“Duty calls.” Cammie Jo said with enough sugar in her voice to choke a honeybee.
“Don’t think this lets you off the hook. Sooner or later you and I are having a long talk.”
“Fine with me.”
“Fine.”
They stared at each other.
“You coming on the hike, then?” He inclined his head.
“Why, of course.”
He stepped aside, gestured with a hand. “Ladies first.”
Haughtily Cammie Jo rose, nose in the air, and started forward. She sailed past him, but then promptly tripped over her boot laces as she descended the bus steps, and sprawled face forward in the dirt.
IT WAS AN HOUR and a half into their three-hour hike through the spongy forest undergrowth and Mack couldn’t stop looking at Camryn. He smiled whenever he recalled how she’d leaped to her feet after falling from the bus and dusted herself off before he could get to her. He’d made a move to help, but she’d glared at him so hard he’d stepped backward, palms up in a gesture of surrender. She was a feisty thing; an odd combination of half regal cutie, half fierce tomcat.
Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt she possessed quality number two on his “wife” list.
He halted the group from time to time to give minilectures on the flora and fauna. During these little breaks, Camryn assiduously avoided looking at him, pretending instead to be wildly enraptured with a skunk cabbage or chipmunks or wild blueberry bushes.
Apparently she didn’t think he noticed when she cut her eyes surreptitiously at him. For his part, he stared at her boldly. He had nothing to be ashamed of.
Except she was a distraction to beat all distractions. Some nerdy middle-aged guy outfitted in the wrong kind of footwear kept asking him silly questions. Like, “Why are the Sitka spruce and the western hemlock the only variety of trees in the Tongass?”
“Because that’s the way it is,” Mack had finally snapped and he heard Camryn snicker. Was she laughing at him or the nerdy guy?
Caleb and his twelve adoring disciples were a quarter mile ahead of them in the forest. Mack brought up the rear in his group to prevent stragglers while Camryn had positioned herself far ahead of the pack, as if to put as much distance between them as possible by infiltrating Caleb’s group.
Mack admired the way Camryn’s trim little butt swayed from side to side in those snug-fitting jeans. He loved watching her hair bounce about her shoulders as she walked and the way her sweater adhered to her breasts.
He recalled the moment when they were alone on the bus together and he’d been trying to intimidate her with his maleness, hoping to wring a confession out of her concerning her strange behavior the night before. Instead of being unnerved as he expected, he could have sworn he saw sparks of unmitigated mischief in her fabulous green eyes.
“Which kind of bone needs picking?” she’d drawled, all spunk and sass.
My bone, he’d thought but hadn’t had the guts to say.
An unwitting image of that cute little butt of hers curving above his cupped palm jettisoned itself into his head and just like that, boom!, he got hard.
Taking a deep breath, Mack paused, put one hand on a tree and struggled to rein himself in.
“Oh!” someone up the trail cried and it sounded an awful lot like Camryn.
Mack’s head came up just in time to see a flash of color as she tumbled down the embankment.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Вы ознакомились с фрагментом книги.
Для бесплатного чтения открыта только часть текста.
Приобретайте полный текст книги у нашего партнера:
Полная версия книги