“Why not?”
“Lady, that’s no answer, but if it’s all right with you, I’d just as soon skip the dialogue and head on back to camp. You wouldn’t believe how dark it can get this far from the nearest streetlight.”
Jasmine was no judge of distance. There was a security light outside the motel, but that would be miles away. Miles and miles and miles. The trouble with long legs was that they covered so much territory, even at a leisurely pace. “If I can get you into your boat, can you do the rest by yourself?”
He gave her that “Duh” look.
“Okay, so maybe I’ll paddle you as far as your camp—and even help you get out, but then I’ll have to get back to the motel. I’m catching a plane to L.A. tomorrow.”
She was catching a plane nowhere, no time soon. That much quickly became obvious. By the time she managed to get him into the boat, they were both practically in tears. He from pain; she from sheer exasperation.
Not to mention the fact that he was about a hundred eighty pounds of solid muscle and bone, and fighting her all the way. Or if not her, fighting the pain.
She’d have sympathized more if he hadn’t cursed under his breath every step of the way. “Relax,” she snapped.
“Lady, if I could relax, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Fine. Then don’t relax. If I had a brain, I wouldn’t be here, either.”
The fighting didn’t stop at the edge of the water. “It’s not a paddle, it’s a damned oar!”
“I know what it is, and stop cursing.”
“Then stop jiggling around and sit down.”
She sat. On the back seat, because he was sprawled out across the front seat, taking up most of the middle space. He was sweating. It wasn’t really cold, even though it was February, but it wasn’t warm, either. Especially not now that the sun was almost out of sight.
Jasmine wished, not for the first time, that she’d worn jeans instead of her white shorts. And a jacket instead of a long-sleeve yellow denim shirt. She was a summer person. She didn’t own clothes suitable for a North Carolina winter.
“Don’t you even know how to row a boat?”
“Of course I know how to row a boat.” She’d seen it done plenty of times in the movies.
“You don’t row from the stern thwart, you row from amidship.”
“I know that.”
“Then move!”
“You’re there. Amidship, I mean.” He was propped up against a seat cushion on the whatsis up front, but his legs stretched out so that his feet were under the middle seat.
“Straddle my damned feet!”
She’d rather straddle his damned neck. With her bare hands.
But she moved, rocking the boat, causing him to gasp so that she was thoroughly ashamed of herself. The man was injured. She didn’t really want to hurt him any worse than he was already hurting, but if anyone deserved a bit of pain, he probably did.
Once settled on the edge of the wooden seat, she eyed him cautiously and reached for the oars. There were no oarlocks, only wooden notches that had been wallowed out until they were all but useless.
The oars stretched almost all the way across the creek. Cypress knees reached out from both sides. Lyon could have told her she’d need to shove from the stern until they cleared the fallen gum. Once past that point, the creek widened out.
He didn’t tell her because the last thing he needed was a clumsy, clueless beanpole dancing around in the stern of his boat. They’d both end up overboard, and he’d sink like a stone.
She muttered enough so that he pinned down her accent. Bible Belt with a faint patina of West Coast, polished by a few diction lessons. He wondered what the devil she was doing here, and then he quit wondering about anything except whether or not he would survive the night.
If he could’ve gotten his hands on all those muscle relaxants he’d quit taking cold turkey, he’d have downed the lot. And then, if he was still capable of unscrewing a cap, he’d have started in on the painkillers.
She shipped the oars as they approached the fallen gum tree. One of them swiveled around and struck him in the shoulder. The other one rolled across his shin.
“Oops. Sorry,” she said. “It’s getting dark. How far is this camp place of yours?”
“About six and three-quarters miles.”
Her mouth fell open. She had a nice mouth, well curved, full lower hp, but not too full. The swelling on her right cheek and eye was probably poison ivy. Even with most of his attention taken up by his own situation, he’d noticed her trying not to scratch. She’d reach up, hesitate, frown at her grimy nails and sigh. He’d have scratched it for her if his back had permitted him to reach out.
“I can’t go that far, I have to get back to the motel.”
“Fine. Pull over to the bank and get out.”
“What about you?”
“What about me? I won’t starve, if that’s what you’re worried about. I had half a can of Vienna sausage for lunch.”
“How will you get home?”
“Not your problem.”
“It is so my problem! I can’t see my way back to the motel in the dark. I’ll take you to your camp and you can lend me a flashlight and point me in the direction of the road, and...”
She gaped at him, her mahogany-colored eyes growing round. Even the one that was swollen half shut. “Did you say six and three-quarter miles?” she whispered.
The boat scraped against a cypress knee, and without even looking, she reached out, grabbed the thing and shoved off. Her survival skills were on a par with her rowing ability.
“Like I said, pull over to the bank and get out. Follow the creek to where you found me and then retrace your steps back to wherever you came from.” If he’d known there was a motel within walking distance, he might have gone even deeper into the swamp.
Company, he didn’t need.
Jasmine was having trouble making out his features. He was facing away from the rapidly fading light. His shoulders looked enormous in the baggy gray sweatshirt. She had a feeling they would look even more impressive without it. A surly man with shoulders the size of a refrigerator she didn’t need.
With a heavy sigh, she retrieved the oars now that the creek had widened out. One of them scraped his hip. He caught his breath, she apologized, and told herself it would make a wonderful travel piece. Lost in the wilderness, surrounded by silence, Spanish moss, cypress knees and a perfectly splendid sunset that was reflected, now that she’d come around a bend, on
