re planning on going off the deep end, I’d need to schedule it in, that’s all.”
“No need.”
“You’re still restless as hell.”
“I’m always restless as hell. You’re only noticing now because for the first time in forever, you’re truly happy. Everyone’s happy. I stick out like a sore thumb.”
“Oh, honey. We can fix this. We’ll—”
“Annie,” he broke in gently. “I’m okay. Really.”
He heard her blow out a breath. “Sure. I know that.”
“Then stop worrying.”
“Who me? Worry? Ha.”
He smiled, and let her hear it in his voice. “You have other things to concentrate on. Like Not-Abigail, who’ll be here before you know it. So stop giving Nick gray hairs and relax. If he knows you’ve been wasting your time worrying about me, he’ll try to kick my ass, and then I’ll have to kick his ass, and it’ll be a whole ass-kicking thing, and you’ll get pissed.”
“Okay, fine. You’re fine, we’re all fine. I’ll just go back to the kitchen, where I’ll be barefoot and pregnant and a useless piece of fluff.”
Annie had never, ever, not once, been a piece of fluff, and as a result, he and his brothers had their lives to show for it. He laughed. “You promise?”
She disconnected, and he grinned. She was no longer worried, she was pissy. He texted Nick.
Mission accomplished.
As he slipped his phone away, he looked up with a frown, realizing Harley had been gone for at least five minutes. He scanned the trail as far as he could see, which wasn’t far with the overgrown landscape blocking the way. He listened but heard nothing more than the usual Sierra sounds.
A pinecone falling a hundred feet from a tree, then hitting the ground.
Squirrels chattering.
The rush of a creek not far off.
But no footsteps indicating Harley’s movements, no rustling of her clothing.
Nothing. More than nothing, an utter lack of a sense of her existence at all.
She was gone.
Fuck. He whipped out his cell and called hers, but it switched right over to voice mail. Either she’d turned it off or hit IGNORE. Both options sucked.
It took him a surprising and uncomfortable quarter of a mile before he came around a corner and caught up with her.
She’d been hauling ass, hoping to lose him. In spite of the quickly cooling afternoon, a few damp tendrils of hair were stuck to her face, and she was breathing hard. Her eyes were flashing with heat and not the good kind.
He understood that perfectly. He felt the heat of a rare temper himself. “How was your phone call?”
She had the good grace to blush. “Great. Fine.”
“You could have just told me you didn’t want me to come with you, Harley.”
“Helloooo, I did!”
“Is my company that bad?”
She hesitated, and her gaze skittered away. He might have conceded the battle right then and there, and faced the fact that she’d really rather be alone—except for one thing.
Actually, two.
The pulse at the base of her neck was tattooing a frantic beat.
And her nipples were hard.
Since he doubted very much she was cold after that run she’d just taken, he got his first flash of satisfaction for the day.
Harley knew that TJ was a tracker at heart. What she hadn’t known was just how good he was. It’d taken him less than five minutes to find her, and when he did, she’d nearly swallowed her tongue. She was trying to be cool, when in reality, she was sweating, huffing for breath, and very close to nervous laughter. “It actually took you longer to catch up with me than I thought it would,” she said. “You must be losing your touch.”
“You lied to me.”
Oh boy. His eyes were glittering dangerously, which seemed in direct opposition to the slight quirk of his mouth, as if she was amusing him almost against his will. “I omitted,” she corrected. “Big difference. Though to be honest, I was thinking about lying to you. I was thinking about telling you that I hurt my ankle and that I needed you to go back down and get help.”
“You’d do that?”
“Yes, but Cam said that wouldn’t work. I called him to complain about you, but he wasn’t too sympathetic. He said there was a pool going, to see who would kill who first. I put a ten in on me. Killing you.”
She had no idea why she was baiting him. Except it was giving her a rush she hadn’t felt in a long time.
“I wouldn’t have left you,” he said. “I’d have carried you out.”
“Yeah, that was con number one.”
“What were the others?”
“Having you hold me again.”
“Again? What—” He gritted his teeth as his cell phone vibrated. “Search and Rescue.” He looked at her as he dropped his pack. “I have to take this.”
“So take it.”
