When she was finally able to come up for air, she saw Sam leaning over the edge of the raft, reaching for her hands.
“You okay?” he asked, his expression clearly concerned as he gripped her upper arms with both hands and pulled her into the middle of the raft.
Concentrating on getting back into the raft, she kept her gaze averted so he couldn’t see how clumsy and stupid she felt.
Trying to make light of the situation, she said, “You didn’t say anything about a drop being a waterfall.” Her upper arms tingled from where he’d wrapped his big hands around them.
“I didn’t think you knowing that’s what a drop actually meant would help any,” he said, his light words softening all the places she’d been trying to keep cold and hard.
“Besides,” he continued, “it’s always good to get your first flip of the day over right off the bat. Makes it easier to stay on board for the really big ones.”
There were bigger drops ahead?
She pushed the hair dangling in her eyes back up under her helmet. No amount of hair spray could save her now. If her staff could see her now they’d die.
But ultimately, she knew her looks didn’t matter. Neither did the fact that Sam was an even bigger puzzle than he had been ten years ago. All that mattered was finding April and bringing her home.
The sun rose higher in the sky as they paddled downriver, worries about April closing in on her again, heavy and bleak like her dreams from the night before.
Where was she? Was anyone hurting her? And would her baby sister even be okay when they finally found her?
It struck her, yet again, how lost she’d be without Sam’s support. And it scared her to know how much she was depending on him.
Just like she had so many years before.
Sam wasn’t sure he liked what was happening. It was too easy to admire how well Dianna was doing on the river, especially given that she was instinctively better at rafting than most of the guys he went rafting with during his off months.
And it was too damn difficult not to notice how beautiful she was.
Even with a life jacket covering her curves and a helmet over her plastered-down hair, he was mesmerized by the slight bounce of her br**sts, and her tongue coming out to lick a drop of water off her lips.
Forcing his gaze back up to her face, it was unsettling to read a whole host of worries in her expression.
At first, her face had been a picture of concentration and he’d been glad that the river was giving her a reason to think about something other than April for at least a few minutes. But now, it wasn’t hard to guess that she was running through worst-case scenarios.
He sympathized. If they were looking for Connor, he would have been a wreck, too. But doing search and rescue had taught him that once you gave up hope, you were screwed. He couldn’t allow fear to paralyze her, especially not when paddling through the white water should be taking every ounce of her attention.
It was time for a break and some food. Maybe even a pep talk, if he could figure out how to pull that off when he was still wading through a thick, unending bog of desire and deteriorating self-control.
He steered them over to a small beach in the curve of the cliffs.
“Why are we stopping?” Dianna asked.
“Food. We’re quickly burning through our reserves and we need to keep our energy high.”
She opened her mouth, probably to argue with him, and he cut her off at the pass with, “And you need to give your body a rest. Rafting is hard enough, but doing it after an accident like yours is borderline crazy.”
He’d noticed that she was favoring her left shoulder. Paddling was tough work. Just one day after her crash she had to be stiff and sore all over.
Given their wet clothes and the brisk breeze whipping down the shady river, Sam decided to pull out a camp stove and some bags of dehydrated food to help warm them up before they got back on, and likely flipped back into, the ice-cold river.
“When did you learn to cook?” she asked him as he put their meal together.
“I wish I had,” he lamented. “I promise you, this is going to taste terrible.”
It was good to see a small smile on her face as she teased him, “I don’t know. A part of me can see you throwing knives around in a kitchen. It’d be kind of hot, actually.”
Her cheeks flamed as she realized what she’d said. For Sam, instead of the blood rushing to his face, it went straight to his groin.
He gripped the metal spoon he was stirring so hard it nearly snapped in two. “It’s windy out and I don’t want you to end up with hypothermia. Go change into dry clothes.”
His gruff tone did nothing to hide his desire.
So much for giving her a pep talk. More like he was going to throw her down on the sand and take her like an animal if he didn’t get a grip.
Dianna moved away quickly, clearly more than happy to get away from him. A few minutes later, after changing behind a couple of trees and laying her wet pants and shirt out over some flat rocks on the sand, he handed her a steaming stainless steel bowl.
“It’s rice and chicken.”
She looked at the gray clumps in the bowl. “Really?”
“That’s what it says on the packet.”
She took a bite and grimaced. “Um, wow. I’m not sure it’s legal for them to make a claim like rice and chicken.”
He bit back laughter. After the fancy white-tablecloth lunches she was probably used to, he was impressed when she continued spooning the nasty mess into her mouth.
“Most people get about halfway through camp food and turn green.”
After swallowing another gritty, lumpy bite, she softly said, “I’ll eat whatever I have to eat if it means finding April.”
Just as he’d suspected, her fears for April were consuming her. Okay, then, he’d try another tack.
“You’re doing good on the river. Really good.”
“How can you say that when I almost got us both killed back there?”
“The river almost killed us. Big difference.”
Their eyes met and he felt like he’d stepped on a downed electric line. His fingers ached to wrap themselves around her curves. His lips burned with the need to taste her mouth. And he was huge and throbbing beneath his zipper.
Trying one last time to keep her mind off of April—while hopefully staying on safer ground—he said, “Tell me about your job. Do you like it?”