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He flipped her cap off. ‘He who does the lion’s share of the work, gets to do the bossing about.’
‘Who says? And give me back the cap. It’s the only protection I’ve got.’
‘I say so.’ After dipping the cap into the river, he plopped it back onto her head. ‘There you go.’
Water soaked her hair and splattered onto her nose and face, dribbling into the neck of her T-shirt.
‘I thought you wanted to cool off,’ he said.
She tilted the peak up to glare at him. ‘That’s not what I had in mind.’
‘Effective, though, right?’
She couldn’t deny the lake water felt glorious on her frazzled skin. But she wasn’t ready to be grateful. ‘You look pretty hot yourself.’ And in more ways than one, she thought, her pulse skittering at the dimple in his cheek as he smiled.
He whipped off his own cap and presented it to her. ‘Be my guest.’
Scooping up enough water to fill the cap to the brim, she slapped it onto his sweaty hair and drenched him.
r /> Wiping his eyes, he smiled at her. ‘Cheers. Now let’s go get you fed before you start cannibalising yourself.’
Her stomach rumbled on cue, audible above the gurgle of water, and her accelerated breathing. ‘Actually, I’m more likely to eat you after that stunt.’
The quick grin turned the twinkle of mischief to something potent and provocative before he turned back to steer the kayak towards the pebbled cove ahead of them.
The muscles in her abdomen knotted into a tight ball of need.
Whose idiotic idea was that bloody kiss again?
‘How much further is it?’ There was no biting off the whine this time. Not after five hours and counting of beautiful never-ending Smoky Mountain wilderness.
She was so over this now. Her arms hurt, her fingers had calluses the size of dirigibles, her stomach had begun to cramp from hunger after two energy bars and an apple two hours ago, and even Luke’s flexing shoulder muscles held no appeal whatsoever. She wanted to be back in her house in Notting Hill, preferably with her feet up, on her four-seater Heal’s sofa with a gargantuan glass of chilled Pouilly-Fuissé in her hand. Not crossing the Smokies by canoe.
The going had been slow and sluggish, the river dragging beneath the kayak’s hull like a pool of treacle. She’d happily embrace the danger of some white water now if it would get them moving a bit faster. To their destination. Any worries about sleeping in the same campsite with Luke had been well and truly quashed because nothing short of five well-oiled male strippers dancing naked on the hull was likely to rouse her lust now.
‘Stop asking me that. You sound like Lizzie when she was three.’ Luke’s cranky reply proved what Halle had suspected for several hours. He wasn’t enjoying this excursion any more than she was. He was just better at hiding his discomfort. As he’d always been.
‘I never made Lizzie kayak until her arms dropped off when she was three.’
‘I wish your tongue would drop off.’
‘Tough. My tongue’s the only thing that still moves without pain.’
‘Believe me, I know that.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘Can you see a fork in the river ahead of us?’ Luke replied. Doing that annoying thing he had perfected in his teens when he didn’t want to answer a question, of simply asking another one.
Halle leaned to the side to peer past his broad back. The kayak swayed but didn’t tilt. At least she was now confident that nothing short of Godzilla would be able to tip this bloody hunk of fibreglass over. ‘No, all I see is more trees.’
‘And that’s exactly what I see. Which means the campsite’s probably a ways yet.’
‘I feel like I’m paddling through molasses, though.’
‘Yeah, well, I feel like I’m paddling through molasses with an annoying little bird on my shoulder trying to peck my ear off. So count yourself lucky.’
‘If she had the strength, this annoying little bird would clout you around said ear with said paddle.’
