by Sarah Morgan
“A little warning might be helpful. For example, are you going to do it while driving? Given that you’re a relatively inexperienced driver, you might want to pull over first.”
“I was inexperienced in Chicago—I have tons of experience now. And I’m not sure when I’m going to grab you.” She shot him a look. “I’ll do it when the time is right. When it comes to decision making, I’m still feeling my way.”
“Any time you want to feel your way with me, go right ahead.”
Oh Martha, Martha. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Possibly. It’s possible I’m trying to take my mind off the nightmare you’ve so generously planned for me.”
“And I need to make sure that getting physical with you is what I want, and that I’m not only doing it to please Kathleen.”
He turned his head. “I understand you letting me join you on this trip to please Kathleen, but you’d have sex with me to please Kathleen too?”
“I’m a generally accommodating person. It’s something I need to be mindful of when I’m making decisions.” She managed to keep her expression serious. “She’s vulnerable right now, and it would make her happy to know that her little plan to bring us together has worked. She thinks I need to get my confidence back.”
“Do I get any say in any of this?”
It was a good thing he couldn’t read her mind or he’d probably decide it was safer to walk the rest of Route 66 than be trapped in the car with her. “Neither of us had any say in it. We’re all innocent pawns in Kathleen’s game.” Thinking about Kathleen triggered another niggle of anxiety. “Maybe you’re right, and we should turn round. She put on a brave face yesterday, but she didn’t sleep last night. Did you see those shadows under her eyes?”
“She’s eighty. And we had a busy day yesterday.”
Somehow he always managed to reassure her. And it was true that they’d had a busy day. They’d driven from Winslow to Flagstaff, stopping at the Meteor Crater.
“And you did fill her head with scientific facts, which probably exhausted her.” But Martha knew the real cause of Kathleen’s fatigue went deeper than that. She was anxious about meeting Ruth. “I have a feeling that now she has made the decision, she wants to get it done. Be serious for a moment—do you think we should have stayed and distracted her?”
“No. She wanted us to do this.” Josh rubbed his hand over his jaw. “I’ve been given strict instructions to show you a good time, which will be a challenge given my lack of affection for water sports.”
Martha adjusted her grip on the wheel. “You’re supposed to show me a good time? What exactly does that mean?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
She was pretty sure that any time spent with Josh would be a good time. “What if I don’t? What if your idea of a good time isn’t my idea of a good time?”
“Then you’ll have to lie. To keep her happy.”
Martha studied the road ahead. “I won’t lie. So you’d better make sure I have a good time, Josh Ryder. No moaning about water. No sarcasm. No blinding me with facts about how old the rocks are or when the Grand Canyon was formed.”
“Would you like to know how many hapless tourists drown rafting on the Colorado River every year?”
“No.”
“The temperature of the water?”
“Definitely not.”
“This is like being with Red.”
She glanced at him and was relieved to see a smile on his face. “He had curly, badly behaved hair, an oversize rear end and skin with a tendency to burn in the sun?”
“Mmm.” He gestured to the side of the road. “Pull over.”
“Now? Why?”
“I can state with confidence that your curly hair is as cute as your freckles, but I might need to take a closer look at your rear end before I can give a definitive answer on relative sizes.”
“Josh Ryder! I am not pulling over so that you can stare at my butt.”
“My loss.” But he was grinning and so was she.
And maybe that should have surprised her as they’d been talking about his brother, but she’d learned after her grandmother had died that sadness and laughter could coexist.
“So how is this like being with Red?”
“You mean apart from the laughter? Like you, he was never interested in any of this stuff and I tried to make him interested. I often tried to persuade him to change his life, and do something more serious and adult, but all he wanted to do was chase waves and have a good time. Interestingly, he never tried to change me, even though my life choices seemed as crazy to him as his did to me.”
“But despite all that you were close.” She could hear it in the way he talked about his brother.
“Yes. Whenever we were both in we’d get together and share a few beers—more than a few.”
“I’m surprised your evil boss gave you the time off. You should have taken yourself to an employment tribunal or something. Cruelty to workers.”
“I like to think I was fair with everyone else.” He glanced at the roadside. “Make a right. If you’re determined to do this, this is our turning.”
She turned and found the parking lot. “From here we go on a bus to the bottom of the canyon. I’m excited, are you?”
“Not remotely.” But he was good-natured as the bus bumped its way down the road and was still almost smiling as they settled themselves into the boat.
Martha pressed her thigh a little closer to his as their guide introduced himself.
“Prepare yourselves for a wet, wild roller-coaster ride down eight white water rapids.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Martha.”
“Why the sarcasm? According to the promotional blurb we are going to be thrilled. If it wasn’t true, they wouldn’t say it.”
“I can think of other, safer ways of being thrilled.”
“Stop moaning. You, Mr. Tycoon, are about to get up close and personal with the mighty Colorado River.” And she was going to get up close and personal with him, if he wanted that too. She’d made her decision, and she was sure about it. Josh was the most exciting man she’d met in a long time, maybe ever. She loved the way he was with Kathleen, and the way he talked about his brother. She loved his sense of humor. Most of all she loved the way she felt when she was around him. With Josh, she never felt less. She never felt as if she should be more or different. He never chipped at her edges, tried to change who she was or make her smaller. Life had shaved pieces from her confidence, but being with him healed all those raw places.
She was happy, and that was enough.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t know what the future held. No one did, really. They thought they did, but so much was out of your control. If her grandmother hadn’t died, Martha might have finished her degree but then she would have been on a different track and who was to say that would have been happy? For a start she wouldn’t have met Kathleen. If she hadn’t needed to get away from her family and Steven so badly there was no way she would have taken a driving job, and no way she’d be sitting here now on the mighty Colorado River with the walls of the Grand Canyon rising up all around her, alongside a man who made her heart race. Basically, there wasn’t a single thing about the past she’d change, except perhaps finding a way to make people you loved live forever. But all anyone really had was right now, and she was determined to make the most of right now. And no doubt her family would disapprove of her current choices, but if there was one thing she’d learned on this trip it was that the only opinion that mattered was your own.
She lifted her face to the sun and smiled, feeling good about life for the first time in ages. About herself.
“I hope you’re still smiling when you’re submerged by icy river water.” Josh tugged her closer. “The average temperature of the Colorado River at this time of year is—”
“Don’t tell me! I’ll find out for myself, no doubt.”
But she loved his sense of humor, and the way he could recite facts from memory.
“I’m starting to appreciate the task your brother faced. This, my friend—” she grabbed the front of his life jacket and tugged him against her “—is going to be the adventure of your life. Don’t panic. Our guide is skilled in river rescue and swift water rescue. This is going to do you good. You’re going to love it.”
“You sound exactly like Red.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she sneaked her hand into his and felt his fingers tighten around hers.
“It’s been two years and I still hear his voice all the time,” Josh said. “I hear him telling me to get outdoors, to stop reading facts, to eat my pizza crusts and stop leaving broccoli at the side of my plate.”
“You leave broccoli at the side of your plate? You don’t eat your veggies? Shocking. I’m with Red on that one.”
“It seems you’re pretty much with Red on everything.” But judging from his tone of voice, he didn’t mind about that. She wondered whether he even quite liked it.
“I still hear my grandmother too, although only when I’m on my own, weirdly enough.” And she realized that the voice of the only person whose life advice she should have taken was drowned out when she was with other people. Her mother. Her sister. Steven. She’d been listening to the wrong voices.
“What would your grandmother have thought of this?”
“The trip, or you?” She saw his eyes crease as he smiled. “She would have said a big yes to both.” She gasped as the water drenched her, leaving her soaked and laughing. “That’s cold!”
She clung to Josh and he muttered something she couldn’t make out but assumed it wasn’t complimentary, but even he cracked a smile as their guide expertly navigated the rapids.
Later they ate lunch on the banks of the river, devouring delicious sandwiches and homemade cookies.
Martha slipped one into her pocket for Kathleen.
Her hair had dried curly, her face was burning under the hot Arizona sun and she’d never felt happier.
By the time they finally returned to the hotel the sun was setting.
Kathleen left a message that she’d ordered room service and was having an early night, so they ordered pizza and Josh left the crust while Martha ate hers.
Then they found a place where they had a view of the Grand Canyon and watched the sun go down.
“This is the kind of view that makes you think about life. About how small you are, compared to the world. And how all those little things that seem so huge, aren’t really huge at all.” Martha stood close to him and he slipped his arm round her shoulders.
“Thank you for today. And that’s not sarcasm.” His voice was soft. “Seriously, thank you. I’m pleased we did it. He would have been pleased.”
Martha leaned her head on his shoulder. “You would have had fun doing this together.”
He pulled her closer. “He would have liked you.”
Warmth rushed through her. “I wish I’d met him.”
“He would have flirted with you and pointed out that he was way more interesting than me.”
She looked up at him and her heart beat faster because she was absolutely sure she wouldn’t have found his brother more interesting than him. “I’m sure I would. We would have laughed together, and he wouldn’t have bored me with facts or left his pizza crusts. We would have bonded over broccoli.”
He stroked her shoulder. “My brother used to tease me for always planning ahead. He always missed flights because he could never get himself to the airport on time. One year he was a day late to Thanksgiving because he’d left the travel to chance. ‘Just catch the wave’, he used to say.”
The setting sun turned the rocks burnt orange and the sky fiery red.
She turned and slid her arms round his neck. “Is that what we’re doing? Catching the wave?”
“Maybe.” He slid his fingers under her chin and lifted her face to his. “What do you think? Are you going to catch this wave, Martha?”
“Yes.” It came out as a whisper. “To get my confidence back, you understand.”
“Sure. What other reason would there be?” His mouth was so close to hers they were almost kissing, but not quite.
The suspense of that almost kiss, the burning anticipation, was more erotic than any actual kiss she’d experienced.
He lifted his hand and brushed his fingers over her cheek. “My room or yours?”
“Which is closest?”
“Yours. But that’s next door to Kathleen.”
“Good point. My room. In case she comes looking for me in the night.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That would make for an interesting conversation.”
He kissed her briefly, a heated hint of things to come and then he grabbed her hand and they virtually sprinted back to her room. She could taste the urgency in the air and feel it in the tightness of his grip. She wanted him with a desperation that crossed the borders of decency.
Desperation made her clumsy, and when they finally reached the door she fumbled with the lock and dropped the key. “I hate keys. I can’t—”
“I’ve got it.” He retrieved the key and thrust it into the lock, but before they could step inside he grabbed her shoulder. “Wait. Are you sure, Martha? Answer quickly.” His tense jaw was a sign of the self-restraint he was exercising, and it made her feel better about her own out-of-control response.
“Yes. I’m a great decision maker, didn’t you know that? I never doubt myself.” She tugged him into the room, kicked the door shut behind her and pulled him against her. “Come on you meat-eating, broccoli-avoiding, water-hating but seriously hot guy—”
His hands were in her hair, his mouth on her neck, her cheek, her forehead. “You think I’m seriously hot?”
She reached for the buttons of his shirt, fumbled again and decided there had to be something wrong with her fingers. “No, I’m doing this to please Kathleen.” She moaned as he cupped her face in his hands and delivered a long, slow deliberate kiss to her mouth, and she thought to herself that the word kiss was too generic because she’d been kissed before and it had never felt like this. She was breathing hard, unraveled by the intimacy of his kiss and his sure, knowing touch. Her heart was doing an intensive workout of its own and she thought he could probably feel it because his hand was on her breast, teasing and then his mouth and she closed her eyes, awash with sensation as he ripped impatiently at his clothes and then did the same with hers.
They hadn’t bothered turning on the lights, but the moonlight through the window allowed them to stumble their way to the bed without bruising shins or banging elbows and she tumbled onto the mattress and grabbed his shoulders as he came down on top of her. His face was shadowed in the semidarkness, the details blurred by dim light.
She felt the weight of him, the solid power of his shoulders as he levered himself up, and then the skilled pressure of his mouth as he kissed her. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, desperate, urging him not to hold back, but he wouldn’t be rushed.
His mouth moved from her lips to her jaw, and from there to the skin of her throat and then her shoulder. He lingered there, breathing her in, tasting every segment of her skin as if she was a meal he was only going to get to savor once in a lifetime. She’d never felt so much all at once and she shifted under him as excitement escalated. Her body shivered with the contrasts—the chill of the air-conditioning and the warmth of his hands, the slow drag of his tongue over her breast and the rapid pounding of her heart. And she explored him back, touching and tasting, hearing the change in his breathing and the soft murmur of words.
His touch unraveled her but he kept up the intimate exploration until there was no part of her left unexplored, until she was quivering and writhing and focu
sed on nothing but feelings. Muscle and strength. Heat and kisses. Arousal and need.
And then he eased inside her, infinitely gentle and for a moment she stopped breathing because underneath the electrifying excitement was the knowledge that nothing in her life had ever felt so completely right before. She’d never experienced anything like this thrilling, intricate tangle of the physical and the emotional. Never felt so connected to anyone. She was caught in a dizzying whirl of need and he responded with his own urgency until there was nothing but heat and sensation as they tumbled over that peak together.
And afterward, even after the wildness of the storm had eased, they stayed locked together, bodies entangled as they talked in hushed voices, each exchange flavored by the new intimacy.
Often in the past she questioned her decisions, but she wasn’t questioning this one. And even if this one night was all they had, she knew she wouldn’t regret it.
He curved her against him and she felt safe, and needed, and wanted and so many good things all at once.
Josh said nothing, and after a moment she lifted her head.
“Are you all right?”
“Mmm.” His eyes were closed and she wondered if, maybe, she’d read this all wrong that he was having regrets.
“What are you thinking?”
He stirred and finally opened his eyes. “That Steven was a fool to let you go, but his loss is my gain so I can’t be too angry with the guy.”
She glowed. “Marrying him wasn’t a good decision, but I do make some good decisions.”
“I count at least five in the past hour.”
She grinned. “Josh Ryder. Are you being a scoundrel?”
“I don’t know.” He shifted her underneath him in a smooth movement. “Tell me what scoundrels do, and I’ll tell you if I fit the description.” He lowered his head and kissed her. “You’re incredible, Martha.”
No one had ever called her incredible before. “Just for the record, which bit of me is incredible?”
“All of you, from your cute curly hair to your amazing butt. Mostly your nature. You’re the kindest, most generous person I’ve ever met.”