So Now You're Back (24 page)

‘Stop asking me that. You sound like Lizzie when she was three.' Luke's cranky reply proved what Halle had suspected for several hours. He wasn't enjoying this excursion any more than she was. He was just better at hiding his discomfort. As he'd always been.

‘I never made Lizzie kayak until her arms dropped off when she was three.'

‘I wish your tongue would drop off.'

‘Tough. My tongue's the only thing that still moves without pain.'

‘Believe me, I know that.'

‘You didn't answer my question.'

‘Can you see a fork in the river ahead of us?' Luke replied. Doing that annoying thing he had perfected in his teens when he didn't want to answer a question, of simply asking another one.

Halle leaned to the side to peer past his broad back. The kayak swayed but didn't tilt. At least she was now confident that nothing short of Godzilla would be able to tip this bloody hunk of fibreglass over. ‘No, all I see is more trees.'

‘And that's exactly what I see. Which means the campsite's probably a ways yet.'

‘I feel like I'm paddling through molasses, though.'

‘Yeah, well, I feel like I'm paddling through molasses with an annoying little bird on my shoulder trying to peck my ear off. So count yourself lucky.'

‘If she had the strength, this annoying little bird would clout you around said ear with said paddle.'

She swung the paddle in an arc for the five-millionth time to plough it into the sluggish river. Luke's paddle dug in ahead of hers. But then he held it in the water, swinging the boat across the current towards the opposite bank.

‘What are you doing?' Halle said, alarmed. Maybe they wouldn't capsize, but after five hours, she didn't want to test the theory.

‘See those peaks over there?'

She nodded, noticing the frothing whitecaps chopping up the glassy surface of the water. ‘What about them?'

‘It's a faster current. If we get into it, we can relax for a bit and just steer.'

‘Are you sure that's a good idea?' she shouted above the rumble of the approaching rapids as he navigated towards the rocky outcrops. The far bank looked a lot less benign,
made up of sheer slabs of granite that rose out of the water in a jagged wall of death.

‘Wait!' she yelled as the kayak got sucked into the stream and jolted over the swell. The scrape of rock on the hull jarred her feet.

‘Too late.' Luke's cry got lost in her shriek and the rush of water as she noticed the escarpment ahead. The fork in the river Chad had told them to look out for. The calm sedentary stream they had been in before veered to the right of the island.

Luke shouldered his paddle to steer the boat to the left of the island. The kayak shot forward, fully engaged in the surging waves slapping at the boat.

He whooped as they gathered speed. And Halle yelped, the shot of terror accompanied by the shimmer of exhilaration.

Water sprayed her sun-stung cheeks and lapped into the cockpit, drenching her shorts. Her cap flipped backwards off her head. Wind lifted the ponytail that had stuck to her neck with sweat, shooting tingles of excitement into her stomach.

Terrific, I'm going to die.

Even so, her next shriek sounded suspiciously like a whoop.

They barrelled down the river together whooping and shouting and going at what felt like a hundred miles an hour. She followed Luke's lead, the muscles of her upper arms screaming as she clung to her paddle and dunked it in the water to counteract the flow and keep the boat on course. Her life vest bumped her chin, but the smile split her face. All the pain, the stress, the strain, even the boredom sped away, until all that was left was an intoxicating rush of adrenaline …

The next delighted whoop cut off in her throat, though, as she spotted the fallen tree, its gnarled trunk hanging over the bank, its branches spearing up through the fast-moving water. Ready to capture and devour them in its clutches.

‘Luke, watch out.'

‘Fuuuck!' His shout reached her ears just before an angry crunch, as the boat slammed into the thicket of grasping wooden fingers and spun round on its tip.

Suddenly, they were racing down the river at a hundred miles an hour, backwards.

Her next shriek sounded nothing like a whoop.

Another crunch as the kayak caught fast in the branches of another felled tree. Water flowed over the bow. Luke swore copiously in front of her. And Halle's life flashed before her in terrifying Technicolor as the unflippable kayak threatened to flip over and drown them both.

‘Right,' Luke shouted over his shoulder. ‘Paddle on the right.'

She did as he ordered, but her paddle lifted out of the water. Rocks smashed against the bow as they shot free, then lurched into the bank. Dipping branches scratched at her face, tangled in her hair, wrenching it out at the roots. Luke ducked to escape losing an eye. The boat listed and began to tilt, surging sideways against the current. Luke dumped the paddle and grabbed an overhanging branch to yank himself out of the cockpit.

‘Where are you going?' Was he planning to jump? And leave her to die on the boat alone? ‘You can't leave me here!'

He didn't reply, but he kicked the bow hard, spinning the kayak round into the right direction, then dropped down, straddling the hull behind her. Suddenly, his arms banded around her waist, the kayak's bow lifted out of the water and she had visions of them tipping over backwards. But the weight of their gear in the front compartment counterbalanced Luke's weight on the hull and they skimmed along. Sinking low at the back, but not going over.

Whisking the paddle out of her numbed fingers, his knees
digging into her sides and his feet dragging in the water, he steered them out of the thicket of roots and branches, and back into the main current.

‘Climb up front,' he shouted.

She scrambled out of her cockpit and crawled to land knees first in the seat Luke had vacated. Throwing herself into a crouch, she bumped her chin with a loud thud, which zinged into her temples, then flattened herself on the hull, using her hands to paddle.

‘There it is. Head to your right,' came Luke's shout.

She lifted her head with an effort to see a clearing on the far bank, across what looked like about ten miles of fast-flowing river.

After five hours of work, they were going to miss the bloody campsite entirely if they didn't get across the current.

She picked up her pace, wheeling her left arm wildly as she scooped water. She could hear frantic splashing as Luke paddled furiously behind her.

The next few seconds felt like hours. Luke's grunts matched her pants as they both expended every last ounce of their strength to hit the bank before the river drew them past to who knew where.

The sound of scraping gravel on the kayak's hull answered all her prayers as they hit the pebbled beach. She heard the deep splash as Luke leaped into the water and grabbed the line at the bow. He dragged the boat the rest of the way onto solid ground.

She sank face down, gripping the edges of the kayak with cold numbed fingers, attached like a limpet to the solid, un-moving hull. The gear hatch dug into her chest, exhaustion flowing over her. But the warm solidity of the fibreglass under her cheek felt too wonderful to relinquish.

A hand gripped her upper arm and lifted her. She pitched
off the hull to find herself straddling Luke's lap. He cradled her head, one arm wrapped around her back. She buried her face in the fresh damp skin of his neck.

He sat cross-legged on the small beach of pebbles and silt, his boots still in the water. The smell of wet man and the salty taste of sweat backed up in her throat.

‘Bugger me, that was a close call.' The gruff murmur rumbled against her ear.

‘I thought we were going to die.' Fatigue and relief made her a tad melodramatic.

He chuckled, the husky rumble turning into a laugh. ‘Great way to go, though. Killed by a dead tree.'

His laughter loosened hers and a chuckle popped out, fuelled by the renewed spurt of adrenaline and relief. They were alive, and undrowned by dead trees. Life was a truly wonderful thing.

‘Who knew dead trees could be so dangerous?' she sputtered past rising hysteria.

‘We do, now.'

‘Well, next time don't bloody steer into one, then.' The stern rebuke wasn't all that convincing accompanied by the spluttering laughs.

His hands cupped her shoulder blades as he dragged her off his chest. The wide smile caused that tempting dimple to wink in his cheek. ‘Aye aye, Captain.'

She shoved him over and rolled off his prostrate form to flop down by his side. The laughter slowly subsided, accompanied by the drift of the river and the muffled buzz of an insect. She batted it away and stared up at the empty blue sky. Knobbly pebbles dug into her spine.

She caught Luke watching her, the fierce gaze almost as disturbing as the tight feeling warming her clammy
skin. And even though she knew she was being insane, she grinned, happy to be alive, in this moment, with him.

‘I've got some bad news, Hal,' he said.

‘What?'

‘We lost a paddle.'

‘That's OK, Captain. You're only going to need one paddle to get us to the marina tomorrow. I am now officially a passenger.'

Lurching up, he levered himself on top of her, his knees planted on either side of her hips, his arms above her head, caging her in. The raw-boned face, so handsome, so familiar, his wet hair, shaggy across his brow, only inches from hers. Close enough to make out the twists of silver in the pale blue of his eyes, and trigger the traitorous pulse of arousal.

‘Who said it was your paddle we lost?' he muttered, his breath tasting of peppermint against her lips.

‘I do.'

His body lowered until his weight pressed into her belly. The delicious pressure made her want to stretch and rub against the hard contours. He lowered to his elbows and framed her face between chilled hands. His gaze glided up to the top of her head, the approval in his eyes not daunted by the bird's nest she probably had doubling for hair.

‘Near-death experiences agree with you.'

She gasped, acknowledging the growing ridge in his pants.

Then his lips settled on hers, firm and seeking, his tongue taking advantage of her shocked gasp to claim her mouth. She sucked on his invading tongue, drawing it in. Sensation exploded, pinching her frigid nipples into swollen buds of need.

She flattened her hands on his chest, his T-shirt cool and damp despite the heat, and let the sensual haze envelop her.

Then she pressed her palms to the solid wall of his chest to shove him back. ‘Stop, Luke. This isn't happening. We're not doing this.'

‘Too late.' His lips nipped hers with sly butterfly kisses.

She braced trembling elbows, shoved harder. ‘No, it's not.'

He dragged out a tortured breath. ‘OK, OK. You're right.' His laboured breathing echoed in her sternum as he searched her face, his eyes glassy with lust. ‘Bloody hell, I can't believe it.'

She clenched her fingers, taking fistfuls of wet T-shirt—barely resisting the urge to pull him in for another round. ‘What can't you believe?'

That the heat's still there after all this time? That we're making out like a couple of horny teenagers, soaking wet on a riverbank in the middle of Nowheresville, North Carolina?

She needed specifics, because right now there were too many unbelievables to pick just one.

He groaned. ‘That I'm supposed to be a grown-up, but right now I'd give my left nut to be able to fuck you again with no repercussions.'

The hot, hazy fog of nostalgia froze as if she'd just done the ice bucket challenge at the North Pole.

‘Get off me.' She slammed her palms against his chest. ‘You prick.'

He climbed off her and she scrambled up. She was soaked and exhausted. She didn't have a spot of make-up on. Her chin felt tender where she'd bumped it on the hull, and her lips and jaw stung from the ferocity of his kiss—but the anger was flowing through her like molten magma, ready to incinerate everything in its path.

‘No repercussions? No fucking repercussions? Excuse me, but what repercussions did
you
ever suffer from?
I'm
the one who ended up having to bring up our child on my own because you got me pregnant at eighteen.'

He got slowly to his feet, looking impossibly sexy even with his shorts covered in sand and wet to the waist, his T-shirt ripped at the neck—the rat. ‘I wasn't talking about getting you pregnant again.'

‘Then what were you talking about? What repercussions?' The word cracked into the air, crass and irrational and selfish.

How dare he talk about repercussions when he'd sailed off to a new life in Paris without having to suffer a single one.

‘I'm sorry, Halle, OK? I'm sorry.' He tried to take her arm, but she yanked it out of his grasp, the tears stinging her eyes making her even madder.

You're over him. Remember.

But she knew however much she tried to tell herself that, it wasn't true. Could never be true, until she knew the truth.

‘I'm sorry,' he said again. As if repetition would make it right. ‘I'm sorry I left without a word. I'm sorry you had to survive in that stinking crap hole without me. That I ran out on you and Lizzie. And I'm sorry that I didn't tell you that a long time ago. And what I'm sorry for most of all is that you still hate me because of it.'

‘I don't hate you.'
I wish I did.
‘And I don't want a bloody apology. What I want—and what I think you owe me—is an explanation.'

He dropped his chin, perched his hands on his hips, and she could almost hear his mind working, trying to find a way to dodge and evade and escape the request again.

‘What's the matter, Luke? Can't you admit it, even now?
That the reason you left us was because you didn't want me to have Lizzie?'