Reconsidering Riley (25 page)

Riley nodded. "You're probably right. You're
getting the hang of things," he told Jayne. "Bruce told me you
navigated him and Mitzi all the way here—"

"With only one tiny detour," Mitzi put
in.

"—and with no help from him at all." He gave
Mitzi a
not now
look. "And you set up your tent much faster
today, too."

Jayne's skeptical gaze collided with his. "I
poked a hole in my air mattress with a bivvy sack."

Riley
still
didn't know how she'd
managed that. He suspected she'd brought along contraband stilettos
inside the soft fabric bag, but confronting her about it now was
pointless.

"Easily fixed," he assured her, "with some
duct tape."

"I dunked my flashlight in the wash-up
pail."

"That's what waterproof casings are
for."

"I screamed when a squirrel came into my
tent."

"They're sometimes fairly ferocious
looking."

"I got lost coming back from a nature
break."

He kept as straight a face as he could. "You
found a little extra privacy, that's all."

"Oh, what's the use?" Jayne flung her hands
in the air. "I'm
terrible
at outdoors stuff!"

Okay. This required further intervention.
With a keep-up-the-good-work nod for Mitzi, Riley moved closer to
Jayne. He sat on his haunches in silence, hands loosely clasped
between his knees. He waited.

"I've
never
been able to get the hang
of 'guy things,'" she complained, going on just as he'd known she
would. "My dad knew it, my brothers knew it, and now...everyone
else knows it, too!"

She buried her face in her palms, shaking
her head. "I want to do
girl
things," Jayne said defiantly.
"I'm
good
at girl things. Really good."

He hated seeing her upset. But in an odd
way, the fact that Jayne was bothered by her difficulties reassured
him. That meant mastering those skills had begun to matter to her.
A little. It was a start...a start to forging a potential love of
the outdoors they could share.

"Camping and hiking aren't 'guy things.'
They're fun things. I promise." He put a hand to her knee. "You
just need more wilderness training."

Jayne's head came up. She regarded him
through suspiciously moist blue eyes. She sniffled. A cautious
hopefulness edged onto her expression.

"Wilderness training?"

Riley nodded. "That's right. With your
wilderness instructor." He pointed at himself, then pitched his
voice to a husky, private timbre. "I know things about...nature...I
can hardly wait to show you."

Comprehension dawned. A small smile curved
her mouth. "I'd like that."

So would he
. "Okay then. Come
on."

They stood together, Jayne wiping her eyes
with her fingers. She followed him to the edge of the evening's
campsite.

"Hey," Mitzi called from behind them. "What
about your boiling water? What about dinner?"

"I'm not hungry," Jayne shouted over her
shoulder, waving to Mitzi. The conspiratorial smile she gave Riley
made his blood run hot. Her gaze never left his as she yelled out,
"I'll have a little something later."

"I've got a
big
something for you
right now," Riley promised in a low voice.

She laughed with delight over his teasing.
Her attention whisked past his chest and lower, in an assessing,
deliberately provocative arc. There was one thing about Jayne—she
could give back as good as she got.

"I'll just
bet
you do," she said. "I
can't wait to see it."

"I can't wait to show you."

Caught up in the connectedness their
bantering engendered, warmed by it, Riley took her hand. Moments
later, they'd entered the privacy of the wooded area far beyond the
camp. Riley shook out the thing he'd tucked beneath his elbow
before leaving.

"My tarp?" she asked, looking puzzled.

"You bet." He spread it over a soft carpet
of fallen leaves, then gestured toward it as anticipation simmered
through him. "Your bug-free haven awaits."

Jayne bit her lip, staring downward.
"But...can't the bugs just crawl on top of the tarp and get me that
way?"

"Not if we work fast," Riley said, and
carried her down.

Jayne giggled as he kissed her, then moaned
as their familiar union deepened. They rolled over. In an instant,
Riley had playfully pinned her arms over her head.

"I guess you caught me," Jayne said,
smirking. "What are you going to do with me now?"

"Make up for lost time," he promised. He
wedged his knee between her parted, track-pant-covered thighs, then
lowered until his chest barely grazed her breasts. Riley looked
deeply into her eyes, overcome with tenderness for the woman lying
so trustingly in his arms. "And make you regret every minute you
won't be spending right here. With me."

She sighed. "Oh, Riley."

"Save your breath," he instructed with a
kiss. "You'll need it for screaming with pleasure later."

And with that he began...making time
irrelevant to both of them.

Later, Jayne trudged dispiritedly back to
the campsite, running her fingers through her bedraggled hair in an
attempt to lose her involuntary "big-haired crazy woman" look.
Recognizing the effort was futile, she gathered the strands in a
fresh ponytail and snapped her covered elastic over it.

She sighed. She should have been lying
blissfully in Riley's arms right now, enjoying the afterglow of
fabulous spontaneous lovemaking. She should have been snuggled
against his blast-furnace heat, complimenting him on a job well
done. She should have been prostrate with satisfaction, unable to
move a muscle except to grin. But
no
. She wasn't. And why
not?

Because she was a girly-girl, that's
why.

Riley hadn't said as much. In fact he'd been
very considerate, very understanding about the sudden mood-wrecking
realization Jayne had had partway through their "wilderness
training." But the truth was, they hadn't come together in the
intimate way they'd both hoped for. And it was all Jayne's fault.
She was disappointed...but it had to be this way.

After all—how could she
possibly
make
love with him, when she hadn't bathed for two whole days now?

During those two days, she'd hiked. She'd
labored to set up tents and blow up injured air mattresses. She'd
even climbed a tree (sort of, to the lowest branch), to try and
discover her navigation error today. She
had
to be stinky,
or at least less than fresh. And although Riley's frequent use of
the pre-moistened towelettes he'd introduced her to seemed to have
left him clean and appealing, Jayne couldn't say she felt as
confident about herself.

Then too, they'd been apart for so long. Was
it a crime to want things to be nice, for their first time in a
long time?

Riley hadn't acted as though it was, even
though Jayne knew he had to have felt as frustrated and
disappointed as she did. Instead, he'd held her hand. He'd talked.
He'd made her laugh with squirrel jokes and moose impressions and
stories of hikes gone comically awry.

He'd cared for her.

And on a practical level, Jayne recalled,
he'd even managed to make good use of their stolen time together.
He'd actually taught her a few facts about wilderness survival.

Sure, she hadn't made whoopee, she told
herself. But now she knew how to tie a wicked square knot.

Disgruntled, Jayne tromped further. The
sounds of the nearby camp grew louder. It was just past sunset now,
and everyone would be gathered around the small rock-encircled
fire. As she passed between two trees, Jayne glimpsed Mack and
Bruce standing a short distance beyond Lance and the
breakup-ees.

The sight of the guides niggled at her. They
could help her with...something...she'd been meaning to do.
Something she'd planned to do, before getting caught up in the
defection of yet another breakup-ee to the Riley Fan Club.

Riley
. That was it! She remembered
her earlier curiosity about the way Riley frequently left everyone
behind, remembered her resolve to discover the reasons behind it.
Who better to explain Riley's tendency toward aloneness, Jayne
thought now, than his long-time friends, Mack and Bruce?

Decisively, she stepped forward. With her
erstwhile clandestine lover still in the forest to give her a head
start, this might be her best chance to dig into his secrets.

"Hey, Mack!" she called. "Bruce!"

They turned at the sound of her voice.
Within moments, she'd caught up to them. Self-consciously, Jayne
checked her fleece for more telltale dried leaves, then addressed
them both.

"I have some questions for you two," she
said. "I'm really hoping you can help me out."

Beneath a stand of aspens that glowed
ghostly white in the light from the campfire a few yards distant,
Jayne leaned her shoulder against a tree. She resisted an urge to
check her hair, and fought back the need to swipe on some lip gloss
before unsightly chapping set in. She'd been trying to act like one
of the guys, in the hope such behavior would relax Mack and Bruce
enough to cut loose some secrets. She'd even tried to spit. The
resulting dribble of drool hadn't been pretty.

"About fifteen years now, I guess," Bruce
was saying in response of her last question—how long each of them
had known Riley. Casually, he reached down and adjusted something
in his pants—something that required a funny hip wiggle and a
wince. "My folks moved next door to his grandparents' when I was
going into high school. Riley usually spent the summers there."

Jayne nodded. She considered scratching her
butt, but couldn't manage such out-and-out fake machismo.

"Almost as long for me," Mack said, his
expression open and Howdy-Doody cheerful. "We wound up working the
same cross-country ski trip nine or ten years ago. We hit it off, I
guess." He shrugged. "We've guided lots of groups together since
then. There's nobody I'd rather hit the trail with."

"Except a Playmate." Bruce gave a
huh-huh
laugh. "Or one of those Victoria's Secret lingerie
models."

"I meant that in a professional sense."

"Hey, so did I. Those girls
are
professionals. Professional hotties! Yowsa!"

Bruce pantomimed burning his fingers. Jayne
shook her head and reminded herself the man meant well. He was just
a little...juvenile when it came to women. In all other ways, he
was a devoted and capable guide. And he knew Riley. Thoroughly.

"So you'd say you both know Riley pretty
well?" she asked.

They nodded. Mack stuck his hands in his
pockets and cast a glance toward the group of travelers around the
campfire. Was she mistaken, or did his gaze linger just a little
bit longingly on Kelly's bespectacled face?

"'Bout as well as anybody, I guess," Bruce
said.

"Yeah," Mack agreed, swerving his attention
back to Jayne.

"What does that mean?"

They hesitated. Finally, Mack spoke again.
"Well, you've seen Riley." He spread his arms wide. "Riley
comes...and he goes. I don't think he has many close ties."

"Not even to his family?"

They gave her blank looks.

"His parents? They're Greenpeace
volunteers?"

"No kidding?" Mack asked.

"Huh." Bruce scratched his head. Then
he
spit.

Jayne pretended he hadn't. "Don't tell me
neither of you know anything about Riley's family."

They shrugged. "He doesn't talk about
himself."

"And you've never
asked
him? Not in
ten, fifteen
years
?"

Mack and Bruce shared a perplexed
glance.

"You call yourself
friends
?" Jayne
prodded.

"Sure."

"'Course."

"The subject hasn't come up in our weekly
knitting circle," Bruce cracked. Mack grinned.

This wasn't going at all as she'd hoped.
Regrouping, Jayne offered up a hopefully masculine-seeming sniff.
She waggled her own hips, but couldn't go so far as a crotch grab.
"What about girlfriends? Surely you guys talk about those."

Bruce frowned. "Did you just jab me in the
ribs?"

She backed off, chagrined. "I meant it in a
camaraderie-building sense." Jayne waggled her eyebrows
encouragingly. "You know, man-to-man talk about the ladies."

Mack shook his head. "Nice men don't drag
the women they care about through the conversational mud." Again,
his gaze drifted to Kelly.

"Come
on
, you guys! Give me the
dirt!"

"Look," Bruce said. "Riley is different.
He's...the one night stand of friendships. He's lots of fun when
he's around, but in the morning, he usually has someplace else to
be."

"Good analogy," Mack said approvingly. "Way
to go."

Bruce beamed. Jayne felt like tearing her
hair out.

"Maybe you two aren't the people I should be
talking to about this."

They disagreed. "Like we said before," Bruce
told her, "we know Riley as well as anyone."

"Maybe better," Mack said. "But he's a hard
man to buddy up to. He's alone most of the time. I think he likes
it that way."

"Yeah. Riley's fun when he's around, but..."
Bruce shrugged, making his meaning plain.
But he's not around
much
.

"Then he doesn't let
anyone
get close
to him?" Jayne asked, frustrated. Riley could return any minute
now, and she didn't have much time.

Bruce concentrated. "Well, there
was
that one girl..."

"The one in..." Mack snapped his fingers.
"San Francisco."

Everything inside Jayne went still.
San
Francisco
. Where she'd met Riley. Where she'd loved Riley.
Where he'd left her, inexplicably, behind.