Kitabı oxu: «Just Try Me...»

“Come here,” Jared said, daring her to go after what he knew they both wanted.

Taking Lily’s hand, he pulled her down beside him on a rock. Looking around, Lily noticed that they were on the far side of the lake – still within earshot of the others, but just out of view.

Fog hovered over the water, drifting over them, smudging the night scenery like a glorious wet painting. With a sigh, she let it all surround her – the crickets singing, the branches brushing together in the light breeze, the others talking back at camp…

Her own heartbeat.

Lily looked at him, at his profile with his strong, masculine features and the mouth that she so desperately wanted on hers.

“I want to strip you out of your clothes and take you right here,” he growled.

“The others –”

“Can hear, I know. We’ll be quiet,” he said, his voice sharp with desire.

He looked at her then, his glasses slipping just a little, a frown on his mouth. His jaw was shadowed with stubble and his hair had been finger combed. He was definitely a bad boy. An irresistibly sexy bad boy.

And lucky for Lily, bad boys were her weakness…

JILL SHALVIS

also lives in the Sierras, where she regularly survives hiking expeditions while surrounded by quirky characters. But these characters are her family, and she hardly ever has to dive off cliffs and jump into icy rivers to rescue people. Any other similarities between her life and Just Try Me… are purely coincidental.

Look for her bestselling, award-winning novels wherever romances are sold, and check out her website at www.jillshalvis.com.

JUST TRY ME…

BY

JILL SHALVIS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Prologue

WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER Lily Peterson stood on the edge of a cliff, surrounded by a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vista of what should have been glorious Montana mountains. Instead, the peaks were charred black and still smoking.

She was on mop-up duty. It meant walking and investigating every little plume of smoke rising from the dead mountains; arduous, dirty, exhausting work. She was at the far end of the burn, standing between devastation and new growth. Her job—protect the unscorched areas from a flare-up. No easy feat with the earth beneath her feet still radiating heat.

Both above and below her, the trees were nothing but skeletons. Hundreds and hundreds of years of forest development destroyed because some jerk hadn’t put out his campfire properly.

But they’d saved this part of the forest. It’d taken weeks. As a result, she was exhausted, right down to the bone, practically stumbling on her feet with it, but they’d done good.

The sun was just rising. Eyes gritty from lack of sleep, Lily patted her pockets for her sunglasses, but she must have left them back at the barracks. Lifting her head, she shielded her eyes with her hand and looked around for the others. She stepped closer to the edge of the plateau on which she stood, high above the valley by a good hundred feet. Matt and Tony were far below her, at least half a mile away, separated from each other by several football fields, walking east, heads down, doing just as she was.

Watching for flare-ups.

After six straight weeks of firefighting, eating while standing up, grabbing only catnaps when they could, she felt woozy, dead on her feet.

And the sun was killing her.

She turned her back on the valley, and observed the burned area around her. There was so much to keep an eye on, too much. Budgeting and financial cutbacks kept them perpetually understaffed, resulting in too many hours on-site and too few hours off for recuperation, not to mention too few people working at any one time.

When she found herself actually weaving, practically asleep where she stood, she backed up to a tree, slowly sliding down until she sat on the ground, her head resting against the trunk.

She lowered her hand from her face and then couldn’t keep her eyes open in the bright glare. So she closed them, just for a moment.

And never saw the new, dark-black plume of smoke rising from a hot spot, only five yards away…

1

LILY LAY FLAT on her back, her physical therapist pushing her leg up over her head as though she were a pretzel, telling her to “work it, Lily, stop whining and work it,” while pain seared a fiery line from her ass to the very tip of her hair.

Lily would like to work him, all right—right into a bloody pulp.

Instead she gritted her teeth and told herself that this was the price she paid for stupidity.

No self-pity, she decided as she began to sweat like a stuck pig, her tank top sticking to her skin, her leg quivering wildly as she stretched her abused, injured muscles… Damn, she hurt.

Maybe retiring wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t as if it was the first time. From high school, she’d gone into expedition guiding, which she’d retired from to become a paramedic. And when she’d burned out scooping stab victims off the streets of Los Angeles, she’d retired again to become a wildland firefighter.

And she’d loved it. Thrived on it, actually, moving from fire to fire, exploring Montana, the Dakotas, Idaho, Wyoming…a perfect fit for her restless spirit.

Until she’d screwed up and nearly gotten herself killed.

Nope, there was no sugarcoating this retirement; she was no longer a firefighter—because of injuries, not by choice. She felt weak and insignificant, and at the age of twenty-nine-and-three-quarters, she wasn’t ready for either. She wanted to be back out there, damn it, doing her thing, going where she wished, doing something she loved and was good at.

But she couldn’t have passed an agility test to save her life. Hell, she couldn’t even touch her toes at the moment.

“Harder, Lily.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and stretched harder, feeling her muscles pull and burn. And yet still, beyond the pain, she also felt…itchy. She needed to be on the move, working with adrenaline as her daily friend. It was a pattern in her life, an affliction. It was who she was, what she did.

Or who she’d used to be anyway—a terrifying thought because…who the hell was she now? “Damn it, ow,” she said to her PT, a gorgeous man who resembled Denzel Washington.

Eric nodded in approval and backed off. “Was wondering if you even had a pain threshold there for a minute.”

“Got it, and we hit it.”

He smiled—because it wasn’t his muscles they were torturing. “Wait here. I’m going to get you some ice.”

She’d spent a lot of time in and out of the hospital since her Screw-Up. Major, life-threatening injuries did that to a person. But she’d still not learned to be a good waiter. In fact, waiting was for sissies who needed a minute, and she absolutely did not. She had things to do, places to go. Rolling over, she pushed up to her hands and knees, still trembling like a damn newborn.

Or a wildland firefighter who’d woken up in the middle of a full-blown flare-up, forced backwards by the flames, where she’d taken a fall off the cliff, hitting a few burning trees on the way down. Forty feet down. An ex-firefighter now, who couldn’t move an inch. She collapsed to her belly, and lay there like a beached whale.

Okay, so maybe she did need a minute.

Around her the PT office buzzed with the low hum of voices, the whir of equipment. More people being pushed to the edge of sanity… Someone’s cell phone rang. Lily hated cell phones. Truthfully, she wasn’t crazy about anything electronic, which she supposed made her an outcast in her own generation.

But give her a wide-open space with nothing marring the sound of a soft breeze any day. Thinking it, yearning, she looked out the window toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately, San Francisco didn’t have a lot of wide-open spaces. Not the way she liked them anyway, the kind that took three days of walking to get to civilization.

Nearby, something else beeped—someone’s Blackberry, or a laptop—and she sighed, missing being outside. The mat beneath her smelled like the sweat and tears of all the previous patients Eric had worked over, and she crawled to one of the chairs lining the wall.

All around her were the injured and the hurting, and it depressed her enough to keep to herself. She scanned the stack of magazines. Fashion, gossip rags…then her gaze snagged on U.S. Weekly Review, and the cover article— “Adrenaline Rush.”

Huh. Interested in something for the first time in too long, she risked the pain to reach for it. “Ow, ow, ow…” The magazine opened right to the cover article. Beneath the title was a single-line testimonial from the editor of the magazine.

This article changed my life, give it a try!

No article had ever changed Lily’s life, and with no small amount of skepticism, she began to read. The author believed life was all about risk-taking, and how too few people actually risked at all, much less lived life to its fullest.

So far, Lily agreed. Hadn’t she taken more than a few risks in her life, the latest of which had resulted in her being here right this minute? As for living life to its fullest…well, she’d done that, too. In all areas.

Okay, in all areas except maybe one, but she didn’t want to think about her love life.

Or lack thereof. Men tended to come in and out of her world like the passing of a tide, no one having made a lasting impression. She knew what it said about her that she’d never had a real long-term relationship, and she didn’t care. Her life wasn’t conducive to long-term anyway, including men.

With a sigh, she went back to the article. “Jumpstart your life” it demanded, and went on to explain that a risk didn’t have to be physical, it just had to be something off her own beaten path.

Well, since the path she’d been on had been a dizzying whirlwind of doctors and more doctors, she felt more than ready for different, thank you very much.

But how to do it? She was a mere shadow of her former self. How could she ever find the courage to risk again?

But…could she stand not to?

“Ah, here you are,” Eric said, returning with the promised icepack. He patted the mat next to him, and with a groan, she tossed the magazine aside and crawled back to work.

Two months later

LILY HAD HEALED just enough to be restless as hell. And frustrated.

And truthfully? Scared. It showed in the lingering nightmares of waking up surrounded by flames, it showed in her sudden dislike of being alone.

She could have called her mother, but her mother liked the idea of Lily “settling down,” “acting her age.” Lily had no siblings, and her father…well let’s just say she was entirely too like him.

Or so she’d been told. Since he hadn’t been around in years, she couldn’t be sure.

It didn’t matter. She was alone, and that’s just the way it was. But for the first time in her life, she wasn’t strong, and she hated that. She needed…something, something to show her she could become the person she’d been before her accident.

But more than that, she needed money. She’d been searching for a viable job for weeks now, and had found nothing to interest her. But funds were running low and the criteria was going to have to change from what interested her to what fed her.

She opened her paper to the want ads and her gaze immediately locked on one in particular. A trek guide was needed ASAP by an expedition company— Outdoor Adventures, to be exact.

Lily stared at the ad and felt a rush of emotion, along with a sense of deja vu. Outdoor Adventures, where she’d first worked as an eighteen-year-old guide, nearly twelve years ago. Jumpstart your life…take a risk… It was like a sign, right? She could start over, back at the beginning. Maybe she could become strong again. Become the person she’d once been.

Without letting herself think, she reached for the phone and called the number listed, though in truth, she somehow still had it memorized. A receptionist answered, and she heard herself ask for Keith Tyler, but when he came on the line with his low, almost unbearably familiar voice, she went still, bombarded by memories: climbing mountains, leading treks, being young and strong and…and nothing like she was now.

“Hello?” Keith said again, a hint of impatience in his tone now. “Anyone there?”

“Wow,” she finally managed. “You sound the same.”

There was a pause. Then, “Lily? Lily Peterson?”

“How are you, Keith?”

“Thrilled to hear from you. I was just thinking about you not too long ago, wondering if you remembered me.”

“Of course I remember. You were…” Would she say her first boss…or her first lover?

Both applied.

He merely chuckled. “Yeah, I always was hard to pigeon-hole. Still am, to be honest.”

Lily lay back on her bed, closed her eyes, and was transported back in time. Having just graduated high school, she’d finally been able to give in to the wanderlust bug. She’d left Los Angeles, her mother and friends, and had gone to work as an expedition guide.

Keith’s guide. Ten years her senior, he’d been gorgeously worldly, and of course, sexy as hell. All that long, hot summer, she’d worked for Outdoor Adventures, guiding hiking trips through the Sierras, teaching people about the outdoors by day, and by night…well, Keith had certainly taught her plenty by night, every night.

Until she’d moved on to her next adventure, and left him and all the memories behind.

But not too far behind, given the odd ping low in her belly just from listening to his voice. “I saw your ad in the paper,” she said.

“And I saw you, not in the want ads though, but the front page. You had quite a fall.”

After all these months, she still flinched. She hated that her mistake, her failure, had been so public. “Yeah.”

“You broke your back. You…you’re in a wheelchair now, yes?”

“No.”

“But the article said you weren’t expected to walk again, that—”

“I’m fine now.” If fine meant a stupid limp and some serious lingering aches and pains that made her feel like an old lady all the time.

“But not fine enough to fight fires?”

“And to think, once upon a time, I loved your characteristically blunt manner.”

“Yeah, I guess I haven’t changed much.” There was a smile in his voice. “So you want to trek again? But…”

“I know I can do it.” Okay, that was a little white lie. She knew no such thing. What she did know was that once upon a time, she’d been the fittest of the fit, and strong as hell. Her body had never failed her.

Until she’d failed it.

“Just try me,” she said, hating the desperation she could hear in her voice. Please just try me. She needed this, needed to be outside, needed to feel strong enough for something.

“You always were a great guide,” Keith admitted. “I guess, if you’re serious, I have a camping trek next week in the Sierras. It’s high-altitude though,” he warned. “And high summer. It’s also seven to ten miles of walking for four days running.”

“I can do it,” she said quickly, even as she paled at the thought of pushing her body that hard.

“Well, once upon a time no one knew that area better than you,” he admitted. “Should be right up your alley. Pre-trip meeting is in three days, my offices.”

She smiled, and that alone felt…amazing. She would do this, and she’d feel worthwhile again, alive. “I’ll be there.”

“I guess a trip like this will be good for you, huh?”

Good for her? Probably not.

But something to do, a direction to go in?

God, she hoped so.

OUTDOOR ADVENTURE’S offices were located in a large but old art deco building right on the bay. Twice she drove by looking for a parking spot. There wasn’t one. There was never a parking spot in San Francisco, anywhere.

She glanced at the magazine on the seat next to her— the one with the Adrenaline-Rush article, which she’d bought for herself to keep staring at.

Risk.

Yeah. She was risking, all right.

Just then a parking spot opened up right in front of Keith’s building. It was a sign, she thought, a sign that she was doing the right thing, and she put on her blinker and—

And nearly crashed into a brand-new Lexus, whose driver was going for the spot at the same time.

Her truck a mere inch from his, he looked at her through his designer sunglasses.

Oh, no you don’t, she thought, and pointed to the spot and then to herself. Mine.

Lifting a brow, he cocked his head, as if not used to being told no.

Well, she had plenty of nos for him, but then he did something she didn’t expect. He waved her into the spot.

Go ahead, he mouthed, his glasses slipping down his nose. Pushing them up, he again waved her forward. Take it.

Huh. Go figure. He wasn’t a jerk. She watched as he put his car in Reverse, giving her room to take the spot.

Still dazed by this, she pulled in. By the time she got out of her car, he was gone, probably having to drive to Seattle to get his own spot.

That’s when she looked up and saw it. The handicap tag she’d been given after her injury, hanging off her rearview mirror. The tag she hadn’t used in months but had never removed.

He’d given her the spot out of pity.

Well damn if she didn’t hate that all the way down to her toes and back, where it settled into her gut like a slow burn. She didn’t need the charity spot, damn it. Yanking the sign down, she stuffed it beneath her seat. Uncomfortably unsettled, she got out of her truck, refusing to admit to the shooting pain in her legs, the one she always got when she first stood up.

She ignored it. Her doctor had said she was healed enough to walk from here to the ends of the earth, which she’d taken to mean she could certainly lead others there, or anywhere else she chose.

Shooting pain or not.

The San Francisco night was cool for July. Summer still hadn’t really kicked into gear yet, and as usual, probably wouldn’t until it was nearly over. Didn’t matter. She loved the misty air, the salty breeze, but it was time to get back to the mountains.

Yeah, if you can really actually do this …

Swallowing the doubts, she moved up the steps. Ahead of her was a man, tall and lanky, with short dark hair, dressed in clean, neat lines that would have looked just right on the pages of a glossy men’s magazine. He held some sort of digital device in his hand, an earphone in his left ear, and was typing something at the speed of light with only his thumb as he walked and talked to himself.

No, wait. He wasn’t talking. He was singing. Singing badly off-key to…she couldn’t hear whatever it was he heard through his earpiece, but she caught his words. He was definitely screwing up a good U2 song.

He slid the Sidekick in his back pocket, the display still lit up, suggesting he had incoming messages and/or a phone call, all of which he ignored to squat and pat a stray dog on the steps of the building.

The dog, a mixture of black and white and grunge, rolled on its back and exposed its belly for more petting, its huge tongue lolling out of its head in ecstasy.

“Good boy,” the man said, taking a seat on the step in his well-fitting beige pants which meant he clearly didn’t do his own laundry. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”

In answer, the dog drooled happily, his legs straight up in the air.

As Lily came level with them, they both looked up, the man letting out an easy smile.

Her parking spot savior.

2

IN RESPONSE to Lily’s surprise, the man’s mouth went from smile to grin, the kind that was instantly contagious, though she didn’t understand why. Because for her, a contagious smile came from a different sort of man entirely: a rebel, a guy who could and would transport her, make her wonder what was going to come next, give her a sense of…adventure.

This guy, in his pretty-boy clothes and pocket full of toys was cute enough, but her geek alert was beeping an alarm as loud as his Sidekick. “I didn’t need that parking spot,” she said.

“Okay.” He looked at her from hazel eyes that were more whiskey-brown than sea-green.

“You should have kept it for yourself.”

He seemed amused. “Not used to gift parking spots, huh?”

She wasn’t used to gift anythings.

Leaning in, he arched his brow. “A hint? The correct response is ‘thank you.’”

Damn it, he was right. She hated that. “Thank you,” she said, moving through the door he opened for her. “Twice.” She moved past him into the building’s lobby, refusing to notice how good he smelled, or that she could feel him watching her limp.

“You okay?” he asked, right on cue.

Her shoulders stiffened. “I’m good.” To prove it, she moved past the elevators, toward the door to the stairs. “I’m going to take these since you spared me the trouble of having to hike in from Timbuktu.”

He laughed, a sound that seemed to come easily, and for some reason, she turned to look at him. Laugh lines fanned out from those interesting eyes, assuring her that he laughed often. “Glad I could save you the trouble,” he said. “Think of how much gas you’d have used going to Timbuktu and back.” His Sidekick beeped again, and he reached for it. “Excuse me. If I don’t get that, it self-destructs.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Yeah, it’s not pretty.”

Probably he couldn’t make a move without something beeping or requiring his attention, and she wondered how a guy like that ever went to bed with a woman. Did he bring all his toys and leave them on the nightstand when he stripped? Not that she cared, but it was an interesting image, him naked, holding his PDA, saying “excuse me, honey, hold that thought while I get a text message.”

While he worked, she did as she usually did with things that made her uncomfortable, she walked away, letting herself into the stairwell to begin the climb. Halfway up, she thought she was going to die, and had to bend down at the knees and gasp for breath, which really pissed her off.

Damned body.

When she finally made it to the offices, she opened Outdoor Adventure’s door and immediately took a deep breath. Ah, she remembered this place fondly. There were still maps, topos and photographs of places from all over the world on the walls. The maps were dotted with pins signifying where Keith and his guides had taken people. Once upon a time, she’d been the yellow pins, but someone else had taken that color. From all around her came a familiar sense of energy and excitement, and she was assaulted with memories.

The first time she’d set foot in here, she’d been awed and thrilled and…excited. During her interview, Keith had sat on his desk, right in front of her, larger than life, gorgeous and sexy. He’d agreed to teach her to guide that day, a promise he’d kept.

After she’d lost her virginity on that desk.

Now the reception area was filled with a group of people, drinking sodas and nibbling on munchies—the custom pre-trip meeting. She took in the faces, and then one in particular—Keith’s, and just like that, she was no longer quickly approaching her thirtieth birthday without a plan, but was a nervous eighteen-year-old.

“Lily,” he said, and crossed the room toward her. His sun-kissed-wheat hair was still long to his shoulders. His baby blues, always smiling, had a few more laugh lines, but as was typical of a man, they only added character. At five-ten, his body was still whipcord-lean and tough, ready for his next trip or climb or adventure or whatever.

One never knew with Keith.

It’d been part of his appeal. She waited for the onslaught of more emotions, but interestingly enough, they didn’t come, and that disappointed her even as she knew it was silly. What had she expected, to immediately be transported back to “herself”?

Maybe a little, she admitted, no matter how unrealistic that had been.

Keith put his hands on her arms and pulled her in, kissing one cheek, then the other, lingering with both far longer than social decorum called for.

Not that Keith had ever been concerned with social decorum. He’d always done what he wanted, when he wanted, never caring what anyone thought. That had been incredibly appealing to her back then, and she smiled now, leaning into him as if he could infuse her with his strength, his zest.

“You look amazing,” he said for her ears only, handing her a drink from a nearby tray. “Now let me introduce you to your group. Everyone,” he called out, stopping the light conversation and chatter in the room with just the one word, apparently clearly still carrying charisma around in spades. “This is Lily Peterson.” He squeezed her shoulder, smiled down into her face. “I’ve put her bio in your packet, but here’s your chance to meet her in person and ask her any questions you’ve stored up.”

Everyone began chattering at once, and Keith laughed.

Not Lily. She didn’t often get nervous. After all, she’d once been stuck on a mountain in a blizzard with no hopes of survival, and she’d gone down a class-six rapid and had her kayak break apart on the rocks all around her. Hell, she’d fallen off a cliff and broken her back, to be told she’d never walk again.

But this first meeting of people…this got to her. She took a quick sip of her drink and forced a smile. “Hello, everyone.”

“Let’s start with Rose McCall.” Keith gestured to the woman closest to Lily. “Rose is a real estate agent from downtown, and is looking for something new and fun to do with herself. Hence the hike.”

Rose waggled her fingers at Lily. Her nails were long and purple-tipped, encrusted with diamonds. “Looking forward to this, let me tell you.” She wore designer jeans, low on her curvy hips and so tight Lily had no idea how the woman moved. Her black halter top was covered in sparkles that matched her five-inch heels. Her carefully applied makeup masked her age, but Lily would have guessed late thirties.

The Woman on the Prowl, Lily thought as she shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Rose smiled. “Likewise. I have a question. How do you feel about sandals?”

“On the trail?”

“Yes. My feet like to be cool. My toes need to breathe.”

“Probably they’re going to want to breathe before and after the trip,” Lily said as diplomatically as she could. “Boots are definitely best.”

“Agreed,” Keith said, and with his hands on Lily’s shoulders, turned her toward the next group member. “And this here is Roland Rocklin.”

Roland was a twenty-something guy dressed in all in black from head to toe, black fatigues, black form-fitting T-shirt, black combat boots, and he was so gorgeous Lily actually blinked.

“Rock,” Roland corrected, and held out his hand, a movement that set off all kinds of rippling muscles to go with his engaging smile.

“Wrestler?” Lily asked, thinking The Hottie. She’d never say her labels out loud, but she’d always had fun characterizing her groups. And she was already— shocking—having fun.

“Boxer,” Rock told her with a quick grin. “My trainer bought me this trip for my birthday, said I was a pansy-ass—er, a wuss if I didn’t make it to the end.”

“Oh, you’ll make it to the end,” Lily assured him. No one was giving up on her watch, not even her, not if it killed her. “We all will.”

“Good to hear.” Rock’s gaze slid over to Rose, who was retying her halter top. When the material slipped, she caught it just before exposing a nipple.

“Oops.” She laughed gustily. “Sorry, don’t mind me. But let me just say, I do like the idea of all of us getting to the…grand finish.”

Rock’s tongue fell out. Lily figured he was lucky he didn’t start drooling.

Keith cleared his throat. “Moving on. Lily, meet Jack and Michelle Moore.” He gestured to the young couple on the other side of Rose. They were both dressed to the nines, and built like they lived in a gym, not to mention California-perfect blond. “The trip is their one-year anniversary present from Michelle’s father.”

“Present…or torture rack,” Michelle said as they both shook Lily’s hand.

“No torture,” Lily assured her.

“Yeah. Um, I was wondering.” Michelle leaned in. “If there’s any way you could just pretend we went on this trip. You know, if my father asked.”

Lily blinked. “Pretend?”

“Don’t listen to her,” Jack said. “We’re going.” He looked at his wife. “You agreed to go so you don’t lose your allowance. If it’s that important to you, you go.”

Michelle sighed. “Fine. But…could we arrange for a later start time so we don’t have to get up quite so early?”

Lily shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. We have to leave at eight.”

Michelle pursed her perfectly glossed lips. “Eight is ungodly.”

“That may be, but we have a schedule. It’s the start time.”

“Huh.” She considered that a moment. “Well, what happens if someone’s…say, like, late?”

Lily glanced at Keith, who simply raised a brow. Passing the buck. Something he was good at, she remembered. He didn’t like to be the bad guy. “If you’re late,” she said gently but firmly. “You’ll probably get left.”

Michelle looked intrigued by that, but Jack shook his head. “Michelle.”

“Oh, fine. We’ll be there.”

Behind them, the office door opened, and in came…

“Ah,” Keith said, with a welcoming smile. “The last member of the group, Jared Skye.”

The man who gave up parking spots, stopped to pet stray dogs and opened doors for temperamental women now had a name.

He smiled at Lily, and the oddest thing…something happened low in her belly. It was a pit of knowledge— by the end of this trip, they would have a history, this man and herself. Somehow, in some way, she knew it.

She just didn’t like it.

He slipped out his earpiece and shook hands with Keith, who turned to Lily and brought her close to his side. “Jared, meet Lily, your guide.”