Whitewater Rendezvous

Not long after, Chaz returned to the tent and crawled inside. “Much as I hate to move you, we can’t risk having any food in here,” she said, kneeling over Megan. “I’ll help you outside, and we can eat and take care of anything you need to, before we turn in. All right?”

“Okay.” Megan started to try to raise herself up, but immediately a burst of pain exploded in her shoulder, taking her breath away. “Damn,”

she complained, sinking back against her pillow.

“Wait. Let me help you.” Chaz leaned down and wrapped one arm beneath Megan’s shoulders. As she helped Megan sit up, she put Megan’s good arm around her neck.

Megan’s cool hand anchored itself right at the pulse point where Chaz’s neck met her shoulder. Chaz’s heart started beating faster, stronger, pounding away in her chest. Surely Megan could feel it through her fi ngertips.

Their faces were only inches apart, and there was a moment, the two of them frozen in suspended animation, gazing into each other’s eyes, that seemed to go on forever. Chaz was lost. Kiss her, you fool, every fi ber of her being screamed. But she feared that once she started, she’d never stop. It no longer mattered whether they had an hour, a night, or a lifetime. Were it not for Megan’s injuries, they would most certainly make love tonight.

With a shaky breath, she looked away and broke the spell. Without a word, she unzipped Megan’s sleeping bag and put her boots on for her, then helped her out of the tent and to her feet. Once they were both standing, Chaz released her grip and stepped away one foot, then two.

“You almost kissed me again,” Megan said.

“You have to stop fl irting with me,” Chaz protested. But it was evident from the tone in her voice she was enjoying the exchange.

“Flirt? Me? I never fl irt,” Megan said with complete seriousness.

Chaz laughed.

Megan took two steps until they were standing nose to nose. “I seduce, yes. But I never fl irt.”

She leaned up to give Chaz a long, teasing kiss on the sensitive skin of her neck, just at the very place where it hit her the hardest, and she felt it to her toes. She clenched and unclenched her fi sts, struggling for control, trying desperately to keep her arms from wrapping around Megan like they so ached to do.

• 181 •

KIM BALDWIN

“God, Megan,” she stuttered, trying to catch her breath. “What are you doing to me?”

“If you don’t know then I must not be doing it right,” Megan said, leaning up for another one, this one longer, sexier, wetter, her tongue a brief caress. Their bodies were only an inch or two apart.

Chaz felt her knees begin to give out from under her. “Jesus, God, please stop,” she said, in a voice she didn’t recognize. “I have a responsibility to take care of you, and you’re making it completely impossible for me to do that.”

“I think you’re taking excellent care of me.” Megan made no move to either increase the distance between them or close those maddening fi nal inches. “I have no complaints whatsoever, except for that whole you-won’t-kiss-me-again-yet thing.”

“Dinner,” Chaz muttered weakly, retreating another step, unable to bear the sweet torture of Megan’s warm exhalations against her neck any longer.

Megan rolled her eyes. “Yeah, keep telling yourself it’s not going to happen, Chaz. Maybe you can get someone to believe it.” A low rumble of thunder could be heard far off in the distance. “I guess I can hold off until after dinner,” she said playfully, and headed toward where Chaz had set up their cook stove.

They sat beside each other in their camp chairs and ate pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts in a light parmesan sauce, both of them warily watching the northern sky and an ominous wall of dark gray clouds that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Chaz was beautiful under any circumstances, Megan decided. But sitting there, with the snowcapped mountain peaks starkly outlined against the stormy sky behind her, she was breathtaking. You’d thinkthat after a week out here roughing it, the woman might look disheveledor something. Without makeup, hair dryer, and all the other usual beauty accoutrements she was used to, Megan certainly didn’t have her usual confi dence about her own presentability.

But she doubted Chaz could look any more stunning than she did at this moment, her chestnut hair slightly tousled, hazel eyes moist from the stinging wind, cheeks fl ushed, and that melt-your-heart smile. She was beautiful in the way that the Alaskan landscape was, rugged and independent. Unadorned and untamed.

• 182 •

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