Daredevil’s Run

triumph. He laughed softly and deep in his throat with the sheer joy of that feeling.

A moment later, he realized, too late, that what Alex was feeling wasn’t joy, or anything close to it. She’d sagged against him, at first, breathing in irregular gulps and gasps, the way she’d always done postclimax. But now she pulled jerkily away from him, shaking, her hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt.

“How…could…you…do…that…to…me?” She sobbed the words, punctuating each one with blows from her knotted fists, rained against his chest and shoulders. Then she slithered backward, out of his grasp and off his lap, to stand facing him, hugging herself, hunched and shivering with fury. “How could you think…that was what I wanted?” She gave a hiccupping sob and amended it. “That it was… all I wanted?”

“Alex-”

“No.” She held out her hand like someone bent on stopping a train. “No-don’t you say anything. Don’t…say…anything.” Then she jerked around and stumbled off toward the river, heedless of the gathering dark.

Matt watched her go in a state of bemusement and shock. The woman had obviously lost her mind. Her words made no sense. All I wanted…? What more could he have given her? The first time they’d made love in five years-hell, the first time they’d touched each other since the accident-and all he’d done was give her a mind-blowing-

All I wanted… He played the words she’d spoken again in his mind, and this time heard them overlaid with sounds from other times, past times they’d made love. The little feminine pleasure sounds she’d made as she touched him…aroused him…blown his mind. And it came to him then, a glimmer of understanding, a tiny inkling of why she might be upset.

Clearly, he was an idiot. A thick-headed jerk.

Chastened, he put a hand down to check himself and found wetness, and swore out loud, then laughed silently at the irony. He wondered if Alex would be happier if she knew he’d climaxed, too.

Alex awoke at the first hint of light and smelled wood smoke. She lay with her arm over her eyes, envisioning Matt in his chair, starting the fire, putting on the coffee, setting up for breakfast. Envisioning him in his T-shirt, with his broad shoulders and bulging muscles and sculpted chest and the strong, sturdy column of his neck…reliving the cool feathery feel of his hair on her fingers, the smell of his skin, the taste of his mouth…

The sensation of sexual climax rocketing through every nerve and cell in her body. The agonizing, sickening, chilling sense of humiliation that came after. And she almost groaned aloud with misery.

Oh God, how will I face him? Look at him? Talk to him? How did I let that happen? How could it have happened? He barely had to touch me and I-

Oh, get over it, Alex.

Mom?

I thought I taught you to stand on your own feet and not depend on anybody. So why are you making a big deal out of this? You were long overdue for some sex, and he gave it to you. Enjoy. And get over it.

She shook with silent, rueful laughter.

And in the silence, heard a familiar sound. Unmistakably a snore. Coming from somewhere on her left, which was where, the last time she’d checked, Matt had his sleeping bag. So…Matt wasn’t up yet, and could not have started the fire. Who, then? Sam, or Cory?

She took her arm away from her eyes and sat up. The camp was silent, the campfire dark and cold. On her right she could see the elongated bundle that was Sam and Cory’s combined sleeping bags. On her left, the bundle that was Matt’s. Across the river the slightly flattened circle of the moon was preparing to dip below the canyon’s rim. Somewhere a bird woke up and joined its song to that of the river. The air was cool and dry and smelled of burning wood and brush.

Swearing under her breath, Alex rapidly unzipped and scrambled out of her sleeping bag. She was fumbling in her backpack for the satellite phone when Matt’s sleeping bag stirred, and his voice came, raspy with awakening.

“Alex? You up? I smell-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” She was jabbing buttons with her thumb. “Smells like there’s a fire somewhere. What else is new? It’s the weekend.” She put the phone to her ear and listened to clicks and then a ring. Covering the mouthpiece with her hand, she nodded toward the double sleeping bags. “Better wake up your brother.” She couldn’t have said why, but she had a bad feeling about this.

And was shamelessly grateful for a crisis that made it possible to pretend last night had never happened.

Across the river, the moon glowed orange behind an ominous veil of smoke. Alex kept her eyes on it as she replied to the crisp voice of the fire department dispatcher, a friend as well as the husband of one of her guides.

“Hey, Dave, it’s Alex. I’m with a group up on the Forks. What’s happenin’, man? You got a fire up here, or what?”

“You’re up on the Forks?” The dispatcher uttered some profanity, and then, “Not a good time to be up there, Alex.”

“Well, shoot. Tell me when’s a good time-we got tourists every damn weekend.”

“I don’t think this was tourists.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re saying this was-”

“I’m saying it looks suspicious from the get-go. Right now it’s heading right toward you. We got aircraft warming up as we speak-they’ll be in the air come daylight, but if I were you guys, I’d get my butt in gear and get on down the river-now. If the wind stays steady, you’re fixin’ to get cut off.”

Alex disconnected and stood for a moment with the phone in her hand, the back of her hand pressed against her forehead. Focus, Alex. This is no time for an emotional…whatever. You…Matt Callahan…whatever that was last night-that’s history. Right now-

“Problems?” Cory joined them, shivering in T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops and rubbing vigorously at his arms. Right behind him, Sam was doing the same.

“Yeah…maybe a little one.” Alex caught Matt’s eye as he heaved himself into his chair. She jerked her eyes back to Cory and Sam and forced a smile for their benefit. “There’s a fire farther on down the mountain-no big deal, but they might need to shut down the road. So we need to get to the take-out point before they do. Looks like the eggs Benedict I was planning on serving you guys for breakfast is gonna have to wait.”

“I’d settle for some coffee,” Sam muttered through a yawn.

“Sorry, folks, no time for a fire,” Alex said in her brisk tour-guide voice, cheery as all get-out. “Grab some cold cuts and make yourselves a sandwich while I get the boat ready to go. For you caffeine junkies, there’s Coke in the cooler.” She tucked the phone in the waistband of her shorts as she started toward the river.

“Alex.”

She turned back, heart galloping, smile fixed in place. Matt, if you say anything…one word about last night, I swear I will push your ass in the river.

He rolled closer to her, eyes dark shadows in the gray dawn light. “Need any help?”

She let out a breath, and with it a small shaky laugh. “Yeah-you can hurry those two along. And get yourself fed and ready to shove off, ASAP.”

“Is it that bad?” He asked it in a low voice, for her ears only, and she answered the same way, but with a bite in it.

“Look, don’t worry about it, okay? I’ve got it under control. You’re not…You just…look after your brother and his wife.” She walked away from him, chilled and shaky with poorly timed adrenaline and emotions she didn’t need and didn’t know what to do with.

She didn’t need this. She really didn’t. She hadn’t wanted to make this damned run to begin with, and being able to say “I told you so” wasn’t going to make up for what was turning out to be a total disaster. In so many ways.

First thing she was going to do when she got back was kill Booker T. But before she could do that she had to get three people through a forest fire and some dangerous water. And she had to do it all alone.

Then, for some reason that thought-the alone part-made her angry. Furious. Resentful as hell. Which was odd, since if there was anything Alex Penny had always prided herself on, it was how