by Lora Leigh
Without a word, she ducked under the ledge, found a “comfy” rock to perch on and shrugged her pack off her back.
“So—what made you decide to enter this year’s charity event?” Seth asked as Elena worked her shoulders free of the stiffness he knew she had to feel. He was feeling it too. “It’s not exactly for the faint of heart.”
She smiled to herself as she dug into her pack then opened a bag of trail mix. “I ever give you any reason to believe I was faint of heart?”
He couldn’t help but grin as he tugged off his cap, wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm and resettled the cap. No. She never had. In the cases the two of them had been involved with, she’d proven to be a tough prosecutor; she was thorough, accurate and didn’t back down to even the most experienced defense attorneys. She didn’t back down to him, either, when she took a tack that pissed him off. Like with the Devine case.
Faint of heart? Not this woman—emphasis on woman.
“Nope.” He fished an apple out of his pack and sliced it in two with the blade from his Leatherman. “You never have.”
Just for the hell of it, he offered her half of the apple.
She regarded it, then him, with a wary look over the top of her open water bottle.
He laughed. “It’s a peace offering, all right? You might tick me off with some of your decisions, but hey, that’s not my call. You’re doing your job. And from where I sit, you do it damn well—even though I don’t always agree with your methods.”
She shoved her dark glasses up on the top of her head, her coffee-brown eyes still distrustful. “Okay … now you’re being just plain rational—which is scary. What’s the catch?”
He laughed again, bit into his half of the apple. “No catch, Ms. Assistant DA. Figured maybe it was time to bury the hatchet is all. So this is just me, trying to be a nice guy.”
She smiled another one of those secret, amused smiles. Secret and sexy.
“And that’s funny because?”
She bit into the apple. White teeth, lush lips, and pink tongue. Holy God, he definitely had to quit looking at her mouth.
“Because it surprises me to know there’s a ‘nice guy’ side to your persona.”
He grunted. “I’m a surprise a minute. And I think I’ve just been insulted.”
A sexy dimple dented her left cheek. “We haven’t exactly seen eye to eye on the last two cases, and you don’t exactly conceal your resentment.”
“Yeah, well, I’m competitive. So sue me.”
They lapsed into an almost comfortable silence as they drank, finished off the fruit and took in the vast and stunning beauty of Canyon buttes, high plateaus, mazes and crannies stretched out around, above and below them. The Colorado meandered in a long, thin silver ribbon half a mile below, yet still several miles away via the trails.
Five teams of two participating in the scavenger hunt had spread out this morning from the South Rim of the Canyon. The other four teams had taken Bright Angel Trail down then fanned out on varying side trails depending on their individual maps.
Seth and Elena were the only team to draw Kaibab Trail, which was further down the rim. The first couple of miles were the hardest. The chalk-colored limestone passes were steep as hell, hard on the knees and not for the weak of body or heart. You had to be a serious hiker to do the Canyon’s desert climate or it would eat you alive.
It had been over an hour since they’d seen any other hikers. Seth knew from experience that not many made it this far into the “big hole.” It was just too rigorous. As they progressed even deeper, traversing thirty thousand years of the Canyon’s five-million-year history with each downward step, the chances were they’d seen their last human until they climbed back out tomorrow afternoon—hopefully in time to see the condors fly in to roost in the jagged cliffs near the Canyon Village compound.
“So why did you enter the hunt?” he asked again.
She offered him her bag of trail mix. “While it may seem that I prefer the courtroom to anything else, I love the Canyon. I love hiking. And I love the idea of helping out for a good cause. How about you? Why’d you enter?”
He shrugged and poured the mix of nuts and raisins into his palm before handing the bag back to her. “Same reasons, I guess. My dad was a teacher so he had summers off. He and I used to camp somewhere in the Canyon three or four times a summer. I love it here. Never get to see it these days.”
She nodded then smiled again.
“Okay. What’s funny this time?”
“Us. Sitting here talking like civilized people instead of yelling over points of law.”
Seth scratched his head. Grinned. “It is kind of weird, huh?”
“Yeah. Weird. Best not get used to it. We’re in a bubble here. Two days from now it’ll be back to business as usual and I imagine we’ll be butting heads again.”
Business as usual? I don’t think so, Seth speculated to himself when she stood and brushed off her butt. It was all he could do to resist offering up his services to handle that chore for her.
Elena Martinez might tick him off sometimes, but she’d always intrigued him. Fascinated might be the better word. He’d never get a better chance than now to capitalize on this close proximity to the dishy assistant DA. They’d be spending a lot of time together during the next forty-eight hours. Alone time. He planned to make the best of each and every hour. Anything could happen if he decided to give in to a little carnal curiosity and she did the same. She was curious, too. He could tell. Just like he could tell she didn’t want to be but her resistance was slipping.
“No less than five, no more than twenty.” She shouldered her pack, adjusted its weight. “We’ve been here a little over fifteen minutes.”
Nope. The gorgeous Elena was no panty-waist, Seth thought again. She knew her stuff. Knew that less than a five-minute rest was worthless and more than twenty would cause their muscles to stiffen up.
He tugged a map out of a zippered pouch on the leg of his shorts. “If this map is accurate, we should be getting close to our first item on the list. That means we’ll be veering off the maintained trail soon.”
There were only thirty-three miles of maintained trails in the canyon, so any off-trail path was always an added adventure.
“A pair of waxed lips?” she asked, looking over his shoulder at the list of treasures. She stood close enough that he could get a whiff of something fresh and flowery. Her shampoo, maybe. Or maybe it was just her. Whatever it was, it was workin’ for her. Workin’ on him.
“Who thought of these things?” she asked with a shake of her head. “And who came out here and planted them?”
“You ever met Sergeant Wayne?” He refolded the map and tucked it back in his pocket.
“Tater Wayne?” She laughed—a husky, sexy sound he’d never heard from her before. He liked it. Liked how it softened the lines around her mouth and the tension in her shoulders and knocked the stiffness out of her entire bearing.
“Yeah. I know Tater.” She fit the straps of her walking sticks over her wrists. “And enough said.”
Seth heard the affection in her tone. Shared it. The sergeant’s love for french fries had stuck him with the Tater handle. His warped sense of humor was responsible for the odd items on their list.
“Didn’t peg him for a hiker.” She sounded surprised.
“Leads a troop of Eagle Scouts. He and the boys were busy last week planting little treasures for the hunt.”
“Since they worked so hard, what say you and I get busy? Maybe we can make it out of here with our booty in record time.”
Record time? Fat chance. Seth was in no hurry to climb back out of this magnificent hole. Not with the delectable booty of Elena Martinez to occupy his thoughts.
THREE
“WAX LIPS — RED. KITE string—long. A romance novel—hot. Guess you could say we had a pretty good day.”
On her knees, rolling out her sleeping bag, Elena looked over her shoulder at Seth as he s
tretched out on his side of his own sleeping bag, checking the three items off their list.
She turned back to reorganizing her backpack. He was right. It had been a long but good day—in spite of her recurrent, niggling sensation of being watched.
They hadn’t had to search too long for any of the “hunt” items and had been able to knock off early. While, as the crow flies, it was only a mile to the bottom from the South Rim, they’d hiked over six miles to get to within fifty yards or so of the Colorado. She was beat—in a good way—and ready to rest her feet.
Taking advantage of a lone pinion and a hulking rock formation that formed a shelter of sorts, they’d made camp for the night a hundred or so yards off the main trail on a ridge overlooking the river. At noon they’d both eaten premade PBJs for protein and snacked on more fruit and trail mix. Tonight they’d have real food. Seth had promised to cook.
For now, he lounged in the shade of the lean-to he’d erected from a lightweight survival blanket. He’d rolled his sleeping bag out beneath him, stretched out on his side, propped himself on one elbow and now he was lazily thumbing through the romance novel.
“Hoochie mamma.” He grinned, stopped on a page that caught his interest. “Listen to this. ‘Even in the pale glow of the campfire, Lance could see the fire in Victoria’s eyes. He moved closer—’”
Elena held up a hand. “Spare me.”
He affected a look of puzzled amusement. “What? You don’t like this stuff? I thought all women loved a good hot romance novel.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. One of my best friends is a romance novelist. I love her stuff. I just don’t want to hear it from you.”
“Ah … gets you all hot and bothered, does it?”
The full lips that pulled back into a smile revealed teeth that were straight and white—a stunning contrast to his tan face made even darker by a heavy five o’clock shadow that had started showing up around four.
She grunted, failed to suppress a grin. “In your dreams, cowboy.”
He slanted her a considering look. “So, it’s a cowboy fantasy you like. Well, then, Miz Elena, I reckon this cowpoke’s got a yarn or two and a move or two under this here ten-gallon hat that could turn that sassy little head of yourn.”
She laughed. He was ridiculous. And funny—something she was just learning about him. He’d never given her a glimpse of his sense of humor before and it made her feel a little off-balance. He was also sexy as hell with the long, strong length of him reclined on his side on his sleeping bag, grinning over the novel.
He was also too damn charming for his own good. Hmm. Who’d have believed that? Elena Martinez thinking Seth King was charming. In a cheesy, adolescent, bad-boy-up-to-something kind of way.
“You’re in a mood.” She sat down cross-legged on her own sleeping bag facing him.
He smiled—the kind of smile that could melt even the coldest, most cautious of hearts. And, she realized, surprised to admit it, it was a smile that could turn into a problem before this camp-out was over.
“It’s been a good day,” he said simply. “We found three of our six items, the weather’s great, company’s good and tonight I’m going to do my most favorite thing in the entire world.”
She shot him an arched look.
“Stargaze,” he clarified with an evil grin. “You thought I was talking about something else, didn’t you?”
“Hey—what a man does in the privacy of his own sleeping bag is no concern of mine.”
She was really getting addicted to that laugh, she thought as his deep baritone rumble caressed the air. “Why didn’t I know you had such a bawdy sense of humor?”
“Maybe because you’re usually in my face and roaring over something I did that you didn’t like?”
“There is that,” he agreed with a sage nod, then, grinning like that little boy again, he opened up the novel. He cleared his throat dramatically. “‘Moonlight danced across the gentle rise of her breasts—’”
She reached across the distance and snatched the book out of his hands. “Haven’t you got a fire to start or something?”
“Darlin’ … that’s what I’m trying to do if you’d only cooperate.”
Sporting a grin that should be illegal, he rose and dug a lightweight portable camp stove out of his pack then set out the makings for their dinner.
Definitely illegal, Elena thought as she dug into her own pack for dinnerware. So were those devil blue eyes that danced and teased, flirted and tempted.
Despite his obvious and outrageous flirting, like it or not, as the day had progressed, she’d started seeing him in a whole new light. If he’d come on to her all heavy and macho—and he was coming on to her—she’d have dismissed him and his frequent smiles out of hand. But he was having fun with it. Even making fun of himself. Reading from a romance novel, for God’s sake. Just to make her laugh.
And yeah, to make her hot.
Which, unfortunately, he had, Elena admitted as she checked her water supply. Of all the reactions she’d expected to have to Seth King on this trip, the last one she’d seen coming was attraction, or that, considering their history, she might actually like him.
Oh, well. She was a big girl and this was a short camp-out. A bubble, she reminded herself, which would pop the minute they climbed out of this canyon tomorrow night.
Didn’t mean she couldn’t look a little in the meantime, though, did it? So she did. She indulged in a little guilty pleasure and watched the play of light and shadow dance across his handsome face as he hunkered down to start the burner on his camping stove. Enjoyed the hard angle of his jaw, the lush mobility of his lips, the thick dark lashes that hid his eyes as he struck a match and lit the flame.
Two flames, she admitted reluctantly, as a warm flush spread low in her belly.
Lord. She dragged her gaze away from all that man who had ignited all this heat. Save me from myself.
“AND HE COOKS, TOO,” Elena said, tasting her pasta.
“In and out of the kitchen,” Seth agreed, digging into his own dinner.
She didn’t say anything, but Seth got the reaction he wanted. A reluctant grin. A roll of her eyes. A little shake of her head.
Yeah, she was trying her damnedest not to find him funny and maybe a little cute, but he could tell he was starting to get to her.
“This is the life, huh?” he observed with a nod toward the canyon walls stretching out for miles around them. This deep in the Canyon, every color from bone to red, to umbers and rich sand colors decorated the striated canyon walls.
“Yeah,” she agreed with just the right amount of awe in her voice to tell him how much she really loved it here. “Peace. Perfection. Unequalled beauty. It’s daunting. Humbling to face the elements and the isolation.”
She glanced at him, the wonder she felt for the Canyon coloring her voice and her expression. “Did you know that over four and a half million people visit each year and less than one percent ever make it off the rim?”
“Don’t know what they’re missing.” He waited a beat then decided to chance it. “I’m beginning to think I’ve been missing something too.”
When she held his gaze, he knew she recognized his look and his statement for what it was. He wasn’t referring to the Canyon. He was referring to missing out on something with her. Instead of an instant rebuff or a “Cool your jets, cowboy,” she just looked thoughtful.
That encouraging reaction made something other than his heart swell.
Down, boy. You don’t rush a woman like Elena Martinez. Yet all he could think about was the possibility of ending this evening with a kiss—maybe a little something more.
Maybe a lot more.
“I think I’ll clean up a little,” she said after washing both their plates and forks and handing his back to him. “Thanks for dinner.”
He watched her dig around into her backpack for soap and a washcloth then pick up an extra water container. “My pleasure,” he said quietly as she walked toward a s
mall stand of scrub growing around a boulder. “Don’t wander off too far.”
He cleaned up too while she was gone. Wished he’d brought a bottle of wine. God. Listen to him. Thirteen hours ago he’d been dreading spending time with her and now he wanted to put the moves on her.
Things change.
Things changed a lot more when she came back.
The sun set like a curtain coming down. There was light. Then there wasn’t. Only a purple-blue sky in a dark gray dusk playing against the craggy silhouette of the vast North Rim stretched out for miles across from them. Suddenly the evening turned as cool as the day had been warm.
Seth snagged his wind-up flashlight, turned it on and set it in the middle of their campsite for a little light. Then he shrugged into his long-sleeved shirt. As he tugged it down over his head, he saw her. A graceful silhouette walking back to the campsite. Tall, lean, curved in all the right places.
“Thought I might have to send out a search party,” he said, surprised by the gruffness in his voice.
“Sorry. Didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”
He watched her carefully. She seemed tense. Even a little jumpy.
“Something wrong?”
Looking preoccupied, she glanced at him. Shook her head. “No. I don’t know. It’s … probably nothing.”
“What’s probably nothing?”
She rubbed her arms against the sudden chill. “I’ve just had this creepy feeling on and off all day. Had it again just now. Like someone’s watching me.”
“Have I been that obvious?”
He’d wanted her to smile and she did, but it was a reluctant smile. “Someone other than you, Detective. You haven’t … noticed anything?”
“I’ve noticed that you are an amazingly beautiful woman.”
She rolled her eyes but she smiled. “Do you ever quit?”
“Quit?” He shook his head, held her gaze. “Not so much, no. Not until I’m absolutely, positively, indisputably certain that I’ve been beaten.”
Another reluctant smile. Then she turned serious. Thoughtful. “Beaten? So what game are you playing, exactly?”
