Mystic Cowboy(24)

But she’d have to find him soon. Of course he’d be near water. But he wasn’t stupid enough to drink it, was he? Well, if he was, that wasn’t her problem. Not until he got dysentery. Then maybe she’d care.

She broke through some scrawny trees and discovered herself on the bank of a decently wide river. I’ll be damned. She blinked several times, just to be sure she was really seeing it. The sand is white.

Just ahead was a long, sloping hill, so low that it was maybe only seven feet tall. The front of the hill had been shorn off by hundreds of years of water running over this very spot. The top of the hill was covered by more of the scrawny trees, but they looked less anemic up there than they did down here. And there, right in middle, was a tent.

He really did live in a tent. It wasn’t just a load of bull. He was for real.

Real like the small fire crackling in a pit at the bottom of the hill, less than five feet from the river. Real like the pot hanging over it, bubbling with what smelled like stew. Blankets were spread out on either side of the fire. Looked like he was expecting company.

Excellent. She was intruding. If she had parked close, she’d bail. This was not a good idea, much less a great one. What had she thought she’d accomplish by barging in on him? He had plans, and God only knew what a man like Rebel considered plans.

But the water was gurgling on its merry way past the campsite, just begging her to kick off her shoes and come on in. She turned to look at the river. She’d come so far...maybe for only a minute. Then she’d see if she could find something to drink that didn’t look like it was crawling with microbes, and it would be time to go. She spun around, looking for a place where she could sit down and wrench her boots off.

And found herself face to chest with a dripping wet, shirtless Rebel. Well, almost face to chest. He was still a good six feet away from her, just finishing knotting a towel around his waist.

His bare waist. She could see the oblique muscles, cut from solid rock, just above his hips. And it wasn’t a hell of a big towel. There was no way he had on anything else but one dinky little towel and a whole lot of muscles.

She was staring when it hit her. Holy hell, what am I doing here? Not a good idea. She should not be here, not with him looking like some sort of water god, not with her on the brink of a medical emergency. She should not be here at all.

His smile seemed a little less lazy this time as his eyes took in everything—the sore feet, the sweaty shirt, the hair that was about ten seconds from full-fledged frizz. Everything. The smile left lazy behind and headed straight for intent. “Hmm. Not who I was expecting.”

“You were expecting someone?” Great. Add besotted teenager voice to the long list of things that were wrong with her at this exact moment in time. But that was the best she had because, faced with that chest, she felt exactly like a besotted teenager she’d once been, watching Patrick Swayze teach that lucky Jennifer Grey how to dance in the water for the first time. The moment puberty had officially begun.

And damn it all, she was about five feet from living that delicious dream in real life. If she didn’t pass out from her plummeting blood pressure first.

At this exact moment in time, he was everything—everything—she wasn’t. He was cool, calm, collected, mostly undressed and in no apparent danger of swooning. “Someone. I just didn’t know who. Thought it might be...Nobody. If I’d known it was you...” he looked over to the pot, “...I wouldn’t have made the stew. I hope it’ll be okay.”

See, now, that was exactly what he normally did—spoke words she understood individually, but all together? He wasn’t making a single ounce of sense. “You made me dinner?”

“It’s got a little while to go.” His eyes moved again—and she realized that was the only part of him that was moving. No ball-peen-hammer heels, no tapping fingers, no swiveling hips. He was completely, utterly still. The only movement was the trickle of water down bronzed skin and off the ends of his hair.

This was officially getting weird. Hell, it was already weird. It was getting a whole lot weirder.

“So, you wanna go?”

The question caught her off-guard, but not quite as much as the yes that almost popped out of her mouth. She didn’t know for sure what she would have been saying yes to—Leaving? Swimming? Go at it?—but with the way he was just looking at her, she didn’t think she was going anywhere anytime soon.

And she was starting to think that maybe she was okay with that.

She managed to get a, “Where?” out, but she couldn’t fool him, not one bit.

He tilted his head to one side, setting all that loose hair tipping off to the right. “You look hot. I don’t have anything air conditioned, but the river would help those blisters you’re working on.”