Authors: Robin Kaye
A picture of Jamie, holding her on his lap at a party in front of all his friends—people who wouldn’t stoop to make eye contact with her, if not for Jamie. She’d gone shopping alone that afternoon to buy makeup and a sexy outfit for the party, and pretty underwear for Jamie. It had been the night they’d made love—or she had. Jamie had just been fulfilling a dare.
The next day, the loss of her virginity, and contrary to many people’s disbelief, the fact she was indeed a woman, had become the talk of the school. She’d never gotten that close to another man again.
Not after Jamie.
Not until Fisher.
Sure she had a few affairs, but she’d never spent much time with the men. She’d never seen the point. Spending time with Fisher didn’t seem to need a point.
“What do you think?” Fisher’s voice rumbled through her back.
“I think you feel good. I think it’s beautiful. You were right; it’s a magical spot. But I also think there might be something to Hunter’s glorified hot tub.”
Fisher pulled her closer, his cheek resting against hers.
Jessie felt his smile. “It looks inviting. Maybe we should check it out later.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Fisher’s hold tightened, and she felt something slip a little farther out of her grasp. “I never considered bringing anyone else here, but with you, I can definitely see the advantages.”
The way he said it sent a shiver through her. Advantages indeed. She’d never considered herself very sexual. Sex was okay when she had it, but it wasn’t something she craved… not until Fisher.
With Fisher, she had a bad case of sex on the brain. Maybe he had an unusually elevated pheromone count—superpheromones. She reminded herself to get back to the library to research the physiopsychology of love, not that this was love—just extreme lust, but then with Fisher,
extreme
seemed to be the norm.
Jessie had never felt so relaxed around anyone, except maybe Andrew. But with Andrew, there was never this underlying current of sexual tension that threatened to overtake her entire body like whenever Fisher touched her. And Fisher touched her almost constantly.
She looked up at him. His hair was tucked under a backward-facing baseball cap. He should look like an idiot, but he didn’t. He looked like a man comfortable with himself and his world. But then, she didn’t know what there was to be uncomfortable about. It was obvious he hadn’t needed to work for much. He lived with his mother. He probably had a trust fund from his rich grandfather. He came and went as he pleased.
What must it be like to live entirely without stress? That was one thing she’d never known. Her parents were fine financially, but after high school—after Jamie—she’d never expected them to support her, financially or emotionally. She’d never even considered asking for help with anything.
She’d worked through college to pay for whatever her scholarships didn’t cover. She paid off her student loans within a year of getting her first job. She was completely independent, and she liked it that way. Still, being with Fisher had her on unfamiliar ground.
Wondering
what
he
thought
when
he
looked
at
her
with
those
deep
green
eyes. Caring what he thought.
“You’re awful quiet. I thought you were getting over that.”
“I was just thinking about my work. If we’re not going fishing right away, I guess I’ll get some writing time in.”
“You could.”
“That’s a loaded statement. Did you have something else in mind?”
A smile played around his mouth. “Plenty, but I don’t want to be accused of keeping you from your work.”
“Now you’re worried?”
“Not worried. I’m patient. I can wait. I’m a big boy.”
“Jessica, are you all ready to go?” Fisher looked up from where he was shoving supplies into his backpack and couldn’t help but smile. Jessica wore one of Karma’s fishing vests over a T-shirt, but she filled it out better than Karma did. Not that he noticed his sister’s breasts or anything. He did his best
not
to notice them and made damn sure no one else did either. But he definitely noticed the way the too-tight vest hugged Jessica’s. Damn, he’d never gotten half hard when he looked at a woman wearing fishing gear—not even the models he’d guided a few months before.
“Right.” He zipped up his pack, threw it over his shoulder, and kissed her, watching the look of surprise that stole her expression every time he did. He was tempted to peel off her clothes again and make love right there on the dining room table. But that wasn’t what she wanted. Hell, it had only been a few hours since they’d made love in the meadow. He didn’t want her to think he was just after the sex, even if it was amazing. He’d wait. It would be painful, but shit, he was an adult.
He went over the list of supplies in his head: running shoes—check, condoms—check. He picked up the rods and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Their legs were exactly the same length, which made walking close together much easier than with any other woman he’d ever walked with. She skipped, matching his step. It was as if his left leg was tied to her right in a three-legged race as they left the cabin and walked toward the beach.
Jessica had worked on her book the entire afternoon. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, and her beautiful face held such concentration. Sometimes he’d see her smile or hear that girly giggle that never failed to amaze him when it escaped. But even then, she was totally immersed in whatever she was writing. He’d give his eyeteeth to read it.
“How’s the book coming along?”
She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m really beginning to like my hero. He’s a lot of fun to write.”
“And your heroine?”
“She’s more difficult. I guess I just have a harder time relating to women. I grew up hanging around with guys. Women have so many layers, they’re so complex, and they’ll say one thing and mean another. I have a hard time relating.”
He slipped his hand down to her hip and pulled her closer. “Tell me about it.”
She turned as if she was revving up to do just that and realized he was just being sarcastic. “I always say what I mean.”
“I’ll give you that, but you can’t tell me you’re less complex than any other woman, or that you don’t have more layers than a Vidalia onion.”
Her face shone with exasperation. “You’re not comparing me to an onion.”
He laughed. “Hey, at least it’s a sweet onion.” He kissed her temple as they walked the path that led down to the beach, thinking about how he’d like to peel away her layers… and her clothes, and see everything that made up Jessica James—body and mind. He wanted to teach her how to fish and watch her face when she caught her first trout, just like he watched her ride the wave of orgasm. He realized whatever he did with Jessica, whether it was making love, eating a meal, even fighting, was exhilarating. He’d never been much of a sharer before—sure, he’d shared just about everything with Hunter… well, until Toni. But he was beginning to understand that there were things between couples you couldn’t even share with your twin. There were things about Jessica he’d never share even with Hunter, things that were just between them. With all his other girlfriends—even his real ones, he’d never felt that way. Maybe it was because he’d never loved his other girlfriends.
The thought stole the air from his lungs, and if he weren’t in a freaking high mountain desert, he’d probably be sweating noticeably. Thank God for 15 percent humidity. His dead stop threw Jessica off balance, and she stumbled. If she didn’t have great balance, she would have fallen right on her face, but he was too shocked to even react.
“What’s wrong? You look as if someone walked over your grave.”
Oh no. He wasn’t falling in love. Was he? Hell, how should he know? Was there some kind of test? He’d never been in love before. He’d never wanted to be. But then, he’d heard the love bug tended to bite you in the ass when you least expected it. He’d had his share of love bites, but nothing like this.
“Fisher? You’re looking really pale? Are you okay?”
“What?” Jessica stared at him, her big brown eyes filled with concern. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Could have fooled me. Do you want to tell me what just happened?”
Shit on a stick. He couldn’t very well say he realized he might be in love with her. She didn’t believe in it. And wasn’t that just the berries?
A ringing from his satellite phone broke the silence. He dug it out of the front pocket of his backpack. “Fisher Kincaid.”
“Hey, you okay?”
His gaze returned to Jessica. “It’s Hunter.” He turned toward the river, almost happy that Hunter’s spidey sense was still working. “Yeah, I’m great. How are you and Toni doing?”
“Fine. Are you sure you’re cool? I got this weird feeling—”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Can’t talk?”
“Not now.” Maybe not ever. Not about this at least. “It’s all good.”
“Okay, so something is wrong, but you can’t talk about it. Nothing life-threatening though, right?”
“Right.” It could prove to be painful, but not life-threatening. “I’ll call you when I get back to town.”
“Make sure you do. And don’t forget you have class Thursday night.”
“Like I’d ever forget that.” He ended the call and took a deep breath. He was so screwed. Leave it to him to fall for a woman who didn’t believe in love. How the hell can you prove the existence of romantic love? And how the hell was he supposed to know when he’d never been in it before?
***
Jessie pulled on the hip boots Fisher packed for her. They were Karma’s, so they fit okay, even though they had rubber boots attached. The fabric was a pretty brown, gray, and green camo-ish paisley pattern and came up to her upper thighs, a few inches lower than her crotch. Karma’s feet were smaller than her size nines, so the boots were tight, but not horrible.
Fisher stayed clear on the other side of the beach doing his own thing and ignoring her existence. He’d been Mr. Attentive all day, but ever since he’d stopped short on the path—as if he’d hit some kind of invisible wall, almost knocking her over—it was as if she didn’t exist.
From the corner of her eye she saw him tugging on his waders and cursing under his breath. Cursing was out of character for him. She might not know him well, but the only time she’d ever heard him curse, even under his breath, had been the first time they’d made love. But then it was more a curse of awe than frustration. Because really, what did he have to be frustrated about? They’d both been having the time of their lives, or so she’d thought. This string of muttered curses was wrought with frustration, whether it was about his waders or whatever happened earlier, she hadn’t a clue.
No matter how much he denied it, something had happened. Maybe it was the call from his brother that upset him, but she didn’t think so. He’d looked as if he’d had a mental train wreck well before his phone rang. His color still wasn’t good. Maybe he poisoned himself, but she’d eaten the same thing he’d fixed for lunch, and she felt fine.
She grabbed her pole and stepped into the river. She didn’t need Fisher to tell her what to do. He’d already put a fly on her rod, so the rest was up to her. She could ignore people with the best of them. It wasn’t her first choice, but if he was going to ignore her, she wasn’t the type to run around asking what the heck was wrong. She didn’t need his attention. “And he thought women were hard to understand. At least we don’t lock ourselves in our virtual man cave,” she muttered as she stripped the line and cast.
When the fly flew downstream on the river, she pulled it off the surface of the water, determined to tune him out and just enjoy the late summer sun bouncing off the quick flowing river. It really was breathtaking out here. She whipped the line behind her and forward a few times, picking up momentum before letting out line and catching distance. It felt good to be fishing, even if she had to ignore the man stomping around onshore behind her.
She heard Fisher stripping line downstream. So, he was going to keep his distance. That was just fine with her. She didn’t want to know what was going on in that mind of his anyway. It was none of her business. She didn’t have relationships for just this reason. She had never been interested in dealing with messy emotional crap—especially not someone else’s.
The only thing she was interested in getting from Fisher Kincaid was sex and only on a temporary basis. If it turned out to be way more temporary than she’d planned, she’d be fine. She’d never had a problem going without before. Although she had a funny feeling going without wouldn’t be quite that easy now that she knew what she’d been missing. Okay, so she’d like a lot more time rolling around with Fisher, but that probably had more to do with her PMSing than with him.
She pulled her rod back to cast again, but her timing was way off—story of her life. Not only that, but she bent her wrist—what Fisher called breaking it in fly-fishing terms—lost her distance, and the line splashed a few feet in front of her. She looked over her shoulder and found Fisher staring off into space. Good, at least he’d missed her less than stellar performance.
Jessie ventured farther upstream—if he wanted to sulk, or whatever he was doing, she wasn’t going to stop him. Tossing a glance over her shoulder, she realized she’d walked well beyond the beach. She turned to walk deeper into the river to keep from snagging her line on the bushes growing close to the shore. Reeling in some line, she talked herself through the cast before trying again. She didn’t want to be caught screwing up. Just to be safe, she took another few steps. The riverbed beneath her feet disappeared, and the next thing she knew she was in over her head. Her waders filled with ice water as she kicked to get to the surface. She tried to kick her waders off, but the boots were too tight, and she was moving downstream fast. She bumped into a rock—a boulder. Pain radiated through her shoulder, and she turned so she could at least see where she was going, while she tried desperately to keep afloat as her waders dragged her down.
Fisher screamed her name just before she went under.
***
Fisher did his best to wrap his head around the whole idea of falling in love with Jessica. Maybe it was just the great sex messing with his mind. But then, he pictured the way she looked the day he’d met her. He’d been immediately attracted to her in a big way. It wasn’t as if he’d never been attracted to a woman. He had, but his attraction to Jessica grabbed him by the balls and made him do crazy things like run with her—maybe it wasn’t love at all. Maybe he just had a latent death wish. Whatever it was had him worrying about what she ate. It made him want to know who had hurt her so badly she believed love didn’t exist, and how he could go about fixing it. Damn, he had it bad. No wonder love was a four-letter word.
He stared downriver, hoping some answers would somehow magically appear. He didn’t so much as look Jessica’s way, because if he did, he might just blurt out his feelings, and that was the last thing she wanted to hear. He needed time to come up with a plan and make damn sure what he was feeling was love. Shit. Pretty soon he’d not only be knitting, but he’d be reading
Cosmo
too.
He heard a splash and then Jessica’s scream. He pulled off his waders as she floated by. “Feet first! Jessica, point your feet downstream. Stay on your back.” Fisher jumped in after her. How could he have been so stupid? He’d been so caught up the whole love issue, he’d neglected to tell her about the shelf, and she must have walked right off it.
He swam for her, and her head went under. With the fading light, she blended into the river, and he lost her.
He spotted her again just as she hit a boulder. It looked like she tried to grab the next one, but the river was getting rougher and pulled her down. Just a few more yards, he skirted the boulder she’d clung to, reached for her, and missed. Fuck.
Things were going to get dicier if he didn’t get to her soon. Thank God, they were almost to the eddy. If he could get her to the eddy, they’d be okay. If not… That wasn’t worth thinking about.
He kicked hard, ignoring the cold, and grabbed her arm, pulling her to him, holding her head above the water long enough for her to catch her breath. “Come on, Jess… Swim right, hard. Kick.”
The boulder in front of the eddy was coming at them fast. Fisher spun them around, holding her close, protecting her body, taking the hit. He thought his back would take the brunt of the impact, but his head snapped back, and pain shot through him. He saw stars. He let the water pull them around the boulder into the safety of the eddy, letting them float in the whirlpool the large boulder he hit had created. The last thing he saw was Jessica’s terrified, fuzzy face, before his world went black.
***
Jessie held onto Fisher as he sank. He was out cold. She held his head above water, thanking God she had her lifeguard certification and floated in what seemed like a whirlpool. At least the river had stopped dragging her down. She needed to get him on that big rock and out of the cold. For all she knew, he could be in shock.
She held onto Fisher and slipped beneath the water, testing its depth. When she hit bottom, she sprang up, pushing Fisher onto the rock. Damn, he weighed a ton. He was still hanging half off, but for now, he was stable. He was also unconscious and bleeding from the back of the head.
Shaking from cold and fear, she climbed onto the boulder, which was as large as a king-sized bed, but not nearly as comfortable. She grabbed Fisher under his arms and dragged him further up, trying to get as much of his body out of the water as possible, and then rolled him over. He was breathing, thank God. For a minute there, she wondered if she’d killed him.
She had to get him to shore, to his car, and then to a hospital. She just wished she knew how to go about doing that—supergirl she was not. They were only about three or four yards from shore. If she could get him out of the whirlpool, she should be able to swim for it.