“I can’t believe you. How’d you manage that?” she asked.
“It wasn’t easy. Look, we were both chilled. There was no other way to warm you up in a hurry.”
“I think I could have warmed up just fine with my panties on.”
He wrinkled his eyebrows in what he hoped was a disarming gesture. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
“What?” she asked.
“Dickens.”
“What does it have to do–never mind.”
She shifted and those luscious curves moved against him. He diverted his thoughts to an interface control problem he’d been working on for his thesis. She moved again and his thoughts leapt back.
“I–we have to get dressed. The others could catch up with us at any time, and I won’t have my fiancé hearing that I was found naked, wrapped in a blanket with another man.”
He nodded.
She placed one hand on his chest for leverage and pushed. Fire shot through him, and he opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out.
Dear God, how his ribs hurt.
The weight left his chest as Caitlin jerked her hand back.
“What? What’s the matter?”
“My ribs,” he gasped. “I cracked a couple….”
Her face reddened. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
For a minute, she sat quietly watching him while he struggled to breathe. “I’m sorry, John. I haven’t thanked you for saving my life. I don’t remember much after I fell off the raft, but I do remember you in the water with me. You risked your own life to save me, and I’m complaining while you lay there with broken ribs. I must sound like a fool.”
Her eyes met his. He wanted to drown in those pools to swim away and never come back; to … She blinked and looked away. Her fingers lightly touched his chest, gently feeling the lumps beneath his skin. Her touch was fire, but this time, he enjoyed it.
When she spoke again, her voice was deeper, almost sultry.
“I’d better get dressed.”
She pulled at the blankets until she found an edge and slipped it off her. In the gray light of the canyon’s morning, he watched her stand slowly. She groaned as she discovered her own body hadn’t escaped the river unscathed. She swayed for a moment before her head seemed to clear. Walking across the sand, she pulled her panties from the first stick. Keeping her back to him, she stepped into them and pulled them up.
She slipped into her T-shirt and shorts. As she zipped up her shorts, she turned to face him.
She didn’t appear to mind that he’d been watching her and she hadn’t asked him to look away.
“Are you getting up?”
“In a minute.”
Caitlin rolled her shoulders and stretched. She turned around giving John a profile shot and motioned toward the end of the side canyon and the roaring Colorado.
“Maybe I should see if there’s anyone on the river. We wouldn’t want to miss them.”
“Okay, but take one of these blankets. There’s no point in getting soaked again.”
Caitlin nodded and took the edge of the blanket he handed her. After a little wriggling on his part, she pulled it free. She wrapped it around her shoulders and wordlessly followed the stream toward the river.
He waited another minute before throwing back the blanket. As quickly as the pain in his chest let him, he stood up and dressed. Bending over was the worst part, but he managed to pull up his shorts without getting too much sand into them.
A cough racked him.
He spit more foamy blood onto the ground.
Perhaps Caitlin’s condition wasn’t his only worry after all.
Only one of his sandals had made it through the swim, but both of Caitlin’s had reached landfall. He picked them up, wrapped the other blanket about his shoulders, and took them with him as he followed her downstream.
She sat on a boulder, looking out over the tumultuous river. When he reached her, he slid soundlessly beside her and offered her the sandals.
She took them from him and slipped them on.
“Thanks. Do you think they’ve already passed us?”
The river was empty of life as far as he could see in either direction.
“Who can say? There was time for them to get this far I guess, but I have no idea how far downstream we came. The raft would make better speed than we could, but they may have stopped to search all the eddies for us. Then again, they could have left early this morning and passed us today.”
“That’s what I guessed. I suppose we’ll just have to wait.”
“There should be other rafters coming by today. We can always hitch a ride out with them.”
“Of course,” she said.
He didn’t reply. After a minute of silence, Caitlin turned to him.
“I’m cold, John. Could you put your arm around me?”
“Sure.”
They adjusted the blankets to shield them from the steady rain, and he slipped his right arm around her waist. She leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Thanks, John.”
“Anytime.”
It was a lame response, and he regretted it immediately.
For a few minutes, they sat on that rock, staring up the river without talking, each lost in their own thoughts.
“John?” Her voice was soft, but she spoke with her lips near his ear so that he could hear her over the river.
“Yes?”
“I want you to know how much I appreciate what you did for me yesterday. I know I owe you my life.”
His first reaction was to say, “Don’t mention it.” But that tired expression said nothing that he wanted to say. Instead, he nodded while gathering his thoughts.
Finally, he said, “Caitlin, for you, I’d do it all over again.”
Her cheek moved against his shoulder, but he didn’t trust himself to look into her eyes. He continued to stare upriver.
