Ditto.

God. Her lips had been a little chilled at their first touch but they warmed quickly beneath his.

Another thrill.

As was the feel of her tongue as it slid to his. Definitely he could drown in her, just let himself go right under, and, happily doing just that, he leaned into her, a move that sandwiched her between the tree and his own body, pressing her snugly against him. His hands free, he slid them up her body, groaning at the hot, tight feel of her, and given the sexy little sounds that escaped her throat, she was drowning, too.

Never coming up for air, he thought, never, and frustrated by the layers between them, he slid his hands beneath her shirt to find warm, silky skin. Oh yeah-

A scream shattered the night, and they both jerked free.

“Shit,” Lily gasped, and shoving her shirt back down, went running back into camp, with him right on her heels.

They skidded into the clearing around the campfire, taking in the situation. It looked as if everyone had dropped whatever they were doing to rush over to Jack’s and Michelle’s tent, including Jack, who was now holding a sobbing Michelle.

“What happened?” Lily demanded, after pushing in front of Rose and Rock.

Everyone started talking at once, including Jack, but Lily held up her hand. “Wait. Michelle?”

Michelle hiccupped and kept her face buried in Jack’s T-shirt.

Jack rolled her eyes, and at the movement, Jared sensed Lily relax. If Jack was annoyed, then Michelle wasn’t dying.

Probably.

“Michelle,” Lily said, dropping to her knees besides them. “Talk to me.”

“A spider,” she gulped, tightening the fisted grip she had on Jack’s shirt, making him wince. “A big, fat, hairy, humungous spider!”

“Okay.” Lily glanced back at Jared, but somehow managed to keep a straight face. “There are a lot of spiders out here, we’re in their territory.”

Michelle shook her head. “You’ve got to get it out of there!”

Jack sighed. “Michelle.”

Lily patted the sobbing Michelle on the back. “Listen, don’t make yourself sick. Where’s the spider?”

“On my pillow! I’m never going to sleep on that pillow again!”

“So I carted it seven miles up this mountain for nothing?” Jack asked.

Michelle pushed him away from her. “This is not a time for jokes, Jack.”

“Who was joking?”

Lily ignored both of them to duck into the tent. She reappeared a moment later.

“Your hands are empty,” Michelle said, her voice tight with panic. “Lily, your hands are empty.”

“It’s gone,” Lily said regretfully.

“Probably your screaming scared him off-What?” Jack asked when Michelle stopped crying to smack him. “That’s a good thing, right?”

“I think so,” Lily said, nodding. “A really good thing.”

Jared glanced down at the door of the tent. “Hey. Look.” He grabbed a stick and nudged the indeed big, black, fat, hairy spider onto it. “Got him.”

Michelle screamed again and buried her face against her husband’s chest.

“I’ll take it into the woods,” Jared said quickly, and moved to the far edge of camp. By the time he’d turned back, Michelle had a new horror-the chances that the spider had laid babies in her tent.

“Doubtful,” Lily was saying. “Very doubtful.”

“Doubtful, but possible, right?”

Lily shook her head. “They don’t lay babies at night.” She said this with an utterly straight face.

Jack nodded his agreement. “That’s right. I read that somewhere.”

“Yeah?” Michelle rounded on him. “Where did you read it?”

Rock stepped forward. “Look, you guys can switch tents with me.”

Jack shook his head. “That’s not necessary-”

“Thank you,” Michelle said gratefully, and with a scathing look at her husband, stalked off toward Rock’s tent.

Jack sighed. “Sorry,” he said to Rock, who shrugged.

“No sweat.”

“We should all get to bed,” Lily said into the silence. “We have an early start tomorrow morning, so we all need to sleep tight-”

“And not let the bedbugs bite,” Jack joked, only to have Michelle whirl back in horror from Rock’s tent.

“Just kidding,” he said. “Just kidding!” And he headed to his new tent for the night.

When it was just Lily and Jared, she looked at him. “It’s getting to be that maybe I should get you on the payroll for this expedition.”

“It was just a spider removal.”

“A timely one.”

“No big deal.” He shrugged, and watched a lizard dart beneath a manzanita bush at the edge of the fire. “Hope she doesn’t see that little guy.”

“She’s bound to see plenty of things she doesn’t like.” She didn’t come any closer, he noted. Because she didn’t trust herself? He sort of liked the thought of that.

“Thanks,” she said. “For tonight.”

“No thanks required. But if you want to be grateful…”

Her smile went just a little guarded when he stepped around the fire to get closer.

“Jared.”

“Don’t say it was a mistake,” he said quietly, and they both knew they were no longer talking about the spider.

“Not a mistake,” she said. “Just not wise.”

“Then why did it feel so good?”

“Good doesn’t always equal right. Look…” She turned in a slow circle, clearly searching for words. “I’ve always tried to be in charge of my destiny, you know?”

“So?”

“So, right now my destiny is kicking me in the ass.”

“Because you can’t be a firefighter?”

“Because I don’t know what I want to be.” She tossed up her hands. “Or who I am. I came here to try to start over, back at the beginning, to try to figure it all out.” At that, she shook her head. “And I have no idea why I tell you such things.”

“Because it’s a natural fit between us.”

“A natural fit?” She frowned. “That makes it sound like we’re a thing.”

He smiled.

“Oh, no.” With a little laugh, she shook her head. “No thing.”

“We kissed,” he reminded her. “That felt like a thing, a big one.”

She shook her head again. “I don’t know why I kissed you.”

“I know.” He cupped her jaw for the sheer pleasure of touching her again. “I don’t know what exactly what it is about you either. But I’m willing to find out.” He looked into her beautiful eyes. “And as for you not knowing who you are, you’ll figure it out.”

She stared up at him. “Have you always been so self-assured, always known exactly who you are?”

At that, he laughed. Had he always known? Try never-until recently.

“I take that as a no.”

“A hell no,” he corrected. “I grew up a small, skinny, sickly, self-conscious nerd.”

“Nerd made good,” she said softly.

“It took a while. Years. And then, when it all came right down to it, none of it meant a damn. Not the success, the huge corporation, the money in the bank accounts, nothing. I couldn’t have taken a thing with me.”

“Except this.” Surprising him, she put her hand over his heart, and he covered it with one of his own.

“You know what?” she whispered.

“What?” he whispered back, unbearably moved, wanting her to keep her hand on him all night long.

Her smile shimmered. “Every minute you spend in these mountains, you seem to lose a little bit of that city boy.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how you’re doing it…” She ran her hand up his chest, his throat, to his jaw, the pads of her fingers making a rasping sound over his day-old growth. “But you sure are tougher than I imagined when I first saw you.”

Bringing her hand up to his mouth, he pressed his lips to her palm. “Know what I thought when I first saw you?”

“That I was going to steal your parking spot?” she whispered.

“Well, that, and also…” His gaze met hers. “That you were the sexiest woman I’d ever laid my eyes on.”

“I was frowning at you,” she reminded him.

“Ah, yes. The frown. I think that clinched it for me.”

She tried to tug free. “Stop it.”

He held on and smiled. “Serious. Sexiest woman ever.”

“Wow.” Her voice sounded a little shaken. “I think it’s bedtime. ’Night, Jared.” Turning away, she went still, then glanced back. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

He knew a dismissal when he heard one. “Maybe it will make better sense in the morning.”

“The bedbugs?”

“No.”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “The kiss?”

“All of it.”

“Including the reasons why we shouldn’t do any of it again?”

He wanted to say the hell with that, but she’d turned away to deal with putting the fire out.

He went into his tent and lay down, surrounded by night noises that he was extremely unused to. Crickets chirped their odd song. From the hills came a lonely, edgy howl.

He knew the feeling.

Then came an answering howl, a pause, and then both of them together.

As one.

With a sigh, Jared turned over and wished it was that simple, that he could simply toss back his head and let loose with a howl and have Lily appear right here next to him. But he wasn’t an animal, he was a human, and supposedly they’d evolved way past such a thing.

LILY DIDN’T SLEEP as hard as she’d have liked. First, she kept jerking awake to check on the campfire.

But she’d put it out completely, and she had nothing to worry about.

Other things though…other things kept bouncing through her head.

Jared.

Cancer.

He hadn’t come right out and said it, but she knew, and it’d been bad. So bad he’d seemed just a little surprised to still be around, and if that didn’t grab her by the throat and hold on tight…

But he’d made it, and she was fiercely glad and proud and overwhelmed with a newfound sense of wonder. It was far too easy to forget how fragile life could be, how short, how absolutely, stunningly beautiful.

She for one wouldn’t waste the reminder, and the next morning, with thoughts of Jared, of life in general, still on her mind, she got up early.