Reconsidering Riley (28 page)

His touch jolted her. She gawped.

"You, uh, look pretty with your hair like
that."

He was copying Uncle Riley
. Uncle
Riley had said almost the same thing to Jayne around the campfire
last night. Not that Alexis cared right now. For some reason, she
felt like giggling. Or maybe batting her eyelashes.

She looked around to make sure no one was
nearby to witness this embarrassing turn of events. "Thanks." She
couldn't prevent a smile, and suddenly wished she'd brushed her
teeth.

"No prob." Lance puffed out his chest. He
studied his shoes, then glanced up at her with his head still
partly ducked. "Hey, you want to join up in the same group today? I
know a spot where there's some cool wildflowers. I could show it to
you."

Alexis knew that spot. But for some reason,
she didn't want to say so. "Uh, okay. I guess."

Still feeling giggly, she slurped her
coffee. It burned her tongue, and seared all the way down. But she
didn't want to hurt Lance's feelings, so she stifled a wince.
Determined to finish her coffee, she took a smaller sip and stared
at the sunrise as it filtered between the trees.

Beside her, Lance stared at the sunrise,
too. A little of the awkwardness between them dissolved. He edged
closer, and their shoulders touched.

Giddiness shot through Alexis, followed
rapidly by a whoosh of excitement. Lance smiled at her. That was
when she knew—the trouble with Brendan had been that he was a
boy
. Lance was a
man
. Almost, anyway. This time, she
was positive everything would be different.

Riley reached Jayne's tent that morning just
as she shoved aside the flap and crawled out. He watched fondly as
she pushed to her feet and ran a hand through her long blonde hair.
Then he swept his gaze over the rest of her. He frowned.

It looked as though Jayne had gotten dressed
in the dark. There wasn't a scrap of baby blue in sight. Her trail
pants had a hole in the knee. And he was pretty sure her fleece was
on backward, judging by the way the zippered collar fluffed up
behind her head like a lion's ruff. He strode nearer.

Her red-rimmed eyes bugged at the
movement.

"It's okay," he said, making a calming
gesture. "It's just me."

"Whew! For a second there, I thought you
were the javelina again." Jayne shifted her gaze warily from side
to side. "I've been up most of the night waiting for it to come
back."

"You missed it that much, huh?"

"Right. We really bonded. I love things with
shaggy hair, piggy little eyes, and a stench that hits you from a
mile away."

He smiled, relieved that she could joke
about it. "You just described Bruce."

She made a face. "That thing creeped me
out."

"Don't worry, it's gone now," Riley reminded
her. Upon hearing Jayne's scream last night, he'd come at a run. A
few minutes' patient coaxing had had the confused (and
hearing-damaged) javelina on its way. "I shooed it away. It didn't
mean any harm, though. Probably, it got separated from its herd and
was looking for some food."

"Well, it obviously knew it would find an
easy mark with me. The back-to-nature neophyte."

"It wasn't personal."

"Yeah, right. Those were
my
shoes
serving as its appetizer."

He shrugged. "Your tent must have been left
unzipped."

"Like I said...back-to-nature neophyte.
After everything else, I should have known something like this
would happen. Why wouldn't I be javelina bait, too?"

"Jayne, it was a
baby
javelina. It
couldn't have hurt you. Everyone else thought it looked kind of
cute."

"It looked
grouchy
." Jayne squinted
her makeup-free eyes, appearing to think about it. "Grouchy,
hungry, and ready to stomp all over anybody who got in the way of a
midnight snack."

"Again, just like Bruce."

She made a face. "I'm serious. It
knew
I was an easy target. It knew! I don't belong out here,
Riley."

"Sure, you do." He smiled. "You're just
lucky it wasn't a raccoon in your tent, rifling through your stuff.
Trying on your hats. Wearing your nail polish."

"They can
do
that?"

"Only the big ones. Big enough to gnaw
through the tent."

Her eyes grew wide. "I want a steel
tent."

"Then you get the
really
big ones.
The raccoons who like a challenge."

"Oh, my God."

"You'll probably need to share my sleeping
bag until we're safely out of raccoon country."

"Ahhh." Jayne crossed her arms. It was
obvious she'd caught on to his teasing. "That won't be necessary.
If I see any raccoons, I'll just whack them with my fishing
club."

"Good." He looked her over, reassured to
hear some of the feistiness reenter her voice. "Better now?"

"I'm
fine
," she said blithely—just as
though her body
weren't
probably going into shock from
hairspray withdrawal right now. "Fine and dandy."

Fine and dandy?
She sounded like Mary
Poppins. Now Riley was really worried. "Are you sure? Because you
look—"

He paused, nodding meaningfully toward her
clothes.

Her brow arched. "Yes? I look...?"

Uh-oh
. But he was too worried not to
continue. "You look sort of—well, shorter, for one thing." Riley
tilted his head, examining her, distracted from his original
mission by the realization. "I knew there'd been something
different about you lately, but until now I hadn't put my finger on
it. Yes, you're definitely shorter."

She glared.

"More petite?" he tried, thinking that might
sound better.

"Shorter." Jayne's mouth turned down in a
glum line. She indicated her feet. "It's the shoes. I lost a good
three inches going from stilettos to ATSes. I'm usually much
taller. Everything looks so...ordinary from down here."

She didn't sound happy about it. Given that,
Riley should have left things well enough alone. But the sight of
her clothes wouldn't let him. Now that he was closer, he saw that
Jayne's shirt tag stuck up in the back—and Jayne was a militant
tucker-inner. He'd lost track of the times her fingers had slipped
deftly inside his collar to hide
his
tag when they'd been
together. If she was ignoring her own tag now...well, something was
definitely wrong.

He couldn't believe such a change could come
about just because of a javelina encounter. After all, the baby
pig-like creature hadn't actually hurt anything or
any
one
—including Jayne herself. There had to be something
else going on here.

He scrutinized her, trying to figure it out.
Oblivious to his concerns, she yawned again and ruffled her hair,
leaving several strands sticking up on one side.
She didn't even
smooth them down
. Her leopard-print "primping" compact didn't
magically appear, either. Riley became convinced trouble was afoot.
Maybe the javelina incident, harmless as it seemed to him, had been
the last straw for Jayne.

Either that, or he'd slipped up and done
"nothing" again.

He hoped it wasn't that. "Nothing" was so
hard to fix.

Riley squinted, trying to figure her out.
"You're okay, then?"

Jayne nodded, giving him a quizzical
look.

He was going to have to come right out with
it. "I'm worried about...how you look. Your clothes."

And your hair, your ragged thumbnail,
your shoes—which were, he noticed, on the wrong feet and
unlaced
. It wasn't that Riley was shallow. He knew there were
more important things than surface beauty. Jayne's looks didn't
matter that much to him. But they
did
matter to Jayne.
Usually.

"Oh." Comprehension filled her features.
"Well, it's simple." She waved her hand. "Ever since last night,
I've lost my will to accessorize."

"Your will to—"

"Accessorize. Right. Also, I've lost all
interest in coordinating. I mean, does any of it really matter?
When it comes right down to it, does looking good
really
matter—especially out here in the wild? Does
anything
matter, at all?"

He paused. "You're not a morning person, are
you?"

In reply, Jayne shook her head. The motion
messed up her hair even further. She
still
didn't fix it.
This was not good.

"But—if you look good, you feel good," Riley
said, so worried he felt compelled to dredge up her self-help
mantra. "If you look good, you—feel—good."

She shrugged. "I feel okay. I'm going to go
gather some sticks and bark for breakfast. Cut out the middle man
in my All Bran. See you on the trail."

Jayne waved half-heartedly, like a beauty
queen in a parade. Then she schlepped away with her shoelaces
flapping, her pants dragging, her fleece backward and inside out,
and her derrière—Riley saw with a wince—decorated with a hiking
sock that must have clung through static electricity. It plastered
her right cheek like a foot-shaped white flag.

He shook his head, worried but uncertain
what to do. Jayne didn't seem concerned about her condition—but
then people in trouble often didn't.

In all his years guiding adventure travel
trips, Riley had seem some pretty strange things. Successful CEOs
who broke down halfway up a mountain summit, defeated by a storm
that defied their schedules. Hypothermia victims who fought against
the dry clothes and warm shoes that ultimately saved them.
Competitive couples whose refusal to cooperate doomed them to
shared failure.

But
I've lost my will to accessorize?
I've lost all interest in coordinating?
Those were new to
him.

Behind him, Kelly shuffled out from her
tent. She caught him watching Jayne, and shook her head.

"I'm worried," Kelly said. "I think Jayne's
in trouble. After the javelina left, I caught her trying to sleep
with her cache of bath products. Do you know how hard it is to get
forty winks with bath beads and Bathing Beauty Bubbles clanking
beside you all night?"

Jayne
had
been restless. "No," he
said.

"Well, I do." Kelly crossed her arms. "Baths
are Jayne's primary form of stress relief, you know. And now, being
on the trail...."

"No baths," Riley finished, beginning to
understand.

"Right. I think it's pretty hard on her,
dealing with all of us in her group. And all the nature stuff. And
the javelina. Plus, well..." Hesitating, Kelly bit her lip. She
gave him a pointed look.

"
Me
? Plus dealing with
me
?"

Kelly nodded. "Sorry."

"No point shooting the messenger," he told
her, suddenly remembering what Jayne had said when they'd met at
the Hideaway Lodge.

These women are depending on me,
Riley
.
I won't let you mess things up for me
.

Riley folded his arms, still watching Jayne
in the distance. Now she had a clump of wet leaves on her shoe, and
it dragged along in her wake. Her guidance groupies looked askance
when she passed by in all her disheveled glory, but Jayne waved at
them and continued onward. Her butt sock swished perkily from side
to side with every step.

Riley groaned. "I've got to do something to
help her."

"I'm not sure what you
can
do. She's
stressed out, and she's staying that way. Unless you can turn up a
bathtub somehow." Kelly frowned doubtfully.

"I can. There's a bathtub at the canyon
lodge!" It was a little...rustic, sure. But it was a bathtub, the
cure for everything that ailed Jayne. "It's only a few hours away.
We'll be there by this afternoon."

Relief filled him. Unified in newfound
hopefulness, he and Kelly watched Jayne. Soon, she would get the
relaxing bath she needed. Everything would be all right again.
She'd bathe, she'd recover her will to accessorize, she'd...pause
at the campsite's edge and roll up her trail pants? Two mismatched
socks flashed as Jayne strode into the trees.

"A few hours might be too late," Kelly said
worriedly.

"I'll think of something," Riley said. Then
he headed out to do exactly that.

"It's time for the next workshop," Jayne
said that afternoon. She'd hiked all morning, had soaked her shoes
during a creek crossing everyone else had navigated easily, and had
finally devolved to the point where she actually considered beef
jerky "a treat." Now, she just wanted to get on with things. "The
title of this workshop is—"

"Wait!" Mitzi said from within the group
gathered around Jayne. "What about the primping?"

Murmurs of assent were heard. Alexis waved
her leopard-print compact overhead, clearly ready for the usual
pre-workshop ritual. Kelly put her chin in her hand and cast a
worried glance toward the men, who were leaving for their own
workshop.

"Oh, all right." Halfheartedly, Jayne
withdrew her compact. "Is everyone ready? Okay...primp. I
guess."

They all fluffed and powdered and
lipsticked. She rolled her eyes and snapped her compact shut. She
just didn't have the energy to primp today. Not after last night.
Not after...everything.

Jayne thought she'd been hanging on pretty
well—but the javelina had obliterated the last of her
back-to-nature courage. All she wanted to do now was get finished,
get to the lodge, and get back to civilization.

As soon as the lipsticks were recapped, she
began. "Again, the title of this workshop is—"

"Hey!" Her breakup-ees' disappointed gazes
stopped her. They all frowned. Well, all except Carla—who'd said
she wasn't feeling well, and had opted out of this particular
workshop. She was resting nearby.

"Oh, all right." To make them happy, Jayne
formed a weak upraised fist and finished their usual ritual.
"What's our motto?"