Teagan
Was this a mirage?
It had to be.
Cam had his shirt off.
All hot and sweaty and—sweary.
She tapped her wristband against the check-in point.
It bleeped. So did Cam when he saw her staring at him like he was a triple scoop of fudge ripple ice cream.
Ha! Maybe she did like fudge after all.
“Look,” he said.
She already was looking, thank you very much. And she liked what she saw.
“Someone pulled the cargo net up,” he said, pointing.
She looked up. No wonder Cam had been swearing.
Someone had doubled the net up and over, making sure nobody else could go over it.
Josh? Ryder? Both of them?
Cam jumped up, arm stretching as high as he could reach.
No dice.
She was shorter than Cam, which meant she wasn’t going to fare any better. She stared at Cam’s strong, muscled shoulders that were disappearing beneath his T-shirt.
Sad Teagan. No more eye candy.
Candy.
Her kingdom for some candy!
She didn’t have a kingdom to give.
What she wouldn’t give for a handful of candy right now. Wait, what? Focus, brain!
His shirt back on, Cam stared up at the net, then back at her.
He was extra intense right now.
Why was he looking at her like that?
Was she naked?
Maybe her clothes had fallen off in the mud pit.
She checked.
No. Not naked. Just dehydrated. And short. Not wildly short. Just shorter than Cam.
If you added them together they’d be tall.
That was it! Cam needed to win this competition. And she was going to help him do it.
“What if I climbed on your shoulders? I could reach the net and pull it down.”
She saw the hope return to his eyes in a blaze of determination.
He deserved to win. Deserved the stroke seat. If her idea worked, it might repair the trust she’d broken between them. So she’d use every last ounce of energy she had to do it.
Cam crouched down, patted his shoulders.
She climbed on, praying her sweaty thighs around his neck wouldn’t scar him for life. After a couple of wobbly tries, she managed to find her balance. She could do this. Then run two more miles to the next one.
She channeled the version of herself who had won race after race, even though her body had been screaming at her in protest. This wasn’t for her. This was for Cam. For the rowing team. They deserved better than Josh Regis.
“Got it!” she cried, pulling the net down.
Then they both managed to climb up and over it without dying and grinned at each other before they faced the next run. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go dethrone the king and his jester.”
As great a plan as that had been, Teagan’s body disagreed and decided to cramp a mile in.
The kind that felt like King Kong was giving your waist a squeeze to see what happened. “You go on,” she said to Cam. She’d have to breathe this baby out. Or maybe lie down and see how long it took for the vultures to arrive.
Cam looked down the track, anxiety replacing the determination she’d seen earlier.
“That bell is pretty big,” she reminded him. “We’d hear it.” Meaning Josh and Ryder weren’t there yet. There was still a chance he could win this. “Go.”
She forced herself to stay upright until he was out of sight.
Only then did she let her body acknowledge the pain she’d been trying to ignore.
She bent double and closed her eyes as she hit the ground. She’d almost made it. Almost.