Stuck on You (6 page)

“Not the girls. They’ll probably pass us on their way back at this point.”

“No way. It’s only a little further. I bet when we get around that next bend, they’ll still be trying to figure out which way is north and nowhere near the cache.”

They jogged again and sure enough, when they came around the bend in the trail, the girls were up ahead still searching. And it didn’t seem quite like they knew where they were searching. Paige was on one side of the trail with her head down and her foot kicking the soft grasses around, while Zoe peered around a few large rocks. Neither looked at the GPS unit sitting on the trail where they’d abandoned it.

The boys slowed as they came up to the girls. “Let’s stick together and watch the GPS. I bet we can find it first.” Miles held his hand out between them so they could both see the little screen.

“Nice of you to finally join us,” Zoe said from her spot near the boulders alongside the trail. “Took you long enough.”

“Zoe, don’t be so rude.” Paige glared at her from across the path.

“Well, I ran in stilettos. What’s your excuse, boys? Aren’t you at all concerned that two girls beat you in a foot race?” Zoe laughed.

“Considering I only have one foot still attached to my body, I think that’s a pretty good excuse, don’t you?” Ben said, raising his pant leg to show off his prosthetic leg.

Zoe held her ground, barely acknowledging her error in judging Ben too quickly. “I didn’t know. How’d you earn that trophy?”

“I’m not sure I’d call it a trophy.”

“Better than being stuck with a scar,” Zoe mumbled. She sat on the rock and folded her arms across her chest. “Scars are something you regret, but a trophy is something to be proud of because it helped make you who you are. So which is it?”

“Then I guess I earned this trophy with Miles on the side of a mountain. Not that I feel like reliving the incident play-by-play. Let’s just say I climbed up fine, but getting back down wasn’t so easy.”

A silence fell over the two teams while they took in the seriousness of his words. The only sound was the cameramen as they circled the group for better angles. Miles wanted to be pissed at Zoe for bringing up a painful past that he and Ben were working so hard to overcome. But when he went to send her a warning look, her eyes were rimmed in red as she blinked away tears.

Her gaze flickered up to his and for a moment he wanted to go to her. To comfort her. Thank goodness she took that moment to pull her back up straight and put her bitch mask on again, quickly reminding him why it wasn’t worth giving her the time of day.

“So, you girls still looking for the cache box or have you already found it and you’re just having a little siesta out here on the trail?” Miles said, finally breaking the silence.

“We looked, but can’t find it anywhere. I’ve double-checked our coordinates and everything looks right. I don’t know what we did wrong.” Paige walked back on to the trail and peered down at her GPS unit still sitting on the ground. “It says it’s right here. I guess it’s an invisible cache or something because the thing doesn’t exist.”

Miles joined Paige, his shoulder brushing lightly against hers as he compared his screen to hers. His earlier thoughts of her and her chocolate flavored breasts filled his brain again and he instantly forgot what he was doing standing beside her in the first place. Was he supposed to lick her? Because standing so close to her, peering down at her as her chest heaved with the exertion of hiking in this heat, licking her was really the only thing he could think of doing.

She turned her head, peering back at him. His gaze fell past her gorgeous dark eyes, past her soft pink lips, and landed on the patch of ivory skin peeking out of her top — the skin reddened and glistening in the intense summer sun.

She opened her mouth a couple of times, but did little more than lick her lips before closing her mouth again. Finally, on her third attempt to speak — not that he was any better at finding words himself — she managed a simple sentence. “Can I see yours?”

Yes. Yes, you can.

“Your screen,” she squeaked. “Your GPS screen, I meant.”

He smiled. He couldn’t help it. She was too damned sexy. “Of course you can see my GPS screen. What else would you refer to, Paige?” Her name rolled across his tongue like a ripe berry — sweet, fresh, and leaving him wanting more.

She blushed. His smiled widened. He loved causing a reaction in her so easily.

Moving his arm so she could see too, they compared their units. And both looked the same. The cache was here. But who would find it first?

• • •

Paige took one last deep breath, hoping that after she moved away, Miles’s scent would somehow stay with her. He smelled … manly. And yummy.

And the second she’d looked up to see him staring at her cleavage, his scent had hit her. She’d thought her knees might give out right then. They probably would have if she hadn’t made an ass of herself asking if she could see his GPS in a way that made it sound like she’d asked to see his penis.

Not that she wouldn’t like to see his penis. She could imagine that it was just as gorgeous as the rest of him. But they were in the middle of a trail, under a blazing sun, with their teammates and cameramen standing around. Not exactly the time to check out anyone’s goods. Not even Miles’s.

With her lungs full of his aroma, and her belly a pool of molten lava, she stepped away from Miles. “So, um, I guess we should keep looking then, huh?”

“Yep,” Zoe said, springing up from her spot on the rocks. “Well, if you two can stop eye-banging.”

Paige choked, her throat feeling like it had closed.
Eye-banging? Is she implying what I think she’s implying?

“I — ” Paige started.

“Save it for someone stupid. Neither one of you are fooling me.”

“As witty and sharp as ever, aren’t you, Zoe?” Miles asked. His jaw looked more set than it had a moment ago. Apparently Zoe annoyed everyone she came in contact with — that wasn’t a privilege saved for Paige.

“I don’t believe it,” Ben said. He walked in between Paige and Miles and looked up into the tree hanging over the trail. “They are really sneaky.”

Ben reached up and plucked something from the branch, directly above the GPS unit on the ground. Whatever it was, it was tiny. Literally the size of an acorn.

“What is it?” Paige asked, stepping closer to get a better look.

“A nano-cache. I read about these online on the geocaching websites, but I’ve never seen one in real life.”

“That’s what we were trying to find?” Zoe sneered at the acorn as if it had purposefully wronged her.

“Yep. It was exactly where it was supposed to be.” Ben beamed triumphantly.

Zoe held out her hand. “Awesome. I’ll take that now, thanks.”

“The hell you will,” Miles said, stepping in front of her as if Ben needed some kind of protection. “We found it. And if we’re the first ones to open it, the prize inside is ours.”

“Like hell it is,” she fired back. “We were here first. It’s ours.”

Miles laughed then turned his back on her. “Sure, you may have gotten here first but that’s not what the rules say. It’s the team who
finds
the cache that gets the prize.”

Paige moved closer, watching as Ben twisted off the miniature acorn top. He pulled out a tiny piece of paper and unfolded it at least six or seven times before it was large enough to read. The cache number card was easy to spot, but there was another paper with it. A smile grew on Ben’s face.

“Ten thousand dollars.” Ben voice wavered as if he fought back tears. “Each.”

Miles let out a loud cheer and fist pumped the air. “I knew there’d be something great in such a difficult cache.”

“Wow. Congratulations,” Paige said. Seeing how happy they both were, it was hard to be too disappointed that she’d missed out on the money. Sure, she could have used it like anyone else, but somehow, seeing a grown man fight back tears made her think that Ben needed the money more than she did.

“You’re congratulating them?” Zoe sneered. “They took our money and you pat them on the back for it.”

“Hey now. It’s our money. We won it fair and square.” Ben puffed his chest, defending himself. “You may be able to beat us in a foot race, but I’ll beat you in an intelligence test any day.”

His challenge was directed at Zoe for her harsh comments, and Paige couldn’t help but agree. After all the time she’d known Zoe, intellect wouldn’t be the first character trait that came to mind to describe her. Bitchy, yes. Materialistic, yes. Giant high-maintenance pain in the ass? Oh, you betcha.

As Ben and Zoe threw words at each other, Paige held her GPS unit out to Miles. “Can you take a picture of me with the cache card so I can get Zoe out of here?” she asked, sliding her lip balm quickly against her dry lips. A little glistening minty lip balm never hurt a photo op.

He quickly snapped a picture of her holding the number then she snapped one of him, although she wasn’t quite as speedy about it as he was. Seeing him standing there, smiling at her with the same dorky thumbs up she’d done at her first cache — which Zoe had made fun of — made her feel slightly less dorky. If a hunk like Miles could do it, why couldn’t she? Of course, a hunk like Miles could probably do whatever he wanted and still look amazing. That was the difference, wasn’t it?

She took one last glance at his picture on the screen before giving it back, and wished she’d thought to make the mistake of using her GPS instead of his so that she’d have the picture to look at whenever she wanted. Oh well. Maybe she could sneak a picture another time. It wasn’t like they’d been told not to take pictures of the scenery and such along the way. And Miles certainly was good scenery.

Pulling Zoe away from Ben as they continued to shoot insults at each other, they made their way back down the trail toward the car. The only thing that got Zoe to focus on the game again was to remind her there were still other caches to find and arguing with Ben on the trail wasn’t going to help them find them before the other teams.

As Zoe peeled out of the parking lot, Paige glanced back. She couldn’t help but remember the feeling she’d had with Miles standing so close. Or how the smell of him had made her head feel a little woozy.

Not that it mattered anyway. A guy like Miles would never go for a girl like Paige. No. He was more likely to go for a girl like Zoe. Minus the bitchy confrontational part, because really, who would want to put up with that for a lifetime of matrimony?

But no matter how annoyed Miles appeared to get with Zoe, surely not even he could resist her good looks for long — no guy could resist a body like hers, even it was home to a girl with attitude.

If only there was a way for Paige to be herself but have a fraction of Zoe’s feminine style and total confidence. Then maybe a guy like Miles — smart, self-assured, and totally sexy — would give her the chance to show him how awesome she was on the inside too.

Miles and Ben stood by one of the window screens looking out at the lake as the moon glimmered across the calm surface. It would be truly romantic if he weren’t standing with a dude. Now, if he were here with Paige, then it might be a different story.

There was something about that girl that made him lose focus of everything else every time he was near her. It wasn’t just her looks, although they were distracting enough on their own merits. It was something else. Maybe it was the shy embarrassment she seemed so prone to that made her come off as dainty and demure, even though he knew there was a passionate fire burning inside her. Or maybe it was the way she seemed to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, even Zoe who didn’t deserve the benefit of anything from anyone.

Mostly, it was the way she looked at him, a twinkle in her eye that hinted at her innermost thoughts … the thoughts she kept to herself. He couldn’t help but feel that some of those thoughts were directed at him and he was curious to find out exactly what they were.

If only Zoe wasn’t standing in his way just by being Zoe. He had to figure out a way to deal with her so he had a hope of getting to know Paige better.

“You boys ready to start?” their cameraman, Bill, asked from behind them.

“Hell, yes,” Ben said with the same sentiment that Miles felt. The sooner they got the daily wrap-up over with, the better. Already these interviews were getting very tiresome to do at the end of each day when all he wanted to do was relax in the common room.

“Absolutely,” Miles agreed, as he and Ben took seats in front of the camera.

“How did you feel today when you were overtaken on a cache?” Bill asked.

“Wow. Just jumping right in there tonight, aren’t ya? No gentle lead in to the hot topic. That’s kinda cold, man.” The show’s producer came up with some of the most heated questions and they never failed to turn his stomach.

“It’s okay, Miles,” Ben said, not appearing bothered by the question at all. “It totally sucked to get beaten in a foot race against the girls, especially when we had such a big lead on them to begin with. But they’re faster than us. Nothing I can do about it.”

“Does it suck more being out raced by a team of women?”

Miles shook his head and forced his temper to stay at bay. “Should it matter that they’re women? I don’t really think so. Judging someone’s expected performance because of their gender is just about as low as judging them by whether or not they still have all their natural limbs or wear glasses or because of their hair color. Zoe and Paige beat us because they were faster runners.
We
won the cache prize because we were better thinkers today. Well, I wasn’t. But Ben certainly was. He’s the one who found the cache even though the other team got there first.”

“That’s right. I may be slower than the rest because of my leg, but I’m still a big threat to the other teams.”

“Speaking of the prize,” Bill said from behind his camera, “you each won ten thousand dollars today. What are you going to do with the money?”

Miles motioned for Ben to answer first.

“I’m going to stick it in the bank, pay off some stuff that still needs paying off. Nothing too special or fun, but the money is a welcome surprise.”