5
They left the tent, one after the other, making Joss think they looked like a line of ducklings following Mama Shep. Lauren was on Shep’s heels with Joss behind her and then Bradley. Buffalo Moody brought up the rear.
Shep’s long legs ate up the distance back to Deadman’s Creek. When he angled toward the bridge where Moody stood earlier, the show host marched up from behind their duckling parade and told him, “Take them through the water.”
“There’s no need for that,” Shep said calmly. “Not when there’s a perfectly good bridge right—”
“We aren’t trying to make this trek easy. Get that through your head, son. The camera operators will use the bridge.” Moody held out an arm to keep the contestants in place. “The three of you wait here until Greg and the new camera guy are on the other side.” He pointed at a twenty-something man with a shotgun mic equipped video camera on his shoulder, “Hey, you! Baby Camera Boy, get your ass to the other side. Hustle!”
The two cameramen jogged across the expanse. Once they were across the water and Greg gave the signal, Moody waved Joss and the others toward the water. Although they were crossing at a spot much calmer than the rapids Joss had luckily made it over earlier, the current was still running fast.
You can do this, Joss. You will do it.
After pointing Puck toward the bridge to make the crossing, Shep took off his boots and socks and clipped them onto his pack. Then he waded into the creek, and Lauren quickly splashed in after him.
Joss and Bradley followed the guide’s lead in taking off their shoes.
Shep got about a quarter of the way out before pausing and looking back. He shook his head at Lauren, now tiptoeing toward him. Her approach surprised Joss. Was the woman a badass or a weenie? Shep said she almost drowned. Maybe Lauren couldn’t swim.
“Keep walking,” Shep told her.
A few steps before reaching Shep, Lauren slipped. Just enough that he had to lunge toward her and grab her arm to keep her upright. “So nice to know we have a strong man with us,” she said in a flirty tone.
Joss swallowed to keep her gag reflex under control. So this was the way Lauren planned to play the game. By using her assets to seduce the men into helping her. Taking care of her.
The Amazons would be so ashamed.
Shep released Lauren as quickly as he’d caught her. “Stand right here while the others catch up.”
Bradley went in the water next, using his arms and legs to propel him. Joss hefted her guitar over her head, hoping she could keep her balance. As she neared Lauren and Shep, he reached for Joss’s guitar. “Give that to me.”
“No,” she said out of instinct. She didn’t trust anyone with Fiona, but she covered her actions by saying, “Buffalo said we all have to carry our own gear.”
While she, Lauren, and Bradley waded forward, he sidestepped his way through the water, keeping a keen eye on everyone. When they approached the far side, he helped them all trudge out of the water and up the bank.
But when Buffalo came splashing up, Shep didn’t offer him a bit of help. Maybe he took for granted that the show’s host should know how to get his own ass out of the water. But Joss happened to see Buffalo take a step, lurch sideways, and slap the water to keep his balance.
Shep seemed to ignore the whole incident, but Buffalo aimed a glare in the other man’s direction.
When Buffalo made it out of the water, everyone but Lauren sat to put on their shoes. She frowned down at her tennis shoes. “Mine got wet. What am I supposed to do?”
“Wear them or go barefoot,” Moody said cheerfully.
Shep said, “You might want to put some moleskin on your heels first.”
“Believe it or not, that wasn’t something that made it into my minuscule bag.” Lauren glared up at him. Good grief, the woman needed to make up her mind about her game-playing method.
Without hesitating, Shep unzipped a pocket on his pack and pulled out two flesh-colored pieces. “Pull off the backing and apply the sticky side to where your shoes rub your feet.”
Pouting, Lauren did as he said, but she didn’t complain, which was an improvement as far as Joss was concerned.
“How far did you say we were going today?” Bradley asked. “Because it’s already after four o’clock.”
“Originally, I’d planned for eight miles.” Although Joss was in decent shape from trail running, that seemed ambitious in the few hours until sunset. “Now we’ll be lucky to make it five.”
“I don’t guess you have half a dozen tents packed in that backpack of yours, do you?” Bradley eyed Shep’s pack on the ground. Joss wouldn’t be surprised if that bag was like Hermione Granger’s purse, with the ability to bring forth palatial tents and other camping gear.
Shep said, “Only one tent.”
“Too bad,” Bradley said, but his smile was good-natured.
Shep shrugged into his pack and secured the straps across his chest and waist, accentuating the breadth of the first and the trimness of the second. Although Joss had been struck by the man’s physical appeal immediately, this flare of attraction she was feeling was throwing her off-balance. “The trailhead is this way,” he said. “Please stay within sight of the person in front of you and behind you. No wandering off trail. If you need to stop for some reason, send the message up the line to me.”
They queued up in single file and somehow Joss ended up fourth this time, which meant Buffalo’s sight would include a view of her ass. Fabulous. She shrugged into the straps of her backpack-style guitar case, and then secured her small pack over her arms so it rested against her torso.
And although her guitar should cover the majority of her posterior real estate, she turned to Buffalo and ramped up the evil eye. “Don’t even think about trying to feel me up while we’re hiking. Not today, not tomorrow, not at all. I don’t know if you do this to all the female contestants, but I am not playing your game. Do I make myself clear?”
“Aw, sweetheart, you’re too sensitive. Back there in the tent, that was just my way of welcoming you to the show.”
Joss put a layer of frost into her voice when she said, “Then I guess you won’t mind if my way of saying thanks for the warm welcome is by plastering your name and the MeToo hashtag all over Twitter.”
His for-he’s-a-jolly-good-fellow expression immediately soured into a scowl that highlighted the grooves around his mouth and the interstate system of lines at the corners of his eyes. “Bunch of diva bullshit,” he grumbled.
MeToo was anything but a diva movement, and Buffalo’s dismissal of it made Joss want to give him a black eye and a definitive case of testicular torsion. “Don’t push me,” she warned him.
“Come on, you two,” Bradley called back to them. “Or we’ll be hiking in the dark.”
If they couldn’t hike five miles before sunset, the group was already doomed. But Joss didn’t want to antagonize her competition so early in the game, so she bared her teeth at Buffalo, then jogged to catch up with the group.
The trail was easy to see but narrow, so they hiked into the forest single file. Once they were inside the tree cover, the temperature dropped by a good ten degrees, probably putting it somewhere in the mid-sixties. Under the weight of her load, Joss rolled her shoulders back and just breathed.
Her lungs seemed to expand more than they had in months. As if the North Carolina mountain air might be able to fill up the emptiness inside her.
All she had to do right now was put one foot in front of the other. It was that simple.
As the day’s overwhelming tension slowly seeped from her muscles, for the first time Joss considered that this trek might be about more than the redemption of her public image and career.
Maybe this change of scenery could bring her some kind of peace. Maybe she was supposed to come here to heal.
The heady scent of the dirt beneath her hiking shoes made her think it had rained recently. Nothing but freshly wetted earth smelled like that. Musty yet clean.
/> How long had it been since she smelled it? Not even when she’d been running in the rain yesterday. It was as if her senses, her ability to take in and absorb stimuli, had been stunted since the accident.
But today, everything seemed sharper, clearer. In the trees, birds called out to one another—hoots, squawks, and sweet whistles. The sound of the water receded as they hiked up the trail and it dog-legged to the right. Although fall had yet to descend here, the leaves were beginning to hint at the rich yellow, orange, and red colors they would take on.
If she didn’t have to think about the lech behind her and the competition in front of her, the hike might be completely peaceful. Then again, Shep Kingston had done more than a little to add to her chaos today. He’d confused her, pissed her off, charmed her, and ultimately impressed her.
And his dog?
Well, Puck was like a shining light. A furry beacon of hope.
As if she’d called him, the retriever trotted down the trail in her direction. Bradley put a hand out, trying to waylay him with a “good boy” and a scratch, but Puck just flashed him a doggie smile and zeroed in on Joss. He made a U-turn and stuck to her right side. “Hey, buddy. Do you love this?”
He glanced up at her, his warm brown eyes so dark and wise. It was as if he understood what she was asking him. His luxurious fur was dotted with a few leaves and some pine straw, so as they hiked, Joss picked the detritus off him and tossed it back into the forest. With sure feet, Puck padded along beside her as if they’d been friends for years.
Maybe he’d decided he liked her because his owner had warmed to her a little.
The feel of Puck’s fur under her fingers eased the remaining tension in Joss’s shoulders. She could imagine—for just a little while—that she was out here on her own. That Puck was her dog, and they were free to go anywhere, do anything.
No guilt. No fear. No confusion about her future.
Unfortunately, the snap of twigs off to her left reminded her that the camera operators were out there filming. Every step. Every expression.
It took so much energy to wear her game face these days. For years, she’d done it out of habit. After all, it was required when she was performing.
When she was hustling for the sound of an audience’s applause.
But Puck wasn’t her normal audience and she didn’t have to impress or entertain him, so she just talked to him in a low voice. Asking him questions that he couldn’t answer. Like where he lived, if he was a North Carolina native, if he enjoyed being brushed. She stopped herself from asking the dog about Shep. She did not need that to be picked up on a camera mic.
When they’d been hiking for about two hours, Moody tapped her on the shoulder. A very perfunctory, impersonal tap.
Good, he’d paid attention.
“Send it up the line for Shep to stop.”
Joss gave the message to Bradley, and to her disappointment, Puck seemed to understand that he needed to head back to Shep because he loped uphill. Once Shep came to a standstill and everyone else in the group caught up, Moody clapped his hands and said, “It’s time for the second opportunity!”
Joss glanced around. Whatever the opportunity was, the show hadn’t set up anything. They were still surrounded by forest and nothing else. However, three of the trees did sport yellow ribbons fluttering with the sway of branches.
Moody held out his hands, palms up. “These are sweet gum trees. Each of you will climb and gather ten sweet gum balls and then carry them from the tree with you. You can’t throw them down to the ground. The first person to gather ten gum balls, get to the ground, and return to me wins the opportunity.”
“And what do we get for winning?” Lauren asked.
Buffalo told Lauren, “You’ll get a premade shelter to sleep under tonight.”
“I like that,” Lauren said. “So I plan to win.”
Joss barely registered the woman’s flirty tone because she was too busy staring up at the tall trees with rough bark. As a kid, she would’ve been all for climbing one of these.
But one night on stage had changed the way Joss would look at heights forever. As usual, secured electrical cords snaked across the floor, but navigating them in five-inch heels was second nature to Joss. This time, as she strutted close to the stage’s edge, she became tangled in the power cord from her electric guitar to the amp. With her hands full of her favorite Fender Stratocaster, she couldn’t catch herself and toppled headfirst into the crowd.
When they caught her, she thought it would be okay. But mob mentality set in, and the fans all wanted a piece of Joss Wynter. Hands grabbing, fabric ripping, everyone—including her—screaming. A guy wearing a baby blue trucker’s hat grabbed the guitar from her hold. Two drunk girls ripped apart the sequined shirt Joss was wearing, leaving her in a cami bra that exposed her left breast.
Joss was on the floor, fighting off the grabbing hands. An earring here, a shoe there. By the time security reached her, the only thing she was still wearing were her jeans and they were unzipped.
Her Fender was swept off into the crowd and apparently ripped apart for souvenirs. But Joss had gone back to wardrobe and come out fifteen minutes later with another guitar as if nothing had happened. As if her heart hadn’t been ripped apart along with the Strat.
Because they only applauded if you finished the show.
And now she had to scale a damn tree.
Buffalo held out three popsicle sticks. “Draw a stick to figure out which tree you’ll be climbing.”
Joss drew the number three and went to stand by her tree. Above her, it looked about a billion feet tall, branches stretching up and out. And the lowest branch was a good three feet above her reach even if she stood on tiptoe. Her already scraped-up hands were sweating and her stomach was pitching. “What… what happens if one of us falls? Shouldn’t there be some kind of safety net or something?”
“Sweetheart, this show is called Do or Die for a reason.” Buffalo said. “You don’t have to climb that tree, but you’ll immediately go on the dead list.”
That wasn’t an option. Not only did her pride demand that she beat Lauren, she didn’t want to look like a scared little girl in Shep’s eyes. She whispered the mantra she’d begun using on stage after the fall. “They only applaud if you finish the show.”
Falling—and failing—wasn’t on today’s agenda, no matter how shaky she felt after the helicopter from hell.
Buffalo waved his arm like a flag and yelled, “Go!”
Joss quickly found that her tree’s trunk was thicker than she’d realized. Her arms and legs barely went halfway around. The bark bit into her inner thighs and upper arms. It took every ounce of her strength and concentration to hold on, much less clumsily shimmy her way skyward until she could grab the lowest branch and pull herself up. Her arm muscles burned, and although she tried not to look, she couldn’t help but notice both Bradley and Lauren were above her by at least ten feet.
Better trees or longer arms and legs. Didn’t really matter which. She was behind.
She shifted her concentration back to her own tree and made more progress.
Yes! A cluster of spiky balls hung two branches above her. Looked like at least half a dozen individual gum balls. By stretching, Joss was able to grab an overhanging branch and sort of walk her way up the tree trunk. Pretty it wasn’t.
But effective it was.
She did the same for the next branch and somehow flipped herself over it so she could inch her way out to the sweet gum fruit. She grabbed them and yanked. Not as easy as it had looked. The struggle was real, and by the time she worked them off the branches, she was breathing like she’d run a sprint. And she hadn’t given much thought to where she planned to store these things. With quick hands, she stuffed the balls down her shirt and into her sports bra. And damn, it was like inviting a porcupine into her underwear.
She backtracked and groped her way up to another limb on the other side of the tree. More balls. Excellent. These came off with less
of a fight, but when she shoved them down her shirt, three that she’d already gathered made their escape, tumbling out of her sports bra, bouncing off the limb beneath her, and dropping to the undergrowth-covered ground.
During it all, she tried like hell to filter out Moody’s voice, but she couldn’t help but catch a few of his comments. When he called out, “Nice, Lauren,” Joss knew the other woman was in the lead.
That gave her the impetus to reach for a few sweet gum balls overhead. She skimmed them with her fingertips. Just a little farther.
From below, Shep called, “Don’t overreach. If you lose your grip, you’ll fall and probably break something.”
The only word Joss heard was fall. She was going to fall.
Her heart seemed to pulse in her throat, and the tree bark in front of her wavered in and out of focus. Dizziness threatening to make her black out, Joss inched her way back to the safety of the trunk and clung to it, her breaths coming fast and shallow.
“Joss? Are you okay?” Shep’s voice filtered through the staticky fear in her head. “You have to keep going.”
They only applaud if you finish the show.
She needed to pretend that Shep was her audience, and the only way he would approve of her was if she finished this damn opportunity. Blocking everything else out, Joss climbed again.
By the time she knew she had more than ten sweet gum balls stuffed in her bra, with at least one of them stabbing her in the right nipple, Joss slowly backtracked her way out of the tree. Slid the last few feet and tore the crap out of her inner thighs. Joss did a noodle flop onto a nearby log, not caring that Lauren and Bradley—standing there watching without so much as a labored breath—had both beaten her by a wide margin.
Moody boomed, “Lauren wins the second opportunity. Congratulations! You’ll be sleeping in comfort tonight.”
“Comfort is relative,” Bradley drawled. “Since I doubt we’ll find a five-star hotel out here.”
Puck dashed over to Joss and rested his chin on her thigh—thankfully an area that wasn’t afflicted with tree rash.
Striking Edge Page 6