Awakened in August (Spring River Valley Book 8) (4 page)

“I won’t let that happen.” Riley reached across the table and captured her hand in his. The vital warmth of her skin and the steady, sure grip of her fingers made his heart ache for the girl he’d known. If he’d been aware of her troubles then, he would have helped her. “I promise. I’m here, and I’m committed to staying in control of my life. I said I want you to help me, and I mean it.”

“I will. I promise. Let’s start by getting some dinner. Come on, the buffet line is winding down. I bet all the flax seed rolls are gone by now.” Lydia rose and tugged Riley out of his chair.

“Oh…darn. I love flax seed. What’s flax seed?” Riley refused to acknowledge his sore muscles, but the first step he took gave him away.

Lydia looked back at him and raised a brow. “Something wrong?”

“No. I’m fine.” He moaned. “Just a little stiff across the lower back. I’ll be okay.”

“Stay here. I’ll bring you a plate.” She pushed him back into seat.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I promised I’d help you. I’ll bring you dinner, and I’ll schedule your massage for first thing in the morning. You need a lot more help than you’ll admit to.”

Wincing as he rubbed his lower back, Riley nodded. “Okay. You’re right.”

Her triumphant smile should have irked him, but instead it caused a tight spot in the middle of his chest that had nothing at all to do with stress.

The walk from Riley’s cabin to the massage pavilion the next morning for his nine a.m. appointment was torture. While dinner with Lydia had taken his mind off his discomfort last night, the good night’s sleep he’d been counting on to help work the kinks out of his lower back had failed to deliver.

Each step along the gravel path was agony, but he kept walking and smiling, knowing Lydia awaited at the end of his painful journey. She’d promised him the massage, the magical seaweed wrap, which he was still a bit skeptical about, and a pass on the brainwashing he’d expected. After all, it was now day three of this excursion, and sure enough, he was, in fact, begging for the things she’d predicted he’d be begging for. Along with, maybe, a morphine drip, if he could get one.

He reached the pavilion, a huge gazebo with views of the lake and the pool, cooled by wide-bladed ceiling fans, caressed by the strains of soft music, and permeated by the scent of flowery massage oils and mild incense.

Climbing the three stairs leading to the gazebo took every ounce of his determination. After this, he planned to truly relax the rest of the day, preferably next to the pool with an umbrella drink close at hand. He didn’t even care if the drink was an organic chamomile-flavored açai-berry-infused holistic system cleanser, as long as it was cold and he could sip it through a straw.

“You made it!” Lydia’s cheerful voice reached him, and he forced his posture straight, ignoring the tight band of spasming muscle trapping his lower spine.

“Yes, I did. I’m ready to put myself in your hands. Do with me what you will,” he said, falling into step behind her as she made her way across the pavilion to an empty massage table. She looked great this morning with her hair loose and flowing down her back. Her white shorts rode up nicely along the backs of her thighs, and her hips swayed to the rhythm of the soothing music playing from hidden speakers.

“Take off your T-shirt and lie down right here.” Lydia patted the smooth surface of the nearest massage table, and Riley attempted to hide a sly grin.

He obeyed her command, careful not to groan from the pain of his stiff muscles. He stretched out face
down on the table and allowed himself to sink into the soft cushions. “Hmmm. I feel better already.”

Lydia leaned close to his ear, the sweet tropical scent of her perfume tickling his nose and arousing his senses. “I’m glad. You’re in for a treat today. I booked Dolph to give you the Diamond Deluxe Super Stress Melter. You’ll be so relaxed, you’ll slide right off the table into a puddle of bliss.”

Every nerve in Riley’s body tensed at her sultry promise. He lifted his head. “Uh…Dolph?”

“Rudolpho. He’s our master masseuse. I use him personally, and let me tell you, his hands are magic!”

“I thought…uh—” A sudden weight pressed down on the middle of Riley’s spine. Two hands—manly hands—began tapping on his vertebrae. He grunted.

“Good morning, Mr. Thayer,” a heavily accented voice greeted him. A second later a squirt of warm, coconut-scented oil splashed across his back. “I am Dolph, and I will be fixing all your problems today.”

Uh. Sure. The one problem Dolph couldn’t fix was that he’d been looking forward to Lydia doing the massage.
Hey, wait a minute, she uses him herself? What does that mean?

Riley was about to voice his question when Dolph’s giant meaty knuckles dug into the sore spot in his lower back. A noise escaped his throat that sounded suspiciously like the whimper of a small child, and in the next second, after the blinding pain subsided, he sighed in pleasure.

“I told you he was good,” Lydia crooned next to his other ear. She patted his shoulder, then turned and walked away, leaving him with nothing but an enticing view of her backside and the insistent pressure of Dolph’s magical digits beating the stress out of him.

* * * *

Mid-afternoon Lydia was taking a break by the pool. She hadn’t seen Riley in hours, and she was beginning to worry. Her confidence in Dolph’s abilities was unshakable, but normally, after a session with the Russian masseuse, guests tended to slither to the nearest lounge chair and spend a few hours baking their newly liquefied muscles back into solid form. She wondered if he’d gone back to his cabin to expire in private.

“Looking for the blond Adonis?” Gianna asked, dropping into the chair beside her.

“What? No, I was just…a little concerned…Adonis?” What made her assume her co-worker was talking about Riley?

“Don’t play innocent. You lose your Zen every time the Legal Eagle gets within ten feet of you.”

“That’s not true.” Or at least she refused to admit it.

“So you two used to go to school together.” Gianna’s statement held the undertone of a knowing question.

Lydia glanced sidelong at her, shielding her eyes from the brilliant sun. “Your point?”

“Just an observation. If all lawyers looked like him, I might want to get a degree myself. Do you ever miss it?”

Lydia shrugged and scanned the pool area, still hoping she’d catch a glimpse of Riley. “Nothing could make me miss that life.”

“Better check your pulse then. That boy could make me miss my own funeral.” Gianna tilted her dark glasses away from her eyes and nodded toward the suspect in question. He’d just come out of a changing cabana on the far side of the pool. Lydia watched him scan the patio and tried to ignore the shiver of anticipation
that washed over her when his gaze found her and he started off in their direction.

With a wise smile, Gianna rose. “Too bad he’s obviously taken. Enjoy.”

“He’s not…” Lydia’s protest died quickly. Gianna was already out of earshot, and Riley was lowering himself into the seat she’d just vacated.

Dismissing whatever subtext her co-worker’s comments held, she indulged in a brief glance at his naked torso and his muscular calves visible beneath the long legs of his swim trunks. “I figured you’d still be unconscious. Dolph’s massages tend to leave people in a daze for most of the day.”

“Very funny, springing the Tension Terminator on me like that.”

She laughed between bites of mango. “You loved it. Tell me you didn’t. Does your back feel better?”

“What do you mean? My back is fine.”

“Come on. You really think I didn’t see the way you were walking last night, and this morning? My ninety-year-old great-grandfather moves faster than that. You overdid it yesterday, and this morning you were in agony. I could see it all over your face. Now you feel like a million bucks, though, don’t you?”

He nodded and looked away before muttering, “Yeah.”

“I told you. And don’t even try to deny that you had the seaweed wrap. I checked on the schedule. Your name was on it.”

“I did not… Okay. Yeah. The cucumber slices on the eyes—who knew that really felt so good?”

“And your skin is radiant.” She guffawed, and he rolled his eyes.

“What else is there to do around here? I might as well try everything that’s included with my package.”

“You’ve got a great package.” The remark slipped out before her brain registered the words. Thank God Gianna wasn’t around to hear. “I mean, you picked one of the best packages we offer. You should enjoy it.”

Riley said nothing. His gaze was focused on the shimmering pale blue water of the pool. “Take a swim with me.”

“I can’t right now. I’ve got five more minutes, then I have to be in the Chakra Tuning Workshop.”

“I didn’t know you played.”

She looked at him. “Seriously?”

“What?”

“You don’t know what a chakra is?”

“Of course I do. It’s one of those weird little harps with the three strings. You pluck it, and it makes those twangy notes, then you sing some poetry that doesn’t rhyme and pluck it again.”

Lydia rose. “Oh, my God.”

“What?”

She tapped his forehead. “The crown, the brow, the throat, the heart, the solar plexus, the sacrum, and the root. The centers of energy in your body. You haven’t heard of them?”

“Oh. More of that meditation stuff? Okay. I get it.”

“No, you don’t. I’d say you should come with me, but I don’t think you’re ready for tuning yet. You have to find your chakras first.”

He gave her one of those sly looks that had her root chakra all tingly. “Why don’t you help me find them?”

“You know what? I think I’ll send Dolph to help you. He’s much better at getting to the root of the problem.” She strode away without looking back.

Why did he infuriate her so? She remembered from law school how much fun it had been to debate with him on just about any subject. They usually had opposing views, so they challenged each other all the time, and winning an argument with him had always made her feel like she’d won a case in court. For a while, she’d convinced herself that feeling was worth all the stress and anxiety she’d lived with while trying to keep her grades up in the demanding coursework, but now she’d begun to realize each argument she won with Riley had seemed to drive them further apart. They both enjoyed the sparring, but she never felt right afterward.

Last night, during dinner, they’d actually talked—no arguments, no debates, just discussed their lives and current events—and she’d enjoyed every minute of it. She’d gone back to her cabin alone, thinking of him and looking forward to seeing him in the morning, and now, for some reason, she was agitated again.

What made her want to fight with him? A splash drew her attention back to the pool, and she turned in time to see him slicing into the water from the diving board. He cut through the water like a shark and emerged at the far end, droplets running down his face and catching the sunlight. Her breath caught, but she forced herself to look away. He might be sexy as hell, but he irritated her, and she didn’t need a man as a source of stress in her life. Gianna could make all the insinuations she wanted. Lydia had no intention of changing the status quo.

Best to leave well enough alone before she needed to retune all her own chakras. The last thing she wanted was to throw her life out of balance for someone who could never get used to living in her world.

Blue-green water sparkled in the sunlight where a silvery fish broke the surface of the lake. Riley snapped a high-speed photo and managed to catch a glimmer of the creature who’d gone after a dragonfly as it teased up tiny ripples near the shore.

The shadow of towering pines created a dark triangle on the water. Riley snapped another shot and found he’d captured a butterfly just at the corner of the frame, backlit by sunlight against the black background. Awesome.

He’d been wandering around by the lake for more than an hour after breakfast, taking deep breaths of air and enjoying seeing the world through the lens of his Nikon. He’d had the camera, a gift from an uncle, since college graduation, and had only rarely had occasion to use it. Even on his trip to Europe he’d taken only a few pictures, and he regretted that now. He couldn’t remember the last time his most pressing concerns were aperture and shutter speed.

This was heaven.

He panned around, searching for his next shot, and found a face in his autofocus screen. A smile spread over him, the first one in a long time that he felt from the roots of his hair down to the middle of his chest.

He snapped the shot, then let the camera dangle from its strap. “Gorgeous view this morning.”

Lydia jogged down the gentle slope to meet him by the water’s edge. “I agree. Let me see your shots.”

He stepped close to her and switched on the viewer. She leaned in close to see the little display screen. “They’re just simple stuff, but they came out pretty good, I think. It’s a great camera.”