CHAPTER ELEVEN

THREE DAYS LATER Lancaster scrambled over a slippery rock and turned to help Sophie. But this was what he needed to remember about her: despite that veneer of sophistication she now had, she was still a young woman who had been born and raised in wild country not unlike what he was taking her through.

They were following a trickle of a brook through a narrow, deeply shaded canyon. There was a bit of a trail, neglected, and covered in slick, fallen leaves. It was obstructed, regularly, by toppled trees and huge boulders.

Many other people, including men, might have decided at the first creek crossing that a day’s fishing was not worth the fight through the rugged canyon.

But Sophie came over that rock with the agility of a mountain goat. She was breathing hard and laughing. He tucked his hand away before she even realized he’d offered it.

“Are your feet holding out okay?” he asked her.

She balanced on one leg, on the top of that slippery rock, and wagged a foot at him. It was clad in a sturdy hiking boot.

“Never better,” she said.

One false move and she was going to topple a good six feet off that rock and probably keep going into the creek below.

He bit his tongue to keep from telling her to get both her feet underneath her. She was not one of his men to give orders to, and she would probably do handstands on top of that slippery surface to drive home that point to him.

She tucked the foot she had been wagging at him up against her thigh, creating a triangle. Then she stretched her hands way up over her head, pressed the palms together and drew them to her heart and closed her eyes.

She was doing yoga!

His breath caught in his throat at the contrast she had unwittingly created: feminine softness and suppleness against the hard, unyielding surface of the rock. Then, she wobbled, making him take a quick step toward her. Before he reached her, she let go of her pose and landed perfectly on both feet.

She couldn’t be doing yoga on a fishing trip! The picture she had just created reminded him a little too strongly of her goddess qualities the other night. But again, if he said anything, she’d probably torment him with yoga poses for the rest of the day.

She smiled at him, and hopped down off the rock. To him, Sophie seemed at home in some way that she had not been since she arrived on Havenhurst. The deeper they moved into the woods away from the road, the happier she appeared, as if that super sophisticated outfit she had been wearing the day she got off the plane was a disguise, some sort of mask that hid who she really was.

But Sophie being who she really was, Lancaster told himself sternly, was not necessarily a good thing. Sophie was a beauty at any time. But, today, hair plaited in a thick braid, no makeup, a ball cap, sturdy boots, a pair of shapeless hiking pants and a plaid shirt, she looked better than ever.

Whom was he kidding? It had nothing to do with the wholesome mountain girl outfit she was looking so at ease in. It was the light that was on in her. Had something changed, ever so subtly, after she had told him about the attack on her mother when she was a child?

Whatever the cause, the goddess shone through, no matter what she was wearing. A man who had been cold too long could be drawn to that warmth, helplessly, like a moth to the brilliance of flame.

Just as he had been the other night. He was trying to banish the sensation of her foot in his hand from his brain. It represented the total collapse of his professionalism. And yet, even knowing better, here he was, testing himself again. He turned away from her and continued on.

Ten minutes later, the creek that the rough trail ran adjacent to cascaded down a series of mossy rocks into a pool. The canyon walls widened, and they emerged from its shadows. The sun filtered through fall foliage, golden. It danced across the dark waters of the pool, in a trail of starbursts.

“Oh,” Sophie breathed, and stopped up short behind him.

He turned and looked at her. She knew. She recognized this as a place that was special.

He did not know how many other people on Havenhurst knew about this place, but if they did, it was not because of him.

A fisherman’s secret fishing hole was not something he shared with anyone.

And yet here she was, in his place, silent, looking about her with the reverence such a place deserved.

Lancaster knew he should have never agreed to take Sophie fishing. It was as close to sacred as anything came in his life.

And yet, after he had set her feet back down in that water the other night, he had felt like Samson without his hair. As if he was weak and no matter what she had asked him, he would have given it to her.

That was the real lesson of Samson—not that there were women out there waiting to betray men—but that love stole a man’s strength from him.

Love.

Of course, he was under no illusions about love. What had sung through the air between him and Sophie was passion. A force of nature beyond reckoning with.

She was not young and untried, anymore. She was a woman who had been in the world, and experienced both the good and the bad it had to offer. That made everything more complicated.

And it was his own fault the chemistry between them had sizzled to life. What had he been thinking, revealing his presence at the hot springs to her? Dropping his clothes in front of her? Joining her in the water? What had he been thinking taking her delicate feet in his hands?

He had been thinking he was a hell of a lot stronger than he really was. Lancaster should be thankful she had asked for something as harmless as a fishing trip.

She could have asked him for what she had asked him for at Ryan’s christening. He thought of that night, her beauty, the taste of her lips, how much he had wanted her. But not with a few drinks in her. If she had come back to him, the next day, and asked the same thing, he would have been in the same position he was in now. Not certain that he would be able to say no.

And how much more complicated his life would be if that is what she had asked for! So, why had he felt faintly disappointed by her request? For a fishing trip, instead of kisses? One was complicated, the other was not.

Though really? He was not at all sure about that now.

Because Sophie was standing on the banks of his favorite fishing spot, and it seemed complicated, indeed, as if she had invaded something that up until this point had been his and his alone.

He had carried the poles and the gear and now he set them down, focusing furiously on them, threading the poles, selecting flies.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as she went and stood on a large flat stone that protruded out over the deepest part of the hole. She was squinting down into it, almost as if she knew where fish would congregate.

He put on his fishing vest, and then took the fly-fishing rods over to where she stood. He joined her at the edge of the rock, and saw the dark shadows of fish in the water.

Normally, something would sigh within him. Today was different. He decided to get her set and then head a little farther down the pool, away from her.

He picked up his rod, felt the familiar weight of it in his hand. That familiarity felt as though it brought him home to himself, moved his focus in safe directions.

“I’ll just show you.”

It was as complicated and as simple as the dances the other night. It, too, had a disciplined rhythm to it, and he quickly fell into that, listening to the comforting song of his line hissing through the air in a nearly perfect snake pattern. The fly lit on the water, sprang away, lit again.

He could forget she was here, if he worked at it. But he glanced back at her. Sophie was watching him closely, but he knew she would not get it from watching. He could let her just muck about by herself, of course. Aside from the loss of a few flies, and some tangled line, what would be the harm in that? Untangling line could keep her occupied for the rest of the day!

But suddenly, self-protection aside, he wanted her to know this feeling.

The line singing, the sense of connection with all things, the moving to a rhythm so powerful it ordered the universe.

“Bring that other rod, and come here, lass.”

He showed her again, this time with her standing right beside him.

“Now you try it.”

She hesitated and looked at her rod, faintly perplexed. Lancaster changed his position so that he was standing behind her. He reached around her, and laid his arms the length of her arms, put his hands on her hands. She rocked back into his chest.

They had been here seconds, and he was touching her again! He had vowed, after the footsie thing at the hot springs, there would be no touching on this excursion. Unless it was an emergency, like her toppling off a rock because she was doing yoga in a place where she shouldn’t have been doing yoga.

And yet, here he was, with her in no mortal danger at all, and his chin was just above the silky dark hair of her head, and the sweet curve of her back was pressed into his chest, and the scent of her was tickling his nostrils and obliterating the scents of clean water and fall leaves.

He tried to guide her through her first cast. It was a disaster, because she wasn’t relaxing. The line dribbling out across the water instead of singing above it.

“Relax,” he told her.

But she didn’t relax. She was so tense her shoulders were shaking. Or maybe she was cold.

“Did you get your feet wet crossing that creek? Are you cold?”

“N-no.”

He went very still. He ducked out from behind her and looked at her.

As he had suspected, she was laughing.

“This is why women don’t fish,” he told her sternly. “There’s no giggling in fishing.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, very contritely.

He moved behind her, and tried to guide her through it again. Same thing. Laughing silently. Her shoulders shaking with mirth.

“This is serious business,” he warned her.

“I can’t do it,” she said.

“You’re giving up?” he said, astonished. Sophie did not give up! Look at that epic walk from the christening. “You haven’t even tried it yet.”

She turned and looked at him, almost with sympathy.

“I can’t lie to you. That’s what I can’t do.”

He tilted his head at her, baffled.

“I’ve been fly-fishing since I could walk, Lancaster. I’m probably better at it than you.”

I can’t lie to you.

It was the same thing he had felt when he had come out of the trees at the hot springs the other night. As if there could be no deceit between them, as if that was written in the stars somewhere.

Written in the bloody stars?

He decided he’d better focus on things other than what was written in the stars for them. Sophie thought she might be better at this than him? She couldn’t possibly be serious. That was what he needed to be setting straight.

He came out from behind her, rocked back on his heels, regarded her with narrowed eyes.

“Show me what you’ve got, then,” he invited her.

She looked carefully at the fly he had attached to her line. It was when she used a bit of spit to adjust it marginally that it occurred to him she wasn’t kidding.

Then she turned away from him, and the line sang out of her rod. Her rhythm and her style were absolute perfection. Watching her was poetry.

She turned and looked at him over her shoulder. She winked.

He said a word under his breath that he rarely said.

“A small wager?” she suggested.

He glared at her.

“First one to get a fish wins.”

“Wins what?” he asked.

Her eyes trailed to his lips. He was positive of that. Well, that didn’t have any place in fishing, either!

“How about a piggyback ride over that first creek crossing near where we parked?”

“You’re pretty sure you’re going to win, since you can’t piggyback me,” he said.

“I could. In a pinch.”

“You couldn’t.”

“Moot point, anyway,” Sophie told him. And then she turned her back to him and put that fly precisely over the ledge, in the shadow where the fish loved to hang out.

Without asking, she had taken the best spot. Grumbling slightly, he headed downstream from her.

He hadn’t even completed his first cast when he heard her gleeful shout. He glanced at her and saw the fish flashing at the end of her line. As he watched, she landed it perfectly, removed the hook, considered it and then let it go.

“That’s your supper you just put back,” he warned her, glumly aware he had just lost the bet with her.

“There’s plenty out there. I won’t keep the babies.”

Which meant he was honor bound not to keep the “babies,” either. And they were the best tasting!

“You want to go double or nothing?” she called, giddy with confidence.

“You should just take your piggyback ride and be happy.”

“Biggest fish of the day,” she challenged him. “If you get it, cancel the piggyback ride. If I get it, you have to carry me over the two rough spots in the canyon.”

Really? He had no choice but to take her bet. When he thought about it, he had to get out of that piggyback ride thing. If he’d thought there was any chance of her winning, he would have never agreed to such silliness in the first place. The thought of her clinging like a limpet to his back, her long legs wrapped around him, her laughter in his ear, was great incentive.

Lancaster had been fishing with his grandfather since he was just a wee lad. He had become very serious about it when he was a teenager.

But he had never experienced fishing like this. It had always been for him a place of deep solitude, of connection to nature, a place where he was totally immersed in the moment, no thought, no worry, no guilt.

It was not linked in his mind, except maybe in those long-ago days with his grandfather, to companionship. But today fishing became something else.

Fun.

Competitive.

Laughter-filled.

He had a feeling that given an opportunity, Sophie could take all things that a man was familiar with and edge them with light, make them feel brand-new again. She would make things he had been doing his entire life feel as if he had never done them before.

He’d landed quite a big fish, when a shadow fell over him. Startled, he looked up to see a cloud boil up over the edge of the canyon, blocking out the ray of sunshine that always seemed to illuminate this pool.

The problem with a woman like Sophie, he told himself, quickly gathering his gear, was that a man ended up paying attention to all the wrong things.

He leaped over the rocks to where she was casting.

“Pack her up,” he said, “we have to go.”

“I do not have the biggest fish yet,” she said, ignoring him.

He wasn’t used to being challenged, and in these circumstances, it was imperative that he make her see he was the leader and there was room for only one.

“Sophie, the weather’s changing. It can change very fast here. We need to get out of this canyon.”

She scanned his face. “You’re not just saying that because you have the biggest fish?”

He shook his head. The first drop of rain hit him. He turned from her and began to throw together their gear. He needed her to sense the urgency of this situation without making her afraid.

But the truth was that this particular canyon was susceptible to flash floods.

If he was by himself, he would take his ability to handle whatever nature threw at him in stride.

But he felt the enormous weight of being responsible for her, and not in a professional way, either.

He felt a man’s basic need to protect a woman, yes, but he felt a shiver of awareness that it was becoming something even more than that.