Reconsidering Riley (9 page)

Oblivious to her stupidly wandering
thoughts, he fastened the pack's shoulder straps. His movements
stirred the air between them, making her too aware of his clean
masculine scent. His
familiar
scent. If she didn't free
herself from this demonstration soon, Jayne realized, she just
might crack.

There were only so many sensory memories a
person could be expected to withstand, especially when they were
all, in combination, so delicious. The strength of Riley's arms
around her. The expertise of his touch. The surety of his stance as
he stood nearby to explain the process. She examined his face. Any
minute now she'd lever upward on her toes, purse her lips, and—

"Finished," he announced, stepping back with
a flourish.

Blinking in surprise, Jayne found herself
arrayed in a fully-outfitted pack. Straps comfortably crisscrossed
her torso. Slippery nylon whooshed softly when she moved.

"Hey! It's lighter!" she said.

He nodded. "A well-fitted pack hugs you
close as a lover."

A lover
. The kind of lover that love
'em and leave 'em Riley Davis would never be, for her. Not since
he'd broken her heart. Indignation cleared her head. How dare he
stand there, casually tossing around words like "lover?" Like
"hugs", for that matter?

The breakup-ees leaned nearer, "oooh"ing and
whispering.

At the sound, Jayne glanced at them. To her
relief, the sight of their interested faces—the sight of all the
women who were relying on her for help—solidified her goals. Those
goals did not include melting at Riley's every touch, but they did
include showing her breakup-ees how to cope with the challenge of
an ex. Starting now.

"A lover?" she repeated, arching her
brow.

Riley folded his arms over his chest. He
nodded.

"Well, let's hope it's more reliable than a
lover," Jayne chirped. With an expertise she hadn't known she
possessed—apparently,
some
part of her hadn't been absorbed
in mentally undressing Riley and reliving their steamiest
moments—she rapidly unfastened the buckles and straps. "Let's hope
this pack is
much
more reliable. Not prone to bailing out,
for instance, just when things get good."

Riley frowned. Jayne felt justified in
giving him her most dazzling smile. It was hard, but she did
it.

"Come on, ladies," she said. "We have things
to do. Broken hearts to get over. Post-lunch primping to be done.
Who's with me?"

A chorus of "me!"s rang out. Leopard-print
compacts were waved in the air. Before Riley could so much as pick
up the pack where it had fallen, Jayne had gathered her group. The
women—including teenaged Alexis—headed for the door.

"Hey!" Riley gestured toward them.

She paused in the entryway. "Oh, I'm sorry.
I trust you're done with the orientation? You did say the
pack-fitting was the final part, didn't you?"

Looking perplexed, he nodded.

"Then we'll just get on with our day." They
trouped onward.

"Wait!"

She did.

"Typically,
I
dismiss the group," he
told her.

Feeling stronger, Jayne considered this.
"You might as well get used to something," she said at last. "We're
not typical."

Then she breezed out with her ladies in tow,
back straight and stilettos steady. If Riley thought he'd make her
cave with mere teasing touches, she reminded herself...well, he'd
better think again. It would take more than that to bring Jayne
Murphy to her knees.

A whole lot more.

Later that night, Jayne stood again on the
rock-walled lodge deck. Darkness covered the landscape. It blurred
all but the most ominous rock formations, intensified the creaks of
crickets and the rustlings of unknown creatures...worsened her
fears. She was afraid of the dark, and had been for as long as she
could remember.

Luckily, light shined from a few of the
lodge's windows. It wasn't bright enough to fully pierce the
darkness, but it did glow subtly enough to give Jayne the courage
to do what she'd come here to do.

The chill of the stone wall met her palms.
She leaned against it, gazing upward at the points of light
overhead. From here, with no city lights to obscure them, the stars
were brilliant and numerous. Their panorama arched above her like
an immense sprinkling of diamonds on velvet in a Tiffany
window—only better, because they were obtainable. In a way.

Breathing in, Jayne closed her eyes. When
she opened them again, she fixed her gaze on the first star she
saw.

"I'm afraid," she whispered, still grasping
the wall for security. "Afraid to camp, afraid to hike, afraid I'll
let everyone down. Please, please give me the courage to do
this."

She waited, feeling a lump rise in her
throat. Swallowing past it, Jayne continued to watch her chosen
star. Wishes had to be made aloud to come true, and there was
nothing to do but go on.

"I swear I'll give up Godiva, stop
objectifying Calvin Klein poster boys, even—" She searched for
something suitably kind-hearted she could exchange for the enormous
wish she sought. "—even use the next Macy's ad to teach little kids
to read, not to target the next DKNY sale. Just please,
please
let me do this."

As was her habit, Jayne stood beneath the
stars a moment longer. Then, feeling as though she'd done all she
could, she turned away and headed back to rejoin the group inside
the lodge.

There, the brightness reassured her. Warmth
seeped through the baby blue sweater she'd thrown on over her
shirtdress, comforting her. But her conscience...that was another
story.

Jayne ran back outside. She found her star
again.

"Okay, so maybe I'll target a few shoe sales
before teaching the kids to read," she confessed, her face tilted
upward. "But I swear I'll do everything else!"

Riley stood outside the lodge the following
morning, waiting for his group to finish their post-breakfast primp
and meet him for preliminary training. The fresh April air was
crisp with creosote and seven-thirty chill, and the sun's new rays
held little heat yet. But it would warm up, given time.

He wasn't sure the same philosophy applied
to Jayne. After yesterday's adventures in pack-fitting, Riley had
realized a few things. First, that touching and teasing might not
have been the best way to bring her 'round to his way of thinking.
Second, that
being
touched only made her tense up. Third,
that clearly much more touching would be necessary to overcome the
problem.

Fourth, and most displeasing, was that all
those troubles had undoubtedly been caused by the jerk who'd sent
her to Heartbreak Camp. Riley resented him mightily, whoever he
was. He'd taken a fun-loving, warm, affectionate woman and turned
her into someone who froze at the most innocent—or, okay,
not-quite-innocent—touch.

It was tragic. Unacceptable.
Reprehensible.

He could hardly wait to start remedying
it.

Jayne deserved a happy, carefree life. A
life like the one Riley enjoyed himself, whether sportfishing on
Baja's East Cape or dangling from an overhang while rock climbing
in Canada. Sure, Jayne's city-bound days might not feel as free as
Riley's days did in the wild, but he figured she could still be
happy. She could heal, and go forward without that bozo
ex-boyfriend dogging her thoughts.

Of course, Jayne thought she was going to
achieve that healing with the help of some guru's mumbo-jumbo
do-it-yourself techniques. Riley knew that was ridiculous. Who
needed self-help, when the help of someone who cared about you was
at hand?

Yep, he told himself as he worked to
assemble the things he'd need for this morning's training. That was
exactly right. He might not want to lead a bunch of guidance
groupies into the wilderness, but at least he could rack up a few
good deeds while he did. After all, like the Zen master he'd
photographed in Nepal had told him—

Hubba, hubba
.

Okay, so that wasn't
quite
what the
Zen master had said. But it was all that went through Riley's mind
as the lodge's front door opened and Jayne and her cohorts filed
out.

Okay, so "filed out" was a misnomer.
Shimmied out, va-va-voomed out, sashayed out...all those were more
accurate descriptions of the sight that greeted him. Evidently, the
feminine bonding he'd observed yesterday had led to a morphing of
body movements. All of the women had adopted Jayne's sexy way of
walking—with various degrees of effectiveness.

They descended the front steps and crossed
into the patch of sandy yard designated as the training area. Carla
strutted with her beringed nose held high. Mitzi popped her gum
with extra sassiness. Donna and Doris jostled each other as the
sisters swished their hips. Even shy Kelly put a little wiggle in
her walk.

None of them, though, had mastered the
elegant jubilation that defined Jayne's movements. Dressed in a
baby blue sweater, blue jeans with the legs rolled up at the
ankles, a rhinestone bracelet, and strappy heels, she somehow
managed to embody sex appeal and decisiveness with every
long-legged stride. Watching her move was an education in
femininity...and a distraction that made Riley nearly pitch
into
the tents he'd been handling.

They stopped in front of him, their
highly-accessorized selves at the ready. Necklaces, bracelets, and
earrings gleamed in the rising sunlight. Lipstick and eye makeup
defined every face. A veritable smorgasbord of perfumes wafted on
the morning breeze.

Riley sneezed. "Good morning," he said with
a smile. "You're all looking very...gussied up today."

They beamed.
Whew
. "Gussied up" was
acceptable. A man could never tell. He wouldn't have thought
describing a pack that fit like a lover's embrace would have caused
a mass exodus yesterday, but that's what had happened. Now,
suddenly, he felt on firmer footing with the group again.

Until just this minute, he hadn't realized
how much he'd—well,
worried
wasn't exactly the right
word—
wondered
about this post-exodus encounter.

"We all had, like, mini-makeovers at the
slumber party last night," Carla explained.

"Jayne brought enough Velcro rollers and
Bioré strips for everyone," Mitzi said, touching her hair. "She's
the best!"

"If you look good, you feel good," Kelly
offered.

"Yay!" they all cheered, high-fiving each
other as though they'd scored three-pointers rather than beauty
advice.

"Good morning," Jayne said amid the
hubbub.

His world stood still.

What
?
His world stood still
?
What was with all the mooshy sentiment all of a sudden? Riley
wondered. Jayne merely looked at him, and he—

"It's a little chilly out," she went on.

—wanted to offer her the shirt off his back,
just to keep her warm. Shaking off the notion (her sweater looked
plenty warm, and plenty perfectly-fitted, too), Riley addressed the
group.

"Is it too late for one of those makeovers?"
he asked. He grasped the ends of his shirt and tugged them outward.
"I just washed this shirt, and I can't do a
thing
with
it."

They laughed. He grinned, tousling his hair
self-consciously with his hand. Not for a million dollars would
Riley have admitted to glancing twice at Gwen's blow dryer this
morning, considering "gussying"
himself
up to make a good
impression.

"You don't need any help, young man," Doris
said, looking him up and down. "You look just fine, just the way
you are."

"Nonsense.
Better
than fine," Donna
clarified. "Shoot, if I were fifteen years younger...."

They waggled their eyebrows. Riley started.
Had his clothes transformed into some Chippendale's-type G-string
ensemble when he wasn't looking? The last time he'd checked, he'd
dragged on a perfectly ordinary Polarfleece hooded shirt, jeans,
and Timberlands this morning. But the sisters' lascivious looks
made him double-check.

Jayne caught him at it. She grinned. "Don't
worry."

Their communication mojo was still
functioning. She'd guessed what he'd been thinking. Remarkable.

"Your
buckle
isn't hanging out," she
added.

Huh
? Riley gave her a quizzical look,
but she only whipped out a leopard-print compact
and—urgently—checked her lipstick.

He examined her pinkening cheeks, wondering
at the cause of her blush. But then the rest of the group crowded
around him, demanding to know what was on their training agenda for
the day. Riley was forced to turn his attention to the job at
hand.

"We'll be spending the morning learning to
set up tents." He nudged his hiking boot toward the two-person
models stacked beside him. "Then, a crash course in orienteering
with a compass. After lunch, we'll warm up with a short hike around
the base of Lower Chimney Rock. We'll make sure your packs are
comfortable, your hiking boots are properly broken-in—"

He stopped, looking at the sandals, Hush
Puppies, thongs, and—in Carla's case—purple-laced Puma's they wore.
"You
did
receive the information on hiking boots Gwen and
Bud send to all new adventure travelers, didn't you?"

Everyone nodded. Riley breathed a sigh of
relief.

"And you
have
been taking some easy
hikes to prepare?"

Five heads nodded. Jayne raised her hand.
"Does fifteen trips to the Banana Republic near Union Square
count?"

Riley began to nod. Then he gave her a sharp
look. "Did you take a taxi?"

"Do you think I have a death wish? I love
San Francisco, but walking is the only way to go. I used to trek
twenty-two blocks just to get to work."