Leslie didn’t have to look to know he was speaking the truth. She could well imagine how awful and ridiculous she looked. “This is what I’ve come to in less than a day at your hands,” she said.
“No wonder you don’t trust me.” Joe picked up his tarpaulin knapsack and threw it over his shoulder. He took one handle of the cooler and waited for Leslie to take the other. With a teasing grin, he said, “Come on, Bozo. Let’s stop clowning around and get this show on the road.”
Leslie groaned at his play on words, but she lumbered faithfully alongside him as he led her deeper into the heart of the Colorado Rockies, her shoes flopping rhythmically as she went.
“I
… DON’T … WHINE
. I … don’t … whine,” Leslie repeated to herself in time with each grueling step she took.
Hours that seemed more like weeks had passed, and not once had this extremely irritating man, Joe Bonner, offered to stop so she could rest.
The first couple of miles hadn’t been too bad. Still well below the timberline, the terrain was rough and rocky and would have been much harder to traverse if not for the old logging road. She found the mountains breathtakingly beautiful, with every gap in the dense virgin forest revealing a new and unique glimpse of their splendor. Above them loomed snowcapped peaks and jagged rock formations that looked extremely treacherous for all their magnificence. She took comfort in knowing she didn’t have to go anywhere near them.
She’d had a lot to think about in the first few hours. Picking up where she’d left off the day before, she still couldn’t justify in her heart the destruction of the mountain for the sake of progress. It wasn’t even for progress, she decided despondently. It was for the entertainment of those who could afford it. For fun.
Her stomach grew tight and began to burn at the thought that once violated, the slopes and valleys before her, never before touched except by the hands of God and a few lumberjacks, would fall prey to countless more abuses. It made her sick to think that simply because the numbers added up correctly and the facts supported the theory and she had been foolishly ambitious, a chain of ecological changes had been set into motion that could never be reversed. Once destroyed, this land could never be duplicated.
For a while it was hard for her to remember how much her Chinese art collection meant to her or why she had bought into a co-op instead of renting an apartment. Had the money, the recognition, and the prestige from a job well done been worth it?
She couldn’t bring herself to answer. Instead she’d come to a standstill and put down her end of the cooler. Wordlessly, without giving her companion the slightest bit of attention, she removed the down jacket and tied the sleeves around her waist. The cool mountain air felt glorious as it fluttered across her bare shoulders and upper chest, which had grown flushed and overheated in her efforts to keep up with Joe’s unmercifully long strides.
When she bent to pick up the cooler and resume the trek, she found that Joe had unburdened himself as well. She watched as he removed his flannel shirt. She sucked in a deep breath and felt a rush of heat pass through her as he stood before her in a bright white T-shirt pulled taut over flesh and muscle that bulged beneath it and anchored into jeans that hung low on his narrow hips. When he held the flannel shirt out to her, she just stared at him, her heart racing uncontrollably.
“Here,” he said, indicating she was to put it on.
“Oh. Thanks, but I’m fine. The cool breeze feels great,” she said on a shuddering breath.
“Put it on. The weather up here is deceptive. The sun’ll fry you like bacon, and you won’t even feel it until tonight. And,” he added, his eyes lowering and lingering on the soft upper slopes of her breasts, “you don’t want to ruin all that beautiful white skin of yours.”
As if on cue, her chest rose and fell under his gaze as she automatically drew in a deep gulp of air. His insolence was wearing on her nerves, but she knew he was telling the truth about the sun—not because she knew it to be true, but because she was beginning to understand him. He wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of removing his shirt for her if he didn’t have a good reason. And she’d have bet her new pasta maker that his reason wasn’t concern for her. He was ensuring himself against a night of having to listen to her whine about her sunburn—as if she would.
With the shirt on Leslie’s back and the cooler in tow, they continued their hike. They didn’t speak and rarely looked at each other directly, but they were both aware of the other, of being alone together in the forest.
Ignoring her peripheral vision and keeping her eyes trained straight ahead, Leslie focused her mind on a few of her other problems at hand: Her job, or rather what she’d done as part of her job for one.
She disliked being called a yuppie, but she had to admit she did fit the bill. She liked to work and enjoyed the power and money that it brought her. She couldn’t bring herself to feel shame for her whole career. She worked hard and took great pains to make sure her efforts were as flawless as possible. When Leslie Rothe made a recommendation in a room full of wealthy investors and entrepreneurs, her judgment was no longer questioned. She’d proved herself over and over again to be someone who knew her facts inside out and who could back up every contention with a clear logical answer or solution.
Thousands of dollars and countless man hours went into the preparation of the reports she submitted before permits could be obtained to start a new project. An error was not only costly but could ruin the proposal altogether. It was her awareness of the potential hazards and her determination to avoid them that had won her the reputation of being one of the more reliable and thorough analysts in her field. She had a lot to be proud of, and for the most part, she was. But in this particular case …
She loved her work. It suited her disposition perfectly. There were times when she felt she dealt better with facts than with people, that she trusted the words on a piece of paper more than she did human relationships. She liked things to make sense and follow a progressive order. And she found, very often, that people didn’t.
Especially in the case of Jeff Warner, but then her whole relationship with him was confusing. If what she felt for him was love, why didn’t she feel something special. Why didn’t she feel in love, like Joe Bonner, Beth, and her mother had assured her she would? Why did people assume that simply because she and Jeff had spent so much time together over the past few years that they were automatically in love and bound for wedded bliss? She and Jeff were friends. They shared many common interests, and they enjoyed each other’s company. Granted, there had been a few nights when they had shared some very insipid sex together, but those nights had been fueled by loneliness and a desperate need on both sides to be close to someone. She was sure that Jeff’s feelings were no stronger than her own. But what if that was as strong as love ever got?
Leslie sighed and ran her hand back and forth across her brow trying to dispel some of the tension her thoughts had deposited there.
“Does your head still hurt?” Joe asked.
“No.”
“Want to sit and rest for a while?”
“If you’re tired, we can,” she said, refusing to admit that she was dying for a break, too proud to let on that her left arm was sound asleep and that her lower back was throbbing under the weight of her pack.
Joe’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I’m fine,” he said, and he kept on walking.
After nearly two hours, Leslie was past the point of pain and almost totally numb.
“I … don’t … whine. I … don’t … whine.” She said it over and over in her mind trying to believe it, wanting more than anything to be back in her nice, safe office where she belonged, or as a second alternative, to cry out in misery. Instead she ground her teeth together and watched the dust from the road billow out under her shoes as she flopped them down, step by step, to the rhythm in her head. The thin mountain air ripped at her lungs with every breath, but she kept on walking. She’d rather fall down dead in her tracks than have to cooperate in a kiss with Joe Bonner.
“I’m beat. Let’s rest,” Joe said suddenly, moving off to the side of the road.
“What?” Leslie asked, stunned.
“I need a break.”
“You do?”
Joe nodded. “Don’t want to get overtired, you know. Only a fool would walk himself to the point of exhaustion.”
There was a reproachful look in his eyes as the zing shot straight up Leslie’s spine and registered as a direct hit, but she was in no mood to care. At least she wasn’t a whiny fool. She got the distinct impression that it wouldn’t matter what she did or how she acted anyway. There would be no pleasing Joe Bonner.
He had already put his heavy load down in the shade along the sloping shoulder of the road, when he turned to see Leslie struggling lamely to remove her own. Mutely he stepped up beside her and untied the knot in the blanket that had slipped down below her bust line. Her skin quivered when his hand accidentally brushed the upper fullness of her breasts, but he didn’t seem to notice. Unlike Leslie, he didn’t appear to experience the same tingling sensation. In fact he gave every indication that he was perfectly comfortable and totally unaffected standing in her personal space, touching her body, their faces mere inches apart. Leslie, on the other hand, was weak in the knees and fighting to control her irregular breathing. She was afraid to move her head or look into his face for fear of brushing noses with him and prolonging the awkwardness of the moment.
With her pack untied, Joe took it and moved away immediately, leaving Leslie reeling from his sudden withdrawal of his close physical contact, incidental though it was.
Leslie frowned. Get a grip on it, she told herself sternly, you’ve been out in the sun too long and walked too many miles in his shoes. She rationalized her reactions down to simple physiology. The tingling was blood rushing back into the areas of her body constricted by the weight of her pack. The dizziness and rapid breathing were induced by exhaustion. And a warm rock would look just as strong and comforting right now as his broad chest and thick arms did.
Satisfied and very much relieved with this analysis, Leslie gratefully sank down beside the first large, warm-looking rock she saw.
“Hungry?” Joe asked.
“No. But I am thirsty.” She was too tired to eat.
Perched on his own rock several feet away, Joe reached into the cooler and handed her one of the canning jars he’d filled with cool, clear water from the stream earlier. Leslie took it and drank deeply before she screwed the top back on and set the jar down between them.
She lowered her head back to rest it on the rock and closed her eyes. She could almost hear her muscles slowly unwinding, crackling and snapping with tiny bursts of spasmodic pain as they uncurled and became limp.
Joe hadn’t missed much of what his traveling companion was going through. He’d seen her shoulders begin to droop. He’d heard her steps begin to drag. And he was sure the bright red flush in her face was caused more from heat and fatigue than overexposure to the sun. She might lean toward stupid sometimes, he thought, but she was a tough little cookie.
“Stubborn little witch,” he muttered under his breath, aware that she was probably too far gone to hear him, glad that he’d taken matters into his own hands and finally stopped for the rest she’d refused to ask for.
Joe couldn’t resist the unexpected chuckle that rose up within him. This Leslie Rothe was a strange woman. She didn’t seem to care that she looked like a refugee from a bag-lady camp or that she was miles into some of the wildest and most treacherous terrain in America’ without any protection, save maybe himself, if worse came to worst. But she’d walk herself blindly into the ground without a whimper to prove herself and to show him that he’d been wrong about her.
There was a lot of pride and gumption bottled up inside that sleeping pile of rags and warm female flesh. She probably had more dignity than brains, which wasn’t always so bad, in his opinion. If she couldn’t have her fair share of both, it was just as well she had an overabundance of pride to get her over the rough spots in life. He had to respect that in her at least.
Well, she’d earned her sleep, he decided with a great deal of benevolence. He could afford to feel kindly toward her at the moment, her stubbornness had taken them to within two or three miles of his cabin, and it was early in the afternoon. She could have a short nap, and they’d still be home before total darkness set in. In the meantime there was no law that said he couldn’t take a few mental pictures. He liked looking at her. It was better when her deep blue eyes were open and flashing furiously at him, but he’d settle for watching the breeze blow at her dark curls and flutter the jagged hem of her skirt … for now.
Leslie woke with a start. She must have been in a deep sleep or not asleep at all, because there were no dreams clouding her mind. She awoke fully, instantly, and could see that nothing had changed while her eyes were closed. In fact, she had the oddest feeling that she was mid-conversation, and it was her turn to respond.
She looked to Joe Bonner for guidance, and he was his usual helpful self. He sat on his rock with an expectant expression on his face, as if waiting for her to answer.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I dozed off for a minute. What was your question?”
He looked surprised to hear her admission of weakness and answered in a very civil manner. “I was just asking if you were ready to go?”
With his question asked, he continued to look at her in a curious way that made Leslie very self-conscious. Surely he didn’t consider falling asleep synonymous with a complaint. As far as she was concerned, the bet was still on. She hadn’t grumbled once—out loud—and she hadn’t meant to fall asleep. The least he could do was cut her some slack. She was trying.
Slowly she got to her feet. Muscles previously unheard from made their presence known from all parts of her body. They were stiff and ached painfully. The groan that built up in her throat was swallowed quickly as she set her attention on trying to straighten out some of the kinks in her back. All the while she was aware that Joe Bonner was watching her.