Dan glanced across the challenge group to where Eden stood with Emily Chalmers. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and dark glasses hid her huge, expressive eyes. He relaxed his fingers, uncurling them from fists, dragging his mind from Eden and her rare but beatific smile and tuned back into the safety briefing. This weekend’s training was a two-day hike and overnight camp in Wales, wild-style.
All week he’d replayed their last encounter on her doorstep like a broken record. Twice he’d awoken in the early hours covered in sweat and tangled up in the bedding after a vivid dream featuring the feisty brunette. He hadn’t remembered details, only the impression she was in trouble and he needed to hurry. He didn’t need to call on his long-forgotten psychology training to dissect the dreams, preferring to blame the unseasonal spell of hot weather for his nocturnal disturbances.
Besides, she still resolutely avoided him, this time arriving early and selecting a seat at the front of the minibus, next to Steve, the Ruby Challenge leader.
With the safety briefing over, they set off, their group quickly fracturing into two. The quicker pace-setters breaking away from the group who had the worst physical limitations or who had yet to significantly improve their fitness. Dan settled behind the latter group, content to be out in the great outdoors after a week of air-conditioned hospital air and windowless treatment rooms.
He was sluggish himself today, his late night shift at his second job—volunteering for the First Response Unit—having kept him awake until the early hours with a particularly horrific road collision on the outskirts of Derby. Probably the reason he didn’t notice Eden had fallen back to walk at his side.
His chest tugged. The sun glinted off the top of her head and her wary smile melted the hard knot in his gut he’d held onto since their altercation on her doorstep.
‘I wanted to apologise.’ Eden’s contrite voice washed over him.
She carried one of the larger packs, which contained tents and other equipment they’d need for their overnight hike. Not to be outdone by the big burly men?
She brushed some loose hair away from her eyes. ‘I was … my anger was aimed at someone else.’ Colour rose in her cheeks, the merest blush of rose. ‘I’m sorry you took the brunt of it.’ Her chest expanded as if she held her breath.
Dan shrugged, stunned silent by her unexpected and seemingly heartfelt apology. Don’t let her off the hook yet.
‘My sister’s always telling me off for …’ He couldn’t tell her Amelia had her pegged as a lost cause. She’d whack him with a billycan. ‘… Interfering.’
‘The sister who owns the dogs?’
She was making conversation? He almost lost his footing on little more than a grass tussock. ‘Yes. Amelia. My older sister. She likes to point out my shortcomings. Regularly.’ Dammit, why couldn’t he stay angry at Eden? Or at least indifferent.
She nodded, her long, thick ponytail swaying back and forth across the slender column of her neck. ‘Siblings can be like that.’ At his questioning stare, she added, ‘Older brother.’
Dan’s focus dropped to the path ahead of them, but not before taking in the way the straps of the pack bracketed her pert breasts, pushing them forward. Fuck. Where did that come from?
He cleared his throat. ‘My sister’s a stay-at-home mum, married to a farmer. She also runs a small business and keeps us all in check. I let the odd … lecture slide.’
She smiled, a shy event that lifted her delicately glowing cheeks. He figured she’d shut down the conversation soon or disappear, but she surprised him.
‘My brother’s a major in the army. Or soon to be. He’s up for a promotion.’ She rolled her eyes as if that said it all.
Heat unfurled in his stomach, a bizarre, long-forgotten feeling that left him floundering to keep up the lighthearted banter. He nodded, his lips forming a thin smile. ‘I see.’ Were they having a proper conversation here? He fought the temptation to shake himself awake.
Hesitant again, she cast her stare around the splendour of the view. Dan bit his tongue, his patience eventually rewarded.
‘Thanks for the lift home last week. You were right. My car did need a new battery.’ Another smile. ‘Apparently you have to get batteries replaced more that once every eight years.’
‘You’re welcome.’ His brain, finally catching up, raced. What was going here? One minute hot, the next frosty. Polite then belligerent. A guy could get dizzy. And while he had a reputation for being laid-back, he wasn’t a punching bag. She’d have to take her mood swings out on someone else, no matter how appealing her full lips when she smiled those small but dazzling smiles or her rounded hips concealed beneath her hiking gear.
Ignoring the stab to his guts, he said, ‘Enjoy the walk, Archer. I’m going to trot ahead, see if Meade’s prosthesis is rubbing.’ His back burned as he lengthened his stride, bypassing the slower group to catch up to Meade, a lower-leg amputee.
It nearly killed him, but he didn’t look back for the rest of the day.
* * *
The streaks of orange coloured the sky behind the peaks silhouetted in the early morning light. Eden had ignored the safety rules and left the camp before anyone else arose. She needed to run. A restless night spent on hard ground shouldn’t have bothered her, but something had kept her tossing and turning in her sleeping bag. Something more than the cold and the bleat of sheep.
Dan.
His … she couldn’t really call it a dismissal. He’d politely departed, his charm and gentility intact. But it had bothered her nonetheless. Something in his posture as he strode ahead demanded a new sense of respect. No matter how many times during the day she slanted a glance in his direction, she was met with the cut of his profile, or worse, the back of his head. His indifference, something she’d craved since the day she’d met him, invaded her mind until he occupied most of her thoughts. She resisted it. Dismissed it with a resounding mental slap. She deserved his contempt after the way she’d spoken to him. But knowing he was asleep a few feet away in his own tent …
No.
Not going there. Her insomnia lay solely at the hands of the sheep and the cold.
Eden veered off the well-worn path the tourists used, curling her toes to dig in to the uneven slope, which was pitted with rabbit holes and scattered rocks. Despite having run for ten minutes, her limbs were slow to warm up, the near dark before the dawn causing her breath to gust out and whiten the air before her.
She sucked in frigid breaths, grateful for the sting in her lungs, despite the odour of sheep poo. It was going to be a beautiful, clear day. Spend enough time outdoors and you acclimatised to the seasons and weather patterns, developed a kind of radar far more accurate than a weather app.
Near the peak of the hill, Eden dug deep, battling the scream of her leg muscles and the scalding burn in her lungs. Nearly there. Keep going.
At the summit, she collapsed forward, her chest raw and her throat on fire. Euphoria coursed through her bloodstream, adding to her own sense of accomplishment. Her hands braced on her thighs as she waited for the burn to subside and her thundering heart rate to drop.
That’s when she caught sight of him. A lonely silhouetted figure against the dawn sky. Her breath froze in her lungs, and she scanned the hillside. Alone, Dan stooped over a bulky camera mounted to a tripod, his back to her. For a split second she considered turning around, taking the coward’s way out and slinking soundlessly back the way she’d come. But as she followed his every move, her curiosity aflame, the oddly unsettled feelings of yesterday resurfaced.
The view and the technicalities of the camera he used completely absorbed him. The sun wasn’t fully up yet—presumably he hoped to capture its rise. His face was scrunched in concentration and he wore one of those ridiculous head torches, but he moved with a focus and confidence that left her mesmerised. Her stare glued to him. She hovered, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
He wouldn’t be expecting company at this time of day or this far from the camp. He certainly wouldn’t expect her, after he finally gave up on her in his easygoing, well-mannered way. She should slip away, unnoticed.
Even before her feet started to move, she’d made her decision. She blamed curiosity. Perhaps the solitary sight of him drew her, or the surprising revelation that Dr Dan had time for a hobby. Or perhaps she simply wanted to reassure herself her restlessness of the night before had been completely unrelated to the man.
He must have heard her approach, his startled face emerging from behind the viewfinder of the camera, which boasted a huge lens.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.’ They hadn’t spoken yesterday after her stilted apology and his graceful dismissal. ‘I was running.’ Sweat trickled a chilly path down her neck from her hairline and she regretted the impulse to interrupt. No doubt, her face was an alarming shade of puce.
And he hadn’t spoken yet. She braced herself, ready to turn tail.
But excitement, not censure lit his eyes. ‘That’s okay. I just want to catch it.’ He turned back to the camera, his head ducking once more to the view through the lens. ‘Take a seat, Archer. It’s going to be a beauty.’ He spoke with his back to her, but she could tell from the slight slur of his speech he had one eye scrunched closed as he focused on what was about to become a stunning sunrise.
Eden dropped to the dew-dampened grass, tugging her long sleeves down to cover her frigid fingers.
Dan clicked away at the camera, the only sound disturbing the rural tranquillity. After a while, she forgot he was there, and she embraced the majesty of the view. When was the last time she’d simply sat and been mindful? Grateful that she hadn’t died that day, when others hadn’t been so fortunate? She pulled crisp, earthy air into her lungs, exhaling as she allowed her gaze to trace the jagged horizon, which was backlit by a sky streaked with orange and pink.
The movement of Dan repositioning the tripod for a different shot drew her back to a different kind of view, no less spectacular. Syrupy warmth spread through her veins, heating her limbs from the inside.
Lightweight cargo pants hugged his taut backside as he stooped over the tripod, and his wide shoulders bunched under his T-shirt as he lifted his hand to manually focus the lens. Who knew cameras like that still existed? The breeze lifted his hair, revealing the grey at his temples and the lines fanning out from the eye he scrunched closed while he concentrated.
He pressed a few buttons, turned a few dials and then joined her on the grass as the first rays of the day’s sun rose above the mountains.
She hesitated to break the silence she’d found. ‘Won’t you miss it?’ A whisper.
He shrugged, his eyes never leaving the display Mother Nature put on for them. ‘I don’t want to miss seeing it in person.’ He flashed her grin, ‘And I’ve set the automatic timer.’ He draped his arms over his bent knees, his hands clasped between them. ‘Shh, Archer. Just watch.’
She surprised herself by doing as she was told, although had it been an exam she’d have failed. For her, the splendour of the view was surpassed by the vision of Dan watching the sunrise with rapt attention. She couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Had he spent countless mornings doing this with his wife? Sharing special wonders of nature before rolling home with hot coffee for lazy lovemaking?
The golden morning light glinted off the sprinkle of golden hair on his tanned, muscular arms. Strong arms. Arms built for holding. The breeze lifted a waft of his manly scent, dumping it on Eden like a decadent cloud. She hugged her own knees, conscious she’d just spent the last half an hour sweating up the hill.
His chin was dusted with stubble and his hair looked like he’d spent the night sleeping on a Welsh hillside in a field with only a tap and an outhouse for amenities. But there was a serene solidity about him, as if he’d been here, steadfast and immovable, as long as the landscape itself.
‘What do you think, Archer?’ His gaze slid sideways and one long, elegant finger pointed at the view. ‘Worth waking up for?’
His hands were beautiful, in a way no man’s hands should be—the nails short and square, the fingers strong and sinewy. How many times had those very hands been put to good use? How many life-saving actions and soothing touches had they performed?
And when had she stopped noticing the little things—those small differences, fascinating idiosyncrasies and personal passions that made us human and beautifully unique?
Perhaps Mac was right. She’d pushed, battled and persisted for so long—had she lost her own humanity along the way?
Dan turned to her, a small smile denting his cheeks. He opened his mouth as if to speak—to repeat his unanswered question, to comment on the beauty of the day to come or even to tell her that she had sheep poo on her trainer. She’d never know.
Her body reacted as if it had made up its mind irrespective of her overworked brain. Dan was safe. He was here. He was beyond attractive. And it had been so long. So long since she’d felt the comfort of human touch, of being desirable.
She leaned towards him, taking them both, she suspected, by surprise. His startled eyes registered it just before she touched his lips with hers. Warm and soft. A surge of longing, desire, or plain old lust rose up inside her like forty thousand volts crashing through her chest.
Had he pulled away then, she’d have likely given up men for good. A fact she wasn’t aware of until he grasped both her shoulders in his beautiful, talented hands and took over the kiss, sliding his smooth lips across hers and dipping his tongue inside her mouth.
She gasped, her good hand finding the hair at his nape to intertwine the soft strands with her fingers. Lust thumped her in the chest and stole her breath. So good, his kiss, so good.
The tip of his nose was cold against her cheek, some tussock grass tickled the backs of her legs below her running skins, and she’d cleaned her teeth in a dark field, but none of that mattered as she clung to the moment, desperate for a reprieve from overthinking, being angry and second-guessing the motives of everyone, especially herself.
‘Eden—’ Dan pulled back, twisting his mouth away from hers as the cold air rushed in to cool her kiss-moistened lips.
A scream echoed off the walls of her skull. Don’t—don’t break this moment. But it was too late.
‘I … this isn’t a good idea.’ Dan’s eyes were haunted, even as his chest fought for breath and his fingers dug into the back of her shoulders as if holding on tight. Her eyes dipped to the thickening bulge in his trousers. She snorted as the chill of reality doused her own newly awakened, libido.
Gutted. His expression spoke a thousand words as he adjusted the crotch of his trousers. ‘Look, I—’
A spew of humiliation fled her throat. ‘Don’t worry. I get it.’ She shrugged from under his grasp and struggled to stand on her numb and wobbly legs.
Dan joined her, his regret cloaked in furrowed brows. ‘Do you?’ A bite to his tone, harsher than the chill of the wind.
‘Yeah. I’m …’ She stuttered to a halt, the thickness in her throat trapping the words. They lodged there, too painful to sound aloud.
‘No.’ A bark. ‘It’s not you.’ Dan moved as if to reach for her arms, but stopped at her wince and took a small step backwards.
‘Really? You’re seriously giving me that line?’ Nausea roiled in her empty stomach. How had she read this so wrong? So he still loved his wife? Great. She wasn’t asking for a ring, or even a date. Trust Dan to be the only single man on the planet who wouldn’t accept a quick meaningless bang when it was on offer.
‘It’s not a line.’ He gripped the back of his neck, knuckles white. ‘I … It’s been a while for me. I—’
Duh … that’s part of your appeal and why you should have your trousers around you knees right now, greeting your precious sunrise with a moon.
‘So it has nothing to do with my burns? Nothing to do with the fact I’m a bitch? Completely unrelated to the fact I’m far from feminine and spend most of my life in combat fatigues?’
His stare hardened as his mouth opened, slack-jawed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. None of those things matter to me, even if they were true, which they’re not.’
‘Huh, right. Don’t worry, Dr Do-Goody. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last to hold those opinions.’ Eden spun on her heel, away from the majesty of the now fully fledged sunrise and away from Dan. As she ran back down the hill to camp, she couldn’t dispel the cold sweat of humiliation quite as easily.