Jill Shalvis - At Last

“Seriously,” Grace said, huffing and puffing as they moved along. “This taking the Chocoholics on the road experiment might be a bust. Are we almost there yet?”

Amy shook her head. “And I thought I was a city girl.”

“I have to pee,” Grace said.

“There’s a bunch of trees,” Amy said. “Pick one.”

“Like I trust your judgment on pee spots.”

“Maybe you should,” Mallory said. “It caught her Ranger Hot Buns.”

“True,” Grace mused. “Do you ever call him that?” she asked Amy.

Amy laughed. “Not if I want to live.”

They came across a small clearing. The sun was strong here, and it was beautiful. But they weren’t the only ones enjoying it. Leaning with their backs to a fallen log sat Lance and Tucker. The two brothers were eating sandwiches and sucking down bottled water. Covered in dust from head to toe, their grins appeared all the whiter when they flashed them.

“Hey, ladies,” Lance said in his low and husky voice, roughened from years of the lung-taxing coughing the CF caused him. “Looking good.”

Tucker held up a baggie of brownies. “Anyone want to join us?”

“Oh my God, yes,” Grace said with great feeling. “Amy’s being a brownie Nazi.”

Mallory put out a hand and halted her, serving the brothers a careful, narrow-eyed gaze. “Are those brownies home-made?”

Tucker grinned, slow, lazy and unabashed, and Amy burst out laughing. She hadn’t thought about the quality of their brownies, but she should have when it came to Tucker.

Mallory shook her head at the guys. “What did I tell you about your brownies?”

“Uh…” Tucker said, trying to think. “That they kill brain cells?”

“Chocolate doesn’t kill brain cells,” Grace said, oblivious to what they were talking about. “Chocolate is God’s gift.”

“Not the way these two make it,” Amy told her as Mallory gave them the bum’s rush back onto the trail.

A few minutes later, they neared Squaw Flats. “You two rest here for a few,” Amy said, and pulled out the lunch she’d packed from the diner, handing out sandwiches. “I’m going to just go up the road another half a mile to check out a vista I want to draw later. Wait here.”

“Where’re the brownies?” Grace asked.

Amy pulled out the stash. “Not as good as what Tucker had,” she said dryly. “But they’ll do. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t fall down any ravines,” Mallory said, and took a big bite out of her brownie. Apparently she liked dessert first, too. “I’ve got the same first aid skills as Matt, but I doubt I’ve got the same bedside manner.”

Grace snickered, and Amy rolled her eyes. But it was true. Matt had some seriously good bedside manner.

Amy found Riley about a third of a mile away, sunning on a rock, staring pensively out at a colorful meadow. The rains had been steady last season, leaving the meadow alive with head-high grass and wildflowers. All around them, the air pulsed with buzzing insects and butterflies.

Riley looked over, caught sight of Amy, and sighed.

Amy pulled a bag from her backpack and dropped it at Riley’s feet.

“What’s this?”

“Look inside,” Amy said.

Riley paused for a long beat, making it clear that she would do only whatever she wanted to do and on her own schedule. But clearly her curiosity finally got the best of her and she opened the pack. Inside was more bottled water, a lunch like the one she’d packed the Chocoholics, and soap and shampoo.

“Thought you might be low on supplies,” Amy said.

Riley nodded. “Thanks.” While she looked over the goods, Amy looked her over. Riley had shadows in her eyes and dark circles under them. She wasn’t getting enough sleep, that much was clear.

“There’s a key to my place in the side pocket. It’s yours.” Amy paused. “Come back with me.”

“I’m good here.”

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“You said you wouldn’t tell.”

Amy sighed and sat next to her. “I haven’t. I won’t. But it’s not safe for you.”

“Trust me,” Riley said, pulling out a sandwich. “It’s safer than anywhere else.”

Amy’s heart squeezed. God, she’d so been there. “I realize you think you have no one to trust, but it’s not true.”

Riley slowed down the inhaling of her sandwich. She didn’t respond, but Amy knew she was listening.

“I ran away from home when I was sixteen,” Amy said softly. “I never looked back. My goal was to get as far away as possible. I hitchhiked with strangers and slept in alleys. I trusted no one, and as a result, no one trusted me.”

Riley hugged her knees to her chest. “How did you do it?”

“I lied about my age and took whatever jobs I could get. Except for hooking, I managed to avoid that one.”

“I never hooked either,” Riley said quickly.

“Good. Because you’re worth far more than that. You know that, right?”

Riley hunched her shoulders. “I know I don’t want any guy’s hands on me.”

Amy let out a shaky breath as her own memories hit her hard. This was as she suspected, and as she feared. “Who put his hands on you?”

Riley laid her head down on her knees, her face turned away from Amy.

“Someone at home?”

Still as a statue, Riley didn’t respond.

“Your dad?”

“Don’t have one. And I got taken away from my mom. She wasn’t fit.”

“So you were in foster care,” Amy said.

A pause. Then a quiet, “yeah.”

Where she’d probably been mistreated, possibly sexually abused, and had decided that the entire male species sucked golf balls.

Couldn’t blame her, though Amy herself had gone the opposite route. Sex had become power, and for a long time, she’d really liked holding the power.

“I just want to be free to do what I want,” Riley said. “Without anyone trying to force me to do something I don’t want to do.”

“Well, of course. Everyone wants that,” Amy said. “Everyone deserves that. Riley, you aren’t alone.”

Riley turned her head and looked at Amy, seeming heartbreakingly young.

“You have me,” Amy said. “And together we’re a ‘we.’ ”

“But you’re already a ‘we.’ With the ranger.”

Amy had never been a “we” with a man. At least not for more than a few hours, and that Riley thought Amy was with Matt startled her. But she sure as hell didn’t want to explain to Riley that all she and Matt had was a mutual enjoyment of rubbing their favorite body parts together.

“Not exactly,” she said. “Did you think about the job?” It would keep her in sight, and Amy could watch over her, make sure she was safe and eating. She waited for Riley to once again ask why Amy cared but she didn’t.

Progress.

“I’ve thought about it,” Riley said. “I’ll do it.”

Baby steps, but that was okay. Amy had discovered life was all about baby steps.

One of life’s little mysteries is how a two-pound box of chocolate can make a person gain five pounds.

Matt had a hell of a long day, which included noncompliant picnickers, a search-and-rescue mission for a beginning biker on an advanced trail, a small wildfire in the fourth quadrant, which had nearly gotten away from them, and the arrest of an idiot for illegal poaching. When he finally left his post, he went to the diner for a late meal.

Okay, he went to the diner to catch sight of Amy. He deserved it after the day he’d had. Amy happened to be on a break when he walked in, sitting at a small table in the far corner, bent over something.

Drawing, he realized when he got closer. She was sketching on her pad, oblivious to the room. Or at least she was until he got about halfway across the diner, then suddenly she went still, lifted her head, and met his gaze.

Lots of things flickered across her face, with heat leading the way. But what grabbed him by the throat and held on was the reluctant affection.

She wanted him. He’d proven that. Hell, he wanted her right back. But she also liked him. She didn’t want to, but she did. Inexplicably buoyed by that, he slid into her side of the booth, pressing his thigh to hers. “Hey.”

“Hey.” As always, she closed her sketch book and slid it away from him. “I was just taking a break.”

“You ever going to let me see your drawings?”

“I don’t know. They’re sort of personal.”

He leaned in close. “You’ve shared your body with me. And that felt pretty personal.”

She gave him a little shove and a laugh. “Not the same thing.”

Enjoying the sound of her amusement and the fact that she looked so pretty smiling, he let one of his own escape. “One of these days, you’re going to want to share with me.”

“My drawings?”

“Those too.”