Reconsidering Riley (5 page)

Feminine company.

Not that it mattered to her
, Jayne
assured herself.
She was over him
. So
over him
that
she could admire the width and sculpted definition of his chest
dispassionately, like a student of the art of wearing a T-shirt and
well-fitted jeans. So
over him
that she could trail her gaze
down those jeans, sideways to the chiseled forearms Riley had
flattened against the door frame, and simply savor the sight of a
nicely developed man. So
over him
, in fact, that she could
even take in the shoulders she used to lean her head against, the
mouth that had once kissed her senseless...and feel nothing at
all.

Okay, so she was a big, fat liar. She
did
feel something. But Jayne told herself it was merely
hunger for emotional closure she felt (and possibly a craving for a
cheeseburger), and nothing more. Probably, once she talked things
over with Riley (and had lunch), it would go away. And that would
be that.

The sooner, she decided, the better. She
double-checked her bubble cover, listened as the voices outside
moved further away. As they did, Riley sagged with relief.

Jayne made her move. "We've got to stop
meeting like this."

"Aaah!"

He jerked, searching for the source of her
voice. His hazel-eyed gaze found her, pinned her,
examined
her. For one frantic moment, Jayne feared her Bathing Beauty
Bubbles had failed her for the first time ever and dissolved
beneath the strength of his interest. Then she remembered she had
the upper hand here—at least so long as he was trapped on her side
of that door, hiding out. She surprised herself by feeling almost
cheerful about that fact.

Riley Davis deserved everything he had
coming to him for walking out on her. And more.

He'd left no explanation, no forwarding
address. And, to be fair, no promises. Only memories, and hope.
Hope that he'd come back. Jayne had clung to that hope, waiting and
wondering...until she'd finally come to her senses and gotten over
him.

So
over him, she reminded
herself.

"What are you doing in here?" he
demanded.

His voice was a raspy whisper—lest, Jayne
guessed, he be heard by the women elsewhere in the lodge.

"What am I doing in here?" Heart pounding,
she nonetheless managed to raise one bare leg from the bubbles and
examine it leisurely. "I should think would be fairly obvious. I'm
bathing."

His gaze swerved away from her show of leg.
"This is the family's private bathroom."

His
family's, she knew now. Who'd
have guessed, among all the Davises in all the world, that
his
would be her hosts for this trip? Francesca hadn't
filled her in on
that
detail, among so many others.

Rugged wilderness
and
Riley. Just
peachy. She didn't know
how
she was going to come out of all
this with the research—and the breakup workbook notes—she
needed.

But for now....

"It's the only one with a tub." Jayne
shrugged. "Gwen could tell I was upset over—"
Over having
maybe-kinda-sorta ambushed you amid the breakup-ees
. "—things,
and offered to let me use it."

"So
this
is where you snuck off to."
He advanced, eyes narrowed. "You set me up and then you bailed. Not
very sporting of you, Jayne."

She thought it was
very
sporting,
given that he'd at least had someplace to escape to afterward.
She'd had nowhere to escape her broken heart when he'd left. At
least, not at first. Not until she'd tested on herself the
anti-heartbreak strategies she'd been offering friends for years.
Not until
Heartbreak 101
was born.

But honestly, "I didn't mean for any of that
to happen. All I did was say your name."

"It was the
way
you said it."

"Oh?" She arched a brow, hoping he couldn't
tell she wanted to shuck her hard-won dignity, drag him into the
tub with her, and (under threat of serious prune-y fingers and
toes) extract an explanation.
Why did you leave me? Leave
us?

But that wouldn't have worked anyway.
Wrinkly skin didn't scare him. Riley didn't even care what he
looked like. Which probably made him twice as appealing, now that
she considered it.

Jayne forced her thoughts back to the matter
at hand. "Oh?" she asked again for good measure. "And what 'way'
was that?"

"The 'way' that makes five pissed-off women
yell at me. I barely escaped with my manhood intact."

She couldn't help it. Her gaze wandered
south.

Ah, memories. Good times
.

She was such an idiot.

He was waiting for her when she sent her
attention upward again. He seemed affronted. "What the hell did you
tell them, anyway?"

"Not much." Her bubbles began to lose their
loft. Casually, Jayne shored up the ta-ta territory, lest she give
Riley a glimpse of what he hadn't missed. "Just that we dated for a
while, a couple of years ago."
And you vanished inexplicably,
just when things were getting good
. "And that it was over with
now."

She shrugged, trying for nonchalance. His
gaze followed her shoulders' movement...then slid lower, to the
bubble zone. In the wake of his interest, tingles raced along her
skin. Apparently, her body was having trouble remembering all she
wanted here was closure. C—L—O—S—U...oh, heck. Did there have to be
a "you" in that word?

The only "you" for her had been Riley. Once
upon a time.

"All of a sudden, it doesn't
feel
over with," he said quietly.

Dangerously
quietly.

"I don't know what you're talking about."
More bubbles disintegrated. Jayne reached into her cache for a pink
effervescent strawberry bath bomb and dropped it into the tub. She
pretended to be fascinated by the gigantic Alka Seltzer effect it
created in her bathwater.

"You don't?"

He'd come closer. Uh-oh
. "Nope."

Was that a quaver in her voice? If it was,
Jayne didn't have time to consider it. Because a second later,
Riley called her bluff. With an ease born of well-trained muscles,
he lowered to a squat that put them eye-to-eye. He stretched his
arms along the edge of the tub, offering a contrast between his
dark skin and the pristine porcelain. He nailed her with a knowing
look.

"You're naked," he said, "about fourteen
inches from me. Naked, and wet. And bubbly." An inexplicable smile
touched his lips, briefly. "Really bubbly."

His expression suggested he knew exactly how
fragile her bubble barrier was. But he didn't understand how
fragile the rest of her was...and Jayne swore in that moment he
never would.

"Somehow," he went on, sweeping her with a
heated gaze, "this doesn't feel quite 'over with' to me. Not
yet."

Jayne gulped.
Uh-oh
was right.

Experimentally, Riley trailed his fingertips
in the bathwater. It swirled warmly around his skin, like the kiss
of a lover.

Jayne wasn't what he'd expected to find when
he'd come in here. He'd been hoping for solitude. For sanctuary
from the five-woman firing squad. But hey—he wasn't a guy to look a
gift bathing beauty in the mouth. Or something like that. Seeing
her like this, all flushed and damp and teasing, made fools of his
good intentions. Every last one.

And her smile turned him inside out.

Ahhh. Nostalgia
.

"Look," she said, shortly after delivering
that smile, "I didn't plan this little soak for your benefit, big
shot. So go take your come-ons to someone who cares."

She lobbed the pink fizzy thing at him. He
ducked. It smashed against the wall and crumbled into a wet lumpy
pile.

"Awww. I think you
do
care. At least
enough to practice good aim. Nice work, dead-eye. If I hadn't
ducked, you'd have plastered me right in the forehead."

"Then hold still." Hefting a bar of soap,
Jayne measured him. She squinted, tongue between her teeth like a
marksman. "
Perfect
."

"I love it when you tell me what you
want."

The soap flew. Grinning, Riley ducked
again.

"Try the shampoo bottle." He angled his chin
toward it.

Obligingly, Jayne sent it toward his
head.

He didn't know what she was so mad about, he
thought as he ducked again. After all, they were both adults. Their
relationship was in the past. And
he
wasn't the dumb-ass
who'd sent her packing for a heartbreak-recovery class, now was he?
Obviously, during their time apart, she'd experienced worse than
he'd ever dished out.

Not that Riley thought he'd treated her
badly. On the contrary. He and Jayne had had an amazing time
together. So amazing it had nearly tempted him to try becoming
someone he wasn't.

Someone
settled
.

To him, this weird twist of fate—the two of
them winding up here, together—was simply the universe giving them
a second chance. What they did with that second chance was up to
them.

Riley voted for enjoying it. Why not?

He nodded toward the herbal conditioner.
"More ammo?"

She seized the economy-sized bottle. Gave it
an appraising toss upward. Prepared to let it fly.

"You probably haven't noticed," he observed,
"that your bubbles don't cling to a vertical surface very
well."

She blinked. Frowned. "Huh?"

"Well, there
is
a reason I'm
encouraging you to throw things at me."

Her arm lowered a fraction. "
What
are
you talking about?"

"You." Riley gave her an admiring look,
knowing the view wouldn't be his to enjoy for much longer. "And
your amazing disappearing bubbles."

Jayne glanced down. Her eagerness to poleax
him had raised her onto her knees in the tub, and her exertions had
dislodged her foamy covering to an...interesting degree. She
probably didn't appreciate the sight of her partially-nude body,
visible from the waist up in nothing but glistening wetness and a
few rapidly-departing bath bubbles, quite as much as he did.

"
Oooh
!"

She hurled the bottle. To Riley's surprise,
it struck its mark. He'd been so distracted by the sight of her,
he'd forgotten to duck. The last thing he remembered before things
went black was Jayne's surprised face as he sank onto the rag rug
beneath him. It figured...he ought to have known to leave the past
buried, where it belonged.

No point trampling over the past. It's
over with
.

Hell, yes. That would be his motto from here
on out.

Zzzzz
.

Cold water splashed over his face.
Sputtering, Riley jerked upright to the sight of Jayne standing
there wrapped in a towel, holding an empty drinking glass.

"Thank God!" she cried. "You're alive."

"No thanks to you." He caught hold of her
wrist and pulled her to the rug alongside him. "Don't you know you
could drown someone pulling a stunt like that? I was
unconscious!"

"Only for a second. Actually, you were
probably stunned, is all."

Stunned
now
, he could only stare at
her.

"Besides," Jayne went on, tucking in her
towel, "you've always seemed pretty impervious to ordinary injuries
to me."

Her arch look implied she referred to more
than a conk on the head. Much more. He didn't know what, and he
wasn't in the mood to play guessing games. No matter how cute she
looked in a two-foot-wide towel and a tousle of damp-tendriled
blonde hair.

But that didn't mean he was going to reveal
any weaknesses—say, a susceptibility to head injuries via jojoba
conditioner bottles—to her, either. Riley sat up all the way,
bracing himself on his splayed palms.

"You're right. It'd take more than
thirty-two ounces of green goop to lay me low."

"It'd take a miracle, looks like."

Her disgruntled frown confused him. "Did I
do
something to you? Or does leaving the city always make
you this peevish?"

She glared.
Leaving the city
, he
decided. He'd seen it before. Diehard urbanites and the great
outdoors didn't mix very well. More than likely, Jayne had just
realized out here there wouldn't be any escalators,
fifty-percent-off sales, or a Starbucks around every tree
trunk.

"I just didn't expect to see you here," she
said quietly. "That's all. I didn't expect
any
of this."

Riley dragged his gaze from the water
droplets meandering toward her shoulder. "I'm as surprised as you
are. I only came back for a few weeks to help out my grandparents.
Usually I'd be—"

"On a mountainside? Taking pictures on
safari?"

"Something like that." Upon realizing how
well she remembered him, he couldn't help but smile.

She did, too. But her smile held a certain
inscrutability. He found himself wanting to uncover her secrets, to
unravel the mystery of whatever relationship had brought her
here...to unwrap that towel. But since Jayne would probably hurl
the contents of the medicine cabinet at him if he tried, he settled
for conversation—and a question.

"How about you?" he asked. "You're here as
part of the heartbreak recovery stuff, huh?"

Jayne nodded. Warily.

"Well, I hope it, uh, helps. I mean, I don't
buy into the whole how-to guru thing, but whatever works,
right?"

An awkward silence fell. Riley had the
uncomfortable sensation he hadn't chosen their topic of
conversation wisely. But he couldn't very well pretend he didn't
know what she was here for, could he? Whatever his other faults
might be, he considered himself an upfront guy. He offered his
opinions straight up and expected others to do the same.