Chapter 2
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She looked like an angry cat.
A soaking wet, long-legged cat ready to swipe at me.
My chest, still heaving from exertion, prickled with heat, and no small amount of disbelief. She was mad that I’d saved her.
“You’re welcome,” I said, pulling my hat off and flicking my sopping hair off my forehead, before pulling my cap back on. I leaned on my thighs, trying to steady my breath.
“You’re welcome?” she sputtered.
The woman stood up. Though she was a good eight feet from where I stood now, she looked to be only a few inches shorter than me, which was surprising enough to interrupt my irritation, given I was a good three inches over six feet.
I began pulling off my waterlogged hip waders. “Yeah, you know, for saving your ass.”
When I’d heard the shriek, I’d jerked my face in her direction, only to see the jogger in pink I’d noticed a moment ago disappear under the water, the sound of the splash swallowed by the rush of the river.
My stomach had lurched at the sight, and I’d had to make a quick calculation.
She was too far out for me to reach from shore.
But knowing the way the river bent, she’d pass by the island across from me in a few seconds.
I’d chucked my rod as hard as I could in that direction—which was stupid, given I could have left it right there on the shore.
What was I going to do, go fishing over there later?
But my brainpower was apparently all used up at that moment.
I’d jumped in, swimming hard for the island.
My waders limited my speed significantly and for a panicked moment, I thought I was going to miss her, especially because when her head popped up, her face was turned toward the shore, away from me.
But my feet touched the riverbed just as she approached, and I reached out and grabbed her, pulling us both to safety.
I’d saved her from ending up in that logjam further downstream—or worse. And now she was pissed about it? Heat flared in my chest, but I was still catching my breath, too. I willed myself to calm down.
She didn’t.
The woman was an angry vision of pink and gooseflesh, and now she was walking toward me, her feet slipping in the sand. Suddenly, my already faltering anger took a backseat to my more primal instincts.
Well shit, she was hot.
She wasn’t a young ingenue as I’d first thought.
She looked to be about my age or a bit younger; mid-thirties maybe.
Her thin running clothes clung to her body and her hair—dark blonde maybe, though it was hard to tell with it being so wet, stuck to her pale cheeks in wet strands.
But the thing that grabbed me was her size.
Besides her height, she was sturdy. She looked firm and strong and like she could maybe kick my ass—not really, given the punishing regime of gym training I’d used as a stress outlet since I was fifteen years old—though maybe.
I bet she’d be athletic as hell in the bedroom.
Fuck me.
No literally, fuck me.
I looked away, hoping to God I didn’t spring a hard-on in this particular situation.
She stopped a few feet away from me. “I grew up on this river; I know what to do when you fall in a river. I wasn’t panicking. I didn’t need a knight in shining… hip waders.”
For a moment I didn’t say anything, not because I was too incredulous—I was—but because I was suddenly struck by a weird sense of déjà vu.
There was something strikingly familiar about her.
But maybe it was the way she was slicking her hair away from her face.
That move was right out of my teenage fantasies, like how women in barely-contained bikinis emerged from pools in the movies.
Except her pink top—already a thin, breathable fabric—was somehow sexier than a bikini the way it suctioned onto her skin, accentuating the curve of her breasts and the hard points of her…
I averted my eyes, cursing my caveman brain. “You didn’t look fine,” I said, recovering my common sense and coming back to the matter at hand. Remembering my irritation, too. “Is it every day you decide to go for an upside-down dip in a flooded river? Or just today?”
“I fell,” she said, her face indignant. “It was muddy, and I slipped. But I sorted myself out and I was heading for shore. My head was above water until you stepped in. Now we’re stuck on this island and I’m going to be late for work.”
I tried to restrain myself from laughing. “Late for work? That’s what you’re worried about?”
“I have an important meeting!” she exclaimed.
Now it was my turn to step toward her. “Where were you going to get out if I hadn’t grabbed you?” I asked. “There?” I gestured to a gnarled collection of logs downriver.
I saw the realization slide over her face as she followed where I was pointing.
“Or were you just going to wait a couple miles and get out in the next town?” I tacked on. I didn’t need to say that part, but I was making a point.
“It’s normally clear there,” she said. Her voice was a little shaky now.
“That’s what I thought.” I hung my hip waders upside down, letting the water splatter onto our feet.
I tossed them on the ground, walking back to the river’s edge.
“Goddammit,” I said, more at our situation than at her now. Though I was still irritated as hell at her ungrateful ass.
This was supposed to have been a relaxing, meditative morning of fishing—a moment to myself ahead of a tight-as-shit day. I had a client meeting this morning, for someone who’d paid an exorbitant fee to have me and my business partner Lila tear their business to shreds and build it back up again.
I rubbed my face with my hand now. I needed to focus on how we were going to get off this island. And what the hell happened to my fishing rod?
When I looked back at the woman, she’d sunk down onto the sand, staring out at the jumble of logs downstream.
I could see the contrition on her face. No, the fear.
She hadn’t known she was in so much danger.
If those logs hadn’t been there, she could have easily gotten out—at least, that’s what I’d have thought if I were her.
I let out a breath.
“Hey. I wasn’t trying to be a hero, okay?” I said. “You seem like the kind of woman who knows how to help herself. You sound like one, anyway.”
She scoffed. “What is that supposed to mean?” She still had her guard up. And why not, when I’d come off like a condescending asshole.
“You seem… tenacious. Anyway, we all need a hand sometimes. And I couldn’t stop to ask you if you wanted one.”
“I couldn’t see the logs from the water,” she said finally.
I raised an eyebrow, then made a show of sliding my hands down the arms of my drenched sweater, sending water slopping down onto the sand.
Then she let out a breath. “I’m sorry. Shit, I’m sorry. You did the right thing.”
I was over it. And I felt bad that she was embarrassed. But I still wasn’t going to let her completely off the hook. “You can make it up to me,” I said.
For a moment, a flash of alarm went over her face.
Heat hit my chest once more. “You can help me find my fishing rod.”
“Oh,” she said, seeming to relax, at least a little.
“Yes, okay.” She pursed her lips but glanced briefly toward shore.
I followed her gaze as she glanced upriver toward downtown.
The bridge that led to downtown Quince Valley seemed so close, and yet so far away.
No one could possibly see us from over there. We’d have to flag someone on the trail.
Except she’d been the only one I’d seen all morning.
“How are we going to get back there?” she asked. “We can’t get back in the water.”
“Fishing rod. Then we’ll figure it out.”
She chewed on her bottom lip, sending an unexpected jolt of heat through me.
What the hell was wrong with me?
It was too long since I’d been with anyone, that was all.
The water-logged woman had migrated up shore—not far, but far enough I had to take several steps to catch up with her, during which time I grew deeply irritated with myself for where my brain kept wanting to take me.
“You don’t really have to look for my rod with me,” I said, hoping it was enough to be a peace offering.
“It’s fine,” she said, without turning around. “I don’t exactly have anything else to be doing.”
Our wet sneakers crunched and squeaked as we walked up the shoreline.
The island was small, maybe only a couple hundred feet long, and studded with trees, but thin enough that I could see through them to the other side of the river. There were a few sticks snagged along the shore, but no rod.
“Maybe we should look in there,” she said, moving towards the trees. “I can’t see much from down here.”
This was ridiculous—the rod was long gone—but for some reason, I didn’t want to stop.
I wanted to forget everything else and spend the whole day walking up and down this beach with this woman in amicable silence, pretending there was no one else in the world.
A life built on the simple truth of anonymity, instead of a lie.
But when she looked at me, giving a quick, small smile as if to show she was no longer upset, that tingling sensation came back.
There was definitely something familiar about her.
But any thoughts about who she was were wiped away when she angled her body to peer around a tree, stretching her damp clothes tight against her skin.
I turned away, rubbing my hand against the back of my neck.
Maybe the tingling wasn’t familiarity, but something more primal.
I was suddenly aware of how alone we were, how removed. We were mostly concealed from the trail on shore now.
When she looked at me she must have sensed the shift, because she swallowed, then turned quickly away. “So… where did you say you threw it again? And why?”
“I don’t know,” I said, honestly. I forced myself to focus. “When I saw a pink blob in the water I just yeeted it as hard as I could.”
She paused. “I’m sorry. Yeeted? Pink blob?”
“What?”
“Did you learn that on the internet?”