Jensen Grant sits on a flat rock about fifteen feet from the tent, long legs stretched out in front of him as he holds a steaming and speckled camp mug in his big hands. He looks so annoyingly at home occupying center stage in my wilderness bucket list challenge that, for a second, I wonder if this is a cruel and unusual hallucination.
“I have to be dreaming,” I mutter.
“Then your dreams are G-rated compared to the ones I have about you.” He takes a slow sip from the mug, his patented smirk already doing its smirky thing. “I guess I shouldn’t mention that.” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck while I stare at him, mouth agape, brain still struggling to come back online. “Forget I said anything. I’m here strictly as your friend.”
“You arenotmy friend.”
I scramble out of the tent, or try to. But one foot catches in the mesh, and I nearly face-plant into the dirt, recovering with all the grace of a drunk Labrador. But I manage to hold onto the bearspray and knife, one in each hand. My odds of effectively using them have just tripled.
“We have a couple of days on the trail to remedy that.” He picks up a metal French press from the ground next to his feet. “Can I offer you a cup?”
Okay, so maybe a solo backpacking trip wasn’t my smartest move. You’ve heard the debate about whether it’s more dangerous for a woman to meet a strange man or a bear in the woods, right? Unfortunately, the way my heart is flinging itself against my ribs has nothing to do with a fear of wild creatures or creepy strangers and everything to do with how the morning light hits the silver threaded through the dark hair around his temples.
This is not the country-music-cool Jensen I met in Nashville or the slightly tamer version who walked into my bookstore. This morning, he’s all mountain-man, wearing mocha-colored trail pants and a long-sleeve moisture-wicking shirt in the same smoke-gray as his eyes with a lightweight puffer unzipped over it. The scruff that rasped against my throat in a Nashville hotel room is already thicker than it was two days ago. And those stupid, beautiful gray eyes are translucent against the green and brown of the forest behind him.
Welp, I’m going to kill my friends.
I’ll hike out of the wilderness, fly commercial to Colorado—because I refuse to borrow my brother’s plane in case he was in on this—and murder every member of the Cool Girls Book Club. Starting with Avah, because I guarantee she’s the instigator. Did none of them believe I could handle this trip on my own?
“Where’s your tent?” I ask. It’s a far cry from what I want to know. Like how he found me, who told him, and if his eyes were that shade of silver those two mornings I woke up with his arms around me or is this a new thing. But a girl has to start somewhere “I didn’t hear you make camp last night.”
“You’re a heavy sleeper. I remember.” His smile widens a fraction, so cue the blushing and tingling at his steel-trap memory. “But I’m still surprised I didn’t wake you. I got here around midnight.” He hitches a hand over his shoulder toward a sleeping bag and tarp staked under a tree. “I’m cowboy camping. I knew I needed to haul ass to catch up with you, so I didn’t bother with the weight of a tent.”
My jaw goes slack once again, even as my stomach does loop-de-loops at the idea of him hauling ass after me. “You can’t cowboy camp in the Montana wilderness.”
He shrugs, entirely unbothered. “I just did.”
“There are bears and wolves and mountain lions and shit.” I throw my arms out as if a predator parade is about to start. “Plus it gets cold here at night.”
“Trust me, I know.” The smile falters a fraction. “It’s a change from how we camped under the stars in the Smoky Mountains. But I wasn’t going to waste time shopping for or get slowed down by carrying a heavier pack.” He stands up but doesn’t move closer. Not yet anyway. “I wanted to find you.”
Those five words come out slow and move across my skin like a caress.
I wanted to find you.
Oh, hell. I’m in so much trouble.
I turn and duck back into the tent. I need a second to fix my face, which I can feel betraying me in a way my friends would say proves they did the right thing. My brain needs to kick into gear and stop letting my body run the damn show.
I jam my feet into the Birkenstocks I added to my pack at the last second as a camp alternative to my hiking boots. Birth control shoes, Avah calls them, and maybe that’s what this situation requires: built-in contraception in footwear form.
I’m furious that my friends sent him. Insulted at the implication that I needed sending-after. Unfortunately, I also cannot deny how good he looks. At least in the privacy of my own head.
I grab the satellite phone, and when I scoot out again, Jensen’smoved closer and is holding up a mug of coffee. I pluck it from his hand, careful that we don’t touch, and hate myself for being so weak.
Because…well…coffee.
“I need to make a call,” I say, doing my best to sound unaffected by him and the miles of forest surrounding us. Mostly, I try to ignore the fact that my pulse is currently prepping for an Irish dance competition.
“I’ll be here when you’re done.”
“How lovely for me,” I mutter, then stalk off through the trees, sat phone in one hand, coffee in the other.
The Birks crunch on pine needles and twigs, but I keep moving until I’m maybe a hundred yards away from camp. Far enough that he won’t be able to hear me if I don’t shout. A tall order with how I’m feeling at the moment.
I take a drink of coffee, and…damn him,it’s really good.
I pull up Jeremy’s number on the sat phone. Avah picks up on the second ring, entirely too cheerful. Like she knows exactly why I’m calling.
