Lost Without You

by Heather Thurmeier

  “So talking about your panties is nothing to you then? Just casual, everyday flirting to you? Good to know.”

  “I wasn’t talking about my panties, he was.”

  “Well that makes all the difference, now doesn’t it?”

  Zoe felt her pulse race as she took a step closer to Chip. “Listen, I don’t know what’s gotten your panties all in a bunch, but mine are fine — ” Her voice strained as the heat passing between them spiked at the mention of her panties.

  Her chest heaved as she struggled to talk around her hitched breathing.

  Focus!

  She swallowed, her throat feeling dry. “And I don’t plan on dropping them for anyone any time soon. Got it?” she finished, her voice stronger than it had been but still rather pathetic and unconvincing.

  He smiled, letting his gaze flicker down to the area in danger of “droppage” for a moment before meeting her eyes again. “Now that sounds like a challenge if I ever heard one,” he said quietly.

  She suddenly felt the panties in question moisten under his gaze.

  What was that thing she’d just said about not dropping them for anyone? How was she supposed to follow her rules when he looked at her like that — when her body reacted to him this way?

  Before she could wonder too long, he stepped away from her and started walking toward the other crewmembers milling about waiting for the action to start again. He stopped a few feet away, giving her a sideways glance over his shoulder.

  “Oh, and nothing’s in a bunch for me, sweetheart. I prefer commando.”

  Oh, so good then. No bunching panties for anyone.

  Well, she couldn’t, in good conscience, let him have the last word, now could she?

  “And so we’re clear about the whole Rick business,” she started, feeling more confident now that Chip stood two feet away instead of two inches. “I’ll talk to whomever I want, whenever I want and no one, not even you, is going to stop me. You of all people should understand me well enough to know I don’t respond to bullying very well.”

  He stopped and looked back at her, the teasing out of his expression. “I wasn’t trying to bully you. I guess I was trying to look out for you, but that was silly of me. I know you can take care of yourself.”

  Damn right she could, and it was nice someone finally recognized that.

  She didn’t say anything else as he walked away. What could she say? She didn’t know what to think about Chip. Was he being nice and looking out for her? Or was he being jealous and trying to tell her how to live her life?

  Zoe grabbed a bottle of water from one of the coolers and sat on a tree stump. Pulling her compact out of her pocket, she quickly checked her makeup and reapplied a little powder where she’d started to look shiny even though she usually didn’t like to mess with her makeup during the day. Being in the harsh, outdoor elements made her question her makeup’s ability to function under pressure. Luckily, her foundation and the humidity were still getting along well. If that changed, she’d have to start bringing her makeup bag to these things for hourly touch ups. Hopefully it wouldn’t get any worse than that since she’d already turned away the makeup person supplied by the show saying they weren’t necessary, and she didn’t like the idea of humidity forcing her to take back her words. Makeup was necessary, but they could keep the person who applied it. Zoe was the only one who touched her face or her makeup and she planned on keeping it that way.

  Zoe hadn’t let anyone touch her since the car accident. During her long recovery, she’d had more doctors and nurses poke and prod her than she could count. Sure, their expertise had fixed her worse scars and damaged areas, but they’d also made her extremely aware of the location of every remaining bump and crease of her skin. She couldn’t let some gossipy makeup person see her without makeup, touch her rough skin or learn the secrets of her extensive surgeries she’d kept hidden from everyone for so long.

  Clicking the compact closed, she looked up to find the first set of contestants coming back with supplies. Most seemed to have done well with arms full of berries, leaves, and roots. Hopefully they knew which ones were edible because Zoe certainly didn’t.

  Rick, on the other hand, came back to the clearing with something that looked suspiciously like a fish.

  Good luck to whoever has to actually eat this stuff.

  She couldn’t imagine being on this show as a contestant. First of all, foraging for her own food consisted of grabbing an apple from the fridge and that was enough for her. Secondly, if she had to catch a fish, she could, but that didn’t mean she actually wanted to eat it. Her father had taken her fishing almost every Sunday afternoon growing up, but he knew better than to make her eat it after they caught it.

  Zoe got up and wandered over to the first cooking area. The team made up of two dating couples was just getting started with their items. The men on the team were attempting to get the fire lit while the women on the teams organized the items they’d found into different pots.

  “How’s it going over here?” Zoe asked. “Have you decided on what you’re making for your meal?”

  One of the women, Tammy if Zoe remembered correctly, shrugged. “Not really. We’re going to taste stuff and then see what we think goes together well.”

  “Sounds like a good plan. I’ll let you get to work. You have twenty-five minutes left to cook.”

  She walked to the next station. They didn’t look much further along in their process.

  “How is your meal coming along? Did you find enough things to cook with?”

  One of the girls from the all-girls team answered. “We found some really great edible wild flowers that will make a tasty salad along with a warm berry dressing.”

  Zoe was impressed. That almost sounded like a normal dish you’d find on the menu of an up-scale restaurant. “Wow. I can’t wait to see how it turns out. Since you have everything under control, I’ll leave you to it.”

  Zoe made her way to the rowing team’s station next. Jared, the guy who clearly came off as the team leader, told her all about what they’d found to cook. They too had managed to catch a fish like Rick’s team and were in the process of filleting it. Just another reason why she preferred not to eat the fish she caught. Fish guts were not appetizing.

  While Jared spoke too animatedly about the process, Zoe felt a shiver of uneasiness run up her spine. Alex stared at her from his spot near the fire, eyeing her. The experience made her extremely uncomfortable.

  The look he gave her reminded her all too clearly of the way he used to look at her back then … like she was a blemish on the earth, scum not worthy of his presence. You deserve what you got, his words echoed in her mind, stirring up guilt she’d worked so hard to squash.

  As soon as Jared was finished, she wished them well and moved away from their cooking area.

  The sooner she put a little distance between herself and Alex, the better. By the confusion and concentration on his face, he hadn’t figured out why she was familiar yet, but he could at any time. It was either that, or he eyed her that way because he was a sociopath plotting a way to kill her.

  She wasn’t sure which was worse: secret revealed or sociopath stalking.

  Zoe almost sighed with relief as she walked away from Alex and wandered into Rick’s cooking area. He greeted her with a big smile and fish guts smeared across his chest — his bare chest.

  Apparently Rick didn’t believe in cooking with clothes on.

  Beyond the fish guts and blood, a ripple of perfect abs and pectorals flexed as he waved. Day-um. Rick was built for this kind of thing.

  “I’ve got some meat that might satisfy that hunger in your eyes,” Rick said with a wink and wave of his hand down the length of his torso as if he was showing off a fine piece of art instead of his body.

  “Rick, that’s enough. Give the poor girl a cha
nce to get her thoughts together before you start hitting on her again,” Pam said, shoving him.

  “Watch your woman, Roger, or I’ll have to give her a big old hug before I go wash off the guts.”

  Pam shrieked and ran away when Rick made a move for her. He laughed and got back to work, finishing up with the fish quickly then handing the fillets over to his nephew Todd.

  “So what can we do for you, Miss Oliver?” he said, moving closer to her. Despite the smell of fish guts, Rick was strangely appealing. Or maybe not so strangely when she took in the sight of his abs up close.

  She cleared her throat, hoping it would clear her mind too. “Just doing my hosting thing and coming by to see how you are all doing with your meal. What have you decided to cook today?”

  “Fish,” Rick said simply.

  “I see that,” she replied just as simply with a smirk.

  “And it’s going to be so delicious, you’ll be begging me for a dinner date around the campfire.”

  Zoe looked to Pam and motioned with her head toward Rick. “Pretty confident, isn’t he?”

  Pam laughed, shaking her head. “You don’t even know the half of it. Wait until the show airs and you get to hear all the wonderful stuff he’s been saying about you around camp. If you don’t date him by the end of the show, I’ll want to kill him.”

  Really? She might have to go bribe the cameramen to find out exactly what he’d been saying. All good hopefully. But why was he trying so hard? It wasn’t like he was an unattractive man who would be starved for female attention. Maybe he was just bored at camp.

  “What’s his deal with me?” Zoe asked quietly when the cameraman was filming the boys frying the fish instead of her conversation.

  “I don’t know, but I keep telling him to stop coming on so strong. Sorry about him. My brother-in-law might be acting like an idiot right now, but I assure you he’s normally very nice and respectful. I wish I knew what had gotten into him.”

  “It’s fine. I know how to handle guys like Rick. And I know he’s your family and all so you don’t see him this way, but he’s not so bad to look at or flirt with either.”

  “I don’t know how you can see anything past the fish guts.”

  As if he knew they were talking about his appearance, Rick got up from the fire and grabbed the bottle of water from Zoe’s hand without asking.

  “Hey,” she started to protest, but her voice got stuck in her throat when he opened the bottle and upended it over his head and shoulders.

  Rivers of water cascaded over him, washing away the fishiness from his body and leaving behind only a canvass of sleek, glistening muscles waiting to be wiped dry. Zoe suddenly wanted to take the shirt off her back and dry him. Of course, that would leave her in a bra, but somehow, she didn’t think he would mind too much.

  “Better,” he said, handing her back the empty bottle. “You wouldn’t happen to have a towel handy would you, baby?”

  “Here you go,” Chip said, throwing a towel in Rick’s direction. It landed across his face. Chip didn’t seem to care as he grabbed Zoe’s arm and steered her away from the team’s cooking area. “If you’ll excuse Zoe, she has other teams to film before we run out of cooking time.”

  Zoe pulled her arm back out from Chip’s grip and stopped behind a particularly thick cluster of trees.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “I was serious. There’s only ten minutes left and you still haven’t checked in with the last team.”

  “I have plenty of time. It takes two seconds to ask ‘whatcha cooking in there?’ so I want to know what the hell that was really about. You threw a towel in Rick’s face for no reason.”

  Chip tried unsuccessfully to hide a smirk. “What? He asked for a towel. It’s not my problem he can’t catch. Besides, I needed to get you to do your job and stop hanging out with the contestants like they’re your best friends. That’s all.”

  “Really? It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Rick was flirting with me again? While shirtless.”

  The edge of Chip’s jaw bulged then relaxed as he plastered the fakest smile she’d ever seen on his face. “Nope. I hadn’t even noticed. Was he shirtless? Huh. Interesting that you feel the need to bring it up.”

  She eyed him for a moment and wondered if it was worth her time and effort to call him out on that blatant pile of bullshit he’d just spewed. He glanced at his watch, again motioning for her to head over to the last team. She glanced over too. They were getting out their plates and organizing them on the ground near their fire. If she didn’t hurry, she really would miss her opportunity to speak with them before the cooking segment was done.

  Confronting Chip on why he was acting so strange would have to wait until they were done filming and on their way back to camp.

  “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

  Chapter Six

  Chip held in a laugh as Zoe obviously tried not to gag on the food the teams had put in front of her. Her attempts at tasting the first few plates had been much more convincing. Now he was worried that she might actually get sick on camera. Good thing he could edit that out if needed.

  He couldn’t blame her really. Only so much could be done with leaves and berries found in the wild. Although the fish Rick’s team cooked smelled damned good and the other teams seemed to enjoy the dish as well.

  Too bad. He would have loved something to take Rick’s opinion of himself down a peg or two. Hopefully the first elimination challenge would be too much for his team. That was the one that really mattered, not this silly food challenge.

  “That was … interesting,” Zoe said, taking a big drink of water from her third bottle.

  He didn’t want to be the one to tell her that she should cut back on the liquids a little. She probably wasn’t going to like it much when she realized how far away from base camp she was. She’d like it even less when her only option for a bathroom was “this bush or that one” along the trail on the way back.

  “Okay,” Zoe said standing from her makeshift table of a fallen log. “Now that we’ve had a chance to taste all of the dishes, it’s time to vote for your top two favorites and your least favorite. Then we’ll tally the votes and see who wins and who loses. Everyone write your votes down on the paper provided and then return them to me.”

  The teams sectioned off into their cooking areas to decide on their votes in private. While they did, Chip joined Zoe. “You did great tasting all that food. I was a little worried we might have to censor some sickness in editing but you really powered through it.”

  “Yeah, thanks for the wonderful competition today.” She rubbed her hand across her stomach as if it was sore from the food. It probably was. “Remind me to cook you dinner sometime as payback.”

  Dinner with Zoe? Hell, yes. Sign me up.

  “I’ll find a way to suffer through your cooking, I’m sure. How about tonight?”

  “I was only kidding. I can’t cook, even to torture you.”

  I wasn’t kidding.

  Chip kicked at the dirt with the toe of his shoe, suddenly feeling nervous. “Well, then I’ll cook for you and you can tell me if my food is torture or not.”

  He held her gaze. She didn’t accept his offer but she also didn’t turn him down. He would take that as a yes, since the twinkle in her eye gave away her interest in him even if her lack of verbal skills didn’t.

  “So, you ready to announce the winners? Any questions about how it works before we film this last segment and head back to base camp?” Best to change the subject before she found her voice and told him no to dinner.

  “Actually, I have no idea how I’m going to do this.”

  “Why? It shouldn’t be much different than what you have been doing.”

  “True, but normally I don’t have to remember all of their n
ames. Now I have to call out twenty people by name and I only know about four of them. I’m screwed.”

  Zoe looked genuinely concerned and nervous. More so than he’d ever seen her before. His thoughts of getting Zoe to have dinner with him disappeared and the only thing he cared about was how to make her feel better in this situation. He didn’t like seeing her uncomfortable or worried. It bothered him. Deeply.

  “Wait right here one minute,” he said, walking away. Finding the sound equipment backpack, he searched through it until he located the things he needed. Then he returned back to Zoe.

  “Did you tally the votes?” he asked, setting his new things down on the ground beside her so he could unravel the cords and sort out the pieces he needed.

  “Yep. I have the order of the winners, but I still can’t remember all their names. What am I going to do? Call over Team Dating Couples instead of calling for them by name? I’m going to look like a total idiot on national television.” She sighed.

  She looked down at him and he was struck by the expression of fear on her face. Looking less than her best really was an issue for her, even if her physical appearance was flawless. Well, he wasn’t going to let that happen today.

  Chip put his hand on her knee, rubbing it. Her shoulders drooped slightly and the creases across her brow lessened.

  “I promise you will never look like anything less than the amazing woman I know you are while you’re on my show.” He smiled and she returned it.

  She placed her hand on top of his and squeezed. A rush of affection filled him. He wasn’t lusting for her, though of course he always felt attracted to her physically. It was impossible not to. But in that moment he simply wanted to make sure she felt safe with him and with the show. He never wanted her to question his motives. More than anything, he wanted her to trust him since it seemed like trust wasn’t something she gave over easily.

  He grabbed an earpiece attached to a neutral colored cord and reached up, gently fitting it to her ear. He tucked the cord under her hair at the back of her neck and handed her the attached battery pack and belt for her to secure around her waist.