tight around his waist and linked her gloved hands behind his neck to kiss him back. He felt a surge of desire for her that almost shot him off the platform. His tongue invaded, and hers danced with his. The harness she was in came across her breasts and between her legs like a barrier.
When they came up for air, he whispered, "You ready?"
"Getting closer every day," she said so breathily he almost had to read her lips.
Reluctantly, but with another pat on her bottom, he turned her outward and let her go.
It was almost like flying, as if she were a bird, maybe a ptarmigan with feathered feet as well as wings. Ellie and Vanessa had let out thrilled screams at the beginning of their flights, but Lisa took it all in silently. After what she'd been through these last few days--and after all that from Mitch just now--this seemed wonderful but tame, sensational but not scary.
Trusting her harness, she spun and swayed, descending from the trees and sailing over the blowing meadow splashed with many-hued wildflowers. She had no desire to slow her speed, which Mitch had said would be around thirty miles per hour. Down, faster, past the silver ribbon of water threading from the Talkeetnas to feed the Wild River. Wind, wild wind in her hair, caressing her cheeks still burnished from Mitch's touch.
But then, ahead, the river itself loomed, like a huge, writhing white snake, magnificent but monstrous. Even when she saw the others at the bottom of the cable waiting for her, the river seemed a threat, as if it could suck her into churning, whiteout oblivion again. But she'd come a long way in determination and courage since she'd ridden a cable car over the river that had almost devoured her.
The slope of the cable leveled out, and she slowed her descent before Spike stopped her. "Took you a little while to decide to do it, right?" he asked, making her wonder just how long she and Mitch had been kissing. With him, kisses and caresses seemed to fly by and yet be in her brain and blood forever.
"I'm fine," she said. "I wanted to do it in honor of Ginger. I see now why she loved it. If I were going to be here longer, I'd take over this job for her--and baking, too, though I'd never come up to her standards."
As soon as Spike unhooked her from the line, Graham took her elbow and pulled her out of the way while they waited for Mitch to come careening after her. Looking around, Graham said in a loud voice, "Lisa, Vanessa and Jonas, too--you just worry about staying up with Carlisle, Bonner's standards. Soon we'll be heading home, and I'll make the senior partner decision just before we leave. I've told Mitch we'll go river rafting this afternoon--upriver, where its relatively calm--and then for the competition, you're finished."
You're finished, Lisa thought. Why did everything Graham said lately sound so ominous?
19
J
ust to be near the river, let alone on it, made Lisa's heart pound. But the rapids were lower and the roar less upriver where they'd driven a gravel road in Mitch's SUV. Spike and Christine weren't along, so it was just Mitch and his Carlisle and Bonner guests. This is a safe part of the Wild River for multiperson rafting, Lisa told herself, repeating over and over silently what Mitch had said. The local authorities deemed it safe; Mitch had a license. And she had a PFD on again, the same kind that had kept her afloat downriver. Everyone was going in the same big raft, and Mitch would be there from the first. She could call it quits--no matter what Graham thought--at any time, and they would put her off on the bank where she could walk back on the road to the SUV. They were not in any sort of canyon, thank God, and Mitch said there were numerous landing spots in this area.
"Everybody, strap your helmets on," Mitch ordered. "Jonas, are you sure you want to do th--"
"I said I did," Jonas interrupted with a sideways glance at Graham. "I have a high tolerance for pain and fatigue. Learned that playing college football and from the demands of law school and working hard at the firm. I can take it."
Lisa thought he might as well be wearing a placard around his neck with huge print: Pick me, Graham. I can take it--the promotion, the river, anything life throws at