“Yeah, well, you know what?” Nick tapped his left temple. “You’re free to hate my guts all you want. But I think you’ve left some of your groceries at the market. You’re certifiable, lady.”
“Right, I agree! I must be nuts to be alone with you.”
Unfortunately for both of them, she was wrong about one point—they were no longer alone. In fact, this last, heated exchange was once again heard by everyone in the camp.
The rest burst into spontaneous cheers and applause, and Jo felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment.
“Oh, yeah, she wants you, Nick,” one of the smoke jumpers yelled out, and Nick, too, flushed to his earlobes.
“Point, set, match!” hollered another.
And it was Hazel alone, Jo noticed, who was not enjoying a good laugh. Instead, she was only smiling.
The crafty, knowing smile of a master manipulator.
Six
Thanks to the relentless schedule that her two cronies planned, Jo had little time to brood over the latest embarrassment Nick Kramer had caused her. Instead, she and her companions were subjected to a crash course in wilderness skills.
It was Hazel and Dottie who gave the initial lessons in proper river rafting. They had packed along two military-surplus canvas-and-rubber rafts.
Now both crafts were afloat in a calm pool above the churning white-water rapids of “the chute”—a stretch of the Stony Rapids River that descended a steep slope to the canyon floor. The falls were well out of sight from this point, but Jo could hear the water hissing and brawling in the distance, a constant but muted roar.
“Kayla!” Dottie shouted at the younger woman, shaking her head in exasperation. “Hon, what in pluperfect hell are you doing? We said paddle east, not west.”
Kayla pouted. “Sorry, Aunt Dottie. Isn’t east your right hand, west your left?”
“Only if you’re facing north,” Hazel explained with a martyr’s patience.
“No wonder we were going in circles,” Bonnie muttered in Jo’s ear while Kayla corrected her stroke. “She’s so dizzy, it seemed like a straight line to her.”
Jo hardly noticed. She could see the spray from the falls beyond making little rainbows in the bright afternoon sunlight. The only ominous sight was the smoke from the nearby fires that sometimes drifted over the sun like a thick, dark filter.
“The chute is all bark and very little bite,” Hazel scoffed. “It’s rated one of the easier rafting sites in the state, or we wouldn’t send you greenhorns through it at the end of the ten days. I’d ride it myself if my hinges weren’t a bit too rusted. I quit running the river about five years ago.”
“You’ll thank us after you take the plunge,” Dottie assured them. “It’s more fun than the best roller coaster you’ve ever been on. You’ll be proud you did it and ready to do it again. Wait and see.”
Jo noticed the black smoke on the ridge beyond, and she was plagued by the same question that had gnawed at her off and on since yesterday: was she treating Nick Kramer unfairly?
Are you a ball-breaker by nature, or is it just me you despise?
Just you, she had told him in the heat of anger.
But then again, maybe all that heat had not been anger. Maybe it was something else, something more needful and demanding that she was trying to deny. It was hard to pretend that Nick wasn’t an exciting and sexy man.
If I’m really so glad to be rid of him, she admitted in candor, then why is he on my mind so much?
Indeed, she might just as well be with him.
Kayla studied Jo’s preoccupied face. Despite her “dumb blonde” act, the pretty Texan seemed uncanny at sensing thoughts.
She said something, but lost in her reverie, Jo didn’t hear her.
“Pardon me?”
“Your mind is roaming, teacher,” Bonnie scolded before Kayla could say anything. “We’re supposed to be heading away from shore now.”
“Sorry,” Jo replied, hastily adjusting the stroke of her paddle. “Guess I was daydreaming.”
“I’d guess more like fantasizing,” Kayla said.
“About a broad-shouldered hunk with a mischievous gleam in his eye,” Bonnie teased.
Kayla’s mouth twisted downward in a frown.
Jo felt compelled to say something. “He’s not my type. Really,” she offered. “Besides, if we can’t endure ten days without the comfort of a man’s attention, we’ve got an addiction problem.”
“That’s right,” Bonnie grunted as she helped tug the raft up onto shore. “You know, there’s even a national group called Sexaholics Anonymous. Just think, a roomful of horny people all in the same room. I’m ready to join right now.”
“You’re just bitter, Lofton,” Kayla said, out of breath. “Dottie told me about that prof who tossed you aside. But I’m not bitter. And I’m going after Nick Kramer.”
Jo stared at her for a long moment. Finally she announced, “Well, you be my guest, Kayla,” before she retreated toward the campsite.
“Baker One, this is Baker One Actual. Do you read me? Over.”
Jason Baumgarter took his finger off the push-to-talk switch on his handheld field radio. A burst of static was followed by a reply from the fire-command center on nearby Copper Mountain.
“This is Baker One. Read you loud and clear, Hotshots. Go ahead, over.”
Reluctantly Nick pushed Jo Lofton out of his thoughts and took the radio from Jason.
“Request a status report from your sector. My crew’s about to go on duty. Over.”
“Roger that. So far all blazes are contained. But we’ve got wind picking up, with little spot fires from windborn embers outside the containment perimeter. Nothing major so far. Over.”
“Roger your report, Baker One.”
“But don’t fall asleep at the switch, guys, or we could be facing some nasty rollovers.”
Nick frowned at this news, his amber-brown gaze fixed on the smoke columns to his east, near Copper Mountain. A rollover was a reburn, the sudden flaring-up of a smoldering area caused by too little moisture in the air.
“Roger that,” he replied. “We’ll go back down in the canyon, thin out some more green. You heard any talk yet of evacuating the campers over here? Over.”
“Negative on that. Over.”
“Roger. Over and out.”
Nick handed the radio back to Jason, who hung it from his utility belt. All around them, firefighters were pulling on their boots and bulky equipment packs, checking their first-aid pouches and otherwise preparing to move out for a hard night’s work by moonlight.
“Could be worse,” said Nick’s second-in-command, Tom Albers, who had overheard the radio report. “I’d ruther bust my hump on the ax than mop up the burns.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Nick agreed, though absently, for Jo had edged back into his thoughts. Not that she ever strayed from them very long, even though he wished she would.
Tonight it wasn’t his job that weighed on Nick, but a pretty brunette with too much attitude. And he resented having her dominate his thoughts like this. Resented…and perhaps even feared.
It had been a long time since any woman had gained hold of his thoughts as she had. A long time since he had let any female get to him as she had already.
Not since Karen delivered her fateful ultimatum: I want a guy who punches a clock and comes home every night, not some unshaven nomad who’s gone for weeks at a time so we have to get reacquainted each time he comes around.
“That Kayla’s pretty hot,” Tom ventured. “Likes to show off her bod. Think she’s just a tease?”
Nick grinned at that, remembering a phrase one of his foster mothers reserved for “fast” women.
“Oh, I think she’s been kissed in the taxi a few times,” he replied.
“Huh? What taxi?”
Tom puzzled that one out while Nick went back to thinking about Karen and how his old bitter anger was still there.
If she hadn’t forced him away, she might have gotten more or less wha
t she wanted.
Hell, Nick didn’t consider himself married to his job just because he was good at it. It was interesting, challenging work, good experience for a few years, and it had helped him work his way through college at UC Boulder.
But as much as he had enjoyed earning a degree in earth science, he stuck with smoke jumping because it was familiar, all he really knew how to do, in fact.
And for a kid abandoned by his parents, filled with rage, it also provided a sense of purpose and a physical outlet for his anger.
But deep in his heart of hearts he was looking for one good reason to quit and put down roots someplace. Maybe put his degree to work teaching full-time; he’d done some substitute teaching and enjoyed it.
One good reason…a reason like Jo Lofton, maybe. Except that she had Karen stamped all over her. Cold, autocratic, willful, unbending. Not to mention gorgeous and sexy.
Forget it, his inner voice urged. That woman will do the hurt dance on you if you don’t put her out of your plans.
Reflect, deflect and move on, he told himself harshly.
Jason Baumgarter came over to join Tom and Nick.
“What the hell’s bugging you?” he demanded, studying Nick’s preoccupied frown. “Got angst in your pants, boss?”
“Nah, I’m ready to go,” Nick forced himself to say, shaking off his pensive mood.
“You know what I just realized?” Tom announced.
“Share your wisdom with us, Einstein,” Jason grunted.
“Crying Horse Canyon,” he said, “is laid out almost exactly like South Canyon in Colorado.”
Nick said nothing, feeling ice encase his spine as he realized Tom was right. A sudden inversion during the South Canyon fire in ’94 had killed fourteen Hotshots—and left Tom’s older brother, a smoke jumper, permanently disabled.
“Bad luck to mention bad fires,” he reminded his friend. “Let’s hit the trail, gents, earn that big money.”
All during the hike to the canyon floor, however, the screen of Nick’s mind was filled with the pleasant image of Jo Lofton, in various stages of dress and undress. Yet, her defiant words dug at him like a stone in his boot: Just because I’m here doesn’t mean you have to hit on me. Or that I have to succumb.
Seven
Early in her fourth morning in the Bitterroot National Forest, Jo was up before sunrise to haul cooking and drinking water.
Summer was on the wane, and at this altitude the morning air was crisp. In the dull, leaden light of dawn she could see her breath forming little ghost puffs. Shivering a bit, her chin tucked in against the chill, she hurried down the meanders of the hiking path, water container in hand.
Nothing disturbed the pristine silence except the rising shrill of the dawn chorus. She paused, startled into awareness of a beautiful red fox just ahead, peering at her from the opening of its den. The pointy face retreated into the ground at her next step.
Jo was perhaps twenty feet from the stone footbridge when she heard male voices, several of them, approaching her from the opposite direction.
Oh, great timing, Lofton, she berated herself. Guess who’s getting off work? And it sure as heck looks like you timed things so you’d meet them, doesn’t it?
Meet him.
For a few moments, desperately wishing she could just duck into a hole the way that fox did, Jo considered fleeing back to camp. She just might have time to—
Just then Nick Kramer hiked onto the bridge, spotted her, and it was too late.
The other Hotshots crowded onto the bridge and noticed her, too.
“Hey, there’s your new sparring partner, Nick!” called out a guy carrying a portable radio transceiver.
Jo searched her memory a second and recalled his name was Jason. One of the guys most attentive to Kayla.
“No wonder our fearless leader prac’ly double-timed us back. He’s got an appointment to keep,” Jason added.
Jo felt heat in her face as the guys all released a racket of whistles and harmless risqué teasing. They did assume, just as she’d feared, that she’d deliberately planned this meeting. No doubt assumed Nick had, too.
“Knock it off, you morons,” Nick snapped, or tried to—in his own embarrassment, his command sounded lame and halfhearted.
“C’mon, boys,” another piped up, “we’re cramping Romeo’s style. Let’s leave these lovebirds alone.”
Somebody made loud kissing noises. To Jo’s further chagrin, Nick did peel off from his team of smoke jumpers as they filed past Jo, heading back to their camp. Guys winked at her as they passed. One even greeted her suggestively: “Wanna go skinny-dippin’, muffin?”
“Hope you don’t mind,” Nick said to Jo as the guys moved off.
“Mind what?” she retorted, starting across the bridge toward the pump. “The teasing, you mean? I’ve walked past construction sites and gotten worse.”
“No, I mean, mind if I walk back with you.”
Once again a diplomatic refusal was needed, but as usual she could not think of one.
He stood at the far end of the bridge, and she had to squeeze around him to get at the pump.
At the moment he hardly made an impressive picture, she thought silently. The odor of dried sweat was obvious, as was the rumpled, soiled condition of his clothing.
But fairness made her admit that, after all, he’d spent the past twelve hours doing hard physical work, not hunched over a computer. And when she brushed past him, she realized she liked the wild, exciting, distinctly masculine smell of him. She even imagined she could feel his animal warmth—unless the heat she felt was her own sexual response to his nearness.
“The only time I’ve seen a woman as cold as you are to me is when she’d been kicked. Did someone kick you, girl?”
The question caught her off guard. He knew it, too. She saw how he’d read her sharp intake of breath.
“L-look,” she said haltingly, “I don’t want to spar with you anymore. I just came on this trip to be alone. If it’s a woman you’re after, Kayla’s more than ready for you, trust me.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” His gaze held hers like a magnet.
She took a deep, reviving breath. “I’m not looking for a relationship, if that’s what you’re after.”
“Why?” he demanded in that sexy groan of a voice he had.
Caught like a fly in a web, she struggled and struggled to get away from his pull, but it was useless. His hold was too strong. Finally she gave him an inch. Staring at him, knowing there was hurt in her eyes, she whispered, “Because I was kicked.”
One of the threads from his web seemed to wrap around her heart at that moment.
He didn’t gloat over his triumph. He didn’t move or change expression. But the honesty was in his eyes. For the first time, she even wondered if he’d been kicked, too.
It was obvious why they couldn’t get along, she thought. Their defense mechanisms were making both of them lash out.
She struggled to hold the opening of the water container up close to the spout of the pump.
This time when Nick offered to help, she let him.
When the container was full, she knew she had to break the uncomfortable silence between them. Because the silence was speaking much too loudly.
“Look,” she offered in an even tone, “there’s no law against raging hormones, but I didn’t come up here with sex high on my agenda.”
“And I did, I suppose? That’s why I’m wearing this Armani dinner jacket and the Gucci loafers?”
Thin-lipped and severely handsome in his sudden anger, he laughed harshly.
She bristled. Still hoping to take charge, she said, “Look, why can’t we just be friends?”
She stood facing him, the container held between them. He suddenly put it on the bridge and moved closer. She took a reflexive step backward, but the cement foundation of the pump stopped her.
“What are you doing?” she protested.
“I don’t think you and I are ever going to be f
riends,” he said, so close now she could feel his breath on her face, intimately warm. His amber-brown eyes seemed to burn with a wild, carnal ardor that did indeed excite her, a tight, hot tickle low in her belly, as if her loins were toaster coils suddenly heating up.
“Why n-not?” she stammered, ready to flee like a frightened hare.
“Because this is always going to get in the way,” he murmured.
She didn’t dare look at him. She knew if she did, she would fall prey to the hunger inside her, a ferocious emptiness that suddenly sprang to life like the fires he so valiantly fought.
A second ticked by. A long, interminable second. He didn’t move. She didn’t move.
If she wanted the moment to end, all she had to do was sidestep him and go about her business. There was no need to look at him, no need to address him. He was bigger than her by far, but she instinctively sensed invitation, not threat, in his proximity.
One little step aside and the moment would shatter like broken glass. She could walk across the pieces and never look back.
Instead, she made the fatal error.
She looked at him.
Her gaze locked with his and the craziness inside her took over. Invitation accepted.
His mouth came down on hers, the kiss at first gentle and enticing. She melted into it. Since Ned, no one had touched her, kissed her, seduced her. Unable to admit it until now, she realized the emptiness gnawed inside her, and Nick seemed the only one who could fill it.
Sensing her surrender, he wrapped his strong arms around her and effortlessly pulled her to him.
Like her, he became greedier. His mouth turned hard and demanding. He easily parted her lips, and she shocked herself by responding, instead of resisting. Moaning, she accepted his exploring tongue; wantonly, almost drugged by his touch and his thick male scent, she pressed her body hard into his. Wanting. Needing. The need ran through her like a drug.
What are you doing? a horrified inner voice demanded, but she couldn’t stop herself.
He took her head in both hands and deepened the kiss. His thrusting tongue licked fire all through her. Her own hands curled into balls and nestled against the sheet of the muscle on his chest. Intoxicated, she pressed even more into him, the rock between his loins delicious against her belly.
Plain Jane & The Hotshot Page 5
