Hot as Sin (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #2)(32)
Author: Bella Andre

He sympathized. If they were looking for Connor, he would have been a wreck, too. But doing search and rescue had taught him that once you gave up hope, you were screwed. He couldn’t allow fear to paralyze her, especially not when paddling through the white water should be taking every ounce of her attention.

It was time for a break and some food. Maybe even a pep talk, if he could figure out how to pull that off when he was still wading through a thick, unending bog of desire and deteriorating self-control.

He steered them over to a small beach in the curve of the cliffs.

“Why are we stopping?” Dianna asked.

“Food. We’re quickly burning through our reserves and we need to keep our energy high.”

She opened her mouth, probably to argue with him, and he cut her off at the pass with, “And you need to give your body a rest. Rafting is hard enough, but doing it after an accident like yours is borderline crazy.”

He’d noticed that she was favoring her left shoulder. Paddling was tough work. Just one day after her crash she had to be stiff and sore all over.

Given their wet clothes and the brisk breeze whipping down the shady river, Sam decided to pull out a camp stove and some bags of dehydrated food to help warm them up before they got back on, and likely flipped back into, the ice-cold river.

“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 f**king 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.