Reconsidering Riley (23 page)

"I can accept that." With a smile, he
slipped his hand to her cheek, loving the softness of her skin
against his palm. He'd missed touching her. "Only what you want,"
he promised. "
Everything
you want."

Jayne tilted her head and closed her eyes
briefly, as though enjoying the feel of his hand cradling her. When
she looked up at him again, her gaze was decisive.

"Right now, I want you to kiss me," she
murmured. "Again and again and aga—"

He did, cutting off her words with a kiss as
tender and fierce as he could make it. As their lips came together,
as their bodies reunited in a way their hearts had yet to retry,
Riley couldn't shake the sensation there was something he'd
forgotten in all this...something important.

Something like...he was still in love with
Jayne.

Oh, hell
, he thought, and lost
himself in their kiss with unmatched fervor.
One or both of them
was crazy to be doing this. And it was probably him
.

Chapter Fourteen

Alexis tromped through the lightly forested
area beyond the fishing hole, looking for Jayne and Uncle Riley—and
determinedly avoiding Lance, who'd volunteered to help her.
Although he was a high school freshman and therefore an
automatically desirable older man, she refused to be tempted into
something that would only end in Cinnabon disaster. After all, she
was older herself now. And wiser.

Next time, she'd follow Jayne's advice from
the Heartbreak 101 book. She'd evaluate her options, make an
informed decision, and engage her heart only when she was sure.

Confident that she'd made terrific progress
in getting over Brendan already, Alexis ducked beneath a pine
bough. She straightened, scanning the landscape. "Uncle Riley?
Jayne? Oh, there you are, Jayne."

She smiled as the author emerged from behind
a clump of baby oak trees, wearing hiking clothes and a curiously
dreamy expression. Alexis waited as Jayne picked her way past
pinecones and over fallen logs, calling a greeting as she came.

"Where's Uncle Riley?"

"I, uh—" Jayne glanced backward, then
quickly faced front again. She shrugged. "I guess he beat me back
to camp. We were...having a wilderness survival tutorial."

"Ugh. When we did that, Uncle Riley made me
eat moss."

"I didn't have to eat moss," Jayne assured
her, an odd smile quirking her lips. She hugged herself.

"Good. Well, anyway, Mack sent me to look
for you." Alexis admired the way Jayne had managed to coordinate
and accessorize her outdoors wear, and vowed to do the same. "He
says you'd better come start your next workshop, before the women
start throwing fish guts at Bruce."

Jayne made a face. "That bad, huh?"

"He volunteered to teach nude rock climbing
if you weren't back within half an hour. With all the appropriate
harnesses."

Jayne shuddered. They both laughed.

"In that case," she said, "I'd better hurry
up."

She caught up to Alexis, then passed her
while cheerfully gesturing for Alexis to follow.

Ten yards out, Jayne stopped. "I'm already
lost. I think I have a mental block about the wilderness."

"This way." Alexis offered to take the lead,
having memorized much of this area during previous hikes. Doing so,
she came closer. Peered at something caught in Jayne's ponytail.
Plucked it out. "You have something in your hair."

She held it toward Jayne.

"A leaf." Jayne gave a nervous laugh,
snatching the crispy dried leaf from Alexis's fingers. "Wonder how
that got there?"

"Some bark, too." She removed a slender,
piney scrap.

Jayne grabbed it. With another awkward
chuckle, she tossed it over her shoulder, then brushed her hands
clean. "Ha! I guess I ought to leave some of the woods in the
woods, huh? Let's go."

Suspiciously, Alexis squinted as Jayne
passed by. The last time she'd seen so many leaves and bark in a
person's hair, her mom and dad had been trying out techniques from
their Making Whoopie In The Wilderness book. In the backyard. In a
tent. In the backyard. It had been totally gross.

But this time...hmmm.

Alexis hurried to catch up. She turned Jayne
in the correct direction, then moved on. "I've been wondering...did
I ever mention the way Uncle Riley looks at you?"

"Me?" Jayne stopped dead. "Riley looks at
me?"

"All the time. In this really love struck
way. He talks about you, too."

"Really?"

Alexis nodded. Jayne was already hooked. She
could tell. And Uncle Riley had been a slam dunk yesterday. Sheesh,
this stuff was easy. Alexis realized she had major potential as a
matchmaker. She could set up shop in the school cafeteria, start
taking applications after spring break, maybe even charge a fee.
Why not?

Alexis smiled. "You bet. And you won't
believe what he told me yesterday...."

Riley was in love with her.

Jayne still couldn't believe it. She
conducted one more anti-heartbreak workshop (shiatsu trigger
banishment). She ate fresh fried fish for lunch (shamefully
delicious). She even hiked another several miles into the canyon
(gorgeous, truly). But even after all that, Jayne marveled over
what she'd learned.

Of course, Alexis hadn't come right out and
said it. She hadn't said, Uncle Riley's in love with you. But she
might as well have. The things she'd described...well, obviously
love was the most reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the
behavior Alexis had detailed with teenaged enthusiasm.

Immense satisfaction filled her. Jayne knew
she'd been right about Riley. There were still feelings between
them.

And it wasn't just her.

Giddy with the knowledge, Jayne trouped
after Bruce and Carla. Her feet no longer hurt, her legs no longer
ached. Her heart was light, and her steps were, too. Riley's
kiss-ambush earlier made twice as much sense now. So did his
amazing invitation. The words he'd used would linger in her memory
forever, she was sure.

I'm talking about finishing what we started,
all those months ago.

Okay, so she'd caved in the face of his
sincerity. She'd relented when he'd kissed her and kissed her
and...she'd relented. Period. She'd made the decision to take Riley
up on his offer, but looking back on it now, Jayne felt fine with
that.

She had her anti-heartbreak techniques. She
had almost two years' worth of separation from Riley, two years'
worth of personal growth and confidence. Her heart was safe. She
could pick up where they'd left off, enjoy herself, and move on.
She could date like a man.

Date like a man. Hey! That could be a
fabulous follow-up book, after her Heartbreak 101 hands-on workbook
was published. Date Like A Man: Dazzle Like A Woman. It could work.
She had to get a proposal to her editor right away.

Newly excited, about both her personal life
and her professional life, Jayne bounded over a fallen log. She
kept her eyes on Bruce and Carla up ahead, but her thoughts raced
onward. So long as her clandestine reunions with Riley weren't
discovered by her breakup-ees...

The possibility gave her pause. It made her
remember something that had been pushed aside by the surprise of
Riley's suggestion and the heat of his kiss. Something
important.

Something like...oh, yeah. She was still in
love with him.

Oh, boy, Jayne thought. She picked up the
pace, as though she could outrun her doubts along with her
outdoorsy inexperience. It was no use, though. This put their
rekindled romance in a whole new light. A crazy light.

One or both of them had to be nuts to try
this again, to finish what they'd started. It was probably her.

When Jayne reached the rendezvous point to
conduct her next workshop, Mack's group wasn't there yet...but
Riley's was. She didn't know how he'd managed to outmatch drill
sergeant Bruce's punishing pace, but he had. While Bruce vanished
to "hang a leak" and Carla shook her head at him in disgust, Jayne
held back to catch her breath. To her right rose the forest they'd
been hiking through. To her left soared a magnificent red rock
cliff. And in front of her lay the space allotted for her upcoming
anti-heartbreak workshop.

Doris, Donna, and Lance worked
good-naturedly to set up the temporary camp they would inhabit for
the next hour or so. Riley worked too, hauling fallen logs for
seating amid the forested area's less-rocky terrain. He would drag
the logs back to their original locations when they'd finished with
them, Jayne knew, having watched him follow the backpacker's "leave
no trace" dictum several times on this trip already.

His outdoorsman's conscientiousness was
something she admired about Riley. His outdoorsman's strength, she
considered now, was another. He'd removed his fleece to work in his
close-fitting crew neck shirt, and the sight of all those chiseled
muscles in action was breathtaking.

Riley moved with natural grace, with
purposeful motions and innate male agility. His forearms flexed as
he sought purchase on a thick-barked fallen pine log. His bicepss
strained as he freed the log, then began dragging its six-foot
length to join the others he'd moved into the clearing just beyond
Jayne's vantage point.

Riley sighted another, final log and
matter-of-factly pulled it, too. He seemed unfazed by the
thigh-high rounded length of wood, unbothered by the exertion
required to move its undoubtedly considerable weight. Watching him,
a tiny thrill passed through Jayne...which was ridiculous, really.
She'd never been much for the he-man type, had never been overly
impressed by machismo. But this...this was different.

It wasn't as though Riley were doing
something particularly meaningful—say, building a shelter for them.
But Jayne had the sense he could have, if he'd needed to. He could
have cared for them all, expertly and indefinitely. Despite the
dangers he posed to her heart, with Riley she felt safe. Protected.
As alien as the feeling was, she enjoyed it.

Doris and Donna approached him. "We're
finished," the first sister said. "And I wanted to tell you again,
Riley, how grateful we are to you. If you hadn't showed us how to
pad our feet with that moleskin, Donna and I would have been
crippled with blisters by now."

"Nonsense, Doris. What really did the trick
were those telescoping walking sticks Riley lent us."

"My feet hurt more than your stupid
knees."

"My knees are worse than your big ole' feet
any day."

"Crybaby."

"Big Foot!"

Doris opened her mouth to rebut. Riley's
raised palms and gruff expression stopped her. "You're both
welcome."

They quit bickering, turning to him with
identical worshipful grins. Riley was oblivious. He began slapping
away the worst of the dirt and spider webs from the logs he'd
arranged. It was a concession to cleanliness, Jayne knew, designed
partly with her in mind. She'd been ridiculously grateful when he'd
initiated it, despite his jokes about her "princess-y
posterior."

Riley glanced over his shoulder at Doris and
Donna. "You two need more work to do?"

"Oh, no."

"We've got plenty."

The sisters hurried away, not noticing Jayne
watching, open-mouthed, from the edge of the campsite. "...really
is so sweet," drifted past, "and quite a hunk. If I were fifteen
years younger..."

Jayne couldn't believe it. He'd conquered
Doris and Donna, too! First Kelly, now the squabbling sisters.
Jayne's he-done-me-wrong allies were melting like cherry SnoKones
in a puddle of sunlight. Was there no end to the magic Riley Davis
could work?

He glanced up and saw her standing there. A
glad-to-see-you smile broke over his handsome, square-jawed face.
"Jayne! I was hoping you'd get here soon."

Girlish delight filled her. Nope, there was
no end to the magic. Jayne spread her arms. "Yup, here I am."

"Good. Because Lance needs help sharpening
the sticks for toasting marshmallows with. He's over in that stand
of trees."

He tossed her the damned Swiss Army knife
again. She couldn't catch it, and it landed with a thud at her
feet. Memories of her brothers laughing as she missed Frisbee toss
after Frisbee toss ("The dog catches better than you do!")
assaulted her as Jayne looked at the knife taunting her from the
ground.

Indignantly, she bent over and snatched it
from the dried needles underfoot. "Fine. Stick sharpening? I can do
that. Anything else?"

"Nope. Thanks."

Jayne turned. Riley's voice followed
her:

"You'll need the big blade."

She glanced at the knife in her fist. "I
knew that."

"It folds out. And don't cut off your
finger. I don't have any spares." He paused. "Spare fingers, that
is."

"Har, har."

"They need to be big sticks," he warned.
"Long ones."

Jayne envisioned bashing a certain bossy
trail guide over the head with a big, long stick. "Of course," she
said.

Then, raising her head high, she stalked off
to show know-it-all Riley exactly what she could accomplish when
motivated.

Shaking his head, Riley watched the feminine
swish of Jayne's hips as she huffed off in her baby blue ensemble.
He felt a little guilty for sending her to do something she was
undoubtedly ill-equipped to do, so he decided to throw out a peace
offering.

"Lance has probably finished most of them by
now. There won't be much for you to do."

"Don't worry about me."

"Be careful not to slice off Lance's finger,
either."

"Bite me. I can do it."

Her cocky swagger carried her all the way
into the woods and out of his vision. Riley laughed. He'd almost
forgotten how bawdy Jayne could be when ruffled. Beneath her
high-heels and lipstick exterior beat the heart of a bona fide
wanna-be tough girl.