by Robin Kaye
By the time Hunter looked back at Toni, she was walking toward him. He thought she might be coming back to talk. His mood lifted until he saw the trail map she studied and the group that followed.
Toni stopped at the trail marker and nervously fingered her collar before squaring her shoulders and stepping onto the trail. He couldn’t believe it. In order to avoid him, Toni was going to start the next part of the shoot without him. He was the guide for cryin’ out loud. If she didn’t want to go with him, she could have requested Fisher, Trapper, or Karma. But since she didn’t, Hunter really had no choice but to make sure she and the crew got to where they were going safely.
He pulled the water bottle from his pack, took a long drink, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and headed toward the trail. He stayed behind her, not wanting to give Toni an excuse to send him packing. He’d let her go on thinking she was without a guide, but he’d do his job and keep her and everyone else safe.
Hunter followed and worked on a game plan to show Toni she was all wrong about them. The only strategy he came up with was to do his job and make sure Toni could do hers. Close proximity wouldn’t hurt either. He just had to show her he was more of an asset than a complication.
***
Toni looked from the little blue line representing a stream on the map to the roaring torrent of water before her and couldn’t believe her luck. The line sure didn’t look like an accurate representation of that raging waterway. How was she supposed to get her crew and all the equipment across that?
The rest of the group formed a semicircle, all probably thinking the same thing—she should have asked Hunter or one of the River Runners to guide them. This was definitely not her brightest move. She could practically read their minds. She sucked, and Hunter would know what to do, or better yet, would have known the creek was too big to cross.
They all stared at the water with such intensity it was as if they believed if they concentrated hard enough, a bridge would suddenly appear. She wished.
Toni looked from the stream to the map and back again, hoping there was another trail coming from somewhere accessible which would give them a less arduous path to their destination. She didn’t see one. The only thing she was sure of was she had to find a way to cross it to get to the spot on the map Bianca had marked with an X—the place Bianca described in her extensive notes as the perfect site for the rest of the photo shoot.
A hand came out of nowhere, reaching across her right shoulder from behind. She screamed, jumped, and spun around, losing her balance just as she recognized Hunter. He grabbed her arm, keeping her from tumbling into the raging creek.
“What are you trying to do, give me a freakin’ heart attack?” She took a swing at him. Unfortunately, Hunter reacted like he’d been a prizefighter in a past life, easily avoiding contact. When she didn’t connect, Toni found herself spinning again. Arms flailing, she flew backward toward the water. She was going in. She was going to be swept downstream like those people on the news who do stupid things like playing in storm drains during a Nor’easter.
Hunter grabbed her around the waist, pulling her against his chest, and trapped her arms at her sides. “Calm down, will ya?” He held her fast, whispering in her ear.
“You just scared me into next week, and you’re telling me to calm down? What do you do, spend all your time thinking up ways to torture me?” She struggled against Hunter’s hold.
He didn’t release her until he had dragged her well away from the creek, which was just fine by her. He seemed to swallow back a few responses. One look in his eyes, and she knew he was thinking of all the ways he’d tortured her just that morning and left her wanting more. Damn him. She tried to regret their recent sexual acrobatics. It was an epic failure. Still, he didn’t need to know that.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just trying to show you there might be a place we could cross the creek about a hundred yards up.” He took the crumbled map from her shaking hands and pointed it out. “Here, where this other trail crosses the stream. If that’s the trail I remember, there’s a fallen tree just beyond it that’s large enough to walk over, even carrying bikes and equipment. Do you want to wait here while I go and check it out?”
Stay here and face the humiliation of having been saved twice by a river jockey? Not happening. Toni shook her head. “No, I want to see it for myself. Everyone else, wait here. I’ll be right back.” She turned without waiting for a response and followed the stream.
Hunter cleared his throat.
Toni wanted to hit him again, and Lord knew, except for Hunter, she’d never hit anyone in her life. She wasn’t a violent person. What was it about him that brought out the worst in her? “What is it now?”
“Come and look at the map.”
He was so damn cool and collected. He spoke to her like someone might to an unruly kindergartner, and it didn’t set well. She blew the bangs out of her eyes and stomped back to him, her arms wrapped around herself to keep from hitting him again and losing what was left of her temper.
He stood beside her. “The lodge is here.” He pointed to a spot on the map. “We’re on this trail.” He followed the dashed, black line to the blasted blue line. “This is the stream.” His finger stopped its movement. “The place I mentioned is up here.” He ran his finger along the stream to another trail.
“Oh.” She’d been going in the wrong direction. He could have easily taken the opportunity to make an even bigger fool of her than she had herself, which was saying something. She calmly took the map, and avoiding everyone’s eyes, walked toward the possible fallen tree. When she didn’t hear Hunter, she turned and caught him staring at her with a weird look on his face. She didn’t even want to guess what he was thinking. “Are you coming?”
“I’m right behind you.” He shouldered his pack and followed her.
When they were out of sight of the rest of the group, Toni turned to face him, careful to anchor her hands on her hips to keep them from shaking. He walked so silently through the woods, he was like a ghost—she’d had to look back for him a few times to assure herself he hadn’t vanished into thin air.
She’d been terrified when she took the group away from the lodge and led them into the wilderness. She repeated the mantra, “I’m not alone. I have a map. I’m not lost.” She also replayed the conversation she’d had with James again and again about how important this opportunity was for her. Still, all of that hadn’t stopped the tentacles of terror from creeping over her. By the time she’d hit the stream, she’d been about a minute from panicking—her control had been slipping. Then Hunter had to go and scare the crap out of her.
Sure, she’d overreacted, but ever since she’d realized he was beside her, the terror vanished. Okay, well, maybe not when she thought she was going to be swept away by the rushing stream, but even then she’d had a feeling Hunter would have saved her. He was always telling her he hadn’t lost a client yet—but he hadn’t mentioned how many he’d bedded.
Wow, that thought came out of nowhere.
Hunter closed the distance between them slowly, looking as if he were studying her again. “Do you need to rest? I brought water. You need to keep hydrated.” He crouched down and dug through his ever-present backpack.
Who was she kidding? He probably “made love” to plenty of desperate, willing women. After all, what else was there to do here at night? She wasn’t stupid. She’d seen Yvette and the rest of the models throwing themselves at him.
“Do you want me to take the lead?”
She blinked, wondering what he was talking about. Visions of last night and the way he took the lead in bed sent a tremor through her.
“You should really bring along a sweatshirt. It can get cool in the shade.”
“What?”
“You look cold.”
“Oh no, I’m fine.” She wasn’t cold—she w
as hot. “I just…” Why had she stopped? She looked down at herself, her hands anchored to her hips, her stockings covered with runs. Her favorite boots were a mess, dusty, with streaks of caked on dirt thanks to almost falling into the stream—twice.
Hunter opened a bottle of water and handed it to her. “Truce?”
“I’m not fighting with you.”
The crooked smile formed on his mouth. “Well, you haven’t taken a swing at me for about five minutes. I guess that’s a good sign, huh?”
“If you hadn’t snuck up from behind me like a ghost and scared the life out of me, I wouldn’t have felt the need to protect myself.”
“First of all, you never need protection from me, Toni. I’d never hurt you.”
He looked so sincere. But then people always judged themselves by their intentions; they judged others by their actions. Unfortunately, that thought did nothing but call into question her actions, something she didn’t want to think about at the moment.
“How much farther do we need to go?”
“You need to drink about half that water, and I’ll tell you.”
She rolled her eyes and took a drink—not because he told her to, just because she was thirsty.
“With the elevation and the dry climate, you have to drink a lot more than you do at home. We only have about fifteen percent humidity here. What’s the average in New York?”
“In the summer? About ninety percent. Sometimes ninety-nine.”
He shook his head. “It’s a wonder you have to drink at all. Here, you don’t feel as if you even sweat, it evaporates so fast. You really need to pound the water, babe. Dehydration can lead to some serious shit. And the last thing I want is my brother examining you.”
“Don’t call me babe. I’m not your girlfriend.”
“Yeah, I got that loud and clear.”
“Then why did you follow me?”
“Well, there’s certainly nothing wrong with your self-esteem, is there? I’m not following you. I’m doing my job. If you hadn’t left for the second part of the shoot without a River Runners employee, I, or one of the others, wouldn’t have had to follow you. We would have been guiding you.”
She blew out a breath and looked up at him. “Okay, I admit that wasn’t my brightest move.”
“It also goes against our contract. Bianca hired River Runners for a reason—to keep you safe and on schedule. Whatever happens between you and me is a completely separate issue. It has absolutely nothing to do with our work here. Like it or not, we’d both be a lot more successful if we figure out a way to work together.”
“I don’t have a problem working with you.”
“Good. Because if this job goes well, Bianca might use River Runners again. And with what she pays, it puts me just that much closer to my goal.”
Hunter took the half-empty water bottle from her, twisted the cap on, and stuffed it into a mesh pocket before taking the lead.
He mentions a mysterious goal and then walks away. What was up with that? “Goal?” Toni followed trying not to notice how great his butt and legs looked in those khaki shorts. “You want more than this?” She held out her arms, taking in the whole forest. “Guiding city slickers through the woods and down rivers.” Probably all the while sharing his sleeping bag with willing females—a dream come true for guys like Hunter. “I guess it feeds your need to control everyone and everything.”
Hunter stopped midstride, and the look he gave her made her wonder if she’d finally pushed the man too far.
“I don’t control people. I only control myself. Even when gorgeous Goth women and young gang members do everything within their power to make me lose it.”
Toni threw her head back and laughed. She didn’t bother trying to stifle it since there was absolutely no way she could. She didn’t get the whole gang member thing, but the gorgeous Goth women—that was laughable. She figured she might as well enjoy it. She took great pleasure laughing right in Hunter’s face.
“What’s so funny?”
“You are either the world’s best liar, or you’re seriously delusional. You’ve been trying to control me ever since I met you.”
“I wasn’t controlling you. I was helping you—there’s a difference. Someone had to push you out of that cabin.”
“I would have done it on my own.”
The look Hunter shot her made her want to slug him again. “Get over yourself, Hunter. You have faults just like the rest of us. Superman you ain’t.” She looked him up and down and tried to imagine Pee-wee Herman. After all, she had to do something to keep the hormones in check. “If that was the only example of your controlling personality, I’d agree, but you have to control everything—even sex.” Not that she was complaining about the sex—at all. But with him looking at her like she was a big scoop of Chubby Hubby ice cream and he’d been on a fast in the Sahara for ten days, she was likely to do something stupid—like strip in the middle of the woods and have an earth-shattering orgasm just before he jumped into a raging river, or they got a round of applause from the people she was supposed to supervise.
“I did not control the way we made love. All I did was refuse to have sex by the numbers. When we finally did make love, believe me babe, there was no control involved.”
The whole Pee-wee Herman thing was so not working. Nope, all she could see was Hunter looking every bit as mad as he did turned on. Damn. She needed to re-erect those defense shields she’d put in place earlier—the ones that allowed her to tell him a little white lie about there being nothing between them. And it was a hell of a lie. The one thing between them was some strong chemistry and an unbelievable magnetic attraction. But chemistry always fizzled out. Too bad she didn’t know the cure for magnetic attraction.
When he pulled her close and kissed her, the shield shattered along with any recollection of the half-dozen people waiting downstream and the fact that she had a shoot to finish before they lost the light—not that the light was a concern since it stayed light so freakin’ late it was absurd.
The defensive shield was obviously defective—she’d just take a moment and enjoy the way his tongue stroked hers, the feel of his arms holding her close, his chest pressing against hers, and the five o’clock shadow that tickled her cheek.
***
Toni got that same wide-eyed look she did whenever she was shocked. Her breath hitched, her lips parted, and he knew in his heart that she felt it. Whatever this connection was, whatever was going on between them—it wasn’t one-sided. He definitely didn’t need to read the section of the book about sexual compatibility. They had that in spades.
Some control he had. He couldn’t help himself, and when she kissed him back, a rush of relief swept through him right before that need for more, which always followed whenever he so much as touched her. If the others hadn’t been waiting for them, he’d toss his control right in the creek. But he still had a job to do so he ended the kiss and took her hand. “We need to get back to the group.” The dazed look on her face disappeared when he gave her hand a tug. “Come on. That tree should be right around the bend.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what? Kiss you? I guess my control isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, huh?” Thank God for the tree. It was there just as he’d remembered. He dropped his pack to the ground and climbed up, jumping on it a few times to check the stability. It was fine. Needing to put some distance between them, Hunter walked across the fallen tree and used his boot to break off the branches poking up.
When he jumped down, Toni had her head buried in the map.
“Come on. Let’s go get the others.”
“There has to be another way to get there from here.” That wide-eyed look of terror he’d seen before covered her face. “One that doesn’t involve climbing across a tree over raging water.”
“Not unless y
ou don’t mind a little rock climbing. It looks worse than it is. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“Oh, and that makes me feel so much better.” She turned white again and leaned against the tree.
“You might want to stick your head between your legs, babe. You look about ready to keel over.”
Her eyes snapped back to his, and she gathered her strength, straightening her spine and tilting her chin in that cocky way she had that made him want to walk right up to her and suck on the section of neck it exposed.
“Do you want to wait here while I get the others?”
Fear flashed in her eyes.
“I’ll leave the map with you. You know exactly where we are. I promise. I’ll be right back.”
She shook her head, and Hunter saw her exhaustion. He’d kept her up most of the night—they’d both had a damn good workout. Then they were up at the crack of dawn, and she’d spent most of the afternoon under a lot of stress, working directly under the hot sun. He pulled the water bottle from his pack and gave it to her.
“I’m fine. I’ll come with you.”
“No, this is a great time for you to take ten and rest. Just sit here. I’ll be back with the crew in two shakes.”
“Two shakes? What does that mean?”
Hunter kissed her and pulled her into his arms, and she let him. She must have been more scared than she was letting on. “It means I’ll be back in less time than it takes for a lamb to shake his tail twice.”
“I didn’t even know lambs had tails. What do they look like, cotton balls?”
“That’s a rabbit’s tail. A lamb’s tail looks like a dog’s, only it’s covered with wool. And they’re usually docked.”
“Get a clue, Hunter—that was a rhetorical question.”
“Right.” He took one more look at her. She wasn’t hyperventilating, but she still looked pale. “I’m going to get the others. Don’t move, okay?”