Just like Jo’s mother, who had believed she only had her looks to count on, Kayla was probably just as insecure. Even though Jo should have hated the curvaceous beauty, she just couldn’t. There was too much about Kayla that was familiar.
“Officer on deck!” Hazel joked, stepping into their cabin. “Sorry to break up the gabfest, girls, but it’s time for your work assignments.”
“Work?” Kayla said. “I thought this was a vacation!”
Hazel cast a dubious glance at the redundant creams, lotions, toners, mask potions and other cosmetics crowding Kayla’s shelf. “If we want halfway decent meals, it’ll be a team effort,” she replied. “Kayla, it’s your job to gather firewood and kindling each day. Bonnie and Jo, you’ll take turns hauling water.
“This is going to be an interesting ten days, ladies,” Hazel predicted, adding, “One of you had better get water now. Dottie’s starting supper.”
Jo couldn’t help wondering what Hazel was up to, for there was definitely some secret purpose behind her manner, her sly glances.
But the serene beauty of the Bitterroot country soon scattered her thoughts as she descended a looping path, the only sound the natural chorus of insects.
There were more trees as she descended, aspens not yet blooming gold, and narrow silver spruces. She reached the stone footbridge Hazel had mentioned; it arched over a narrow but deep-cut, bubbling stream.
It was peaceful on the bridge, beauty surrounding her on all sides, and she paused to enjoy the moment. Long, narrow shafts of sunlight poked through the overhead canopy of leaves, making silvery flashes of the minnows below in the creek.
A swarm of mosquitoes assailed her, and she suddenly remembered that her long hair, which because of the windy car ride she’d pulled into a ponytail and tucked into her blouse, was useless as protection.
Absently, Jo set the water container down and undid the two top buttons of her blouse. With graceful, languid movements, she reached behind her collar and pulled out her hair.
A masculine voice startled her. “Going skinny-dipping?”
She flinched, turning to confront the handsome smoke jumper who’d shown up with Kayla. Nick Kramer, that was his name. She remembered how his quick gaze seemed to take in every detail—the way a gyrfalcon studies a meadow looking for a little gray mouse.
She had to shade her eyes from the sun behind him. What with the sun blindness and the fact that his dark silhouette seemed to tower over her, she took an instinctive step back.
When his own gaze dropped south and lingered there appreciatively, she glanced down and felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. With two buttons undone, her blouse was wide open and gave him a good view of her bra and bare flesh.
“Can I help you?” she asked defensively, fingers fumbling to button her blouse.
“Me?” He almost seemed to laugh. “Usually I’m the one doing the helping.”
“I asked if you needed some help. I did not say help yourself,” she snapped.
“Evidently I should, judging from what I’ve just seen.”
She felt the betraying flush all the way to her collarbone.
The corner of his mouth tugged. “Let me guess—you’re a closet nudist? Hey, don’t let me interfere with your free expression of—”
“I was not undressing,” she flung at him.
“I’m sorry, then.” His words were strangely quiet and wistful.
He was well over six feet and she had to look way up to meet his gaze. Being a townie and an academic, she usually only worried about intellectual might, but now, alone in the woods with a man who was strong enough and big enough to take without asking, she suddenly became acutely aware of her physical vulnerability. She took another wary step back from him.
He only flashed that self-assured grin of his. “I’m not following you, so forget the paranoia. I’ve got the same job you have.”
He held up at least a half-dozen plastic canteens, all strung on a length of cord.
Seeing the canteens brought her back to reality. He wasn’t some woman-hungry medieval maurader. It was the twenty-first century, and he would prove no threat at all if she just stayed uninvolved.
Reminded of her own task, she smiled her relief and picked up the water container next to her.
“After you,” he said, holding out his hand.
She smiled again, the smile she used for students who irritated her, and headed toward a hand pump just past the bridge.
“Hey,” he called from behind her. “Hazel introduced you as Jo. Is it just Jo—or something else?”
“Why does it matter?” she replied, her tone casual, her heart still beating as if she’d run a mile.
She didn’t want to have a conversation with the man. After Ned, she was sworn off men, and her only reason for coming on this trip was to get away from the loneliness he’d left her with. Now here she was, in the wilderness, feeling like the only female on ladies’ night at the Bullnose Barroom.
“It’s Joanna, but you can call me anything you like, since I doubt we’ll be seeing each other much,” she answered breezily. “Believe me, you’re here to put out fires, and I am definitely planning on avoiding fires.”
She pushed down on the rusty hand pump. Putting all her weight into it, she still couldn’t get it to move. It finally released with a bang, and she nearly fell over. Next she had trouble getting pressure built up in the thing; all she could get out of it was a series of gurgling, choking noises.
“Here, let me help you.”
He gave the handle a few fast pumps, and clear water came gushing out.
“Let there be water,” he quipped.
“Thanks,” she muttered, nervous at the way he seemed to be crowding her. “I can manage it now.”
But in fact it was difficult, once the container started to fill, to keep it up under the spout. It weighed a ton.
“Let me hold it for you,” he offered.
Her instincts gone awry, she snatched the container from him when he tried to take it. Water splashed across her blouse, plastering the thin fabric to her skin.
“It’s heavy, I just—”
“I—I can manage,” she repeated, her mouth firming in a frown. “Don’t you have a forest somewhere to save?”
She hadn’t meant to be so cutting. But he exhibited all the signs of a fast mover, and no doubt with his good looks he had a woman in every national park.
But not her.
She had no desire to join that convenient, far-flung sisterhood of harem partners.
“All right, suit yourself.” He stood back, still towering over her. “But you’re sure wasting a helluva lot of good water.”
She really was, too, for she was forced to let the container go lower and lower as it got too heavy, until most of the water was splashing onto the ground or onto her chest.
He just stood there waiting his turn, and she sent quick peeks his way, unsure if that odd contortion of his mouth was meant as a smile or a goad. The silence between them became painful, then excruciating.
She felt remorse for snapping at him.
“Well…thanks for your help,” she said, giving him a light, uninvolved smile.
She’d meant to be polite, but her wooden gratitude rang a false note, and he seemed to detect it. She was halfway across the bridge,