Whitewater Rendezvous

CHAPTER EIGHT

Well, she certainly seems to be warming up to you now,”

Sally remarked as soon as Megan was out of earshot.

“I guess. I haven’t a clue why, though,” Chaz said. “And don’t go getting any more ideas in your head.”

“Ideas? Moi? I don’t know what you mean.” Sally got to her feet.

“Are you coming, or are you going to stay out here and avoid her until she goes to sleep?”

“I’m going to stay here awhile and enjoy the fi re,” Chaz replied.

“You know we can’t build a fi re every night. What are you going to use as an excuse then?”

“Go to bed, Sally,” Chaz grumbled.

“Oh, all right.” Sally laid a hand on Chaz’s shoulder as she passed by. “Sleep well, hon.”

“You too.”

As soon as Sally was gone, Chaz fed a few sticks to the fi re and settled back in her chair, sipping her wine and recounting the day.

Images of Megan fi lled her mind—especially the way she’d looked tonight, relaxed and at ease by the fi re, a smile coming easily to her now. The rough edges she’d arrived in Alaska with had softened a lot.

And she kept looking at me all the time. She’s not just warming up tome; it almost seemed like she was fl irting with me a little.

That thought sent a teasing whisper of arousal through her and took her mind back to daydreaming of what Megan might be like in bed. She closed her eyes and imagined slowly stripping off all those brand-new clothes, layer by layer, until she reached Megan’s soft ivory skin. She could almost feel it now, beneath her fi ngertips. In her mind’s eye, she could see Megan’s breasts as she touched them and roused the nipples to attention with teasing passes. I wonder what she brought towear to bed.

• 109 •

KIM BALDWIN

From there, despite her better judgment, she allowed her mind to consider what it might be like to kiss Megan, to feel those soft lips surrendering to her. Surrendering, hell. She’s not the type to surrender, her rational mind tried to intercede, but by now her body was calling the shots, luxuriating in the imagined pleasures that her conscience was unwilling to allow. A shudder passed through her. It was all she could do not to touch herself.

Time passed; she couldn’t have said how much. She had almost dozed, staring into the fi re with heavy-lidded eyes, lost in the depths of Megan’s kiss.

A scream pierced the silence.

A millisecond later, a loud grunting noise.

Then a roar.

Bear. Chaz scrambled to her feet and grabbed a sturdy burning branch out of the fi re. She hurried toward the sounds, fumbling at her belt as another scream rang out. Megan!

She had the pepper spray in her palm when she rounded the corner of one of the tents and spotted the grizzly, twelve feet away.

He was a massive brute. Seven or eight hundred pounds, she reckoned. And at the moment, he had his head inside the tent she was sharing with Megan.

Her blood ran cold. Oh, my God.

She waved the torch at him and shouted, “Go, bear! Go! Out! Get away!”

The grizzly backed out of the tent and turned to glare at her with small black eyes—pig eyes—set six inches apart. His head was wider than her shoulders, and his mouth seemed disproportionately large at the moment—all sharp teeth. He was drooling a white paste of some kind, and a big glob was stuck to the fur around his mouth.

Chaz shouted some more at the top of her lungs. “Go, bear! Go away!” The fi re was nearly gone from the branch she was waving around. Her heart was beating a mile a minute.

He stomped down hard with his massive front paws, stiff legged, and she swore she could feel the earth move beneath her feet. The claws on those feet had to be nine inches long, and she knew they were razor sharp.

She shouted at him once more as the fl ame gave out on her branch.

“Get! Go away!” She dropped the stick and began waving her left arm,

• 110 •

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