Just Try Me... Read online

  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.

  Up at this altitude, dawn came as a rose strip where the streaked sky met the spiky black ridges. The breathtaking view wouldn’t last more than a moment, but she’d lived her life by the moment, without too much thought to the past or future. She certainly didn’t have a list in her pocket of things she wanted to experience. The thought of a predetermined plan like that had always seemed completely beyond her.

  But Jared had a list, and this trip was on it. That meant she was going to make sure that these four days would never be forgotten.

  A little heat filled her cheeks at that, because hadn’t she already maybe done that?

  Oh, yes, she had.

  She went to the water and took a quick bath. Then she busied her hands, and her mouth, with breakfast. As always, the scents of coffee and bacon cooking over an open fire drew everyone out of their tents, and she put a smile on her face, determined to make today a great one, spiders or skinny-dipping, or whatever came her way.

  Jared showed up first, his short hair sticking straight up in classic bed head that should have looked ridiculous but somehow seemed sexily rumpled instead. In direct contrast, his sweatshirt and jeans were clean and neat, not a wrinkle anywhere to indicate that they’d been in a backpack overnight. He seemed rested and warm and just a little bit groggy, which she found even more sexy, and her brain disconnected from logic again as a small part of her wished it was just the two of them, that she could have crawled into his sleeping bag to see his eyes open on her.

  Those eyes landed right on her anyway, dark and sleepy-lidded, and she wondered what he was thinking.

  He didn’t look away, didn’t shutter his gaze, just let her see the truth—that what he was thinking about was being with her, preferably naked and writhing and sweaty, and, oh God, she had to take a deep breath and look away.

  He went to the water, passing Rock, who appeared in his black gear, looking freshly clean, hair still wet. He had a hopeful expression as circled the frying pan filled with sizzling bacon. “You, Lily Peterson, are a goddess.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Although you should probably wait until after today’s hike to see if you still feel that way. And careful,” she warned as he poured himself coffee, “it’s hot.”

  “Tough hike today, then?”

  “Nothing you can’t handle,” she promised. “We’re going to take a trail that bisects Rainbow Ridge. There’s a handful of lakes only a blink away from the top. Good thing, too, ’cause we’ll be wanting a swim by then. Careful,” she said again as he lifted the mug to his lips. “It’s—”

  He hissed out a breath when he burned his tongue.

  And Lily just sighed.

  Rose actually poked her head out next. “Gimme,” she said, honing in on the coffeepot with an eagle eye. “Gimme quick, before I remember I have no makeup on, or that there’s no hair straightener in sight.”

  Rock rushed to give her his mug, waiting until she’d had a big gulp before he smiled at her. “You don’t need makeup, Rose. Or a hair straightener.”

  She looked at him as she continued to sip the steaming brew. “No?”

  “No way.”

  She looked at him some more. “Do lines like that usually work for you?”

  “Lines?”

  “Uh-huh.” Rose took another long sip of the caffeinated brew. “Where did you learn to sweet-talk a woman like that anyway?”

  Rock blushed. “I’m not—I don’t know.”

  Rose laughed and handed him back the mug as she climbed out of her tent, wearing low-slung shorts and another halter top. “God, how is it you’re still so sweet?” She rumpled his hair. “Hasn’t any woman ever screwed you over?”

  “No ma’am.” He tried to pretend he wasn’t staring at her body. “At least, I don’t think so.”

  On the far side of the fire, Jack backed out of his tent. Michelle followed. She looked a little worse for wear, but Jack poured her some coffee.

  She looked down at the steaming brew. “No cappuccino right?”

  Jack’s mouth tightened. “Michelle—”

  She laughed, the first time Lily had even heard that sound from her. “Just kidding, Jack. Jeez, lighten up.”

  Jack stared at Michelle until she ran a self-conscious hand over her own tousled hair. “What? Is my hair crazy? I told you—”

  “No, it’s just that you look so pretty when you smile.”

  And Michelle’s smile brightened. “Really? Thanks.”

  Lily moved in to feed everyone. “Eat up,” she said, enjoying that, for the moment at least, everyone seemed relaxed and happy. “We’ve got a hike to get to.”

  THE DAY’S six-mile hike was tough but went smoothly, and at the end of it, everyone dropped their packs and changed into their bathing suits behind the trees. Michelle, still in her yellow raingear, dragged Jack with her to “protect” her from spiders.

  Lily thought she’d do better to worry about sunburn with that tiny bikini she came back in, but then Rose came out in an even smaller itty-bitty set of black strings and blinded the men.

  Jared came out from behind his tree in nothing but a dark-blue pair of swim trunks that started well below his abs and fell to his knees, the CEO within him nowhere to be found—not in the two-day growth on his jaw or his finger-combed hair, and without a single piece of digital equipment on him.

  He handed something to Rose and Michelle, who thanked him profusely, and then in the next moment, music filled the air.

  Okay, almost no digital equipment on him.

  “iPod,” he said as he sat next to her. “They’ve been begging me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Unperturbed, Jared sighed in bliss and leaned back on his elbows. “My mom and sisters would never have wanted to hike for two days to get here, but they’d sure love this view. We did a lot of sitting at the beach in my youth.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  “Oh, sure. My sisters would bury me in the sand and force-feed me seaweed. Nice.”

  She laughed. “My mom didn’t like to travel.”

  “But you do.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s hereditary.” She rolled her eyes, a little uncomfortable with the revelation. “Got it from my father.” As she had a lot of things, apparently.

  “He’s a guide, too?”

  “Nope. A travel writer.” All Lily’s life she’d been told she was just like him, and all her life that had brought her a mixture of great pride and also a healthy dose of uneasiness.

  “He must be proud of you.”

  “I wouldn’t know. He only managed to stay with us until I was one. I understand that was a record for him.”

  “He just up and left you both?”

  He sounded horrified, and after the way he’d grown up, surrounded by family and swaddled in affection, she could understand why, and felt a little pathetic. “He went to Italy,” she said lightly. “Then France. I think he’s in Germany now.”

  “Did your mom ever remarry?”

  She closed her eyes and leaned back too, more comfortable when she couldn’t watch him watch her. “Hard to, since she’s still married to my dad. He coaxes her to him just