slow to recover from the shock. But he’d never seen anyone so shaken up after the experience. Of course, being the guide, he couldn’t afford to stop the craft in the middle of a potentially dangerous situation to calm the passenger down. He usually let the others in the boat soothe the poor soul. But it was just him and Charlotte out here and Alex wasn’t so heartless as to ignore someone still in emotional distress.
“Tell me how you know Kylie,” he said, knowing the best way to get her mind off the incident was to keep her talking about anything but what was scaring her. It was also the best way to get his mind off the way the thin, wet fabric of her pants clung to her long shapely legs.
“We competed in the Miss Northwest pageant together,” she replied, her voice sounding as dazed as her wide-eyed stare.
Heaven help him. A sorority girl and a pageant queen. Unfortunately, he’d been right and Charlotte Folsom was the exact type of woman he went out of his way to avoid. His already wet hands went clammy. So, maybe he hadn’t been completely honest earlier when he claimed nobody had ever called him judgmental. Some of his best friends had married women just like the one trying not to hyperventilate on the floor of his raft, and those guys often laughed at his semijests that they’d crossed over to the dark side. The pretty women he’d dated in college required too much maintenance. The city women he’d refused to date required a fast-paced lifestyle he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy—or Commodore’s worst enemy, since Alex usually got along with everyone. Charlotte was a combination of both—beautiful and urban—and probably used to the finer things in life. Actually, there was no probably about it. She was a lifestyle expert for a magazine called Fine Tastes. Enough said.
Not that there was anything wrong with those types. They just weren’t for him. Just like the feel of Charlotte’s firm hips and curvy rear end wasn’t for him. Or for his hands. He’d felt her pause when he’d first touched her, wanting only to assist her into the boat after he’d secured the fish. Yet he’d experienced a tremor through his own body that had nothing to do with the frigid water. Had she felt it, too? Was that why she’d paused?
“How long was I under?” she asked, interrupting his inappropriate thoughts.
“Maybe twenty seconds,” he said, then cleared his throat.
“That’s all? It felt like forever.” He’d fallen out of a few boats himself and understood the sensation. It was always an adrenaline dump when a person found out they were never in as much danger as they’d originally thought.
She propped herself up on her elbows. “How’d you catch up to me?”
“You didn’t really get very far. The undertow helped. So, your girls are with the Gregsons?”
“Yes, do you know them? The Gregsons, not my girls. Obviously, you wouldn’t know my girls since you’ve never met them. Oh, my gosh, my poor girls.” When the woman’s voice shook, Alex cursed himself for trying to talk about a pleasant subject. “What if I’d died and never saw them again?”
“Listen, Charlotte. Your children are fine. And you’re fine. Focusing on all the ‘what ifs’ is no more productive than bouncing around in those rapids back there.”
Charlotte lifted her head enough to peek over the side. “Are we past them, then?”
“Yes.”
“Do we have to go through more areas like that one before we stop at that clearing you talked about?”
“Only two more.”
She shivered, and he wasn’t sure if it was just her subsiding panic or the wind that had picked up. Normally, they recommended wearing wetsuits this time of year because of the cool water temperatures. But because the more risky rapids were still miles away, he’d figured they could change into the uncomfortable things only if they decided to go that far down river.
He glanced down at her lips, which had gone from cotton candy pink to pale blue. Yet she didn’t utter a single complaint. Alex was a firm believer that if some tourist wanted a firsthand experience of the land, they should be ready for all the elements Mother Nature could dish out. But Charlotte Folsom was also just doing her job, and even if he didn’t appreciate the necessity of whatever a lifestyle expert was, he had to give the woman credit for her commitment and her work ethic.
He especially had to admire that her biggest concern had been for her children and he wondered if her daughters had any idea how lucky they were to have a mom who worried about abandoning them. Not everyone was as fortunate.
Besides, while he knew how to put up a good front and calm down a customer, Alex was pretty sure his heartbeat was still bouncing along at the same tempo as the rapids behind them. He talked a big game when it came to people being tough enough to survive the vast wilderness, but at the end of the day he alone was responsible for bringing this woman back to her daughters. It was a powerful responsibility and one he normally didn’t take lightly—which made him feel all the more like a jerk for those initial judgments he’d made about her lifestyle and her wardrobe. It made him feel even worse for the thoughts he’d been having all day about wanting to put his hands on her.
But of the two guilt-inducing feelings, Alex knew it was in his best interest to remain skeptical and aloof. He’d never had to struggle with breaking his well-established rule about hooking up with the female clientele because he’d never been as attracted to one as much as he was to Charlotte.
He let out a ragged breath and felt his shoulders pull forward.
Maybe he should stop and let her change into some dry clothes, that is, if she’d packed an extra set of the name brand gear. And maybe he could take a second to get his own head back on straight and remind himself that she was just another customer. Just another woman.
“Listen, Charlotte, we still have about another hour or so to get to that spot I was telling you about. But, there’s a place up ahead where we can pull out and you can dry off and regroup.”
Alex knew better than to suggest that a lady might need some time to calm down. Growing up without a mother, he’d been a slow learner when it came to figuring the female species out, but by the time he got to college, he’d learned to avoid the high maintenance ones. And in Alex’s opinion, most of them were high maintenance. Unfortunately, he couldn’t exactly avoid the woman shivering in front of him.
“I really don’t want you to have to go to any extra trouble for me. Especially because I never would have fallen into the water if I’d been paying better attention. But...” She hesitated long enough that he could hear her teeth chattering. “Would it be too much of an inconvenience?”
A few clouds had cleared, but Alex had lived on this mountain all his life and knew the weather could change on a dime. “Well, I’d prefer to pull out on the left bank, because the majority of access roads are on that side of the river.”
“Is there anywhere to stop on that side?” She was sitting up straight, now, and even had an oar cradled in front of her. He followed her gaze to the craggy, sheer side of the canyon.
“Not for a couple more miles.” Her nod was swallowed by another shiver. He had to admire her perseverance. Many inexperienced urbanites would’ve been complaining already. “Actually, this spot coming up on the right side wouldn’t be a bad place to stop for a few minutes.”
He saw the relief in her shoulders as she climbed back onto her perch and stuck her oar back in the water. It only took a couple of minutes to steer them onto a wide stretch of riverbank. Alex tied the raft to the branch of a fallen log, then held out his hand to assist a very wet Charlotte, careful not to allow himself to get too close to her again. Her fingers were rigid with cold and he doubted a quick change of clothes would do much to help elevate her body temperature. Yet, despite her quivering lips, she stood on the pebbled shore and stared at the lush green foliage in front of her.
“This is gorgeous,” she said, then blinked a few times as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “It’s so remote and untamed. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Alex