Wild at Heart (Walk on the Wild Side #1)

by Lara Archer

  Her heartbeat stuttered. “What about you and Ruby?”

  “That, um, it wasn’t what you thought. Or what I said....”

  Oh, that truth. Dear Lord—was he really going to tell her? Warmth flowed through her, driving out the chill of the rain. “What wasn’t what I thought?”

  “What you saw,” he said, uneasily, “when you walked into the cabin....that was....that was as far as it went, okay? She literally just walked in, right before you did, and took off her clothes. That was not my idea at all. All I wanted was for her to put them back on again.” He broke off and groaned. “Okay, that sounds completely preposterous. Never mind. You don’t have to believe me.”

  Laughter burbled out of her. “I do believe you. I knew already. Ruby told me.”

  “Ruby told you?” He slapped her thigh through her poncho. “And you didn’t say anything? Christ, Amber, my gut’s been in knots for days! It’s amazing the stomach acid didn’t eat all the way through to the surface.”

  She laughed again. “I would have figured it out anyway, even if she didn’t tell me. Once I got over the initial fury.” She sat up straighter so she could look at his face. “I keep telling you, Nick—I know you. And you wouldn’t do that to me.”

  He looked almost offended. “What? Yes, I would. That’s totally the sort of thing I would do. I’m surprised I didn’t do it.”

  “Will you listen to yourself?” she said, punching him in the chest. “You idiot! You didn’t do it because it’s not the sort of thing you would do. Not the Nick you are now. Maybe twenty-two-year old Nick would have done it, maybe, but twenty-eight-year-old Nick wouldn’t.”

  “What? No. It was a fluke, that’s all. I was tired, or something. Not enough caffeine. Or I don’t have the stamina I used to have.”

  She gave him a level stare. “I was in bed with you last night, remember? Stamina is clearly not an issue for you.” She sighed, gentling her expression. “You didn’t sleep with Ruby right after you slept with me because you have a heart, cowboy. A good heart. Because you do actually care about me, and you wouldn’t do anything to break mine.”

  He groaned again. “Amber, you’re making way too much of one decent decision. Probably the only decent decision I’ve made about a woman in my life.”

  “One decent decision? Really, just one? How long have we known each other? Twelve years? Doing practically everything together.” She laid her hands on either side of his face, making him look her in the eye. “Traveling all over the country. Making movies on a shoestring, stressed out and exhausted and hungry and filthy half the time, doing impossible things, under circumstances that would have Mother Theresa biting people’s heads off. And in all that time, you have never, ever once let me down.”

  He stared back at her, his mouth a hard line. “Exactly,” he said. “That’s exactly my point. I never let you down before because we didn’t sleep together until now.”

  “Nick—”

  “So I’m going to shoot for a new record now, and make the right decision about a woman two whole times in a row. You and I are friends, Amber. Friends, and nothing else.”

  “Nick—”

  “That’s enough,” he said, putting both hands under her ass to push her off his lap. “If you’re able to argue like this, you’re clearly back to normal.” He stood up again, and reached down to hoist her to her feet. “Let’s go find Ruby. She’s probably banged up way worse than you are.”

  He started walking back down the trail again, and she had no choice but to go with him. Her hip twinged a little, and she had to resist the urge to limp.

  At least this time Nick didn’t race ahead. He stayed side by side with her, holding her by the elbow to steady her, letting her pick her way carefully over the increasingly soggy trail.

  And at least his mood didn’t seem quite as prickly as before.

  “Hey kiddo, come on,” he said after a while, slanting her a glance from under his hood. “Being friends—that’s a good thing.”

  Her heart sank even lower. “I know.”

  “It’s the best part of what we’ve got. If there’s anything decent in me, it’s because of all the time I spend with you. You—you bring out better things in me. You help me find things in myself that...I thought were lost.”

  “Yeah. You bring out good things in me, too.” She tried to smile at him, despite the wave of sadness sweeping through her. He was right that their friendship was the best thing they had—the best thing she had in her whole life. “I was actually just thinking about that, a little while ago. About how you’ve changed my vision. Literally. When I imagine a script, I see more clearly because I know you’re going to be the one looking through the camera lens. If that makes sense.”

  He nodded. “It makes sense. Half the time when I’m walking down a street or driving somewhere, I’m looking at what’s in front of me and thinking, look at the angle here, look at that contrast, look at the quality of the light, maybe this is something Amber could use someday. And I try to remember it, in case you do.”

  Her heart felt a little melty at that, soft and heavy at the same time.

  But there just wasn’t much she could do with the feeling. If Nick didn’t want their relationship to be romantic, she couldn’t force him into it. He had every right to say no.

  All of a sudden, the video she’d been making of the two of them in bed together didn’t seem like such a good idea. It might be better not to show it to him at all.

  Definitely better.

  “Okay,” she said, trying to make her voice as upbeat as possible. “We’re friends. We’re a team.”

  “A team,” echoed Nick, and maybe he was going to say something more, but he didn’t get the chance—the walkie talkie in his pack suddenly made an alarming squawk.

  He pulled it out and clicked the button, and Onyx’s voice crackled from the earpiece. “Hey!” she said. “Did you guys get slammed? By the hail? Wasn’t it awesome?”

  “Awesome?” said Nick into the mouthpiece, and then more quietly to Amber, “Awesome? She’s definitely been taken over by pod people.”

  Amber grabbed the walkie talkie. “Did you find Ruby?”

  “You’re not going to believe it,” came Onyx’s answer, still preternaturally enthusiastic. “We found everybody! Well, Jake found Ruby, and we found Jake. Did you know Ranger Donnell knows how to track humans?”

  A garbled masculine voice could be heard coming over the line, but they couldn’t make out his words.

  They heard Onyx sigh. “Apparently,” she said, “it’s the same as tracking animals. He wanted me to point out that he wasn’t trained specifically to hunt people.”

  The garbled masculine voice got louder, though no more distinct.

  “Wait, he’s vegetarian,” said Onyx. “He doesn’t hunt at all. He just tracks animals to find out what plants they—”

  “Onyx!” shouted Nick. “Where is Ruby? Is she okay?”

  “Oh, right,” said Onyx cheerfully. “Ruby’s totally fine.”

  “Where, Onyx?”

  “She’s with Jake. Sounds like he caught her pretty quickly.”

  “What do you mean sounds like?” said Nick. “I thought you guys were with them.”

  “Well, we found them, but we didn’t exactly reach them. By the time we caught sight of them, they were on the other side of one of the creeks, and it’s flooding, and the water’s too high for them to cross back. We’ve been yelling back and forth from bank to bank. Everybody’s fine, but they’re going to be stuck overnight. And don’t worry—Jake has a tent and food and everything with him. He’s always got it ready for when his Volkswagen breaks down. That’s what he grabbed before he ran into the woods.”

  “So they’re safe?” asked Amber.

  “Safe,” repeated Onyx. “What about you guys?”

  “We’re fine,” said Amber. “A little banged up. But fine.”

  “And—you two are friends again?”

  “Yes,” said Amber, tightly, her lungs seeming
to turn to concrete as she considered the question. “Friends.”

  “Can you make it back to camp? Because Ranger Donnell says we’re stuck up here until morning, too—we had to cross a footbridge that’s under water at the moment. We’re going to get to higher ground, then make a shelter with the tarp and pine branches.”

  That scenario would have had Onyx screaming for mercy just a few days ago, but now she sounded as chipper as a Cub Scout with a pile of dry kindling and a jumbo bag of marshmallows. Apparently, Ranger Donnell had worked his magic well.

  Nick leaned in over the walkie talkie and pressed Amber’s finger against the button. “We should be fine,” he said. “We didn’t have to cross any serious water. We’ll get downhill and make sure Ranger Morrissey knows what’s going on. And hey, Onyx, please tell me you found Donny Lempert’s rotting remains somewhere out there.”

  A dark chuckle came over the speaker, sounding much more like the old Onyx than the sunshiny voice they’d just been hearing. “The reporter?” she said. “Yeah, wouldn’t that be sweet? But, no, unfortunately, Ranger Naomi’s bringing Lempert back to camp in one piece. Ruby’s security guys found him first, though, so apparently he ‘stumbled and fell down a rocky escarpment’ just before the rangers got there. Two or three different times.”

  “Best news I’ve heard all day,” said Nick. “Okay, save your battery. If we don’t see you guys an hour after dawn tomorrow, we’ll send out the search parties again.”

  The walkie talkie crackled one last time. “I’ve got Ranger Paul,” she said smugly. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Nick clicked off the unit, and Amber blew out a huge sigh of relief.

  “Nobody’s dead,” she said. “Thank goodness.”

  Nick raised his eyebrows. “Let’s get you safely down the hill first,” he said. “Then we can celebrate. Your hip feeling okay?”

  So he’d noticed it was hurting her, even though she’d tried to hide it. Damn, it would really be so much easier to be in massive unrequited love with the man if he could just be more of a jerk. The kind of jerk he seemed convinced he really was.

  And even that emotion he seemed to sense, hard as she was trying to bottle the feeling up inside.

  “Hey, Amber,” he said softly, turning to face her and cupping her cheek in his warm hand. “It’s all going to be okay. You and me. I promise.”

  Her face felt hot, and her heart seemed to be swelling up into her throat, and before she could even think to stop them, tears had started spilling from the corners of her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping them away guiltily. “I’m not doing this on purpose. I swear to God I’m not.”

  “Oh, shit, kiddo,” said Nick, pulling her against his chest and wrapping his arms around her back. “It’s okay. Shh. It’s fine. Everything’s been crazy. Crying is what normal people do.”

  “You’re not crying.”

  “I’m damaged goods.” He shrugged. “We’ve been over this.”

  Just at the moment, she couldn’t even summon the energy to get into the argument with him again. She just let herself enjoy the feel of him against her—even with the two layers of dripping yellow rubber between them. She let her head rest against his chest, and he stroked his hands up and down her spine again, though over the rain poncho, not on her skin this time.

  And he said soothing things, in that sweet way he was so good at: “We’re not losing anything,” and “You’re part of me, no matter what,” and “I’m not going anywhere.”

  All wonderful, lovely things that touched her heart—but they’d have sounded so much better mixed in with an “I love you.” Which, of course, she was not going to get.

  When she had herself back under control, they started walking again. He kept his arm around her waist the whole way down, holding her so close that the pack on his back bumped against them both.

  The last of the rain had stopped completely, and the sky was growing lighter again, with thin shafts of sunbeams breaking through here and there, making bright streaks through the battered tree branches.

  She’d heard Colorado weather changed quickly, with calms quickly following storms. The sky would probably be bright blue again before too long, and they’d be filming again tomorrow.

  Everyone was safe, and everything was perfectly fine.

  And inside, she felt bleaker than ever.

  Chapter Ten

  Nick lay in his bed late that night, alone in the dark, feeling like he’d fallen down a rocky escarpment himself—in his case, at least four or five times.

  Bruises from the hail were superficial, but there were other bruises, far deeper inside, from the continual one-two punch to the gut that his thoughts had given him the whole way down the mountain. If it wasn’t guilt hammering at him for hurting Amber, it was desire pounding through his veins, telling him to take her back in his arms again.

  That short time he’d had his hand on her warm back as he held her on his lap, feeling her velvet skin and the sweet curve of her waist, he’d been half an impulse away from pushing her down onto the wet, icy ground and burying himself inside her.

  What was wrong with him?

  Just moments before that, all his thoughts had been of taking care of her. When the hail started hammering them, he’d just wanted to put his body between her and the ice. And when she fell on her hip, he’d been horrified that he’d caused it by walking away so fast, that she might be hurt too badly to make it the rest of the way down to safety. He’d always thought of her in those terms, at least before that day in the meadow—she was something precious, someone to protect.

  Apparently, though, a little skin to skin contact, and he forgot all about taking care, and how precious she was, and how important it was to protect her. He turned into an animal who just wanted to rut on the nearest patch of earth.

  When she was sitting in his lap, and he was supposed to be comforting her, even with two layers of heavy duty rain gear between them, he’d only pulled himself out of the path of disaster by sheer force of will. And he’d come way too close to losing the battle.

  So when they hiked down the last slope full of pines and he caught sight of the outer ring of cabins, Nick’s body had almost sagged with relief. A few more minutes alone with Amber, with his arm around her, might have driven him straight over the edge.

  Thankfully, as soon as they arrived back at camp, Amber sprang right into practical action mode. Her focus shifted to shooing away the paparazzi, preferably in a permanent way.

  Ruby was safe up on the mountain with Jake for the night, but if the vultures just drove off a little way up the road and lay in wait in their cars, they’d be swarming right down on the camp again first thing in the morning, and a new version of today’s mess would happen all over again. Of course, as Amber pointed out, the tabloid reporters didn’t know that Ruby and Jake were spending the night on the mountain. And that gave Amber a fiendishly simple solution to their problem.

  As soon as Donny Lempert was safely under Ranger Morrissey’s supervision, Amber enlisted Ranger Naomi to bring the security goons to Ruby’s cabin, and then to get Katie, the gift shop girl, to sneak in through the back window.

  Katie was close enough to Ruby’s height and weight—though without the killer curves—that she could squeeze into her white jeans and big fur coat, which offered enough puffiness to camouflage any deficiencies Katie had in the boobs and booty department. With her feet squashed into Ruby’s white stilettos, a pair of huge sunglasses covering half her face, and the heavy fur hood pulled up to shield her from flashing cameras, Katie was about as good a Ruby decoy as they were likely to get out here in the middle of nowhere.

  One of the security goons grabbed Ruby’s flashiest suitcase and her antique leather makeup box, and the other guy got the limo keys. Making plenty of noise, they staged a very showy run out to where the limo was parked, with Amber and Nick scurrying behind them, loudly begging Ruby to reconsider and not leave the film in the lurch. Amber did a remarkabl
y good job of sounding genuinely desperate, and her voice even broke like she was on the verge of tears.

  Katie got pretty good with the imperious diva posture, too, as she showed Amber The Hand, then waited regally for one of the security goons to finish tossing the luggage in the trunk and close her car door for her.

  By the time the limo was halfway up the road, the vultures were squawking their way to their SUVs, piling in, and taking off as fast as they could gun the engines, skidding perilously on the still-slick roads.

  Ranger Morrissey came out of the Ranger Station a moment later, hauling a very wet and rumpled Donny Lempert by the collar. He deposited him in his car with a scowl that very clearly said get out and stay out. And Lempert was smart enough this time—or maybe cold and drenched and bruised enough—to fly out of there at top speed.

  Amber shaded her eyes against the tentative sunlight coming out from behind the dissipating storm clouds as she watched the line of cars growl their way uphill. “I hope Katie’s bladder holds out at least a couple of hours,” she said. “If they just roll past the rest stops until then, those guys won’t figure out who they’re following until it’s getting too dark to come back here.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Ranger Naomi. “I’ll go up to the entry gate and post ‘ROAD CLOSED DUE TO FLOODING’ signs so they won’t get back in tomorrow either. We don’t issue vehicle day passes when any of our trails are under water.”

  Amber’s brow creased. “I thought flash floods receded pretty quickly around here.”

  “Oh, for sure,” said Ranger Naomi with a grin. “But I’m betting those jerks don’t know that. I’m a former marine sergeant, ma’am—I know how to deal with jackasses.”

  And just like that, the vulture infestation was gone.

  It was good to see Amber back in her element again, confident and in charge.

  Of course, there was an awkward moment when Ranger Naomi walked off to take care of the signs, and Nick was left standing alone in the parking lot with Amber, with no possibility of filming with Ruby and Jake until the next morning at the earliest. Just to have something to fill the silence, Nick said, “I wonder what Lempert found out about Ruby that was so bad.”