Whitewater Rendezvous

After they had eaten, they split up into small groups. Yancey and Justine took a turn at washing dishes, while Sally and Chaz packed the garbage and leftover food into bear-proof canisters and carried them to a spot well away from where they’d be sleeping. Pat and Linda excused themselves to take a walk together along the riverbank, while Megan and Elise tended the fi re.

“You know, if you’d be more comfortable staying with Yancey, I’d be happy to bunk with Chaz tonight,” Elise offered.

I bet you would. “That’s not necessary,” Megan answered as offhandedly as she could manage. “I’m fi ne with things the way they are.”

“Well, actually, I’d like the chance to get to know Chaz better, if you get my drift. She is so fl aming hot, I think I’m going to spontaneously combust!” Elise confi ded, as if her intentions hadn’t been patently obvious the whole trip.

“I’m sure you’ll fi nd ample opportunities to fl irt with her, Elise,”

Megan said, cutting off further discussion of their sleeping arrangements.

Unless I have something to say about it and beat you to it.

Elise frowned, as though she’d expected that Megan would readily swap tent mates with her once she’d expressed her interest in Chaz. But before she had a chance to protest, Yancey and Justine returned to the campfi re, followed soon after by the two guides.

“Saved you a spot,” Elise said, nodding her head with a smile toward a camp chair beside her as Chaz neared.

Megan was initially irritated by Elise’s invitation, and Chaz’s quick acceptance, until she realized that would put Chaz directly opposite her, where it would be impossible for them not to look at each other.

The sun sank low in the sky, painting the tall mountains on either side of them with that pink light of the Arctic, and casting long shadows beneath the forest surrounding them. They all settled comfortably around the fi re, sipping merlot and relaxing in their camp chairs or lying half supine on their sleeping mattresses, and chatted about the sights they’d seen that day.

Megan heard little of it. She could hardly keep her eyes off Chaz, who sat with her long legs stretched out in front of her toward the fi re.

She was damned sexy-looking in the golden glow of the midnight sun, with the fl ickering fi relight refl ected in the dark pools of her eyes.

Before too long, Pat and Linda reappeared, their arms around

• 99 •

KIM BALDWIN

each other and with their clothes and hair in enough disarray for the assembled gathering to clue in on what they’d been up to the last half hour or better. As they took seats, Linda curled within the circle of Pat’s embrace, and Pat gave her a long, deep kiss.

“If you two don’t give it a rest, you’re going to get me way too hot and bothered…and just when there’s apparently nothing I can do about it,” Elise jested, looking pointedly at Chaz as she said it.

Chaz squirmed slightly at the comment and looked away, but she was smiling. Though she considered herself a nonviolent person, Megan felt like slugging Elise.

“So who’s up for a round of probing questions?” Yancey asked.

“Probing questions! I forgot all about probing questions!” Elise said, a mischievous look in her eyes. “Oh, absolutely, I’m game.”

“Probing questions?” Sally repeated.

“Our version of Truth or Dare, without the dare,” Elise said.

“Someone comes up with a probing question, like ‘how did you lose your virginity?’ and we answer in turn, going around the circle. The last one to answer poses the next question.”

“Me fi rst,” Linda said. “Let’s start off easy. Most embarrassing moment.” She turned in the circle of Pat’s arms and looked at her lover.

“You fi rst,” she challenged, with mirth in her eyes.

“Most embarrassing moment? Let’s see. As you know, I don’t embarrass easily.”

“Which is exactly why I asked that.” Linda turned to the others.

“She’s almost gotten us into trouble a half a dozen times getting too amorous in public,” she confi ded, which made them all smile.

“Oh! I know!” Pat said. “I did feel kind of embarrassed the morning I woke up in the hospital after my appendectomy, when they told me I hit on the surgeon while I was under anesthesia.”

“That’s doesn’t sound so bad,” Chaz said.

“Except that the surgeon was straight, married to the anesthesiologist, and I was apparently very explicit in what I wanted to do to her,” Pat said sheepishly. “Your turn,” she said to Sally as the others laughed.

“I actually have a picture of my moment,” Sally said. “I tripped going down the aisle at my wedding.”

“You tripped?” Chaz got up to toss a few branches on the fi re.

“You never told me that.”

• 100 •

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14