She nodded.
“Why?” He had a terrible thought. “Did you think I might hurt you?”
“No. I’m used to taking care of myself. I have bear spray and I know karate.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” It was the way he’d imagined she would be, resourceful and ready for anything. Very attractive traits. “But it doesn’t explain why you were hiding.”
She gestured to her herself and laughed. “Because I’m a hot mess!”
“You are?” He stared at her in confusion, unable to figure out what she meant.
“Okay, now you’re just being nice, and I appreciate it, but I’ve been out here for a week. I’ve slept in a tent, washed up in the stream and put on clothes that were stuffed in a backpack. And then there’s my hair.”
“Okay, your hair might be sort of supercasual.” He reached over, pulled a twig out of her ponytail and dropped it to the ground. “But the rest of you is just fine.” He didn’t know her well enough to tell her she looked sexy as hell. Her rumpled, accessible presentation worked for him way better than a slinky outfit. He related to someone who could survive without modern conveniences.
“Supercasual.” She chuckled. “That’s a great euphemism for trashed.”
“I’ve seen celebrities whose hair looked way worse than yours, and it was fixed like that on purpose.”
“What a gentlemanly thing to say.” She pointed through the trees. “Right over there is a nice sandy spot. It’s where I go in.”
“Perfect.” When he reached the bank of the creek, he let Smudge, the Last Chance gelding he usually rode, have a drink.
She came to stand beside him. “You’re right, Luke. I overreacted to the idea of having company.”
“I’m surprised you’d be so embarrassed.” He finished watering the horse, backed him up and dropped the reins to ground-tie him. Then he turned toward Naomi. “Like I said, you look fine to me.”
“I wouldn’t have been embarrassed if Emmett had come out, or Jack. But I’d never met you.” She shrugged. “I guess the vanity thing kicked in.”
He gazed at her. “How did you know I wasn’t Emmett or Jack?” Then he realized she must have binoculars. “Oh. You were spying on me.”
Her blush deepened, giving her away.
Gradually he began to understand the issue. She’d used her binoculars to identify the person riding toward her lookout spot, which was natural. But when she’d discovered he was a stranger, she’d worried about making a bad impression. That was flattering.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he said, “I wore my best hat out here on purpose. I wanted to make a good impression on you.”
“You did? Why?”
“Well…” He started unsnapping his sticky shirt, starting with the cuffs on his sleeves. “I’ve been hearing a lot about you.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, that you were this cute blonde who’d just moved back home after doing wildlife research for the state of Florida. They said you wrestled alligators and captured pythons and such.” He unfastened the snaps running down the front of his shirt and pulled the tail out of his jeans. He felt her gaze on him. Well, that was okay. He wasn’t ashamed of his body.
She seemed to get a kick out of the talk about her, though. “You’ll have to forgive people for exaggerating,” she said with a smile. “I didn’t wrestle alligators. Sometimes I had to snare them and move them away from populated areas. But I never dealt with a python by myself.”
“Even so, here you are out in the wilderness studying a nest of eagles. In my book, that makes you unusual.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not that exciting.”
“I’m not disappointed at all. I’d have been disappointed to come out here and find you using a battery-powered hair dryer and painting your nails.” If she was paying attention, she’d figure out he was attracted to her outdoor lifestyle.
“Thank you. I appreciate your saying that.”
“On the other hand, I’m sure I failed to make a good impression on you, swearing and carrying on like I did. Sorry about that.” He stripped off his shirt and wadded it up in preparation for dunking it in the water.
“No need to be sorry. I would’ve reacted the same way if I’d been showered with sticky green stuff.”
Something in her voice made him pause and glance at her. To his delight, she was looking at him with a definite gleam in her eye. When he caught her at it, she blushed and turned away.
All righty, then. It appeared that taking off his shirt had been a very good idea.
IF NAOMI HAD realized that spilling her energy drink would make Luke take off his shirt, she would have done it on purpose. Pecs and abs like his belonged in a calendar. And unlike the shaved versions featured in muscle-building magazines, Luke had manly chest hair that highlighted his flat nipples and traced a path to the metal edge of his belt buckle.
But he’d caught her looking. He hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact, she’d spotted a flicker of amusement in his eyes, which were, thank you, God, velvet brown.
“I’ll go rinse this out.”
“Good idea.” Now, there was an idiotic response. Rinsing out his shirt wasn’t merely a good idea. It was the whole idea, the reason they’d walked to the stream in the first place.
She watched him kneel on the embankment and dunk his shirt in the water. The stream wasn’t large, no more than fifteen feet across at its widest point, but it ran deep enough in spots for fish to thrive, which was why the eagles were nesting here.
But she wasn’t thinking about eagles now. Instead she gazed at the broad, muscled back of Luke Griffin and wondered what it would be like to feel those muscles move under her palms. Having such thoughts about a virtual stranger wasn’t like her.
Except he didn’t feel like a stranger. He’d come out here because of an interest in the eagles and curiosity about the woman studying them. Instead of being turned off by her rumpled appearance, he seemed to prefer it. That made him the sort of man she’d like to get to know.
At first he’d been understandably upset about getting doused with the energy drink, but apparently he was a good-natured sort of guy who rolled with the punches. Anyone would think he’d had to wash out his clothes in a stream numerous times from the efficiency with which he swirled the shirt in the water and wrung it out.
Then he set it on a nearby rock. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a blue bandanna and plunged it into the water before rubbing his face, chest and shoulders with it.
Naomi felt like a voyeur standing there while he washed up. She could offer to help, but she wasn’t sure that was appropriate, either. What could she do, wash his back?
At last he stood, his dripping shirt in one hand and his soaked bandanna in the other. “I’m considering whether I should put my hat in the water or not.”
“I can’t advise you.” Wow, he was beautiful. She had a tough time remembering her name while he faced her, his chest glistening with droplets of water. Evaluating the best procedure for cleaning his hat was beyond her mental capabilities at the moment.
“I’m doing it. It can’t get any worse.” He walked toward her with the shirt and the bandanna.