Ride with Me

When somebody put money in the jukebox, she asked Tom to dance. But four beers hadn’t made him stupid enough to touch her, so she danced with a few of the other guys instead, and he just watched.

She was, hands down, the sexiest woman he’d ever met. She seemed to have no idea.

She stopped at four beers, but Tom didn’t. After five, he had to admit to himself that he wasn’t just attracted to her, though that was bad enough. He wanted her more than he could ever remember wanting a woman. What was worse, he actually liked her. He enjoyed talking to her. Wanted to know what she thought about the world. Wanted to see her smile.

Worst of all, the sight of her dancing with anybody but him was making him jealous as hell, even while it made him angry on her absent husband’s behalf.

Five beers was how many it took to convince him he needed to put as much distance between himself and Mrs. Lexie Marshall as possible.

Lexie woke up wet and confused. Flailing around in the dark, she could tell at once there was a lot of water in her tent. Her sleeping bag and pad were soaked, and when she reached into the corner where she kept her headlamp, her fingers trailed through a puddle.

What the hell? She hadn’t heard any rain, so where had all the water come from? The only water in the tent was in her—

“Oh, shit.”

Her water bag had leaked. The bag she’d filled right before bed with nearly half a gallon of fresh water for the next day. Just before she’d fallen asleep, she’d heard a noise she thought might be an animal getting into their food, and in her hurry to get out of the tent to scare the little bugger off, she’d stepped on something. She must have squished the valve.

She searched the tent with her fingers until she found the bag and lifted it. It was nearly empty. Not good.

She sat up, turned on her headlamp, and took stock. Her sleeping pad and bag were a lost cause, and the flat nylon tote that contained all her dry clothes was lying in a lake by her feet. She unzipped it and rifled through the clothes. They were all sopping wet … just like everything else she had with her.

She found her camp towel and started soaking up the biggest puddles, but it was useless. There was nothing for it but to pull everything out of the tent and dump out the water, but that would have to wait until morning. It was pitch black and surprisingly cold. She wouldn’t be able to get anything dry enough to make her efforts worthwhile.

She’d just have to try to get back to sleep.

Switching off her headlamp, she lay back down. The sleeping bag was filled with down, which didn’t have much insulating power when it was wet. The cold soon started to seep in, chilling her through her damp clothes until she was shivering and miserable.

Could you freeze to death in a tent in June? Surely not. This was really freaking unpleasant, but it wasn’t going to kill her. She just had to suck it up. Sitting up, she rearranged the sopping sleeping bag in an attempt to find some warmer configuration.

She heard rustling, and then Tom’s deep voice from outside the tent. “What’s going on, Lex?”

Fantastic. All her moving around must have woken him up. In the close quarters of the commercial campsite, privacy after lights out was a fiction, but it was one they normally pretended to believe in. Leave it to Tom to pick this moment to abandon the pretense. It was embarrassing enough to have spilled half a gallon of water in her own tent, but it was ten times worse to have to tell him about it.

After their night out in Prineville, Angry Tom had returned with a vengeance, and she didn’t know why. For a few hours there, she and Tom had actually been having fun together, and now he wouldn’t even ride with her. She only saw him first thing in the morning and at the campsite in the late afternoon, and even then he kept to himself.

She’d reminded herself over and over that it was better this way. All she needed was somebody to pitch her tent next to. She didn’t need to make nice with Tom. Making nice with Tom was dangerous.

But she kind of missed him, and that bothered her so much, she was sharp with him on the rare occasions they did speak.

Also, if she was being honest, his abrupt retreat had hurt her feelings. But she was trying not to think about what that meant.

“My water bag leaked all over. It’s fine, though, I’ve got it covered. I can dry everything out in the morning.”

“You’re not fine. I can hear your teeth chattering from ten feet away.” The wall of the tent jerked, and then Tom was unzipping the flap. She reached for the zipper, hoping to keep him out, but she wasn’t fast enough.

“What got wet?” he asked. She couldn’t make out his expression in the dark, but he sounded irritated with her, as usual. Why didn’t he just leave her alone? This was not his problem. She was not his problem.

“Everything,” she spat.

“Do you have any dry clothes?”

“No.”

“Come with me, then.”

“What? No, I’m fine, seriously. Just go back to bed, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

He sighed heavily. “You’re not fine. You’re already cold, and the temperature’s going to keep dropping for hours. There’s plenty of room in my tent. We’ll get you warmed up, and then we can take care of drying out all your stuff in the morning.”