The bad thing about Philadelphia was that she made Crash think too much. A wandering man couldn’t afford to ponder. He needed to be on the move, on the money, on the make.
But the really bad thing, the kicker, was that she was somebody every one of his family would approve of. She was like them, driven, hidebound by convention, upright and uptight to a fault.
And the taste of her was so sweet, he couldn’t forget her for a moment, not even in his dreams.
He pushed himself, taking hairpin curves at speeds far beyond the limits of safety. There were dozens of trails, hundreds of directions she could have gone.
Not once did he stop to question whether she was lost on the mountain. He knew. It was that simple. The part of the mind that knows extraordinary things told him she was out there somewhere. The trick was to find her.
Off to his right he saw movement. Idling the Harley, Crash shone his flashlight into the trees. A deer bounded away.
He swept the light in a wide arc, searching for any sign of her. In daylight the task would have been difficult; at night it was almost impossible. Still, Crash had to try. Philadelphia was not the kind of woman who knew how to take care of herself in the wilderness.
The trail forked, and Crash swerved to his left, traveling by instinct. He knew this area like the back of his hand. He was nearing Rainbow Gulch, a favorite spot of his. Once he’d seen a rainbow so enormous, the entire sky looked as if a paint box had spilled across it, leaving behind ribbons of red and yellow and orange and blue and green. It was the kind of rainbow that made you believe in a pot of gold at the end.
The hair on the back of Crash’s neck prickled. Philadelphia was near. This was just the kind of place she would come to, nature’s art gallery.
He parked his Harley and scouted the top of the ridge. That’s when he saw it, a tiny bit of blue-and-white wrapper. He picked the paper up and sniffed. Almond Joy. Crash grinned.
So, there was another side to Philadelphia. Any woman who carried Almond Joys on hikes couldn’t be all bad. Some folks might argue that the candy bar wrapper could belong to anybody, but he knew better. The minute he touched it, he knew it belonged to Philadelphia.
Jumping on the Harley, he took off down the trail that snaked to the right. From a distance came a flicker of light.
As he descended, the light became bigger and brighter. It was a campfire. And beside it sat Philadelphia with Baxter on her lap. Caught in the glare of the Harley’s lights, she looked like a wide-eyed deer, scared and ready to bolt.
Relief flooded over him, and hard on its heels something so close to joy, he was afraid to examine it. He killed the engine, and for a moment he could do nothing except sit and marvel that he’d found her.
“It’s me, Philadelphia.” He strode toward her.
“Crash?”
She flung herself at him so hard, he almost lost his balance. Caught between them, Baxter yelped. She set the puppy down, then grabbed Crash around the waist and squeezed.
“I’ve never been so glad to see anybody in my life.”
Crash knew she’d have been glad to see anybody coming to rescue her, but he took it personally anyhow. Now he knew. Underneath he was just like his brother, happy to be somebody’s hero, and particularly happy to be Philadelphia’s hero.
Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her close. Never had a woman felt so good. She was soft in the right places and firm where it counted, but more than that, she was exactly right for him.
“Things are out there in the dark.” She pressed her face against his chest, shivering. “I saw their hard yellow eyes. I could hear them breathing.”
“It’s all right, Philadelphia.” It seemed natural to bury his face in her hair and breathe in her scent. “I’m here. Hang on tight.”
She curled herself closer, and his body responded like an old warhorse to a battle cry. It was heady stuff, being a hero.
“I thought nobody would find me.”
The way she said it, sweet and soft and forlorn, was enough to melt even a cold man’s heart, and Crash had never been a cold man. He had the kind of heart that didn’t take much urging to melt, the kind that could weep over a cardinal with a broken wing. Now his heart was in a warm wet puddle at Philadelphia’s feet.
“I’ll always find you,” he said, and the words came from deep down where only the truth was spoken.
He picked her up and set her on the back of his motorcycle, then tucked Baxter under his arm.
“Wait right here.”
“I wouldn’t budge if a herd of elephants came toward me.”
He started toward the fallen log where she’d waited, and she grabbed his arm, panicked.
“Where are you going?”
“To put out your fire.”
o0o
He put out her campfire, but when he climbed aboard the Harley and instructed her to hold on tight, he only added fuel to the fire he’d started inside her. Talk was impossible above the noise of the Harley, but that was fine with B. J.
Talk was the last thing on her mind.
She pressed her face into his broad back, and didn’t even lie to herself that she was only trying to block the wind. He felt wonderful, and she wanted to get as close to him as possible. Not because he was her rescuer, not because he was the hero of the moment, but because of the way he made her feel—soft, feminine, desirable, and extraordinarily hungry.
So, what was she going to do about it? Six weeks earlier she’d have taken her notebook and listed all the pros and cons. Shoot, she’d have done that a week ago. But there was something about the Smokies, something about Crash, something about being on the back of a Harley that released all her inhibitions. She felt as wild and free as Eve must have felt when she was turned loose in the Garden of Eden.
The roar of the engine drowned out all sound, and the pleasant warmth of Crash’s body soaked into her. She pressed her lips against his back. His skin felt hot, even through his shirt. She found a wonderful indentation in his chest right over his heart just made for caressing.
What the heck? Who would ever know?
She circled her hands over that enticing spot, tentatively at first, then with a boldness she’d never have believed possible. The friction of his chest hair against the material almost drove her wild. She’d seen his bare chest, had lolled against it in her panic over the bear. She knew the exact pattern of hair, the exact color, the exact texture.
What she didn’t know was the taste. Every fiber in her body longed to know. She longed to bend over him, spread-eagled, and run her tongue around his mouth, down the side of his throat, then into the mat of thick hair on his chest.
She felt sensitized. She could hear the singing of her blood, count the rushing beats of her heart, feel every inch of skin on her body and how it responded to Crash.
Such a name. Full of fun and adventure. A make-believe, devil-may-care name.
B. J. turned her head sideways and looked up at the sky. It was full of stars. She’d never wished on a star, not even when she was young. Always serious and studious, she’d stood in the background while madcap Maxie did the crazy, spontaneous things like wishing on stars.
Was it too late to wish on a star? She pinpointed the brightest one. Venus? That seemed appropriate for what she had on her mind.
Then, feeling a little bit foolish, a little bit romantic, and more than a little reckless, she wished on a star.