AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Are those rhododendron bushes?’ she asked, incredulous.
Luke paused to observe the flowering scrubs. ‘Yeah. Catawba rhododendrons. They grow wild all over the Appalachians.’ Obviously, he’d done his homework, unlike her.
‘Do you know what those other plants are, the ones with the white and pink flowers?’ she asked, pointing out the other shrubs she’d been unable to identify.
He patted the damp skin of his neck with his bandana. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s mountain laurel, although I’m no expert. We’ll have to ask Bill when he picks us up.’
‘It smells incredible.’ She drew in a breath of the perfumed air. ‘I really didn’t expect to see so many flowers.’
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Luke tied the bandana round his forehead and Halle’s pulse spiked. Apparently, the Smoky Mountain scenery wasn’t the only arresting sight on offer.
‘Yes, it is.’
Luke’s wide shoulders tilted as he let the backpack slide down to drop at his feet. Tucking his hands into his back pockets, he lifted his chin to absorb the sunshine, the quiet moment of contemplation like a benediction. His sun-burnished skin glowed, stretched tight over the high planes of his cheekbones, and she pictured him as a fallen angel haloed by a nimbus of hallowed light.
She blinked away the romantic thought. Luke Best had never been anyone’s idea of an angel. Fallen or otherwise. But the realisation didn’t stop the saliva drying in her mouth when a trickle of sweat skated down the corded sinews of his neck to disappear in the hollow of his clavicle. Her pulse fluttered as response tingled over her skin.
‘How much further to the falls?’ she asked.
Was he really planning to go for a dip in this waterfall? How did she feel about seeing him with less clothes on?
The flutter turned into a punch as her pulse thudded against her neck.
Don’t be ridiculous. What’s there to be nervous about?
He was just a man. And his body had once been such familiar terrain. She’d known every secret nook and cranny. The slopes of muscle and bone, the ridges of tendon and sinew, the sensitive hollows, the ticklish places, all his erogenous zones. She’d known exactly where and how to touch him, to kiss him and caress him, to make him groan and grunt and sometimes even shout with pleasure.
OK, stop right there.
She shook her head to shake off the sensual fog.
But as he knelt to retrieve the trail map from the backpack and then stood to study it, she took the opportunity to study him. And it occurred to her that the once familiar terrain wasn’t as familiar any more.
His body looked much more substantial now, having been wiry to the point of scrawny when he was a young man.
She noted the generous thicket of sun-bleached hair on his shins and how it thinned out above his knees. His forearms were fuzzy with hair, too, while sweaty darker wisps clung to his chest where his collarbone peeked from the V-neck of his T-shirt.
Apparently, Luke had gained quite a lot of body hair in the past sixteen years, too.
She tucked the thought away, dismissing the pleasantly floaty feeling engulfing her as a by-product of tiredness and the emotional exhaustion from her outburst.
He shoved the map into his pack and swung the bag onto his shoulders. ‘Can’t be much more than a mile.’ He nudged his forehead against the short sleeve of his T-shirt, giving her a glimpse of the dark thicket of hair beneath his armpit. ‘Let’s get moving. I can’t wait to get wet.’
She fell into step behind him, too tired to argue.
But it wasn’t until the burble of water cascading over rocks beckoned through the trees that it occurred to her she hadn’t packed a swimsuit. And if she’d forgotten her swimwear, what were the chances Mr Spontaneous had remembered his?
I don’t care how much I need to cool off, skinny-dipping is out.
Cherokee Creek poured over the shelves of lichen-covered rock, tumbling into a deep pool of mossy water, which looked cool and inviting and just what Luke had been praying for. Because the sweat soaking his shirt wasn’t the only heat he had to worry about.
Halle sat on the shallow pebbled beach in between the rocks, prising off her dusty trainers and peeling off her socks.
‘It looks very inviting.’ She swept her hair back to retie her ponytail.
‘Doesn’t it just,’ he agreed, because she didn’t sound entirely sure.
She’d calmed down since that whiplash-inducing slap. Enough for them to have a conversation about something other than whether or not they were lost. Which was all good. Not so good was the low hum that struck his abdomen every time their eyes met.
