Chapter Eight
Wes navigates us around the storm, and we get lucky a few miles down a mostly dry dirt road. As much as I love rainbows, my attention goes straight to the thick bunches of wild daisies growing on the edge of a farmer’s field.
“Gorgeous.” I stare up at the sky, scanning the area to mentally line up my shots before reaching for my camera and slapping on a polarizer.
Thanks to the angle of the sun and the amount of rain in the air, the twin rainbows are the brightest I’ve seen in years.
We’re on the backside of the storm, mammatus clouds hanging down as though the sky is slowly boiling high above us.
And with the elevation on top of the caprock escarpment, the clouds are so close it feels like I could reach out and touch them.
Though it’s beautiful, I swallow a stab of disappointment. It’s too soft for what I want in terms of the contest. Not that Nature Shots is the only reason I’m out here, despite it living in my head rent free. I can take a beat to smell the flowers.
Or the scent of rain and mud and the occasional whiff of manure. Same thing, really.
While I beeline for the daisies, Wes sets up in the middle of the road right over the cracked yellow line that leads straight to the rainbows. I’m not sure what story he’s going for other than a how-to-get-run-over guide.
I shove the thought aside to focus on my own work—not that I can actually manage to keep my mind on photography for long.
In the heat of the moment, I regretted letting Wes get behind the wheel, but now that things are calmer, I can be more objective.
He enjoys needling me, but when it came down to the actual driving, I’m not sure he did anything different than I would have.
Sure, I’d have given up on the whole area earlier, but he was right that the water wasn’t visible until we crested the hill.
And he wasn’t driving any faster than the rest of us do out here.
If I ignore the moments in the rain and the small matter of our near drowning, the last forty-eight hours have been kind of nice. Wes is too reckless and it’s going to catch up to him one day in ways far worse than a hefty repair bill, but there’s a kindness to him that I didn’t anticipate.
In all the years I’ve known him, we’ve hovered somewhere between professional colleagues and frenemies. I point out his recklessness. He makes cracks about how much I love to ruin a good time. Rinse and repeat.
He’s never once looked at me the way he did in my kitchen. Or yesterday morning at the hotel.
Then again, he’s never seen me in a semitransparent shirt without a bra either.
The slam of the car door breaks me abruptly out of my wandering thoughts. “Gotta water the ditch,” Wes announces. “Camera is on the back seat. If you decide to strand me here, I’d appreciate it if you at least don’t trash my gear.”
“Your gear is safe.” I roll my eyes. “And thanks for sharing.” Turning my attention back to my camera, I squat down low to get the angle I’m looking for. “If you’re asking for help, the answer is no.”
“Trust me”—footsteps crunch on the gravel shoulder—“there’s nothing in my pants I need help with.” I don’t have to look at him to hear the cocky grin.
My red cheeks explode with heat that has nothing to do with the weather. He’s baiting me again, and I am not falling for it.
I’m also not listening for the telltale sound of his zipper parting or the rustling of his clothes or the—
“Fuck!”
I whip around at the shouted curse, my mind already frantically rummaging through the first aid kit. Did I pack anything to deal with snake bites? Then reality cuts through my panic.
The only thing that’s attacked Wes is…mud.
A great deal of mud. The roadside ditches out here that collect runoff are both steep and several feet deep.
With the recent rain, there’s about a foot of water—and who knows what else—sitting at the bottom.
Wes’s entire left side is covered like he’s a human pretzel stick that’s been dipped in the world’s grossest chocolate.
Laughter explodes out of me only to quickly transform into full-fledged cackles. “You fell in,” I wheeze, clutching my ribs as a mud-streaked muscle twitches in his jaw. “Oh my god, you really did need help.”
Still giggling, I lift my camera and press the shutter release, Wes’s incredulous expression now committed to the memory card.
“Really?”
“Really.” Just to mess with him, I lift the camera again, firing off a couple more shots before lowering it to my side. “Might be my contest entry. They do want a story.”
A thick splat of mud falls to the ground when Wes tightens his hand into a fist. “Yeah, real funny, Sloane. And I’m fine, by the way. Probably going to have a giant bruise, but thanks for asking.”
“Now you’re worried? You could have had glass in your eye less than a week ago and brushed it off like nothing happened. You’re fine.” I shake my head and gesture toward my car. “But you’re absolutely not sitting on my seats like that. I think there’s a roll of paper towels in the back.”
“You mean to tell me you don’t know exactly what you have in that ridiculous tub of supplies?” Wes runs a hand through his hair and then swears again when he smears more mud through it. “Paper towels aren’t fixing this. Fuck it.”
Between one blink and the next, he rips off his T-shirt, getting even more mud in his hair in the process. He mutters something in a low rumble I don’t catch, scrubbing at his face with what was the clean side of the shirt.
But he’s not done yet.
Tossing the shirt onto the roof of my car, Wes kicks off his mud-covered boots next, then shoves his jeans over his hips.
My mouth goes dry at the sight of so much exposed skin.
Shirtless in my kitchen and clean was bad enough.
Naked but for some snug boxer briefs, dirtied up, tattoos out? Vicious hunger snaps through me.
What would kissing Wes be like without an audience?
I shake my head to snap myself out of it and open the back hatch where our clean clothes are packed.
I’ve let this dry spell go on for far too long.
A few nice moments over the last two days can’t override a decade of watching Wes careen from one reckless choice to another.
Given his friendship with Matt, and mine with Tracy, giving in to my inconvenient attraction would only lead to awkwardness.
“You take anything else off, and I might actually leave you on the side of the road,” I threaten. My own eyes call me a liar, dropping back down to the curve of his ass on such spectacular display. “I’ll grab you some wipes. Just…stay there.”
Wes tosses his arms up, flicking mud everywhere. “Where am I going like this?” He glances down his mud-streaked body, his lips flattening into a thin line. “I think I’ll take two showers when we get to the hotel tonight.”
“You’re going to need them,” I agree, fishing out the package of wipes with a grimace. I’m not sure we’re getting him clean even using the entire package.
I toss it to him and busy myself with tucking my camera back into its bag. We’re losing the light anyway. I assume Wes is done for the day too, and pack up his gear as well before zipping everything shut.
He’s barely made a dent in the mud by the time I’m done, a small pile of wipes at his feet. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a hose stashed somewhere?”
“Even if I did, we’re short a water source.” I sigh and hold my hand out. We’re never getting out of here if I leave him to his own devices. “You want help?”
His eyes flash up to mine, sparking with humor and mischief. “Oh, we’re back to that again, are we?”
“With the mud, Wes. Help with the mud.” I scowl at his smirk, grab a few wipes, and move behind him. “Hold still.”
Wes being Wes, he shimmies his hips and twists around to wink at me. “Aren’t you a storm chaser? You should be used to a moving target.”
I grab hold of his shoulders and turn him firmly away from me.
His skin is hot, muscle flexing under my touch—and now my hands are also covered in mud.
Grimacing, I use the first wipe to get the worst of it off and start scrubbing the second across his shoulder.
“It’s like you rolled around in it for fun. ”
“Definitely not. I do a lot of stupid shit, but this was far from intentional.”
We work in silence for a few minutes. It’s hard to focus on the task at hand and not get distracted by the ink running down his spine. What emerges from the mud isn’t the seemingly random collection of numbers and letters that I originally thought—they’re coordinates.
Unbearably curious which places mean enough to Wes to permanently ink them into his skin, I run the tip of my index finger over a swooping thirty-seven. He shivers and his hands still. I swear he’s holding his breath, waiting to see what I do next.
Whatever seemed like a good idea at the time, my ass. These aren’t random at all. How easily I believed Wes would permanently mark his body on a whim—and how easily he let me.
“Started with Mount Etna,” he says, just barely audible over the wind rustling the long grasses.
“It was the first photo anyone paid me for.” He doesn’t volunteer any of the other locations.
I don’t ask. It’s too personal. Too much like asking to see a part of Wes that I not only never thought existed, but have no right to.
And still, I brush my thumb over a stark N and can’t help asking, “Are you planning to add to it?”
“Maybe,” he says. “If there’s something worth adding.”
It’s whisper soft with an undercurrent that turns the conversation intimate despite the wide-open space we’re in.
With a hasty step back, I crumple the last wipe.
“I think that’s as good as it’s getting.
You’re probably going to need to wash whatever you’re putting on for the drive back too, but it’s better than it was. We can look for a place with laundry.”