by Diana Fraser
He didn’t want distractions. He had work to do. He’d taken on this place with one aim only—to bring his mother’s old home back to life, to make her proud, to remember her. And to do that, he intended to make it a huge success.
Other people might assume he was driven by money, and he was to some extent, but that wasn’t the whole story. But he didn’t want people to know the whole story.
He put his feet up on his office couch, one of the few things he’d kept from his grandparents’ days. The orangey-brown material was worn on the arms—it even had stuffing coming out. A single piece of nostalgia. Everyone should have at least one, he reckoned.
He flicked a remote, entered Laura’s name, pressed play and lay back to watch a re-run of yesterday’s mountain bike stunt.
Laura’s face took up the whole screen, revealing just how nervous she was. She spoke a few words and then let her sunglasses drop onto her nose, took a deep breath, and pushed off down the hill. There was one long cry and then silence as Max saw her grip tighten on the handles—her focus complete. She skilfully maneuvered the course, but even her obvious experience didn’t prevent her from hitting some of the obstacles full on, forcing her to readjust, challenging her on every level.
It was a professional recording of her descent from the peak with various cameras positioned along the route, each taking up where the other left off. Max was impressed. Not least with the woman herself.
Rachel had got it partly right. He was interested. But as to her not being his type, his two sisters, Rachel and Lizzi, were quite wrong there. Laura McKinney was exactly his type. Not interested in marriage, not interested in children, but very interested in fun.
Max put his feet on the arm of the couch, his arms behind his head, pressed the pause button, and gazed at the lovely Laura McKinney just as she reached the bottom of the slope, her face frozen in sheer relief and joy. If that was how she looked after she’d experienced the thrill and landed, he wanted to see that face, close up and personal.
He swung his legs off the couch and entered the address of her Twitter feed. He wanted to know what she was doing and where she was doing it. He soon found his answer. He jumped up and stood in front of the large screen. First he looked at her photograph—laughing, her smile lighting up her face, her hair swept back as she was caught, mid-flight, on some contraption or other. He shook his head and checked the hashtags. What next? #bungyjump. He should have known. He made a note of which operator she was going to, switched the screen off, and pulled his phone from his pocket.
She was a woman who liked challenges, and he had just the challenge for her.
* * *
An hour later Max arrived at the river and met his friend.
They shook hands.
“Good of you to let me barge in.”
“No problems, Max. It’s not as if you haven’t done the job many times before. Just make sure you don’t stuff it up, though.” He glanced up at the crowd of people on top of the bridge 140 feet above the raging river. “I don’t want this to be the one challenge which breaks Laura McKinney.”
“Nor do I, mate. Nor do I. I reckon we’ve worked often enough together that I could do this in my sleep.” Their joint gazes watched as people milled around on the bridge. Only the occasional flash of blonde hair revealed Laura’s presence.
Unnoticed by any of the crowds, his friend pushed the boat off into the river and Max steered it through the currents, pulling up in the lee of some rocks. Here he looked up, shading his eyes from the sun with his hands.
Laura had emerged and was standing on the platform ready to dive. Unlike the people who’d gone before, there was no one holding on to her. She’d waved people away as she stood up on the ledge. She hesitated but Max instinctively knew it wasn’t from fear. She was born to live life in the limelight. She thrived on the public’s response, she moved and responded to the crowds with every bone in her body. Flashes of camera and gasps emerged as they watched her raise her hands in the air. She even went on tiptoe for a few seconds. Max smiled. It was all for dramatic effect. She really knew how to wrap people around her little finger. Himself included. Maybe he was as bad as Rachel at being attracted to the wrong people.
Then a noise erupted—equal gasp, equal cheer—as she jumped off, and plummeted earthwards, the bungy rope fixed to her ankles unraveling behind her, like some giant snake following her to earth. Even Max, who’d witnessed more bungy jumps than he cared to remember, had his heart in his mouth as he watched her strong, lithe body hold itself firm against the rushing air, her hair streaming out like a bright flag behind her.
Max revved the engine and steered it into the middle of the Kawarau River just as Laura plummeted to earth. He was so close he could see her shut her eyes as she rushed headlong toward the water. She’d chosen to not stop short of the water, but to dive head first into the chill, glacier-fed river. A risky choice but for someone so young and fit, a calculated one. As usual she was dressed only in a brief white bikini, stunning against her tanned body. Seemed being practically naked in the eyes of the world didn’t worry her. She was so hot it made his knees weak.
She kept her arms crossed over her chest as she entered the water, the bungy rope stretching until only her ankles were visible for one instant before the rope rebounded and jerked her up, out of the water with a gasp, trailing a blast of bright sunlit water.
He expertly maneuvered the boat around, ready to pick her up. She gasped as she dangled there and then, with an agility which didn’t surprise him, she swung herself up, catching hold of the rope and righting herself. With the instinct of a circus performer she held out her free arm and leg wide and swung around the rope in a picture of elegance and athleticism. Applause roared through the valley.
Slowly the winch lowered her until she was in the boat. He pulled his cap lower and helped her in, not that she needed it. She dropped in as if she’d jumped off a bus.
“Cheers!” she said to him with barely a glance before waving to her audience, both up on the bridge and on shore.
She sat down, braced her arms behind her and laughed, turning her bright face up to the sun. God, she was totally irresistible. There didn’t seem to be anything between her and anyone else. Most people had built walls around them, layers of armor to protect themselves from hurt, from feeling, from a hundred other things which had been chucked their way in the course of their lives. Not Laura. Seemed she didn’t need any armor—all she wanted was to feel alive.
He waited for her to give the signal.
“Okay, let’s go!” she said.
He nodded, noting her GoPro camera was still filming, checked his route and gunned the motor, tearing off downstream instead of back to shore.
She fell back into the boat with the force of the acceleration. Water splashed up, soaking them both.
“Hey! Where are we going?” she spluttered, as she pushed her wet hair from her face.
He grinned and glanced at her. For the first time she looked at him, really looked.
“You! What are you doing? Have you kidnapped me?”
“I thought you might appreciate a different kind of challenge to the predictable bungy jumping.”
“But—”
He looked back to where he was going. “If I were you, I’d stop talking and hang on tight.”
She screamed—half-panic and half-pleasure—as he took the rapids straight on, all four hundred meters of turbulent water. He’d done it plenty of times before and knew the lay of the rocks beneath the water like the back of his own hand. There was no danger but he’d somehow forgotten to tell her that.
Now out of sight of the curious onlookers, he continued on down the river until they came to a secluded spot. The cliffs soared high above them, turning into mountains. There were no roads around here, no access way, no one to see them. He spun the motor boat into a quiet inlet.
She turned the GoPro on herself. Max saw the red light blinking. “I can now add shooting the rapids and being kidnapped to m
y list of challenges accepted. Although”—she shot him a look—“they weren’t really offered, more thrust on me. Where are we exactly?”
“Miles from the nearest road, nearest person. We’re quite alone.”
“Oh.” She frowned.
“Another challenge… being alone.”
“But I’m not. You’re here.”
He leaned forward and took the Go Pro camera from her and turned it off. He raised an eyebrow. “Anticipation is good for publicity. Let them wonder what you’re up to, what you’re doing. Your ratings will be even higher.”
He let the boat glide into shore, pulled out a chilly bin and stepped with it onto the small beach. The sun was high overhead and bathed the narrow canyon and small beach in its hot rays.
He turned, half-expecting her to have dived into the river and swum off. But she was right behind him. Seems the unexpected didn’t faze her.
She jumped out onto the small sandy beach and pulled in the inflatable dinghy behind her.
“I can do that,” said Max, turning to help.
“So can I,” she said, pulling the boat in securely before standing, hands on hips, looking around her.
He resolutely tried to restrict his gaze to her eyes. “So it would appear. A woman of many talents.”
“Oh, yes.” She approached him. “I can look after myself.”
She passed him by with a glance which told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t to mess with her. Shame, because that’s all he could think of doing.
He cleared his throat. “Drink?”
“Water if you have it? Or, let me guess, is it only Champagne in there? Chilling, I should imagine, in a bucket of ice.”
He held the bottle up for her to see. “Sorry to disappoint you, I’m right out of Champagne.” She narrowed her gaze. He’d surprised her. “No. I have hot dogs and beer.”
Intrigued, she came and peered inside the chilly bin. “I don’t see any hot dogs.”
“Because they’re not cooked yet.”
He reached into the boat and withdrew a barbecue and set it up on a rock, lit it and uncapped the beers, using each one as the opener for the other. He held one out to her. “There’s some water in the chilly bin, if you prefer.”
She took the beer. “So what’s this all about, Max? Trying to surprise me?”
“Why would I bother with that?”
“Because I interest you. No doubt because I haven’t fluttered my eyelashes and fallen into your bed.”
“I see you’re an expert on the male of the species.”
She shrugged. “People always want things they can’t have.”
“You do realize there’s only one way to test that hypothesis.”
She narrowed her gaze in mock annoyance. “I don’t intend to make myself available simply to see if you’re still interested, if that’s what you mean.”
He laughed. “Fair enough. But now you have me curious. What is it that interests Laura McKinney?”
She came up close to him, her eyes searching his face. Then she relaxed her expression and raised an eyebrow. “That hot dog you mentioned.”
“Right.” He laughed, lighting the BBQ, aware that it would take more than a kidnapping to get Laura to reveal that part of her she hid from everyone, which intrigued him more than anything else. A beautiful girl was simply that. But a beautiful girl who was full of contradictions and mystery was something else entirely—a physical, emotional and intellectual puzzle to unravel. Something which definitely piqued his interest. “Hot dog coming up.”
* * *
Hot dogs consumed, she took a swig of beer and leaned back on the rocks and closed her eyes. “Ah, this is nice.”
It certainly was. With her eyes closed he could allow his gaze to range over her body.
She opened her eyes suddenly with a frown. “Do you think they’ll be worrying about me?”
“No. I told Chelsey what I was doing, and she was going to let Kelly know.”
“Ah, all part of the plan, then.”
“Yes, as is this.” Max picked up the GoPro and aimed it at her. “Something for the fans when we get back.” She didn’t fiddle with her hair or looks, but continued to look at him, a slow smile on her face. “Say hello.”
He turned it on and nodded at her. Like the professional she was, she spoke straight to camera, describing how she’d been whisked away by someone tall, dark and handsome, for lunch in a deserted spot on the river. She looked up at Max and winked.
That wink. It was all it took for him to deviate from the plan and want to show her something unexpected. He fumbled with the button on the Go-Pro, set it down on a rock, and came over to her. “Well, Laura.”
“Well, Max.”
She licked her lips and she reached out for him, grabbing his hand. “Come here,” she murmured.
He didn’t need asking twice. He placed his free hand firmly on the rocks beside her, bracing himself away from her, not trusting himself to touch her body anywhere other than her lips. It was Laura who pulled his face to hers, his mouth to hers.
His senses were bombarded with stimuli: the taste of her, the sweet smell of her and the feel of her soft lips—more vulnerable than he’d imagined and far more arousing.
With the rushing of the water competing with the surge of his blood through his veins, the kiss deepened.
Her breath hitched as his tongue touched hers and for one long moment their tongues caressed and all he could think about was hot sex—as hot as the sun which blazed down on them.
He’d never experienced a kiss like that before. As well as sensuality, what surprised him was that there was a kind of refreshing innocence there, too. It was in the way she held his hand between them and kept her body slightly apart, slightly stiff, as if holding back. And yet the kiss was her—stripped bare.
It was Max who pulled away first. He still held her hand, and with the other, brushed away a strand of still wet hair from her face. “You’re a very surprising woman.”
Her eyes lingered on his lips. “That’s what they tell me.”
“They? All the people you kiss?”
“Like most men you’ve confused adventure with promiscuity. I don’t go around kissing people.”
That made sense. It explained the rawness and unsophistication of the kiss, and the complete and utter sensuality of it. “Then I feel honored.”
“No, you don’t. No need to say stupid things like that to me.”
She stepped away and looked around at the scenery. Like the kiss, it was raw, passionate, the water of the river surging past, sending spray bouncing off the rocks, as it channeled through the narrow pass. He watched her pace across to the water’s edge.
“Even if it’s true?”
She glanced at him. “Especially if it’s true.” She returned her gaze out to the river and up to the narrow stretch of blue sky, just as the sun dipped behind the cliffs. She shivered. “There’s something about this place. Something more challenging than…” She trailed off but he knew it wasn’t so much the place that had challenged her, but the kiss. He knew because he felt the same.
He handed her some thermals he’d brought with him. “Best cover up now the sun’s gone. It can get cold. We’ll get on our way. I’ll deliver you back to your adoring public.”
“Right,” she said, but there was something of reluctance, sadness almost, in her voice which made him pause as he gathered the things and look at her.
With her slender, tanned bikini-clad figure—he guessed there wouldn’t be any tan lines—sun-bleached hair in messy tresses down her back, she was a goddess of nature, but he sensed there was an unease under the skin of this goddess which wasn’t often exposed.
He’d been granted a brief glimpse. And it seemed she found the exposure to be more revealing than standing, scantily clad, in front of the whole world. It intrigued him.
He tossed the rest of the things into his bag, remembering the GoPro at the last minute, and placed them in the boat. She waded carefull
y through the water, got into the boat and pulled on the fleece.
He unlooped the rope from the rock and jumped in.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
“You okay?”
“It’s just the post-thrill setting in. You know, after an hour or so the adrenaline wears off.”
“Maybe I should give you some more, then.” He tossed her a life jacket. “Better put this on.”
He started the engine and steered them out into the middle of the river.
She grinned and the public face of Laura was back again. “Why?” she shouted above the noise of the water.
The water became noisier the further into the middle they went. It swirled dangerously around rocks between which a narrow channel ran, the water fast and smooth as it rushed toward what appeared to be a sheer cliff face.
Her eyes widened with fear. “Where’s the river gone?” she shrieked.
“Through that cave. You didn’t think I wasn’t going to give you a thrill to remember, did you? You’d better hold on tight. And keep your head down.”
He focused on steering the boat through the twists and narrow turns, revving back when required, before shooting through the black tunnel, the roof of which came perilously close to their heads.
They flew out the other side, skimming the water, and were held in the place between air and water, mist all around, emerging from it with a splash as they bounced once more onto the water of the swiftly flowing river.
Shouts from the river bank rang out and Laura looked around and waved at the crowds who’d gathered to watch Laura McKinney take on the famed Dog Leg rapid.
“How did they know?” Laura asked.
“I may have mentioned it to a few people.”
She laughed. “That was amazing! Can we do it again?”
“I’m at your command. Just tell me when.” With that, he steered the boat to the shore. He handed her her bag and she was swallowed up by adoring crowds.