sort of,” he said through clenched teeth. He had nice teeth. White, even, but not quite perfect. They showed to an advantage in a face that was covered in several days’ growth of beard.
He closed his eyes. Without the distraction of a pair of intense periwinkle blue eyes, he looked tired and miserable. Logic told her she had no business being there. Instinct told her that he was harmless and that he desperately needed her help.
Jasmine always trusted her instincts. Every time she went against them—as in the case of Eric—she lived to regret it.
“So...what can I do to help you? Go for help?”
“No!”
He winced, as if speaking sharply hurt him. If she didn’t know better, she might even have thought he was afraid of something.
Of course, she didn’t know better. For all she knew, he was a criminal on the run. Might even have been injured in a shoot-out, only she didn’t see any sign of blood.
“Are you a criminal?” she asked. Might as well get everything out in the open. He didn’t appear to be armed, and she was pretty sure she could outrun him, if push came to shove.
“No way,” he gasped. “Retired...cop.”
“You’re too young to be retired, and how do I know you’re a cop?”
“Disability,” Lyon said, not without a glimmer of humor. Damn, she was persistent. If he’d had to be rescued by a female, why couldn’t she have been a physical therapist?
“Then you really are a policeman?”
He nodded, which was a mistake, the neckbone being connected to the backbone, et cetera, et cetera. He wasn’t a cop and he wasn’t retired, but it was close enough to the truth.
Close enough for government work, as the old saying went.
“Well. I don’t suppose you can walk, but if we can get you in the boat maybe I can take you back to the motel and have someone send for a doctor. It’s right on the water. The motel, I mean. It might even be on the main river, I’m not sure, but if it is, this stream should get us there sooner or later. All we have to do is follow—”
“No way.”
“No way, what? Everything east of the Mississippi flows into the ocean by way of streams and rivers. If we—”
“No, I mean—ah, hell, it hurts!” Lyon closed his eyes and willed himself to let go—not to tense up. “Get me back to my campsite and we’ll call it even.”
“I don’t see anything even about that. I do all the work and you—”
“And I do all the bitching and groaning. Sorry about that. I’ll pay you for your time.”
“I don’t want your money.” She had dark eyes—brown with a hint of maroon, like her hair. They were shooting off sparks.
“Take off, then. Sooner or later someone else will come by.” They both knew that was a crock. They were so deep into uncharted territory it was a wonder the buzzards could even find them. “How’d you get here? The road doesn’t come anywhere near here.”
“I followed an old logging road and then just kept on walking.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Lady, that’s no answer, but if it’s all right with you, I’d just as soon skip the dialogue and head on back to camp. You wouldn’t believe how dark it can get this far from the nearest streetlight.”
Jasmine was no judge of distance. There was a security light outside the motel, but that would be miles away. Miles and miles and miles. The trouble with long legs was that they covered so much territory, even at a leisurely pace. “If I can get you into your boat, can you do the rest by yourself?”
He gave her that “Duh” look.
“Okay, so maybe I’ll paddle you as far as your camp—and even help you get out, but then I’ll have to get back to the motel. I’m catching a plane to L.A. tomorrow.”
She was catching a plane nowhere, no time soon. That much quickly became obvious. By the time she managed to get him into the boat, they were both practically in tears. He from pain; she from sheer exasperation.
Not to mention the fact that he was about a hundred eighty pounds of solid muscle and bone, and fighting her all the way. Or if not her, fighting the pain.
She’d have sympathized more if he hadn’t cursed under his breath every step of the way. “Relax,” she snapped.
“Lady, if I could relax, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Fine. Then don’t relax. If I had a brain, I wouldn’t be here, either.”
The fighting didn’t stop at the edge of the water. “It’s not a paddle, it’s a damned oar!”
“I know what it is, and stop cursing.”
“Then stop jiggling around and sit down.”
She sat. On the back seat, because he was sprawled out across the front seat, taking up most of the middle space. He was sweating. It wasn’t really cold, even though it was February, but it wasn’t warm, either. Especially not now that the sun was almost out of sight.
Jasmine wished, not for the first time, that she’d worn jeans instead of her white shorts. And a jacket instead of a long-sleeve yellow denim shirt. She was a summer person. She didn’t own clothes suitable for a North Carolina winter.
“Don’t you even know how to row a boat?”
“Of course I know how to row a boat.” She’d seen it done plenty of times in the movies.
“You don’t row from the stern thwart, you row from amidship.”
“I know that.”
“Then move!”
“You’re there. Amidship, I mean.” He was propped up against a seat cushion on the whatsis up front, but his legs stretched out so that his feet were under the middle seat.
“Straddle my damned feet!”
She’d rather straddle his damned neck. With her bare hands.
But she moved, rocking the boat, causing him to gasp so that she was thoroughly ashamed of herself. The man was injured. She didn’t really want to hurt him any worse than he was already hurting, but if anyone deserved a bit of pain, he probably did.
Once settled on the edge of the wooden seat, she eyed him cautiously and reached for the oars. There were no oarlocks, only wooden notches that had been wallowed out until they were all but useless.
The oars stretched almost all the way across the creek. Cypress knees reached out from both sides. Lyon could have told her she’d need to shove from the stern until they cleared the fallen gum. Once past that point, the creek widened out.
He didn’t tell her because the last thing he needed was a clumsy, clueless beanpole dancing around in the stern of his boat. They’d both end up overboard, and he’d sink like a stone.
She muttered enough so that he pinned down her accent. Bible Belt with a faint patina of West Coast, polished by a few diction lessons. He wondered what the devil she was doing here, and then he quit wondering about anything except whether or not he would survive the night.
If he could’ve gotten his hands on all those muscle relaxants he’d quit taking cold turkey, he’d have downed the lot. And then, if he was still capable of unscrewing a cap, he’d have started in on the painkillers.
She shipped the oars as they approached the fallen gum tree. One of them swiveled around and struck him in the shoulder. The other one rolled across his shin.
“Oops. Sorry,” she said. “It’s getting