“Only a couple?” she forced herself to say. “What’re we waiting for?”
One of his black eyebrows lifted into a high arch and he gave her a speculative look that hid as much as it said. But after another moment or two, he simply said, “Keep the dog quiet. Some animals won’t be startled by it barking. They’ll be curious. Maybe hungry.”
She gasped. “You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you? Trying to scare me.”
“You should be scared, Daisy. This isn’t a city park. This is the wilderness and the animals you’ll meet out here aren’t the kind you’re used to seeing on TV or in the movies. They don’t laugh and dance and they don’t like people.”
“I’m not an idiot,” she told him. “I know that wild animals are just that. Wild. I also know I’m a little out of my element—”
He choked out a laugh at that one.
“But,” she continued doggedly, “I’m going to do this.”
He shrugged and walked off with long, lazy strides. “If you’re bound and determined, then get a move on.”
She tamped down the exasperation bubbling inside her and swallowed back a sea of retorts she wanted to hurl at his back. Then she realized that he was getting way too far ahead of her. So Daisy held Nikki a little closer and hurried to catch up to the man who was, at the moment, the very center of her world.
Why wasn’t she making him crazy? Jericho asked himself for at least the tenth time in the past couple of hours. When he was out on the mountain, he liked silence. Sure, some of his clients were incapable of being quiet for very long at a stretch, but Daisy Saxon was in a class all by herself. The woman hadn’t stopped her rambling conversations since they’d left the house.
She talked about the forest, about her former job, her late brother and the boyfriend who had not only left her for her friend, but also had stolen her credit card on the way out the door. That story had just amazed him, though he hadn’t commented. The man had to have been an idiot to walk out on Daisy, in Jericho’s opinion, and she was better off without him.
And when she wasn’t talking about her own life, she was pestering him with questions about his. She talked about the sky, what kind of music she liked best and how she planned to make him that fudge mountain cake of hers as soon as they got back to the lodge.
His ears had been ringing for hours and damned if he hadn’t half enjoyed listening to her. She was interested in everything. Had an opinion on everything as well and wasn’t afraid to voice it.
But in all the ranting, he acknowledged silently, she hadn’t complained once. And that surprised him. It wasn’t often Jericho was surprised by anything. So the fact that Daisy could make him rethink his original opinion of her was astonishing.
The last bunch of clients he’d had out on the mountain included a bank manager, who had prided himself on his rugged individuality, had wept like a baby after a few hours on the trail. He’d bagged the wilderness trip and called it quits as quickly as he could.
Yet Daisy, not a peep.
He knew she was tired. Her steps were less brisk and even her attempts at conversation were beginning to slow to a trickle. But she hadn’t stopped. Hadn’t asked to rest. Hadn’t whined about a damn thing, and Jericho had to admit he admired her for it. She was more than he’d thought. But in the long run, did that mean anything?
She stumbled and, instinctively, he reached out and grabbed her elbow to steady her. Just touching her sent another zing of heat shooting through him, so he let go of her fast and when he spoke he was harsher than he should have been.
“Watch your damn step or you’re going to break a leg or something and I’ll have to hump you out.”
“Hump?”
“Carry,” he explained curtly.
She nodded. “Right. Sorry. I was watching Nikki.”
“Let me watch the damn dog,” he told her in little more than a growl. “You watch where you put your feet.”
“Wow, King Crabby.” She didn’t wait for his response. “You really don’t want me out here, do you?”
“I just think it’s a mistake.”
“Yes, so you’ve told me, but it’s not.” She turned her face up to him and a brilliant smile curved her luscious mouth. “And admit it, I’m doing better than you thought I would. Go ahead,” she urged, “say I’m doing well.”
He blew out a breath. “The fall notwithstanding, yeah, you’ve done all right so far.”
“Thank you! What a nice thing to say.”
He chuckled in spite of himself. She was still smiling and her eyes shone with humor and pleasure in the moment. She had to be exhausted and irritated with his behavior, but damned if she didn’t keep her own spirits up.
“You’re an odd one, aren’t you?”
“Not odd,” she corrected, “just different. For example, when someone else is crabby, I don’t get crabby back. I try not to let their mood affect mine.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, picking up on her not-so-subtle jab. “That was a nice shot. You’ve got good aim.”
“I know,” she said, glancing at her dog to make sure the tiny thing was still in sight. “So how much farther?”
One dark eyebrow winged up. “Tired?”
“Nope.” She lifted her chin and met his gaze. “I could go for hours yet. Just curious.”
“Sure,” he said with a shake of his head. “All right. Listen.”
“To what?”
He sighed. “You have to be quiet to listen.”
“Right.” She snapped her mouth closed and frowned in concentration. After a moment or two her eyes slowly widened. “What is that? It sounds like hundreds of people talking in whispers.”
“It’s the river,” he told her. “Just around that bend there, by the crooked pine. We’ll set up camp there tonight.”
She sighed heavily and he heard the unspoken relief in the sound.
Still, he had to give her points, if only internally. As close to the edge of collapse as she might feel, she wasn’t letting him know it. The woman was running on sheer grit and determination. And that was something Jericho approved of. He even thought that maybe he’d dismissed her too easily, judging her by her looks and her clothes and telling himself that no one that pretty, that dainty, was made of stern enough stuff to make it in his world.
The problem was, he didn’t want to be wrong about her. His life would be much easier if she just failed this little test and took herself back to where she came from.
By the time they made camp, Daisy was clearly exhausted, but worked right through it. She helped him lay out sleeping bags, then watched as Jericho set up a campfire ring. He set large rocks in a small circle, while clearing away any nearby brush that might catch with a stray spark.
When he was finished, he laid a couple more flat-sided rocks inside the ring and built a campfire. Once the flames were going, Daisy took over, surprising him again. She carried the battered tin coffeepot down to the nearby stream, filled it with water and set it on one of the rocks to boil.
“You almost seem to know what you’re doing,” he commented.
“Well, I was a Girl Scout like a hundred years ago,” she said quietly. “I went on a couple of overnight trips and I can still remember watching our troop leader setting up camp.” She flashed him a smile and in the firelight, her features were soft, ethereal and downright beautiful.
Darkness surrounded