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Was she even breathing? All she knew was that his smoldering dark eyes had pierced her clean through and pinned her in place.
Normally, she hated conflict. Avoided it at all costs. But now she possessed a newfound bravado.
“And what kind of bone do you have that needs picking?” she asked coolly, amazing herself with her impudence. “Chicken? Beef? Pork perhaps?”
Ha! He almost smiled. She saw it flit at the edges of his mouth before he gained control by frowning deeply.
“Why did you run out on me last night?”
“Mack!”
They both jumped.
Caleb rapped on the outside of the bus window and tapped at the face of his watch. “We’re burning daylight, bud.”
“Duty calls.” Cammie Jo said with enough sugar in her voice to choke a honeybee.
“Don’t think this lets you off the hook. Sooner or later you and I are having a long talk.”
“Fine with me.”
“Fine.”
They stared at each other.
“You coming on the hike, then?” He inclined his head.
“Why, of course.”
He stepped aside, gestured with a hand. “Ladies first.”
Haughtily Cammie Jo rose, nose in the air, and started forward. She sailed past him, but then promptly tripped over her boot laces as she descended the bus steps, and sprawled face forward in the dirt.
IT WAS AN HOUR and a half into their three-hour hike through the spongy forest undergrowth and Mack couldn’t stop looking at Camryn. He smiled whenever he recalled how she’d leaped to her feet after falling from the bus and dusted herself off before he could get to her. He’d made a move to help, but she’d glared at him so hard he’d stepped backward, palms up in a gesture of surrender. She was a feisty thing; an odd combination of half regal cutie, half fierce tomcat.
Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt she possessed quality number two on his “wife” list.
He halted the group from time to time to give minilectures on the flora and fauna. During these little breaks, Camryn assiduously avoided looking at him, pretending instead to be wildly enraptured with a skunk cabbage or chipmunks or wild blueberry bushes.
Apparently she didn’t think he noticed when she cut her eyes surreptitiously at him. For his part, he stared at her boldly. He had nothing to be ashamed of.
Except she was a distraction to beat all distractions. Some nerdy middle-aged guy outfitted in the wrong kind of footwear kept asking him silly questions. Like, “Why are the Sitka spruce and the western hemlock the only variety of trees in the Tongass?”
“Because that’s the way it is,” Mack had finally snapped and he heard Camryn snicker. Was she laughing at him or the nerdy guy?
Caleb and his twelve adoring disciples were a quarter mile ahead of them in the forest. Mack brought up the rear in his group to prevent stragglers while Camryn had positioned herself far ahead of the pack, as if to put as much distance between them as possible by infiltrating Caleb’s group.
Mack admired the way Camryn’s trim little butt swayed from side to side in those snug-fitting jeans. He loved watching her hair bounce about her shoulders as she walked and the way her sweater adhered to her breasts.
He recalled the moment when they were alone on the bus together and he’d been trying to intimidate her with his maleness, hoping to wring a confession out of her concerning her strange behavior the night before. Instead of being unnerved as he expected, he could have sworn he saw sparks of unmitigated mischief in her fabulous green eyes.
“Which kind of bone needs picking?” she’d drawled, all spunk and sass.
My bone, he’d thought but hadn’t had the guts to say.
An unwitting image of that cute little butt of hers curving above his cupped palm jettisoned itself into his head and just like that, boom!, he got hard.
Taking a deep breath, Mack paused, put one hand on a tree and struggled to rein himself in.
“Oh!” someone up the trail cried and it sounded an awful lot like Camryn.
Mack’s head came up just in time to see a flash of color as she tumbled down the embankment.
6
JUST CALL ME GRACE, Cammie Jo thought as she somersaulted head over heels down a steep slope into a mossy creek bed where she ended up sprawled on her butt. The totem might cure shyness, but it didn’t seem to do a darn thing to exorcise a chronic case of klutz.
At the thought of the totem, her fingers flew to her neck.
Whew! It was still there.
Chagrined at her clumsiness, Cammie Jo shook her head.
“Camryn,” Mack shouted, “are you okay?”
She squinted up at the top of the hill and saw Mack in silhouette, the morning sun at his back. She waved perkily. “Fine.”
Cammie Jo heard him coming, crashing down through the mossy undergrowth like a bull elephant on the rampage. She was short-winded by the anticipation the sounds of those rescuing feet wrought inside her.
Mack was coming after her.
In a second, he was there, his arms going around her, lifting her out of the damp mud.
Her back was against his chest, she raised her head. His chin was at her mouth so unnervingly close, Cammie Jo forgot everything but the smell of his woodsy skin and how good his solid body felt. Rampant lust raged through her, startling her with the sheer magnitude of erotic sensations.
She wanted him. Hotly, desperately, madly. Here. Now. On the forest floor, in the woods, in the creek. With the squirrels and birds and rabbits watching. He was magnificent. He was sexy. He was…
Laughing at her.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded, narrowing her eyes at him.
“You are, Sugar Plum.”
“I’m not your sugar plum.”
“No,” he said, “I dare say you’re not.”
“Good. So stop laughing.”
“I can’t. You should see yourself. Miss Priss is a mess. Twigs in your hair, mud on your cheek, moss stains on your jacket.”
“Who are you calling Miss Priss?”
“As if you didn’t know.”
“Where is everyone?” She plucked leaves from her curls and looked up at the embankment for signs of the other hikers.
“I sent them on ahead to catch up with Caleb.”
“So it’s just you and me?”
“Yeah.” His voice was husky. “Alone.”
Uh-oh, what was that dangerous look in his eyes?
“Why are you on this hiking trip? Shouldn’t you be out ferrying tourists back and forth from the airport or something?”
“You don’t want me here?”
“I didn’t say that.”
He cocked his head. “Ever since we ran the ad, Caleb’s been swamped with unexpected business. Tuesday mornings are usually slow for me so I’m pitching in for the summer. Helping out a buddy.”
“And getting a eyeful of the backsides of sexy young women.”
“That too.” His grin turned lopsided and he tightened his grip on her waist. “And your backside is the best I’ve ever seen.”
“Liar.”
He held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were a Boy Scout?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I find that hard to believe.” She also found it hard to believe that she was standing here in a dark forest alone with the sexiest man on the face of the earth.
“It’s true.”
“Guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“If I kiss you again, will you run away like you did last night?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Why did you run away?”
“Er…because I had something in my eye?” That was no lie, she’d had contacts in her eyes.
“Then why did you climb out the bathroom window and leave me with a broken heart?” Dramatically he clutched a hand to the left side of his chest.
Cammie Jo snorted. “Your heart wasn’t broken.”
“But it was.” His tone was light but the expression in his eyes told her she had wounded his pride.
“A girl’s entitled to cold feet, isn’t she?”
“Oh, so that’s what happened.”
Somehow he’d shifted her around in his arms and they were no longer back to chest but chest to breasts and his face was right there, just waiting to be kissed.
“Are your feet cold now?” he murmured.
“Well, they’re pretty wet. I forgot to wear wool socks like they tell you to do in the guide books.”
He made a clucking noise with his tongue. Tsk. Tsk. She wondered what it would feel like to have him make that same sound inside her mouth.
“You’ll never be a good wilderness woman with that kind of memory.”
“Nor by the way I skim helter-skelter down embankments.”
“True enough.” He languidly plucked a twig from her hair, his rough fingers skimming through the silkiness of the loose strands. How many times had she dreamed of moments like these, of being held by a man like this? “But I’m imagining you must have other skills that’d compensate for your lack of memory and balance.”
“You’d think.”
They peered deeply into each other’s eyes. Neither of them blinked or looked away.
“I’m only guessing,” he said. “But yeah, I bet you’ve got a lot of hidden talents. Can you cook?”
“Nope.”
“Sew?”
“’Fraid not.”
“Good with numbers?”
“Sorry.”
“Hmm, so you’re completely without talents?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Ah.” His pupils widened.
“Keep your mind out of the gutter, McCaulley.”
“How do you know where my mind’s at?”
