“I studied a map of the area before I, uh … this morning. The main road is up there on the other side of the ridge.” She pointed back toward the trees in the direction of the trail they’d both begun the day on. “The only other thing around are back roads, but some lead to private properties. If we can get to one of those, we can—”
“Why did you leave Paradise Canyon, Jenna?” His quiet question brought an immediate halt to her nervous chatter. She was afraid. Of him, of her predicament, he wasn’t sure. Maybe both. But she was more afraid of talking about it than anything else. Every time he got close, she pulled back faster and blustered stronger. He wasn’t fooled. And he was done backing off.
He didn’t know what Jenna wanted, but what she needed was a friend. She needed someone who was willing to brave all her fierce arm-distancing tactics and get to the real woman underneath. He could be that friend.
He watched as the color that had drained from her face at his question slowly seeped back in, as if she’d willed it back. She was one tough lady. He admired her guts and tenacity. He also respected her fear and didn’t want to hurt her.
“It was time to go,” she said, her expression as implacable as her tone.
“I believe they’d have let you take a cab.”
Her brown eyes sent him a warning. “I preferred to hike out.”
“Is there someone out there somewhere expecting you?”
Her brows pulled together, and he lifted his hand to stall the retort. The baby licked his palm. T.J. rubbed its muzzle but kept his gaze squarely on Jenna. “What I meant was, will there be anyone worrying that you haven’t shown up? Will anyone be out hunting for you?”
The furrows between her brows smoothed, but she shifted her gaze back to her makeshift crutches, absently knocking off chunks of dried mud. She let the silence spin out another couple of seconds, then quietly said, “No. No one is waiting for me.”
T.J. decided it was just as well he was flat out on his back. Because if he’d been able to, he would have gone to her, pulled her into his lap, and rocked her against his chest. He fought a small smile. If he hadn’t been flat on his back before, he likely would be if he pulled that “macho maneuver” with her.
He watched her braid swing over her shoulder, the lighter strands that wisped free catching the sunlight and causing sparkles of gold to dance along the twined rope of hair like fairy dust. His arms ached with the need to hold her. He wanted to stroke her, to tie up all her loose ends, to make her smile reach all the way up to her eyes.
As if sensing her melancholy, Bob the llama wandered back over to her and nudged at her head. T.J. smiled when the llama persisted and she finally reached up to stroke his neck and scratch him behind his ears. Way to go, Bob. Give her comfort whether she wants it or not. Someone sure as hell needed to. T.J. mentally shook his head. Whoever thought he’d be reduced to allowing a llama to act as a stand-in?
“Well,” he said cheerfully, “the good news is that people will be looking for me.”
She leaned back, looking past the llama’s neck at him, her expression emotionless. “We aren’t remotely near the trails from Paradise. I wasn’t on a regular trail to begin with. We’re proverbial needles in a haystack out here.”
“We could be tracked relatively easily. You left a trail of clothes down the mountainside where we fell. It stopped raining soon enough that the mud tracks will make our progress from there easy to follow.”
“Are you always so relentlessly optimistic?”
“Yep.” He shrugged lightly at her scowl, biting down on the wince as his shoulder protested. What his body wouldn’t give for a nice, soft bed right now. He found his gaze wandering the generous length of Jenna’s body. Her softer parts would do as well, he thought with a sigh. Better even. “What have you got to lose by thinking positively?” he asked, wondering if she heard the longing.
“Hope.”
It was the total absence in her voice of that very thing that banished his fanciful imaginings and brought his attention abruptly back to her face. She’d ducked her head, apparently wishing she hadn’t spoken out loud.
He spoke quietly. “If you always expect the worst, then you never had hope to begin with.”
The silence stretched on so long, he thought she wouldn’t respond, then she said, “But you’re never disappointed either.” Her tone was weary, beyond physical exhaustion. She sounded completely wrung out.
Treading carefully but determinedly, he said, “Whatever disappointed you must have been horrible if it’s taken away your hope. I think that might be the worst thing you could ever lose.”
He waited, but she didn’t answer. Her gaze was fixed on some unknown point farther down the narrow valley.
“Did it have something to do with why you were at Paradise Canyon? Or why you took off with all your clothes stuffed in a laundry bag?” He waited. Still nothing. “I’ll tell you my story, if you tell me yours.” Light teasing didn’t provoke any reaction, positive or negative. Hell, but the woman was more self-contained than the hardest Dirty Dozen agent.
He’d spent his entire career respecting his teammates’ needs for privacy and had never pushed those boundaries, as they were the foundation that allowed the team to function.
Somehow he couldn’t do that with Jenna King. He couldn’t even consider it. She needed him. He couldn’t explain or analyze why he was so convinced of this, but he knew it to be a hard, fast truth.
Ten years of working with ultra-private colleagues had also taught him a thing or two about how to deal with stubborn, reclusive, self-reliant types. He might not have pushed the boundaries … but that didn’t mean he hadn’t learned how to go around them when necessary.
Different people required different tactics. But this time he decided to follow an adage that had held true throughout most of his career. If the stubborn, reclusive, self-reliant mountain wouldn’t come to him … He steeled himself for the strong rebuttal his leg was certain to deliver when he asked it to move. He wasn’t disappointed. He clenched his jaw hard as he moved to his good side, a grunt slipping out as he levered to a sitting position. Bob and Jenna both turned. He wasn’t sure, but he thought they both frowned.
“What are you doing?” Jenna asked.
“Trying to get you to talk to me.”
“Well, I’m not that great a conversationalist. Certainly not worth hurting yourself worse over. Lie down before you fall down.”
T.J. smiled. “Aw, and here I didn’t think you cared.”
“I don’t.” Her narrowed eyes challenged him to say otherwise.
He shrugged and winced, but remained sitting upright. He looked to Bob. “She’s crazy about me, really.”
Bob made a small snort.
Her eyes widened. “I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere with Jack the Wounded Giant and Bob the Spitting Llama, who are having a conversation while I’m the only one who seems the least bit worried about getting out of here. Which one of us is crazy?”
“The J stands for Jefferson.”
Her mouth opened, then closed again as she looked at him, confused. “What are you talking—Jefferson?”
He nodded. “Not Jack.”
She paused. “Oh please, don’t tell me. The T isn’t for—”
“Thomas.”
She dipped her chin. He thought she might have been holding back a smile. “Your mother named you Thomas Jefferson?”
He shook his head. “My dad. His family had a thing for politics. Goes way back. Granddad got off real lucky. His name is Andrew Jackson. Folks called him A.J. T.J. was sort of a natural nickname, considering. My father wasn’t as lucky. He was Woodrow Wilson Delahaye. Everyone called him Woody. You can imagine the lumber jokes he put up with.” He thought her eyes were starting to tear up from the effort of suppressing laughter. Of course, they could also be glazing over from boredom. He grinned. “It could have been a lot worse for me. I could have been Abe, Calvin, Herbert.…” He thought for a moment and made a face. “Or Dwight.�
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Jenna slid her hand over her mouth, but not in time to stop the giggle that burst out. “I’m sorry,” she said on a restoring breath. “Really I am. It’s just …”
“Rutherford.”
Another snort escaped her, then another.
“Ulysses.”
That put her over, and she gave in to it and laughed out loud, finally holding her side with one hand and wiping her eyes with the other.
“I bet you have no idea how stunning you are when you smile like that. You have a wonderful laugh.”
She sobered instantly.
He smiled a bit sadly, but he wasn’t sorry for the compliment. She would damn well have to get used to them. “I’m not teasing you. Why do you shut down like that? In fact, I’ve never been so sincere. You’re a stunning woman. Surely people have complimented you before?”
It was her turn to shrug. Bob had wandered downstream and found some grass to munch on. She turned to watch him.
T.J. frowned. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable.”
“Well, you’ve failed another mission,” she said, her back still to him. She poked the end of her crutch into the soft mud, drawing lines then watching the mud ooze back in and erase the crease.
T.J. watched her for several silent moments. Her arms were long and well toned, her hands big and able. Her extended legs were long, her thighs well developed through the snug fit of her damp jeans. Her muddy sock-clad foot, even swollen, was not a dainty size. No, for all her height, she was no waif-thin-model type. Far from it.
To him she was gorgeous. Every big, strong, lean inch of her. But there was a delicacy to her too. It was there in the long bones of her fingers and the graceful line of her neck. He remembered the velvet-soft brush of her eyelashes and the soft curve of her cheek. Add to that the shadows of vulnerability, that almost glass-thin fragility that occasionally haunted her eyes, and the fierce way she protected anyone from seeing it. She was an anomaly, an intriguing mixture of emotions. Watching her was like staring through a kaleidoscope, entranced by the never-ending patterns created at each tumble of the multicolored bits of glass. She captivated him, totally and completely. He found it impossible to believe he was the only one to find her so.
As she continued to poke at the mud he continued to poke at her, tumbling those pieces, wondering what pattern he’d find this time. “I apologize for making you feel awkward. But not for the compliment.”
“Apology accepted.”
“What about the compliment.”
She huffed a sigh of frustration and turned to him. “Okay, okay, thank you already. Now can we talk about getting us out of here?”
T.J.’s grin was wolfish. “Your eyes are beautiful when you yell at me.” She glared at him. He winked at her.
Jenna threw her crutch down, startling Bob, who swung his head up and stared balefully at her. She growled. “You’re insufferable. Has anybody ever told you that?”
“Almost daily.”
“Did it ever occur to you, it wasn’t a compliment?”
“Nope. Never even crossed my mind.” T.J. looked away, his attention reluctantly caught by Bob. “He’s wandering farther away.” He sighed to himself. Just when I was getting somewhere.
Jenna turned and looked too. The baby was almost fifty yards away and ambling farther downstream. “At least he’s smart enough to try and save himself.” She didn’t voice her apprehension over letting the baby wander off on his own.
“Maybe he can save us too.”
She looked at T.J. “He’s a baby. And even if he wasn’t, I don’t think you can ride a llama.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
Jenna looked back toward Bob. “We can’t go after him.” It wasn’t until she turned back and caught the look of compassion on T.J.’s face that she realized she’d revealed her feelings anyway. She straightened and picked up her crutches. “He was on his own before and seemed to be okay. I mean, he’s ugly and he spits, but he didn’t look starved or anything. He’ll be fine on his own.”
“I never suggested he wouldn’t be,” T.J. said softly.
It was his gentle, understanding tone that snapped it. “You suggested he was going to save us, and I’m trying to point out that the only one he’s saving is himself. I don’t care what he does or where he goes.”
“Liar,” he said easily.
She ground her teeth. “Will you stop it?”
“Stop what?”
She flung her hand toward him, gesturing at his face. “That!” she said. “That way you look at me all patient and understanding. It drives me crazy.”
“I can see that. It’s not my intention.”
His continued calm riled her further. “Don’t you ever lose your temper? Doesn’t anything get to you? And what’s with the questions? You’re treating me like a … like a …”
“Friend?”
That made her pause, but only for a second. Her hold on everything was far too tenuous to give in to the temptation of contemplating how an offer of friendship from T.J. Delahaye made her feel. “I don’t need a friend. What I need is a helicopter or a horse or some damn way to get off this godforsaken mountain.”
“What you need is a friend who won’t give up on you even when you try to bully them into leaving. Why is it so hard to admit you need help? It doesn’t diminish your strength, Jenna. I can’t imagine anyone would question your competence at anything you choose to do because you ask for assistance.”
His statement took her so off guard, she had to stop and think it over to make sure she’d heard him correctly. Unfortunately, she had. The very idea that he’d come to understand her so well despite her attempts to keep him at arm’s length terrified her. She didn’t want to be probed or examined anymore. Not even by this man who could make her laugh and swear and laugh again, all in the space of five minutes. Especially not by him.
“What I need is for you to back off with this pop-psychology crap and let me figure out a way to get us out of here before nightfall. We might be having unseasonably warm days, but this late in October the nights can be brutally cold at this elevation.”
“Am I such a bad deal?” he said, ignoring her dire warning. “I mean, I know my rescue attempt left me a bit less than a hundred percent, but at least I’m a decent guy. You could have been trapped out here with an ax murderer.”
“At least an ax murderer would have either put me out of my misery or provided a functional tool I could use.”
He grinned. “Sorry, I wasn’t planning to rescue damsels today. Babe the Blue Ox and I usually reserve that for alternate Tuesdays.”
She threw up her hands. “This is ridiculous. You are ridiculous, not to mention crazy. How do you pull me into these senseless conversations?”
“Practice?” he suggested. “Hey,” he said, unperturbed by her fierce glower, “I was trying to get your mind off your problems. You worry too much.”
She grabbed at her other crutch and struggled painfully to her feet. Her hands hurt like hell. The ground-in mud and silt wasn’t helping matters. She clamped her teeth together as she tried to corral her temper. The wave of pain from her ankle as she wobbled fully upright made her slightly nauseous. She waited a second for it to pass before she looked at him.
Her fury banked, at least temporarily, she spoke with as much quiet dignity as she could muster—and given how she’d yelled like a banshee, and probably looked like one, too, her reserves of dignity were definitely running low.
“You don’t know me, and you don’t have any idea what I’ve been through or what is worth worrying about in my life. I know you think you’re helping me, but you’re not. Please, leave it alone.” Leave me alone. T.J. made her feel at a time when numbness was a merciful relief.
“I wasn’t making idle conversation, Jenna. I’ve spent most of my life keeping to myself and respecting the space of others. My job demands it. My motives here aren’t self-serving. I look at you and see a desirable, intelligent woman who, under any circumstan
ces, I’d be interested in knowing. If that was all there was to it, and you made it clear the interest was not reciprocal, I’d slink off and lick my wounds in private. As I said, my life is solitary by choice, and I long ago stopped wishing I could have it both ways.”
She found herself turning to look at him.
“But I look at you and I also see someone who is hurting. Deeply. And I’m finding it impossible to sit by and watch you suffer. So, again, I’ll apologize for making you uncomfortable, I sincerely don’t want to add to your pain. But I also think that interest isn’t entirely unreciprocated … and that makes me push a bit harder.”
“Maybe I don’t like being pushed.”
“And maybe you’re not used to someone who’ll push harder than you.”
There wasn’t a trace of the gentle, teasing man left. In front of her now was a man she’d only glimpsed, the serious determined man who’d ordered her to prop up her foot or else. She’d learned early on that one benefit to her height was the ability it gave her to control most situations. It was a weapon she’d often exploited.
Where ego and confidence in men was concerned, she’d dealt with the elite corps of the species and had won the battle handily. She didn’t like having to admit that she was intimidated by T.J., by the intensity of his interest in her. Most men shrugged and walked away after a few well-aimed barbs, leaving her safely believing they weren’t really interested anyway. At least that’s what she’d always told herself. It wasn’t until now, with T.J., that Jenna was forced to wonder if her defensive tactics weren’t protection at all, but some sort of test. A test she specifically set men up to fail. That way it was their fault, not hers—after all, they’d proven they weren’t worth the risk of putting her emotions and heart on the line.
So where did that put Delahaye relative to other men?
Nothing daunted him. She swallowed hard as a small shiver of pleasure buzzed along her spine, as unnerving as it was tantalizing. He teased her with personal information as he badgered her for the same, and it galled her to admit his strategy was working. Despite all her internal warnings, she was still revealing things about herself she hadn’t intended to—and dying to find out more about him.
Light My Fire: A Loveswept Classic Romance Page 8