One-Click Buy: September 2010 Harlequin Blaze

by Lori Wilde

  That all sounded so good, so rational, so sensible.

  She didn’t feel that way at all. Their eyes would meet and the old spark ignited, stronger than ever, and good, rational and sensible went up in flames of lust. Why hadn’t the chemistry died after all these years? Why was there still a spark?

  Doesn’t matter if there’s a forest fire, you’re not acting on it. Trent Colton is bad news. Always has been, always will be.

  How many tears had she cried into her pillow over him? Far too many to count.

  Emma stuck her oar in the water and concentrated on pulling her load. Even though she hit the gym three times a week, her upper body was not prepared for this strenuous workout. After half a day on the river her arms were aching and her shoulder muscles burned. Grimly, she bit down on her bottom lip, determined to soldier through. She might not be an outdoorsy type, but she tried to look strong.

  She turned her head, attempting to take in the beauty of the place—the conifers, the fat blue jays chattering along the banks, the cool sounds of water rushing over stone.

  The sound of water rushing over stone?

  “We’re coming to our first set of rapids,” Trent confirmed. “They’re light. Between a Grade I and a Grade II. Nothing to worry about. It’s a good way to get your feet wet, so to speak.”

  The other women in the raft made excited noises. Emma said nothing because fear churned her stomach. The rapids sounded pretty loud to her.

  They rounded the bend and her pulse quickened as she got her first look at the water slipping rapidly over big slabs of dark, smooth rocks. Uh-oh. She’d been dreading this part every since Izzy had proposed the trip. From behind her, she heard Izzy shout, “Woo-hoo!”

  Emma tightened her grip on the oar and clenched her jaw.

  “Here we go!” Trent sang out.

  The raft bounced over a couple of rocks, the water spraying up to splash their faces. It was cold, but that was nice on the hot day. The air smelled clean and crisp. After a few little skipping bumps, Emma’s heart was pumping blood fast, roaring in her ears, and she was sure her sexy lingerie was going off, but it didn’t matter. Izzy was with her and knew she was not having sex. She had a good excuse.

  Speaking of her wild and crazy friend, Izzy was on her feet, arms raised over her head, head thrown back like a hedonistic goddess, yodeling her thrill at the top of her lungs. Envy slithered over Emma. She wished she could be as spontaneous as Izzy. A little reckless, a little nutty, fully living instead of always reading about it in a book.

  Hey, you’re here now. You just shot the same rapids that she did.

  And yet it seemed that Izzy was having a lot more fun.

  Determined to have a good time, Emma tried to imitate Izzy, raising her arms and yelling as loudly as her friend. But her oar snagged on a rock and hung there. Emma jerked, whipping the raft in that direction. Trent was hollering at her, but she didn’t understand what he was saying.

  “Ooh, ooh,” Emma exclaimed.

  Physics was not her friend. For one thing, she’d barely passed it in high school. For another, it grabbed hold of her and yanked her into the water. One minute she was hooraying herself and the next minute her butt was bumping along the rocks.

  She spiraled. She whirled. She opened her mouth to scream and took in water. Panic closed over her. She kicked, thrashed.

  Something clutched at her back and she felt herself being lifted free from the water. That’s when she realized Trent had a vise-grip on her collar with one hand, his other hand grasping the waistband of her pants. His rough knuckles grazed her lower back. Good thing she was five-foot-nothing and didn’t weigh much. Otherwise he probably couldn’t have hauled her soaking-wet ass into the raft again.

  There were other hands now, the other women tugging her into the raft. She lay there on the bottom, staring up at the sky, gasping, feeling like a total fool. How come Izzy could twist and shout and act all wild and crazy and make it look cool, but when she tried it…disaster.

  Face it, you’re just not the wild and crazy type.

  Leave that to Izzy. And to Trent, who used to be the wildest boy she knew, which of course had been part of the attraction.

  Speaking of Trent, he was leaning over her, concern furrowing his brow. His fingers snapped off the strap anchoring her helmet to her head and he slipped it off.

  “Emma?” He sounded rather far away. “Emma, speak to me. Are you all right?”

  It was the same sensation she’d had the day Ryan told her it was over and she’d downed half a bottle of chardonnay in three, long inhaling swallows. Her head was muzzy, stuffed with wool. “Uh-huh.”

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  She frowned, stared, tried to concentrate. “Three.”

  Relief crossed his face. “Can you sit up?”

  “Sure.” She tried to sit up, but dizziness assailed her and she had to lie back down. “Okay, maybe a little slower this time.”

  Trent placed his hand to the base of her head, cradling it in his palm. It felt so good. That hand. So strong and steady. Slowly, he helped ease her to a sitting position.

  Emma blinked and glanced around, noticing that the raft had drifted to the shoreline during her little madcap adventure. “I’m fine.”

  “I want you to sit here in the rear of the boat with me,” Trent said. “No more paddling for you for the rest of the day.”

  “That’s not fair to the others,” she said.

  “We’re almost to the campsite. Don’t worry, you can make it up to them by cooking dinner. You do know how to cook, don’t you?”

  “If by cook you mean calling for takeout, then yes, yes, I do.”

  “I’ll help,” he said.

  “You don’t have to coddle me.” The last thing she wanted was a cozy scene making dinner with Trent. How could she resist him if she was doing something as intimate as cooking dinner with him? “I’ll get Izzy to help.”

  “I’ll hold you to it,” he said, then addressed the others. “Let’s get paddling, everyone.”

  3

  TRENT ROWED at the stern of the raft, guiding the boat and its passengers safely over the river. His heart was still in his throat over Emma going into the water. Rafting could be quite dangerous. Something he didn’t know if she fully appreciated, but for the moment, she was behaving herself, sitting quietly beside him.

  Her exuberant behavior had been so unexpected. When he’d known her before, she’d been the quintessential good girl to his bad boy, which he supposed was part of the attraction. Now, however, he saw she’d changed. She was more daring than she used to be. More expressive, as well. He liked this spunky side to her, had always suspected it existed.

  She sighed and shifted in the boat, rotating her right shoulder.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Stop mother-henning me,” she said. “You can’t show me favoritism over the others.”

  “It’s not favoritism. I would be concerned about any of my passengers who fell in the water. You might have hit your head, and even with the helmet on you could have suffered an injury.”

  “I’m fine, stop fretting. In fact, give me an oar, I want to paddle.”

  “Too late,” he said and nodded with his head to a stretch of flat, grassy land on the shoreline to their right. “We’re at the campsite.”

  They docked the raft and climbed out. Emma was the last to go ashore. Trent held out his hand to steady her, but she shook him off. “I can do it.”

  Sure, he got the message loud and clear. Hands off.

  Angie and David had driven in the supplies, but rather than just leave them as they normally would have, they were waiting with concern written all over their faces.

  “What’s up?” Trent asked.

  “We’ve got some bad news from home for Deanna Price. We waited so we could drive her back to the office.”

  Deanna’s face paled and her friend Jessica put an arm around her shoulder. “What’s happened?”

  �
�The Cincinnati police called. Your fifteen-year-old son has been arrested for stealing a car and going joyriding.”

  “Where was his father?” Deanna asked. “He was supposed to be with his father.”

  Angie shook her head. “I wasn’t given more information than what I just relayed to you.”

  “We’ll cut the trip short,” Jessica soothed Deanna. “Our kids come first.”

  “This is terrible, just terrible,” Deanna wrung her hands.

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” David assured her. “We’ll gather up your things for you and drive you into Durango tonight.”

  Everyone gathered around Deanna, offering her encouragement and support as she and Jessica climbed into David’s SUV.

  “Do you remember when we got arrested?” Trent whispered to Emma.

  “How could I forget? It was the beginning of the end for us,” she said.

  Before Trent could answer, Izzy wandered over. “Too bad for Deanna and Jessica, huh?”

  “Too bad,” Emma echoed.

  “Our tour group is dropping like flies.” Izzy rubbed her palms together. “First Selena, then Deanna and Jessica. I’m starving. When do we eat?”

  “When I get it cooked,” Emma said.

  The guests weren’t pampered on this tour. It was up to them to set up their tents, start a fire and prepare the food. His job as a guide was simply to oversee, give advice and help out if things didn’t go according to plan. Emma falling into the river, for instance. But the purpose of the trip was to encourage independence and strong self-esteem.

  Trent watched Emma trudge over to where the camp stove and food supplies had been set out. She rubbed her shoulders, clearly uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to rowing and he imagined her muscles were cussing her out pretty good right now. Izzy and Myrtle went to set up the tents while Trent secured the raft and the equipment.

  But the news about Deanna’s young son was fresh in his mind. It was true what Emma had said. Their arrest had been the beginning of the end of their relationship. But clearly not the end of his feelings for her.

  “HOW HARD could this be, right?” Emma looked at Izzy.

  “You’re asking me? My microwave and I are very friendly for a reason.”

  “Well, I have to make amends for falling into the river and causing everyone else problems. Dinner has to be good.”

  “Define good.”

  “Edible.”

  “Oh, we can do edible.” Izzy opened one of the big cardboard boxes containing the food supplies and started pulling stuff out. “Powdered eggs—better save those for breakfast. Cans of tuna. Do you know how to make tuna casserole?”

  “I think you need an oven for that.”

  “Ah, canned chili. This is a piece of cake, just dump it in a pan and heat.”

  “Got any cheese in there?”

  “Sadly, no. Apparently we’re not on the gourmet-food rafting tour.”

  “Chili it is,” Emma said, then set about trying to figure out how the stove worked.

  To her surprise and pleasure, she quickly had the stove up and running and the chili heating. Izzy had found a box of crackers to accompany the dish.

  If Emma’s shoulders hadn’t been burning like fire from all the paddling and the bumping against rocks when she’d fallen in the river, things would be going well for a change.

  Izzy had wandered off, as Izzy tended to do. She couldn’t sit still for long. Emma had often wondered how she got her comic strip drawn and written in time to meet her deadlines.

  Trent sauntered over. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine.” Emma shrugged her shoulders, trying to work out the kinks. “Rough day.”

  “Yeah, well, you know. I’ve had worse.”

  “Your shoulders are killing you.”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “You’ve been rubbing them and shrugging ever since we hit shore.”

  Trent came around behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. Instantly, she tensed. His body heat radiated from his fingertips into her skin. She was aware of everything. The closeness of his body, the smell of his skin, the cool breeze blowing in with twilight.

  Gently, he began massaging her sore muscles. It felt so good, a small, helpless moan escaped her lips.

  “You should take an anti-inflammatory,” he said. “There’s ibuprofen in the first-aid kit.”

  “You think I’m a wuss, don’t you?”

  He chuckled. “Not in the least.”

  “Then why are you laughing at me?”

  “I’m not laughing at you. I’m amazed at how much you’ve changed. The old Emma wouldn’t even go on a camping trip, much less row a boat over the rapids or cook dinner on a camp stove.”

  “It wasn’t that I wouldn’t,” Emma said. “I was just too scared to try.”

  “How come you’re not scared now?”

  “I’ve learned that life is a lot more fun when you take a few chances,” Emma murmured, purring like a cat as his fingers hit the right spot. “Seriously, you could give up this guide gig and become a masseur. People would pay big bucks for those magic fingers.”

  His fingers found a knot in her shoulder muscles and he used his knuckles to dig in.

  “Ow, ow, don’t stop.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Yes, but in a very good way.” She didn’t realize how seductive the words sounded until they were out of her mouth. Or how dangerous it was to let him massage her neck and shoulders. Already sparks of awareness were lighting up through her body. One small spark and she was ready to catch fire.

  He kept massaging circles into her skin. “You know,” he began, “I don’t think I ever apologized for getting you arrested.”

  “Water under the bridge,” she said.

  “I hated that you got caught up in it.”

  “I survived.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But we didn’t.”

  “Um…” She stepped away. “That’ll do. Thanks. Thanks so much.”

  “Your muscles still stiff?”

  “I’ll live.”

  He dropped his hands, stepped back. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Thanks,” she repeated.

  Trent turned and walked away. Emma’s shoulders sagged and she let out a breath. How in the world was she going to last the rest of the trip with this man? The only thing she had going for her was that they were not alone in the wilderness. Otherwise, she had no doubt she’d be making the same mistakes she always made. Romanticizing something that should not be romanticized.

  And before she could stop herself, her mind was off, spinning fantasies of what could have been, or what could still be.

  WHILE Emma had been cooking, Izzy had set up their tent. Emma had just enough energy to slide in, zip it up and lie down to sleep. As they lay there listening to the sounds of the night—insects chirping, small animals rustling the leaves, the snores from fellow campers—Izzy suddenly asked. “So what happened with you and Trent? Why did you guys break up?”

  “We just weren’t compatible.”

  “You look pretty good together to me. In what ways are you not compatible?”

  “He’s an outdoor guy and I’m just not that into bugs and spiders and snakes and sleeping on the ground. Plus in high school, I was college-bound and he wasn’t. We had different priorities, we were just too different in general.”

  “Maybe so, but whenever he sees you his whole face lights up.”

  “It doesn’t.” Emma paused to consider Izzy’s observation and touched her cheeks with her fingertips. “Does it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, there’s the fact that I’m something of an introvert and he loves people.”

  “You love people.”

  “Yes, but only one at a time.”

  “So what was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Why did you break up?”

  “He got me into trouble and my parents forbade me to go out with him.”

  Izzy sat up. “He got you preg
nant!”

  “Shh, not that kind of trouble.”

  “Then what?”

  Emma didn’t like to talk about her secret shame, but maybe if she told Izzy she’d quit pestering her. “He got me arrested.”

  “What? You? Miss Goody Two-Shoes?”

  “I’m not that good.”

  “Well, you’re certainly not bad. You don’t even keep overdue library books.”

  “Of course not, I’m a librarian.”

  “So what’d you do? Steal a car and go joyriding like Deanna’s kid? Shoplift?”

  “We graffitied a water tower. Or rather, Trent graffitied it. I was just along for the ride.”

  “Cool. What did you write?”

  Emma paused, remembering that night. She’d sneaked from the house at midnight to meet him. He’d had a bottle of Two Buck Chuck. Giggling and passing the bottle back and forth, they’d climbed the water tower in the light of the full moon. “In five-foot letters in green neon paint he wrote ‘Trent loves Emma.’”

  “Awww, that’s so sweet.”

  “The police chief of Terrytown didn’t think so.”

  “What’s it like in jail?”

  “Stinky. Luckily, I wasn’t there long. My dad bailed me out, but he also forbade me to ever go near Trent again.”

  “And like a good little girl, you obeyed?”

  Emma felt her face flush. “They watched me like a hawk. But one day I did sneak out to see him, but then…” she paused, remembering. But it was too painful to continue, so she said, “Then his dad got a job here in Colorado and he moved away not long after. I hadn’t seen him again until today.”

  “Wow,” Izzy said, “so how are you feeling now?”

  “For one thing I’m ticked off at you. Or at least I was.”

  “You’ve forgiven me?”

  “I can’t stay mad at you for very long. Besides, I realized something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My whacked-out notions about love and romance started with Trent. I poured everything into him, assuming a relationship would make me whole. I never got over that notion. I kept searching for my missing piece. There were Doug and Ryan, but nothing ever felt completely right, and the harder I tried to force things to work, the more it seemed I pushed those guys away. I think from now on I’m going to be more like you, Izz. Take me as I am or leave me alone.”