by Lisa Plumley
If that weren’t true, Riley would never have pursued the reunion he had in mind. He didn’t believe in long commitments, but he didn’t believe in using people, either. Mutual satisfaction was what mattered. That, and savoring a connection for as long as it lasted.
In his world, that was never very long.
“Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one,” she muttered, still stepping. “Thirty-two, thirty-three—”
“You can’t hold out forever,” he warned.
“Watch me,” she huffed, still climbing.
Riley had to admire her determination. And the baby blue hug of her wind pants against her derrière and legs. If he just once caught Jayne admiring him the way he admired her, he could die a happy man.
Until then, he’d just have to show her that nobody laid down a challenge to Riley Davis…without having that challenge met. In spades.
Nobody.
Jayne completely lost track of her moving mediation count when Riley grinned away her “watch me,” answer to his challenge and moved in front of her to guide the way. The view was just too distracting.
His powerful strides ably demonstrated his athletic ability, honed by years of trekking the wilderness on guide jobs and nature photography assignments. His casual grace belied his size, lending Riley a surprising ease of movement that was a pleasure to watch. And his years of experience gave him a certain undeniable quality of…oh, heck. There was no point in playing nice, here.
His butt was absolutely the finest she’d ever seen.
Admiring it, Jayne sighed. This was going to be such a difficult trip. She’d managed to give as good as she got so far this morning, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold out. Riley was trying every teasing trick in the book to get a reaction out of her..and he knew exactly which buttons to push.
Finding out if your skin still smells like peaches and vanilla.
She couldn’t believe he still remembered the scent of her perfume. Its top notes were peaches and vanilla, combined with a little musk and a floral base. She had it custom-blended at a frightful expense, reasoning that a beautiful personal ambiance was worth it.
But Riley…he was more of a Safeguard-and-Speedstick kind of guy. He didn’t wear cologne, didn’t—to her knowledge—keep up on fashion and beauty trends. Couldn’t—unless her perfumer had drastically misled her about the exclusivity of her personal formula—have encountered another woman with Jayne’s fragrance. Could he really have remembered her that well? That fondly?
Nah, she assured herself as she navigated around a clump of cactus. He’s bluffing.
Which was fine, except…except Riley seemed so darn sincere. His openhearted, over-the-shoulder grin as he extended a hand to help her ascend a boulder looked genuine. His concern when she stumbled a few minutes later felt real. And his conversation, as they trekked on down the desert trail in Kelly’s wake, carried every indication of authentic interest.
Riley listened carefully. He offered thoughtful comments, brief though they sometimes were, given his strong-and-silent nature. He joked and laughed, amazing Jayne with his remembrances of the times they’d spent together. It seemed Riley had savored those times, too…and as they shared their umpteenth reminisce of the morning, she was dying to ask him the ten-thousand-dollar question:
Why did you leave me? Leave us?
The trouble was, she couldn’t ask him that. Not without, Jayne feared, destroying the delicate camaraderie that had so far enabled them to travel together without breakup-workshop-unraveling antagonism. Or—even more importantly—without revealing the fact that she still hadn’t quite gotten over him. Yet. So she only continued on down the trail, focusing on causing mutiny among her fat cells and on trying not to wreck her manicure by grabbing rock handholds too quickly.
Resisting Riley was completely doable, Jayne told herself. It was only a matter of miles before she began to really believe it.
Chapter Nine
About two hours into their hike, the groups rendezvoused for the first trailside workshop. They met beside a scrub brush filled gully, beneath a brilliantly blue Arizona sky, dropping packs at their feet and sinking gratefully onto handy chair-sized boulders.
Or maybe that was just Jayne. She couldn’t walk another step. Her feet seemed to think she’d taken them dancing in stilettos a size too small. Her improvised hiking ensemble stuck to her sweaty skin in more places than she cared to consider. And she could positively feel the sunshine baking down on her head, destroying the delicate balance of her blonde highlights.
When she returned to the salon for triage, Henri would probably think she’d been seeing another (incompetent) stylist behind his back. He’d sure as heck never believe Jayne had actually been hiking. She’d be branded a two-timer, relegated to the unfaithful client hall of shame, given the wobbly chair for appointments. This stupid outdoor adventure stuff would be the cause of her first case of salon performance anxiety.
Determinedly, she dug out a cute baby blue bucket hat from her pack and plunked it on her head. At least she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Riley’s shadow fell over her. She glanced up from beneath her hat brim to see him offering her a drink of water. Wearily, she accepted the pop-top bottle with thanks, trying not to let their hands touch. She didn’t succeed. Boy, was his skin warm. And a little golden, too—the color self-tanner was meant to replicate. Also, his forearms were very nicely muscled, with just a hint of—
“Tired?” he asked.
Yipes. Ending her reverie beneath his all-too-knowing gaze, Jayne raised her chin.
“I just need a little break, that’s all.” Because really, even while power shopping she stopped for the occasional strawberry smoothie or sushi snack. Everyone knew better than to simply march, grueling-journey style, from Nordstrom to Macy’s. “How about you?”
“Fine.” He watched as she sipped from the bottle. Then nodded toward her feet. “Shoes holding up okay?”
“Sure. It’s my non-adjustable feet that are the problem.”
He frowned and hunkered down. Before she realized what he was up to, Riley caught hold of her foot and gently cradled it on the hard plane of his thigh. He bent lower, examining the fit of her unflattering brown ATSes: all-terrain shoes.
Insanely, Jayne immediately wished she were wearing something seductive on her feet. Red T-straps. Toe-cleavage pumps. Even a pair of plastic-daisy-decorated thongs. All the better to impress the love ‘em and leave ‘em hunk staring at her brown-shrouded tootsies. But that was ridiculous.
None of the sexy shoes she’d wished for would even coordinate with baby blue wind pants.
Riley rubbed his thumb over her shoe’s toe box. “Does it hurt when I do this?”
“No, it tickles.”
His mouth curved into a smile. A wonderful, manly, aren’t-you-adorable smile. But he went on examining the fit of her shoes with an air of expertise, and his next words were serious.
“Did you break in these shoes, like you were supposed to?”
“Yes!” She had. Back home, she’d worn them to Union Square and the Embarcadero several times. There was nothing like window-shopping in a pair of ATSes while munching a Powerbar to make a girl feel terrifically fit. “They’ve been fine until now. Really.”
“You probably have a pebble stuck in there.” Riley eased her foot onto the ground again and straightened. “You might try undressing from head to toe until you find it.”
“But it’s only my shoe that’s the problem.”
“Hey, it was worth a try.” He winked, then headed across the gully to welcome Mack, Doris, and Donna, who’d just joined Bruce and Lance and Mitzi and Carla.
Shaking her head—and smiling despite herself—Jayne watched Riley talk with the other adventure travelers. There was something about him that captured her imagination. There always had been. Maybe it was the knowledge that he saw more exotic locales in a single month than most people did in a lifetime. Or the realization that he could probably MacGuyve
r his way out of the middle of nowhere with nothing more than a Swiss Army knife and a postage stamp.
Possibly, it was the good-natured way Riley accepted all his vagabond’s adventures as though they were nothing more than ho-hum ordinary life to him. Or the patient way he’d been teaching her breakup-ees to sample that adventurous life themselves. Whatever it was, the fascination she’d felt upon meeting him was gradually stealing over her, all over again. Jayne wasn’t sure how to combat it.
Waitaminute. Yes, she was! Back at the lodge, she had the Heartbreak 101 book to prove it. Sure, at the moment her best seller was stashed beside her forbidden battery-powered blowdryer, her plastic travel-ready champagne glasses, her baby blue faux-mink mini pillow, her real wardrobe, and the latest issue of Vogue. But the knowledge that had enabled her to write that book was here, in her head. Jayne was fully prepared to use it.
She lunged to her feet. “Time for the first workshop, everyone!” she cried. Then, more quietly, “Ouch. I forgot to check for that pebble.”
Riley crossed his arms and leaned against the Humvee-sized boulder at his back. Beside him, Bruce and Lance did the same. Red-haired Mack only stared at the women just beyond them, a quizzical look on his face.
“What do you s’pose they’re doing?” Bruce asked.
“Don’t know.” Riley shook his head. “This do-it-yourself psychobabble stuff is all new to me. All I know is, we’re supposed to stop twice a day to let Jayne work her anti-heartbreak voodoo.”
Gathered in a circle amid the desert landscape, Jayne’s guidance groupies watched her expectantly. Each women held something small and round in her hand, something printed in a leopard pattern. While the men watched, Jayne smiled at the group.
“Ready?” she asked.
They nodded, raising the things in their hands with a practiced, synchronized gesture.
“Okay…primp!”
Suddenly, powder puffs were wielded. Glittery, fluffy, and pink powders wafted in the air like a sweet-smelling cloud. Then lipsticks came out. Mouths puckered. Shades of red and tawny pink gleamed beneath the sunlight. Minutes later, as quickly as it had begun, the confusing ritual ended.
“If you look good, you feel good!” the women shouted in unison. They levered upward, high-fived each other, then sat down in their circle again, all smiles.
The men gawked at them. Then at each other. Their open-mouthed expressions said it all. There were no words to describe the weirdness of this.
Lance was just young and cocky enough to try anyway. “That’s whack,” he said, and schlumped off to play the Game Boy he’d insisted on packing in.
“So that’s what they do when they disappear into the ladies’ room together!” Bruce said. “Whoa. Who knew?”
“Synchronized makeup.” Mack smiled, turning up his palms. “Cool! I guess you learn something new every day.”
Riley felt less sanguine. He’d been watching carefully. If this was an example of Jayne’s anti-heartbreak techniques, they were even more incomprehensible than he’d thought. They were downright perplexing. But on the other hand…they couldn’t possibly work, either. He felt his shoulders relax.
“First up,” Jayne announced, “Reverse Romeo Reflexology!”
Huh? He shook his head, in case he hadn’t heard correctly. And then, just when Riley thought things couldn’t get any more bizarre…
“Wait!” someone cried. The sound of heavy footfalls came from the creosote-bordered trail beyond their rendezvous point. There was a flash of bright-colored trail clothes, the glare of sunshine off purple braces, and then, “I want to try this one, too!”
Alexis burst over the gully in a scramble of teenaged arms and legs. Panting, she slung her pack to the ground. She grinned, hands on scrawny hips. Everyone stared at her.
Including Riley. “Alexis! What are you doing here?”
“Trying a heartbreak recovery workshop, looks like.” She grinned at her uncle, confident in her certainty that now, two miles away from the Hideaway Lodge, he wouldn’t send her back. “Did I miss anything?”
She stepped into the circle of women, waving and greeting them. They made room for her to sit.
“You missed the turn back home,” Riley said, striding forward. “You can’t come on this trip. Your gramps and nana will be worried about you.”
“I left ‘em a note.”
“Your mother will be worried about you.”
“Puh-leeze.” She rolled her eyes. “Nana can prop up the phone on a pillow at noon, then hang it up five minutes later. My mom will never know the difference.”
Riley feared Alexis was right. Sadly. Still… “You don’t need a heartbreak cure.”
A thirteen-year-old’s world-weary sigh was like none other. “And with attitudes like that around me, I’ll never get one, either.”
Huh? Riley frowned. He glanced at Jayne, wondering what she thought of all this. A feminine perspective might be just what he needed.
She gazed thoughtfully at his niece, her head tilted sideways. Uh-oh. Riley recognized that look. It was the Lost Puppy Look. The same look Jayne had gotten on her face the day the two of them had discovered a scrawny, shivering, soaking wet mutt abandoned on the beach near the Cliff House. And although this time Jayne was unlikely to wrap Alexis in her sweater and carry her on her lap all the way home for a bath and some puppy chow…well, she obviously meant to help, all the same.
Jayne was generous to a fault. He’d almost forgotten that about her. The only thing that could whisk her out of her social swirl was someone who needed her—a friend, a hurt kitten, a homeless saxophone player. She was perfectly willing to help anyone out of a tight squeeze, whether that meant giving up her time, surrendering her fur-free sofa, or tossing her last dollar bill into a hat on the street corner.
Sure, sometimes she offered the saxophone player a spritz of CK One to erase the parfum du boulevard. And she grilled the prospective kitten adopters pretty hard. But all in all, Jayne was a real sucker for a hard-luck case. Alexis’s dilemma looked like no exception.
“Sure, you can have a heartbreak cure if you want one,” Jayne told the girl, offering a reassuring smile. From the depths of her pack, she retrieved a spare leopard-print compact and handed it to Alexis. “Welcome to the group.”
His niece accepted the compact solemnly. Her eyes shined as she ran her fingers over its glossy surface. Uncertainly, she glanced sideways at the group’s guru.
Jayne nodded. “Go ahead. It’s yours now.”
Alexis breathed out. With trembling fingers, she worked the catch of the compact as the other women watched.
Riley watched, too, feeling out of his depth. They were speaking some language he didn’t understand—a language made up of feminine gestures, coded compacts, and makeup as relationship WD40. He was about to protest, to tell Alexis she had to go back to the lodge right after the workshop anyway, when his niece opened her new compact…and slowly smiled at herself in the mirror.
He stilled. He could just glimpse Alexis’s reflection from where he stood, and it looked beautiful. Gawky and selfconscious and painfully yearning…but beautiful. Riley didn’t have the heart to end what had so tentatively begun.
He cleared his throat. “You’re carrying your own pack,” he told her gruffly. “Setting up your own tent, too. I know you know how.”
She glanced upward. The gratitude in her eyes made him a hero. “Thanks, Uncle Riley. I knew you’d understand.”
Riley couldn’t take any more. He waved his arm in a curt gesture. “Bruce, Mack, you’re in charge. I’m off to check conditions up ahead.”
Then he headed for the trail, leaving everyone—temporarily—behind him.
When Riley returned, the rocky clearing was pretty much as he’d left it. The gully still twisted through the scrub brush awaiting a good hard rain. The boulders still baked beneath the increasingly warm sunshine. But the unexpected scent of… eucalyptus?…hung in the air. And the sight that greeted him…the antics of his adventure tra
vel group…well, something bizarre was going on, that was for sure.
The women reclined on various flat-topped boulders, their packs filling in for pillows. They’d abandoned their hiking boots and all-terrain shoes; the footwear stood to the side like a row of patient brown beagles. Regulation poly-blend socks dangled from their foot-less uppers like lolling tongues.
Nearest to Riley, Carla sat cross-legged. She grabbed hold of her foot and eased it into what had to be an advanced yoga position, then began massaging it. “I no longer want Paolo,” she chanted. “I am free of cravings for Paolo.”
“Marty is history,” Doris said beside her, looking as though she were concentrating fiercely. Her sister Donna’s foot was propped on her knee. She massaged its sole with brisk efficiency. “We no longer need a handyman.”
“Never needed a handyman,” Donna contradicted. “Ouch! Not so hard, Doris!”
Shaking his head, Riley continued further into their temporary camp. Near the original “primping” circle, Jayne sat demonstrating what had to be the Reverse Romeo Reflexology technique to Alexis. Both of them were barefoot, slathered from the ankles down in the lotion that must have been the source of the Vick’s Vapor Rub smell lingering in the air. They waved sticky fingers as he passed.
Had he stepped into the Twilight Zone? A place where foot rubs passed for anti-heartbreak techniques, and nieces got away with whatever the hell they felt like, just because their uncles were too mush-hearted to turn them down? Frowning slightly, Riley headed for the Humvee-sized boulder that had been the Man Zone this morning. Maybe if he found Mack and Bruce and Lance it would restore some normalcy to this moment. They could talk about football. Doritos. Big screen TVs.
Whoa. Riley jerked to a stop. He boggled.
To his left, Bruce was massaging the feet of a chanting Mitzi. Catching Riley watching him, the rascal grinned. Probably, Bruce had been laying the moves on Mitzi all morning, and she’d given him pity foot-rub duty. Pathetic. So much for the football talk. Maybe Mack…
