Reconsidering Riley (30 page)

"Not everybody. Just me."

She sighed. "You don't really want to be
here."

"Neither do you, I'm guessing. Why'd you
skip Jayne's workshop?"

"I'm sick. See?" Carla gave a feeble
cough.

"I'm not buying it," Riley said. "You look
fine to me."

Wondering what was going on, he glanced at
the pad of paper on her lap. "Who's the letter to?"

She hesitated. "My Paolo."

"I thought the workshop participants weren't
supposed to contact their exes."

"We're not." She raised her chin defiantly.
"But I only signed onto the workshop to, like, bother Paolo. I
thought as soon as he knew where I was going, he'd realize what
he'd done to me and—"

"And take you back?"

Carla nodded. "But he didn't. He only
shrugged and said, 'Whatever you've gotta do, Carla.'" Her gaze
shifted from her forbidden letter to his face, pleading with Riley
to understand. "Not everybody is strong like Jayne, you know! The
rest of us could never buddy up to an ex, like she's done with you,
and be okay with it. She knows how to keep things casual, so she
doesn't get hurt."

Casual
. Then Jayne
was
fine
with things as they stood. She didn't want more from him. Didn't
want him to settle down. Didn't want him to change. Not that she'd
asked him to before, really. It had been implied in their
increasingly serious relationship, though.

He waited for the relief he expected to
strike. Oddly enough, it didn't. In its place came a sense
of...disappointment?

"I guess that's why she's the author," Riley
said, dismissing it.

"Yeah." Carla picked up her soup. She began
spooning it into her mouth. "Jayne's really smart. And
totally
strong. I really admire her."

"Me, too."

Carla
gawped.

"It's true. Coming here has been a challenge
for her. But she's tackled things head-on."

Beside him, Carla's expression turned
thoughtful. She squinted up at him. "Are you sure there's not
something more serious going on between you and Jayne? Because when
you talk about her, you look sorta dreamy and—"

"Me? And Jayne?" He made a dismissive sound.
"We tried it once, and it didn't work. Remember?"

"Same thing goes for me and Paolo. That
doesn't mean it might not happen again."

They both looked down at her letter. Filled
with large loopy script and heart-dotted i's, it covered the entire
page.

"Do you want it to?" Riley asked
quietly.

"Well, I do and I don't." Carla took a deep
breath. She wiggled on the boulder, as though settling in for a
long talk. "See, Paolo and me were meant to be together from the
start. It was all, like, a misunderstanding when we split. See,
it's—hey, are you sure you want to hear this?"

Riley smiled at her eagerness, at the flood
of words that had spilled the minute he'd expressed more than a
passing interest. Clearly, Carla needed to be heard. And even
though socializing wasn't his strong suit, he was the one she'd
chosen to talk to. He couldn't bail out now.

"I'm sure," he said.

"Okay. Well, like I was saying—"

Carla's words tumbled out, coming faster as
she warmed up to her topic—and her audience. Riley smiled and
nodded. He almost regretted not taking Jayne up on her
"conversation lessons." But what Carla really needed, it seemed,
was someone to listen. He figured he could do that as well as
anyone.

"Then what happened?" he asked when she
paused.

"Oh, boy," Carla said. "You'll never believe
it!"

It was ten more minutes before he got
another word in edgewise.

That afternoon, more hiking followed. A
trailside lunch came and went. Striking out again with her pack
strapped on, Jayne tried to focus on the path that brought her
closer to the canyon lodge—and the end of her journey—with every
step. Instead, she was continually distracted by Riley.

He'd been acting strangely all day.
Especially since returning to the workshop campsite with Carla.
They'd strode in together arm in arm—Riley nodding, Carla beaming
and talkative.
Another member of the Riley Davis fan club
,
Jayne had thought at the time. But now she wondered if something
else was going on with Riley. Because he hadn't left her alone for
a minute.

When he'd gone to help Carla, Jayne had
managed to fix herself up a little bit. She'd had time to slick on
some lipgloss, brush on mascara, and bundle her hair into a
ponytail. But before she could do more than turn her fleece
right-side-out, Alexis had come to her for advice about Lance.
After that, she'd had no opportunity to improve the way she
looked.

Well, she
had
tied her shoelaces. But
beyond that—nada. And Jayne didn't want Riley to realize it.

She tried ditching him by joining Mack's
trail group. Riley rearranged the match-ups. She tried avoiding him
by lagging behind. Riley waited for her, a concerned look on his
face. She tried jogging ahead, turning her fleece collar up, and
staring at the scenery instead of at him whenever he spoke to her.
None of it worked. Wherever she went, whatever she did, Riley was
there.

It was almost as though he was worried about
her. Almost as though he was shadowing her on purpose, like a
private detective with a specialty in makeover wanna-bes. If she
hadn't been so preoccupied with trying to avoid showing Riley her
worst side, Jayne would have thought his diligence was sweet. As it
was, the way he looked at her—as though nothing had changed—just
gave her the heebie jeebies. Couldn't he
tell
she needed a
good blowout? A facial? A manicure?

As though she'd cued him to resume his
efforts, Riley matched his pace more closely to hers. He pulled
something from his fleece pocket and handed it to her.

"A bandana?" Jayne asked, puzzling at the
square of soft cotton she'd accepted.

"Not just any bandana. A
baby blue
bandana."

He looked incredibly pleased by this. Why,
she didn't know.

"What's it for?"

"Well, I pack it in as part of my regular
supplies, but I figure it qualifies as an accessory." Riley's eager
hazel-eyed gaze searched her face. "I thought you might want to
wear it."

Still mystified by his continued
watchfulness, she shrugged. "Well, I guess it
would
protect
my highlights from the sun. Thanks."

They both stopped beside a juniper bush,
letting Mitzi and Alexis take the lead in their small group. Jayne
folded the bandana, then wrapped and tied it around her head in a
way she'd once seen in
In Style
. She modeled the effect for
Riley.

"Beautiful."

Jayne snorted and started walking again.

"I mean it." He caught up, matching her pace
with no visible effort at all. "You're beautiful to me no matter
what you wear."

"You don't have to sweet talk me,
Riley."

"It's the truth."

"Come on, I—"

"We didn't exactly meet under the most
glamorous of circumstances, remember? You pushed me—and my
camera—out of the path of an incoming wave, and wound up on the
pier soaked yourself."

Jayne remembered. The cold, salty-tasting
seawater had drenched her from head to foot. "My stiletto got stuck
between the planks in the pier."

"It's probably what kept you from being
washed away." Riley gave her a fond smile. "I like stilettos."

"And then you gave me your coat, and bought
me a cup of coffee. Remember the look on that woman's face when you
snuck into the ladies' room at that café to help me dry off with
the hot air dryer?"

"It was like she'd never seen a man
before."

"Not a man trying to talk a woman he'd just
met into accepting his pants and shirt—and socks!—until hers
dried."

He grinned. "I'd have given you anything,
just to hear you laugh again the way you did when that wave
surprised you."

"And
I
would've happily seen you
naked while you switched clothes." Boy,
would
she have.
Riley was then—like today—a major hunk. "But your pants would never
have fit—"

"I still would do anything for you, Jayne.
Especially today."

"—and I wouldn't have been caught dead in a
muscle T, however nice it looked on you."

What he'd said registered. It was so
surprising that Jayne risked exposing her pallid, no-blush face to
peek at him. "Today?" she managed. "Why especially today?"

"Because I think you need it. You've been
through a lot. And because—" At a shout from Alexis up ahead, Riley
paused. He scanned the landscape. "Never mind. I'll show you what I
mean instead. We're here."

Then he grabbed her by the hand and hustled
them both along the trail, toward the log cabin lodge just visible
between the trees.

At the canyon lodge, a sense of celebration
zinged through the air. Jayne felt it, too. They'd made it to the
end of their journey, and from here on, their survival was assured.
Jeeps were scheduled to pick up everyone for transport back to the
Hideaway Lodge, but they wouldn't arrive for another day. Until
then, there was nothing to do but relax.

With relieved smiles, the women collapsed on
the rustic upholstered furniture in the lodge's common room,
unshouldering their backpacks and groaning as they removed their
ATSes. The men set about their duties, checking the firewood, fuel
oil, and water supplies, inventorying groceries, and scouting the
bedrooms on seek-and-destroy missions against marauding spiders.
Jayne made a special request that they keep their eyes open for any
possible javelinas in the room she'd share with Kelly, then fell
into an armchair beside the unlit fieldstone fireplace.

Soon, a rag rug cushioned her stockinged
feet against the cold hardwood floors. A cup of coffee—courtesy of
Mitzi and Bruce, who'd disappeared into the kitchen together,
ostensibly to brew the stuff—warmed her hands. A grandfather clock
ticked off the length of her blessed indoor sanctuary.

Alexis and Lance left the group and,
fortified by the knowledge that the lodge had electricity, went on
the hunt for a radio so they could tune in some "decent music." The
breakup-ees gradually scattered. Kelly agreed to let Mack
demonstrate the lodge's solar panels for her, in a move that Jayne
figured had to be the granola-and-Timberlands version of "want to
see my etchings?" Doris and Donna argued over the best way to
assemble a jigsaw puzzle they'd found. Mitzi and Bruce returned to
the kitchen to "make toast." Carla announced that she needed to
think things over, and planned to do it on the lodge's wide front
porch.

Within a half hour of arriving, Jayne found
herself alone. Spooked by how quickly everyone had abandoned her,
she got up. She paced. She worried.

Sure, she'd told her breakup-ees that the
workshops were finished. And she'd explained that their final
get-together would be an informal session in the morning, geared
toward gathering feedback about her techniques. But just because
they weren't
officially
required to spend time with her, did
that mean they didn't want to?

Apparently so. The realization disheartened
her.

Frowning, Jayne went to the window. She had
to do something about this. She just had to.

"I'd have thought you'd have had enough of
the view," Riley said from behind her.

"I'm not looking at the view."

"That's pretty much all that's out
there."

"I'm looking for neighbors. People to chat
with. People to borrow a cup of sugar from. People to invite over
for a kaffeeklatsch."

"People who haven't deserted you?"

She wheeled around. Riley was watching her
perceptively. Maybe too perceptively. "I never said that."

His hands settled on her shoulders. He
smiled. "You didn't have to. But you're missing something important
here. The reason everyone left is because of
you
."

"Great. I feel
loads
better now."

"No. Let me try again." His fingers squeezed
her shoulders gently. "What I mean is—"

"That I don't fit in. It's okay. You don't
have to shield me from it. I can take it."

But not very well
. She turned her
face to the window again, only to catch her reflection in the
glass. Pale eyes, undefined lips, and straggly, bandana-ed hair met
her gaze. She really should have fixed herself up while she'd had
the chance. Now it was too late. Self-pity swamped her.

"The way I look," Jayne couldn't help but
moan, "that javelina wouldn't even want me for company."

In the glass, Riley's puzzled face loomed
over hers. Then realization swept his features, and he turned her
around again. "Yes! You look terrible! You've realized it!"

"You don't have to sound so happy about it.
I look like Mother Nature after a really bad bender."

"It must have been the bandana," Riley said,
inexplicably.

Even more inexplicably, he hugged her. He
didn't release her, either. He kept her locked in his arms, where
Jayne was forced to confront the flex of his muscles, the scent of
wood smoke on his clothes...the beloved familiarity of his body
pressing against hers. Riley put both palms to her cheeks and
cradled her face, beaming down at her with delight and...pride?

"Yeah. It's a magic bandana," she agreed,
feeling confused but unwilling to ruin his good mood.

"
My
magic bandana," Riley said. He
straightened, then seemed to remember something. "And all I meant
to say earlier was that the only reason your guidance groupies feel
free to do their own thing is because you've empowered them. You've
cured their broken hearts so well that some of them are even ready
to try again.
You did it
."