“Not a mistake,” she said. “Just not wise.”

“Then why did it feel so good?”

“Good doesn’t always equal right. Look…” She turned in a slow circle, clearly searching for words. “I’ve always tried to be in charge of my destiny, you know?”

“So?”

“So, right now my destiny is kicking me in the ass.”

“Because you can’t be a firefighter?”

“Because I don’t know what I want to be.” She tossed up her hands. “Or who I am. I came here to try to start over, back at the beginning, to try to figure it all out.” At that, she shook her head. “And I have no idea why I tell you such things.”

“Because it’s a natural fit between us.”

“A natural fit?” She frowned. “That makes it sound like we’re a thing.”

He smiled.

“Oh, no.” With a little laugh, she shook her head. “No thing.”

“We kissed,” he reminded her. “That felt like a thing, a big one.”

She shook her head again. “I don’t know why I kissed you.”

“I know.” He cupped her jaw for the sheer pleasure of touching her again. “I don’t know what exactly what it is about you either. But I’m willing to find out.” He looked into her beautiful eyes. “And as for you not knowing who you are, you’ll figure it out.”

She stared up at him. “Have you always been so self-assured, always known exactly who you are?”

At that, he laughed. Had he always known? Try never-until recently.

“I take that as a no.”

“A hell no,” he corrected. “I grew up a small, skinny, sickly, self-conscious nerd.”

“Nerd made good,” she said softly.

“It took a while. Years. And then, when it all came right down to it, none of it meant a damn. Not the success, the huge corporation, the money in the bank accounts, nothing. I couldn’t have taken a thing with me.”

“Except this.” Surprising him, she put her hand over his heart, and he covered it with one of his own.

“You know what?” she whispered.

“What?” he whispered back, unbearably moved, wanting her to keep her hand on him all night long.

Her smile shimmered. “Every minute you spend in these mountains, you seem to lose a little bit of that city boy.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how you’re doing it…” She ran her hand up his chest, his throat, to his jaw, the pads of her fingers making a rasping sound over his day-old growth. “But you sure are tougher than I imagined when I first saw you.”

Bringing her hand up to his mouth, he pressed his lips to her palm. “Know what I thought when I first saw you?”

“That I was going to steal your parking spot?” she whispered.

“Well, that, and also…” His gaze met hers. “That you were the sexiest woman I’d ever laid my eyes on.”

“I was frowning at you,” she reminded him.

“Ah, yes. The frown. I think that clinched it for me.”

She tried to tug free. “Stop it.”

He held on and smiled. “Serious. Sexiest woman ever.”

“Wow.” Her voice sounded a little shaken. “I think it’s bedtime. ’Night, Jared.” Turning away, she went still, then glanced back. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

He knew a dismissal when he heard one. “Maybe it will make better sense in the morning.”

“The bedbugs?”

“No.”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “The kiss?”

“All of it.”

“Including the reasons why we shouldn’t do any of it again?”

He wanted to say the hell with that, but she’d turned away to deal with putting the fire out.

He went into his tent and lay down, surrounded by night noises that he was extremely unused to. Crickets chirped their odd song. From the hills came a lonely, edgy howl.

He knew the feeling.

Then came an answering howl, a pause, and then both of them together.

As one.

With a sigh, Jared turned over and wished it was that simple, that he could simply toss back his head and let loose with a howl and have Lily appear right here next to him. But he wasn’t an animal, he was a human, and supposedly they’d evolved way past such a thing.

LILY DIDN’T SLEEP as hard as she’d have liked. First, she kept jerking awake to check on the campfire.

But she’d put it out completely, and she had nothing to worry about.

Other things though…other things kept bouncing through her head.

Jared.

Cancer.

He hadn’t come right out and said it, but she knew, and it’d been bad. So bad he’d seemed just a little surprised to still be around, and if that didn’t grab her by the throat and hold on tight…

But he’d made it, and she was fiercely glad and proud and overwhelmed with a newfound sense of wonder. It was far too easy to forget how fragile life could be, how short, how absolutely, stunningly beautiful.

She for one wouldn’t waste the reminder, and the next morning, with thoughts of Jared, of life in general, still on her mind, she got up early.

Up at this altitude, dawn came as a rose strip where the streaked sky met the spiky black ridges. The breathtaking view wouldn’t last more than a moment, but she’d lived her life by the moment, without too much thought to the past or future. She certainly didn’t have a list in her pocket of things she wanted to experience. The thought of a predetermined plan like that had always seemed completely beyond her.

But Jared had a list, and this trip was on it. That meant she was going to make sure that these four days would never be forgotten.

A little heat filled her cheeks at that, because hadn’t she already maybe done that?

Oh, yes, she had.

She went to the water and took a quick bath. Then she busied her hands, and her mouth, with breakfast. As always, the scents of coffee and bacon cooking over an open fire drew everyone out of their tents, and she put a smile on her face, determined to make today a great one, spiders or skinny-dipping, or whatever came her way.

Jared showed up first, his short hair sticking straight up in classic bed head that should have looked ridiculous but somehow seemed sexily rumpled instead. In direct contrast, his sweatshirt and jeans were clean and neat, not a wrinkle anywhere to indicate that they’d been in a backpack overnight. He seemed rested and warm and just a little bit groggy, which she found even more sexy, and her brain disconnected from logic again as a small part of her wished it was just the two of them, that she could have crawled into his sleeping bag to see his eyes open on her.

Those eyes landed right on her anyway, dark and sleepy-lidded, and she wondered what he was thinking.

He didn’t look away, didn’t shutter his gaze, just let her see the truth-that what he was thinking about was being with her, preferably naked and writhing and sweaty, and, oh God, she had to take a deep breath and look away.

He went to the water, passing Rock, who appeared in his black gear, looking freshly clean, hair still wet. He had a hopeful expression as circled the frying pan filled with sizzling bacon. “You, Lily Peterson, are a goddess.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Although you should probably wait until after today’s hike to see if you still feel that way. And careful,” she warned as he poured himself coffee, “it’s hot.”

“Tough hike today, then?”

“Nothing you can’t handle,” she promised. “We’re going to take a trail that bisects Rainbow Ridge. There’s a handful of lakes only a blink away from the top. Good thing, too, ’cause we’ll be wanting a swim by then. Careful,” she said again as he lifted the mug to his lips. “It’s-”

He hissed out a breath when he burned his tongue.

And Lily just sighed.

Rose actually poked her head out next. “Gimme,” she said, honing in on the coffeepot with an eagle eye. “Gimme quick, before I remember I have no makeup on, or that there’s no hair straightener in sight.”

Rock rushed to give her his mug, waiting until she’d had a big gulp before he smiled at her. “You don’t need makeup, Rose. Or a hair straightener.”

She looked at him as she continued to sip the steaming brew. “No?”

“No way.”

She looked at him some more. “Do lines like that usually work for you?”

“Lines?”

“Uh-huh.” Rose took another long sip of the caffeinated brew. “Where did you learn to sweet-talk a woman like that anyway?”

Rock blushed. “I’m not-I don’t know.”

Rose laughed and handed him back the mug as she climbed out of her tent, wearing low-slung shorts and another halter top. “God, how is it you’re still so sweet?” She rumpled his hair. “Hasn’t any woman ever screwed you over?”

“No ma’am.” He tried to pretend he wasn’t staring at her body. “At least, I don’t think so.”

On the far side of the fire, Jack backed out of his tent. Michelle followed. She looked a little worse for wear, but Jack poured her some coffee.

She looked down at the steaming brew. “No cappuccino right?”

Jack’s mouth tightened. “Michelle-”

She laughed, the first time Lily had even heard that sound from her. “Just kidding, Jack. Jeez, lighten up.”

Jack stared at Michelle until she ran a self-conscious hand over her own tousled hair. “What? Is my hair crazy? I told you-”

“No, it’s just that you look so pretty when you smile.”

And Michelle’s smile brightened. “Really? Thanks.”

Lily moved in to feed everyone. “Eat up,” she said, enjoying that, for the moment at least, everyone seemed relaxed and happy. “We’ve got a hike to get to.”

THE DAY’S six-mile hike was tough but went smoothly, and at the end of it, everyone dropped their packs and changed into their bathing suits behind the trees. Michelle, still in her yellow raingear, dragged Jack with her to “protect” her from spiders.

Lily thought she’d do better to worry about sunburn with that tiny bikini she came back in, but then Rose came out in an even smaller itty-bitty set of black strings and blinded the men.

Jared came out from behind his tree in nothing but a dark-blue pair of swim trunks that started well below his abs and fell to his knees, the CEO within him nowhere to be found-not in the two-day growth on his jaw or his finger-combed hair, and without a single piece of digital equipment on him.

He handed something to Rose and Michelle, who thanked him profusely, and then in the next moment, music filled the air.

Okay, almost no digital equipment on him.

“iPod,” he said as he sat next to her. “They’ve been begging me.”

“Uh-huh.”

Unperturbed, Jared sighed in bliss and leaned back on his elbows. “My mom and sisters would never have wanted to hike for two days to get here, but they’d sure love this view. We did a lot of sitting at the beach in my youth.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Oh, sure. My sisters would bury me in the sand and force-feed me seaweed. Nice.”

She laughed. “My mom didn’t like to travel.”

“But you do.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hereditary.” She rolled her eyes, a little uncomfortable with the revelation. “Got it from my father.” As she had a lot of things, apparently.

“He’s a guide, too?”

“Nope. A travel writer.” All Lily’s life she’d been told she was just like him, and all her life that had brought her a mixture of great pride and also a healthy dose of uneasiness.

“He must be proud of you.”

“I wouldn’t know. He only managed to stay with us until I was one. I understand that was a record for him.”

“He just up and left you both?”

He sounded horrified, and after the way he’d grown up, surrounded by family and swaddled in affection, she could understand why, and felt a little pathetic. “He went to Italy,” she said lightly. “Then France. I think he’s in Germany now.”

“Did your mom ever remarry?”

She closed her eyes and leaned back too, more comfortable when she couldn’t watch him watch her. “Hard to, since she’s still married to my dad. He coaxes her to him just often enough to keep her in love with him.”

He was quiet a moment. “So was it just you and your mom?”

“Oh, no. She runs an inn in Santa Monica, so there were new people in and out of our lives all the time.”

“My house felt like an inn with four sisters and all their friends coming and going,” he said. “But really, it was always the same people all the time.”

She opened her eyes. The others were sunning, swimming, having a good time. Enjoying themselves. And despite the fact she was talking about herself-never easy-so was she, she realized. Enjoying herself. “We’re different, you know. As in night-and-day different.”

Jared let out a slow grin. “I have to admit, some of those differences I’m grateful for.”

She arched a brow at the teasing note in his voice. “Isn’t it time for you to go swimming?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.” Standing, he tossed his glasses to the grass and leapt into the water with an ease that told her he hadn’t been all work and no play, no matter what he’d said about himself.