LOST WITH YOU - Lisa Ann Verge Page 0,8
few yards away from her, wiping water from his face.
She said, “A little warning might have—”
“You won’t get any warning on whitewater.”
Army Reserve, indeed. “This is the boot camp part of the training, I see.”
“How do you get back into the canoe?”
She stretched out an arm to swim toward the vessel. “In the reserves, was it sergeant?” she sputtered. “Lieutenant?”
“Major.” He watched as she grasped the gunwale. “Don’t try to haul yourself in from the middle. The canoe will capsize.”
“Then I’ll push it to the shore.”
“Assume we’re too far away for that.”
She tugged on the side, but it wobbled. “Are you going to teach me how?”
She saw his frown, though the water lapped over his chin.
“Swim to the rear of the canoe and grip the stern to pull yourself over.”
She slid down the canoe and grasped the slick stern. She kicked herself up, but didn’t manage to do much but sink the canoe a few inches deeper. This task required the kind of upper-body strength that might be found in Dylan’s impressively bulky arm muscles. Right now, her arms felt like noodles from the extended paddling.
You’re not going to get me this way, Dylan MacCabe. They’d been mostly silent during the last stretch of paddling, and she’d fallen into that Zen zone like she experienced while running, that peaceful, unruffled calm that was such a respite from worry. Three weeks of canoeing might be a little slice of heaven, if she could put up with the major here. She gripped the stern and hauled her weight out of the water until the gunwale dug into her belly. The bow of the canoe rose up to counterbalance. Straining to pull her bottom over the gunwale, she heard Dylan swim up behind her. Her weight shifted. The canoe bow lifted another foot above the water.
A warm hand cupped her bottom and shoved. She gasped, startled, as he propelled her bodily into the canoe, legs flying.
“What the hell?” She flung out her arms and twisted into a more dignified position, glaring at him over the gunwale. “If you’d given me a minute—”
“A minute struggling into a canoe in whitewater could send you hurling into a rock. A minute in deep water is enough to drown—”
“Point made.”
“Is it?” He grabbed the stern of the canoe to haul himself up, slipping his wet body into the canoe with all the grace of a dolphin. “I’ll grab your ass again, Casey,” he said, “or whatever I can get my hands on, if it means keeping us both safe.”
He rose to his knees, his T-shirt plastered against a hard set of pecs, and her heart rate kicked up. She made a living interviewing daredevils, athletes, adrenaline junkies. Their bodies varied, some minutely honed, others bulked up, or ropy and lean. It was one of the perks of her job to notice such things. At least that’s what she told herself as she counted a low, tight seventh row on his rippling six-pack.
“So,” she said, her voice lodged somewhere in her upper palate, “grabbing my butt isn’t sexual harassment if it means survival.”
“Outside of a survival situation, I’ll keep my hands to myself.” He yanked his paddle from under the seats.
She slid back toward the prow, edging over the back seat to put something between them, still feeling the imprint of his fingers on her bottom. She fumbled to pick up her wet paddle as he plunged his into the lake and propelled the canoe toward shore.
She hazarded one last glance over her shoulder. “Partners, Dylan?”
He paused before he nodded.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dylan sliced tomatoes with ferocious precision, trying to block out the sound of water running over Casey’s naked body in his bedroom shower. His cell phone rang, and his ex-partner’s name lit up the screen.
“Garrick,” Dylan barked, clicking on the speakerphone. “Tell me your arm has miraculously healed.”
“Ah…no.”
“Tell me it was just a sprain. That you’ve had the cast removed—”
“Dyl—”
“—and you’re phoning from your car, and you’ll be here in time for the launch tomorrow.”
Nothing else could save him from Casey Michaels’ allure at this point.
“None of that, buddy.”
Dylan inwardly groaned.
“I know this is all my bad,” Garrick continued in a voice that held a grimace. “But believe it or not, I’m about to make it up to you.”
“A fifth of single-malt scotch isn’t going to do it this time, dude.”
“What if I found you another partner?”
“Get out.” Dylan lifted the knife from the cutting board. “Who?”
“A rock-climbing partner of mine. He was with me when I fell