by Lisa Plumley
So…Uncle Riley wanted to have a fling with Jayne, huh? Thoughtfully, Alexis pondered all she’d overheard. It sounded like her uncle was crazy about the book author. And like the book author was fighting a pretty major attraction herself. Not that Alexis could blame Jayne. Uncle Riley was pretty awesome.
He was tall. Strong enough to go mountain climbing, scuba diving, and white water rafting. Funny enough to make even so-serious Nana and Gramps laugh over dinner. Honest enough not to dish out fake sympathy to Alexis over her mom’s embarrassing second teenager-hood with Gary the Loser. Yeah, all in all, she figured her uncle was probably a catch.
And Jayne…heck, she looked like a model or something. Not that she looked perfect. But she did have a way of walking and talking and just being that gave her an extra little glow. Plus, she was totally nice, and had offered to show Alexis how to tweeze her eyebrows later, too. Also, she seemed to have lots of friends.
Uncle Riley needed friends. Alexis worried about him sometimes, worried about the way he spent months on assignment in the middle of nowhere. He wasn’t getting any younger. She was pretty sure he’d already made the transition from MTV to VH-1, a sign of impending senior citizen status, for sure.
She had to do something. After checking to see that the coast was clear, Alexis emerged from behind the creosote bush. She jogged down the trail, going fast enough to keep Uncle Riley and Jayne in her sights. As soon as she caught one of them alone, she’d get started on her plan.
Someone stepped out from behind a boulder and onto the path. Alexis shrieked, and smacked right into him.
Lance.
“Ooof!”
He blushed from the collar of his T-shirt all the way to the hairline of his boy-band-wanna-be gelled haircut. The redness in his face made a zit turn Day-Glo on his forehead. She shook her head.
“Haven’t you ever been hiking before, doofus?” she asked, disentangling her feet from his. She put her hands on her hips. “You’re not supposed to just charge out onto the trail like that. You could, like, maim someone.”
Her killer glare seemed unable to penetrate the geek force field around him. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean—I mean, are you okay?”
“What do you think, flop feet?”
He ducked his head. “I guess your mouth survived okay.”
“What?”
“I mean…”
Lance was staring at her braces. She just knew it.
“…your, uh, hair looks interesting.”
“You creep! Take that back!”
“Make me!” He ran down the path, his lumbering body leaping around boulders and clumps of cactus. He stopped a few yards away and looked over his shoulder.
“This is so juvenile,” Alexis said, faking a yawn.
“Chicken,” he goaded.
“Start smokin’, you big weirdo. ‘Cause you’re toast!”
She sprinted down the path after him, ready to make him eat dust.
Over the course of the next few hours, the high desert began to give way to the forested canyon’s outermost edge. Gentle slopes took the place of boulders; tall wild grasses grew instead of prickly pear and cholla. A cool breeze tossed the branches of the trailside juniper bushes. The temperature dropped steadily, a harbinger of the coming night.
Riley squinted up at the sunset’s streaks of orange and pink. They’d stopped to make camp almost an hour ago. So far, only he, his guides, Lance, and Alexis had managed to pitch their tents. His niece sat next to him now, watching the new adventure travelers struggle with nylon taffeta, aluminum poles, and zip-up rain flies.
“Shouldn’t you help them?” Alexis asked.
He shook his head and took another sip of coffee. “You were there. We ran through this several times at the lodge. They all know how to do this. They’re just a little nervous right now.”
Riley glimpsed a flustered Jayne, staring at the heap of her tent as though it were a particularly recalcitrant hairstyle on date night. She seemed to be having the most difficult time of all. After her adventures in navigating, he guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised. Jayne belonged in the Great Outdoors like klieg lights belonged in a darkroom. Not at all.
Although he’d suspected as much, Riley was disappointed. A part of him had hoped Jayne would love the wilderness. It would have been something in common between them…something besides a tendency to talk around the truth.
He didn’t really believe she meant to go to Antigua with him. He figured she didn’t really believe he meant to seduce her. One of them was wrong. Only time would tell which one.
Alexis nudged him. “You and Jayne make an awesome couple, Uncle Riley. You should have told me about you two.”
He choked on his coffee. “What?”
“I saw you on the trailside this afternoon. You’re having a fling with Jayne, right? Doing the mattress mambo?”
“I’m not having a fling with Jayne.” Yet. “And don’t say ‘mattress mambo.’”
His niece grinned. “Well, I think you should. You need someone like her in your life. Someone nice. With friends. And a makeup kit the size of Wisconsin.”
Was it just him, or did that last sound a little self-serving?
He should let the whole matter drop, he told himself.
“What makes you think that?” he asked instead.
“That you guys should be a couple? I dunno.” Alexis picked at her glittery nail polish. She flopped the heels of the sport sandals she’d changed into upon making camp. “Maybe it’s the way Jayne talks about you. And looks at you.”
Suspiciously, Riley frowned. Then he snuck a glance at Jayne, still swamped amid her tent. She was watching him! Feeling a completely idiotic surge of excitement, he averted his gaze.
“She talks about me?” he asked in a low voice.
Alexis nodded. “All the time.”
All the time. “What does she say?”
His niece shrugged. “Girl stuff. I can’t say.”
“Could you say for—” He reached for his wallet. “A ten spot?”
“Uncle Riley! Do you think I can be bought?”
“Do aspens grow at four thousand feet?”
“Uhhh…”
“Yes.” Making a goofy face, he handed her the money. “So what does she say about me?”
“Well…” Alexis looked both ways, then leaned nearer to cup her hand around his ear. “She says…”
Listening, Riley felt his eyes grow wide. He knew he’d been right about Jayne. There were still feelings between them.
And it wasn’t just him.
“And you’ve seen her watching me?”
Alexis nodded knowingly. “Like Nana watches Gramps eat ice cream.”
“Huh?”
“When she’s on a diet.”
“Ahhh.” He nodded, unreasonably pleased by this news—and unwilling to reveal as much to Alexis. Riley hunkered forward on the hillside they were seated on and caught her eye. “So, since we’re already talking about this stuff…how are things with you and Lance?”
“Lance?” She made a face. “He’s a jerk.”
“He’s a nice boy.”
“All boys are jerks,” Alexis said. Then she got up, grabbed a jacket, and headed for the edge of camp.
Riley couldn’t help but wonder which particular jerk had given her that philosophy. That “Brendan” she’d mentioned, maybe? He didn’t know, but he did know who could help him find out.
“I need your help,” Riley said to Jayne.
She paused in the middle of wrestling her two-person tent into submission. She glanced up, panting. Her hair was in her eyes, a crazed expression was on her face, and she didn’t exactly look like a woman who was ready to help someone. Nevertheless, she nodded.
“What can I do for you?”
“It’s Alexis. I think she has…issues with boys.”
“Every thirteen-year-old girl has issues with boys. Do they like her? Does she like them? Will a nice one ask her to the dance on Friday? It’s normal.
But I think it’s really very sweet of you to be concerned.”
Jayne flashed him a smile. Riley rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable with her sentimental assessment of him.
“She says all boys are jerks.”
“Don’t worry.” She wrestled her tent poles, trying to make their shock-corded joints snap into position. “In a few years, she’ll upgrade her opinion to ‘all men are bozos.’”
He frowned. “As a former boy—and current man—I resent that.”
She shrugged, then went back to glaring at the collapsed heap of the geometric dome tent she’d later share with Kelly. “You guys reap what you sow, big boy.”
“It’s wrong to let one bad apple spoil the whole bunch.” Reminded of the lame-ass loser who’d sent Jayne to heartbreak camp, Riley let his frown deepen. “There are lots of decent men out there. Men who are trustworthy. Fun to be around.” He followed her around her tent’s edge. “Teeming with sexual prowess.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “I thought we were talking about Alexis’ boy problems.”
“Uh, we are.”
Her brow arched. “You really want her to hook up with a kid who’s ‘teeming with sexual prowess?’ I’m not sure I can help you with that.”
“Look, all I know is, it kills me to know she’s hurting. And she’s too young to be this jaded. There must be something that would help.” Absently, Riley glanced around the campsite, where the other guidance groupies were crawling inside their now fully-assembled tents or setting up camp stoves. A series of electronic beeps drew his gaze to Lance, who was playing Game Boy. “I’ve got it!”
“I wish I had it.” Jayne stared dispiritedly at her tent as it sank onto itself. “I suck at camping.”
“You need practice, that’s all,” Riley assured her. He’d had an idea, and he felt better already. “And we need…to set up Lance and Alexis. It’s perfect. They’ll have a little teenaged trailside romance, it will have a natural ending when the trip ends, Alexis will feel better about boys, and nobody will get hurt.”
“Are you serious?”
“Sure. Nothing cures a broken heart faster than getting wrapped up in a new relationship. No matter how short-lived. So long as it’s good.”
He waggled his eyebrows teasingly, thinking of how good their rekindled fling would be, once Jayne let down her guard a little. She gawped at him, mouth open.
“Maybe I should just talk to Alexis,” she disagreed.
“Yes.” Riley nodded, giving her a grateful shoulder squeeze. “Talk to Alexis. Good idea. I’d really appreciate that. Talk up moving on. Talk up Lance. Hell, talk up the good qualities of mankind while you’re at it.”
Feeling almost jubilant, he prepared to make his first round of the campsite. He needed to make sure things were set up properly, offer help where it was needed. Now that he had a plan of action in mind, he was ready to move forward.
“I’ll do what I can,” Jayne said doubtfully.
“Great!” Riley leaned forward and planted a quick kiss to the silky hair at the top of her head. She seemed stunned when he released her, staring up at him silently. “Good luck with that tent!”
Then he headed onward, ready to do his duty.
Chapter Twelve
That night, Jayne lay in her tent—finally erected after about a million consecutive attempts—beside a snoring Kelly. All around her, blackness closed in. She’d never been anyplace so dark, except maybe a movie theater in the few seconds after the lights went down but before the feature rolled. It was spooky. And scary. And it was keeping her awake—frightfully awake.
She palmed her key chain flashlight. Keeping it aimed away from Kelly’s side of the tent, she carefully flicked it on. Its small beam of light illuminated her fingers and created a small comforting circle on the red nylon of her tent. Jayne breathed a sigh of relief.
No horror movie creature lurked in the few inches between her sleeping bag and the tent wall. Nothing had morphed in the night, no critters had crept inside, all was well. Girding her courage, she turned off the light.
Uneasiness gripped her. She flicked the flashlight back on. Then off. On. Off. On, just for a few more minutes, until she felt sleepy…
A rustling at her tent’s zippered entrance made Jayne freeze. A bear! A crazed serial killer! Another lizard!
“Psst. Jayne, it’s me.”
“Riley?”
She squeezed out of her sleeping bag, the air mattress tucked beneath squeaking in protest. Careful not to wake Kelly, Jayne knee-walked over her slippery “bed” and unzipped the tent’s outside flap. Then she fluffed up her hair, pinched her cheeks for emergency color, and poked her head outside.
Riley was there in the moonlight, dressed in the same kind of head-to-toe insulated gear she had on to combat the evening chill. She’d resented its necessity. She’d never before worn a week’s worth of wardrobe to bed. But somehow, on him the layered clothes looked natural and rugged and appealing. He looked appealing.
“I saw your light,” he said in a low voice. “Can’t sleep?”
His voice comforted her to a ridiculous degree. His presence comforted her, even though she couldn’t see his features clearly in the darkness. Jayne was embarrassed to feel so cowardly, especially when she was supposed to be providing a positive role model for her breakup-ees.
She shook her head. Unwilling to reveal any weaknesses to a man who’d once left her behind, she searched for a believable insomniac’s excuse. “It’s the quiet. It’s just so…quiet.”
His grin warmed her. “It’s not all that quiet. Maybe you should listen harder.”
Intrigued, she did. She heard the breeze as it swooshed through the bushes and grasses nearby, heard crickets call, heard an owl hoot. A small smile edged onto her lips. “Hey, that’s kind of nice. Like one of those ‘nature sounds’ CDs, only free.”
Kelly’s next snuffling snore all but vibrated the tent walls.
“And with interesting sound effects, too,” Riley joked.
They shared a smile. A cozy feeling enveloped them, a feeling both familiar and, alone here in the dark, very welcome. Then Riley’s gaze dropped to the flashlight still gripped in Jayne’s palm. A thoughtful expression passed over his face.
He knew! Deeply embarrassed to be caught in a fear so childish as hers, Jayne bit her lip. In this, she couldn’t stand teasing. There had to be some excuse she could offer him, some rationalization, some—
He sent his gaze upward, then returned it to her face. “Well, I just stopped by to make sure you were okay. Since you are, I’ll just be…going back to my tent.”
Longing filled her. They were so close… “Wait.”
In the midst of his turning-away crouch, Riley paused. He kept one hand on her tent’s outer flap. “What’s the matter?”
I want to talk to you. To touch you. To catch hold of the magic we had once, and keep it safe this time.
“Um, will our next campsite have bathing facilities?”
His eyes sparkled. “I can rig up something for you, if you want.”
“I mean a bathtub.” She dreamed of hot water, clean porcelain, lots and lots of Bathing Beauty Bubbles. She craved them. Jayne hadn’t gone more than a day without a bath in years, and this stressful trip made her yearn for her restorative routine more than ever. “A real bathtub.”
“Sorry,” Riley said. “I can teach you survival skills, hike you all over the wilderness, even show you the things I love about being out here. But I can’t deliver Mr. Bubble and company.”
It was nearly the same thing he’d told her when she’d pined for a bath earlier this evening. Jayne’s shoulders slumped.
“Thanks anyway,” she said. After all, it wasn’t his fault her publicist had sent her on this deprivation detail. Somewhere in Manhattan, Francesca was probably holding a cosmopolitan in one hand and a decent pillow in the other, laughing her head off. “And thanks for stopping by.”
“You’re welcome.” Another thoughtful look. “You k
now, I can make your sleeping arrangements a little more comfortable for you.”
Riley stood. Unzipping sounds followed, then the whish of nylon against nylon. Overhead, the tent’s mesh “skylight” flipped open to offer a breathtaking view of the stars. Jayne crooked her neck to see them, and felt a little better. She already knew which one she’d choose for her next wish.
“Thanks, Riley,” she said when he lowered near the tent’s entrance again. “I thought the zipper was stuck. It was impossible to open.”
“Nothing’s impossible if you want it bad enough.” He winked, then cupped his hand over her flashlight-grasping fingers. “Good night, Jayne. Sleep well.”
He strode into the darkness, leaving her alone.
“Psst, Jayne. Wake up,” Kelly said.
Jayne heard her, but felt too groggy to respond. In her sleep-drugged mind, Kelly’s repeated “Psst, Jayne” transformed into Riley’s greeting from last night. It meshed with the dream she’d been enjoying, a dream frothy with soapsuds and steamy with a naked man rising from the bubbles. He held out his hand to her, inviting her closer. Her dream self drew nearer. She recognized Riley, slick and strong and sensitive enough to make sure she had stars to fall asleep beneath.
“Jayne,” he said. “Jayne…you’re a fraud.”
“Arrgh!” She wrenched awake, and found herself mummified in what felt like her apartment’s comforter, only slipperier. She thrashed around, identified several mysterious muscle aches, and stilled in confusion.
“What’s happened to me?” she wailed. “I think somebody beat me all over with a long-handled body loofa!”
Beside her, Kelly smiled. She brushed her bangs from her eyes. “We all feel that way. It’s the hiking, I think. We’re not used to it yet.”
The hiking. Everything came flooding back to Jayne. The fact that she wasn’t in her familiar apartment. The trail. The going in circles, the re-hydrated beef stroganoff she’d been too hungry to refuse at dinner last night, the lack of a soak in a hot tub or even a shower. She remembered sitting beside the small campfire Mack had built, dozing off with exhaustion, lying rigidly awake afterward in the inky scariness of her tent.
She remembered Riley…opening up the stars to her.
