"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?"
At her bemused expression, he suddenly felt like he was thirteen and trying to talk to a pretty girl for the first time. But he couldn't tell her that he was trying to divert her attention from her worries. He'd never succeed if she knew his goal.
"Sure," she said. "It's great."
Clearly, she was the one used to asking questions, rather than answering them. Trying to draw her out, he asked, "How'd you get started?'
Looking even more confused, she said, "Seriously, you want to know?"
He shrugged, tried to act like it was perfectly natural for him to be asking her these questions. Truthfully, now that he'd started down this road, he wanted to know her reasons for picking TV.
"A lot can change in ten years," he replied.
Everything except how much he wanted her ... and how fucking pointless those feelings were given the way things had turned out the first time around.
"I really want to know."
Specifically, was she dating--or sleeping with--anyone, even though it was none of his damn business.
"Okay," she said slowly. "I got a job working behind the scenes on another show that Ellen was producing and eventually they offered me my own show."
She made it sound so simple, but he guessed she'd worked her butt off to get where she was. People didn't come by the kind of rocks she had in her ears and those soft fancy sweaters she'd been wearing in the hospital without putting in the sweat equity.
Besides, he'd always known how smart she was. She'd been the only one who hadn't seemed totally convinced, probably because her crap mother hadn't done a single thing to encourage her daughter in eighteen years.
He wasn't going to let her act like her accomplishments were no big deal. They were.
"Seems like it's a good fit for you," he said. "You know, talking to people, asking them questions. You were always curious about things."
"You're right. My show is a good fit. I really do love it." She shifted on the sand. "Actually, April is part of the reason I chose TV. I felt like I needed a really high-profile job for the state to entrust me with her care."
She paused, made a circle in the sand with her finger, and he sensed she was about to say something more.
"And I guess after feeling like I didn't have a voice for so long, living with my mother in the trailer park, I wanted to feel like I was somebody, if that makes any sense."
"It makes perfect sense," he found himself saying. "I feel the same way about my job. Knowing I'm making a difference in people's lives. It's a good thing."
She bit her lip and he wondered why she suddenly looked so unsure of herself.
"You do such amazing things every day, Sam. What I do isn't nearly as important."
Hating to hear her belittle herself, he said, "You don't need to put out fires to make a difference."
But hadn't he done the same thing she was doing now, immediately assuming that she had to be looking down on him and his salary?
How much of the blue-collar, white-collar dichotomy was in his own head? Was it simply that he was threatened by her going and changing on him?
After trying to tell himself that her new glossy look was nothing but a fake mask, he could finally admit that the changes she'd made weren't necessarily bad.
Besides, how could he fault her for pulling herself out of the trailer park and making something of herself?
"What about you?" she said, shifting on the sand to get a better look at him.
Oh shit, he'd accidentally opened up a can of worms by asking her about her job. Hoping to head her off at the pass, he said, "My life's pretty much the same as it always was."
Except for the blip after she left and he nearly lost everything.
Undeterred by his terse answer, she said, "Do you still live in the same part of town?"
Hell no, he couldn't stand to drive through the same neighborhoods where they'd often go walking late at night when there was a full moon.
"I'm closer to the beach."
Leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, she was one hundred percent focused on him. "What about the guitar? Are you still playing?"
Only a handful of people knew he played. How could he have forgotten that Dianna was one of them? Or that the only songs he'd ever written had been three-chord love songs dedicated to her?
He shrugged. "I haven't played in a long time."
He had no intention of admitting that he hadn't touched his guitar since the day she left. How could he, when every note he played reminded him of her?
Clearly getting frustrated with his reticence, she asked, "You must be one of the more established guys on the Tahoe Pines crew, right?"
"I am. As you can imagine," he said, dropping his guard for a moment, "I'm not opposed to kicking the rookies' asses around the block when they need it."
She grinned at him. "Who else do I know on the current crew?"
"Only me and Logan."
Shit, how could she have forgotten his brother?
"And Connor, of course."
Talking about his brother felt like venturing back into a minefield, so he quickly said, "In the off-season I've been helping lead some adventure tours for a friend's company."
"Ah, so that's why you know how to do all of this." She gestured to their gear and the river. "Any chance you'd consider doing a segment on your friend's company for my show sometime? It's just the sort of thing my viewers love."
Oh shit, he couldn't let himself think about the future. About seeing her again.
Or, worse, not seeing her again.
"It's getting late. We should get back on the river."
Hurt flashed on her face before she wiped it away.
"I'll clean our plates," she said, grabbing everything and heading toward the water.
The thin fabric of her pants outlined the swell of her hips, her taut thigh muscles. When she knelt down on the sand to wash out the tin cups they'd eaten out of, even though he knew he shouldn't be watching her, he couldn't tear his eyes away.
From the first moment he'd met her, he'd desired her. Intensely. If anything, the years between that first meeting and the present had only made his yearning grow stronger.
The water had washed off her makeup, and without the fancy clothes and hairdo, she looked more and more like the eighteen-year-old girl he'd fallen in love with.
Finished shaking out the cups, she turned away from the river and caught him staring. Her eyes opened wide, her nipples peaked with awareness. Sam knew it would be the easiest thing in the world to lower her onto the sand and release their pent-up cravings for each other's bodies.
Hell, no. He couldn't go there again.
He quickly packed up the food and stove and they got back on the river, an uneasy silence hovering between them again. Damn it, was there anything they could talk about that wasn't a minefield?
Guiding the raft around a tight curve after several tense minutes of easy rafting, he suddenly squinted into the distance, unable to believe what he saw.
They were coming up on a strainer.
Formed by trees on the banks, with piles of large rocks in between, a strainer was incredibly technical and dangerous. Water could flow through it, but a boat couldn't.
Especially not one moving this fast.
If he'd been in the raft by himself, or with Connor, they'd have had a better chance to get through the strainer without too many broken bones or a concussion. But with a total novice beside him, Sam had to think fast.
"Get ready to jump out."
Dianna whipped her head around to face him. "Are you kidding?"
As they moved closer to the strainer, he barely had time to say, "We're going to jump together," before he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her onto his lap.
She was stiff in his arms and he knew he had to make a move before she tried to pull away.
"Take a breath and hold it," he said, and then they were falling over the swirling, rushing water.
Using his body to cushion her from the fall, he felt her start to panic a moment too late. She slipped out of his grasp and her head went under.
The raft flew over the water into the wall of tree limbs and rocks, and he knew that if he didn't get to her soon, she'd smash into it as well. Swimming hard across the current, he jammed his knee into a rock and barely flinched.
Where the hell is she?
He couldn't see her head or hair above the white water and a thousand agonizing images flashed through his brain.
Finally, Dianna's head rose out of the white foam. Ignoring the burning in his arms and legs and lungs, Sam heaved himself through the water and reached for her. He had almost grabbed her shirt, almost grabbed her arms, when she sank beneath the surface of the water.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DIANNA RELAXED into the wonderful dream.
She was floating and felt warm all over. And then suddenly there were big hands pulling and shoving at her and she was fighting them, trying to get back to that sleepy place. But the hands were stronger and they dragged her up through thick, wet foam.
Cold air slapped against her cheeks and she started coughing and choking.
Oh God, she finally realized, I was drowning.
Sam had saved her life.
He cradled her against his chest on the riverbank, and as she gasped in air, trying to refill her empty lungs with oxygen, he removed her helmet and gently ran his fingers lightly over the goose egg on her forehead.
"You hit your head pretty hard on a rock," he said, his voice warm and soothing as its low tones swam through her. "It's probably going to bruise."
As she got her bearings back in Sam's arms and the initial shock of being thrown out of the raft receded, it suddenly hit her that there could be far bigger problems ahead than healing from a bruise.
"Did we lose the raft?"
"Fortunately, no. It's up ahead, jammed between a couple of tree trunks. It'll stay there until we get it out."
Relief flooded her that all was not lost and she knew she needed to push past the throbbing in her head and sit up. But even though remaining this close to her biggest temptation was a very bad idea, she couldn't bring herself to move out of his arms.
For the first time in a very long time she felt safe.
Comforted.
With gentle fingers, he massaged her sore shoulder muscles, grown tight from endless paddling.
Did he know that his touch made her heart race?
That even without touching an erogenous zone, she was getting hopelessly aroused?
"I shouldn't have let you leave the hospital so soon after your accident." His voice was husky. "Jesus, Dianna. How the hell did you manage to walk away from the crash?"
His question echoed the same one swimming around in her head since waking up in the hospital with only a smattering of cuts and scrapes: Why had she been saved?
And now, after being spared for the second time in a matter of days, instead of dying when anyone else would have, she couldn't hide from the fact that she'd been given a second, and now a third, chance to get things right.
But what was she supposed to change this time around?
The big change couldn't have something to do with Sam, could it? Especially now that they'd cleared the air after their motel room blowout and could actually talk without biting each other's heads off.
The dangerous bend of her thoughts sent her stumbling out of Sam's arms to her feet.
She needed some space, some breathing room, needed to get away from his dangerous pull over her so that she could behave rationally, rather than reacting to a base physical urge.
Sam was at her side in a heartbeat, one hand on her elbow, the other on the small of her back. "Easy now."
"I'm okay," she told him.
It was a lie. She wasn't okay, and not just because of her fall.
Being close to him like this, feeling his bare hands on her skin, made her burn up inside, with a fever that only he could quench.
She swayed into him and his words were barely louder than a whisper. "God help me, Dianna, I still want you. More than ever. More than I should."
Her tongue came out to uncertainly lick her lower lip, and then, suddenly, his hands were in her hair and his mouth was on hers, almost hard enough to hurt.
And yet his rough kiss was exactly what she needed.
Exactly what she craved.
He slid his hands over the wet fabric covering her collarbone, then over her shoulders and down the length of her spine to the small of her back. Grabbing her hips, he pulled her in tight against him.
She was standing on just enough of a rise that the hollow between her thighs fit perfectly around his erection.
"I want you, too," she whispered against his lips when they pulled apart an inch. "So much I can't stand it."
He backed her up against a smooth rock face, and as he ran kisses down her neck, from her earlobe to the hollow of her shoulder, she shuddered in his arms. His hands found the gap between her shirt and pants, and as he brushed his fingers over her belly, she moaned softly.
And then he kissed her mouth again and she slid her tongue against his. His fingers went higher and higher, and when he finally found the edge of her bra, she heard herself begging, "Please touch me."
Slipping his fingers under the thin fabric, he curved his palm over her breast, her nipple hard against his hand.
She cried out and he covered her sound of pleasure with his mouth as he gently squeezed her tingling flesh. With painstaking slowness, he slid her shirt up over her skin, his lips nipping at hers, drawing out a low moan from her throat. And then he was pulling his
mouth away and going to his knees and she could feel his warm breath on the exposed skin of her stomach. He pressed his lips to her belly once, twice, and then he was moving up the center of her rib cage, finally sucking one hard nipple into his mouth, then the other, cupping both breasts with his hands, rubbing his lightly stubbled chin against her skin.
Another moan escaped her, this time around his name, and then he was undoing the button at the top of her pants and sliding down the zipper, pulling the fabric down her hips to pool at her ankles.
He stopped laving her breasts with his tongue and lifted his head to watch her face as he slipped a finger into her panties. She pushed her pelvis into his hand, more aroused than she could ever remember being.
Knowing he wanted her as badly as she wanted him made her even wetter, even more aroused.
Circling the spot she so desperately wanted him to touch, he finally made contact--oh yes, right there!--and she gasped as exquisite sensations moved through her, from her core outward. Again and again his fingers slid between her slick folds. Up, then down, they moved between her labia, bumping over the hard nub of her arousal. His mouth found her next, his warm breath and soft lips covering her mound, his tongue probing, tasting as she cried out with pleasure.
She'd never felt so ripe, so ready to explode. She'd waited ten long years to feel this good again, and now that she was here with Sam, and his hands and mouth were on her, she wanted to make the incredible sensations last forever.
But she was so ready, too ready, and she couldn't stop herself from grasping the back of his head and pushing her pelvis into his tongue and teeth. And then his fingers joined his mouth, stretching her open.
Even this wet, it had been so long since she'd been with a man that his touch felt brand-new and she panted, "Oh God, Sam," against his shoulder as he kept the rhythm of his fingers and tongue steady.
"You feel so good," she groaned as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back, sucking in a hard breath in the same moment that her inner muscles clamped down hard on his fingers.
Her entire body shuddered into a powerful orgasm and Dianna felt like she had bypassed death and gone straight to heaven.
In the past decade, she hadn't forgotten how potent Sam's touch was. Forgetting something so wonderful would have been impossible.