But instead of stepping behind me and taking me in his arms, Noah’s arm shot out past my shoulder. He snatched Diego’s phone with surprising speed, then shoved it back into Diego’s front shirt pocket.
“We’re burning daylight,” Noah growled. “Some of us have real work to do.”
All the breath escaped my lungs at once, and my body felt oddly hollow. Which was ridiculous, because I never wanted Noah’s hands on me, anyway. In fact, the only thing I wanted from Noah Barrett was for him to stop looking at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of his hiking boot.
“Well,” said Diego, clearing his throat. “I guess the dance lesson’s over.” He hit stop and the muffled music playing from his shirt pocket ended, replaced by the rush of the river.
“Ready to hit the water?”
With the way the various girl parts inside my body were still tingling, perhaps being doused with ice cold water would do me some good. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Chapter Eighteen
The gentle swoosh of our paddles cutting through the water settled into a peaceful rhythm, the tandem kayak gliding over the river’s surface. With Diego guiding our movements from behind, I’d somehow managed not to flip us.
“Not bad,” Diego called from the back. “You’re getting the hang of it.”
The air felt impossibly crisp, carrying scents of wild roses from the riverbank. In the distance, a fish jumped, leaving perfect concentric ripples in its wake that would have looked amazing on video feed. If I had my phone. Which I didn’t. Because Noah did.
Noah’s kayak drifted alongside us. I tried not to notice how his muscles flexed with each paddle stroke, his wetsuit leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. Water droplets rolled down his forearms, clinging to his skin. I forced myself to look downstream before he caught me staring.
“Look!” Diego pointed skyward where two birds swoopedoverhead, diving and wheeling. “Those are ospreys. Fish eagles. See how they hover before diving for prey?”
“They’re beautiful.” One bird plunged toward the water in a perfect dive. “It looked like they were dancing together in the air.”
“Probably a mated pair,” said Diego. “They mate for life, returning to the same nest year after year.”
The birds wheeled away downstream, and we followed their path along the river’s gentle current. The steady rhythm of paddling became almost meditative, my anxiety temporarily forgotten in the unexpected peace of the moment.
“Coming up on our first set of rapids,” Noah called from beside us, pulling out my phone to record.
“Just a little baby one to get warmed up,” added Diego.
“Define baby.” My knuckles whitened on the paddle.
“Super chill. Like barely a ripple. We call it the practice rapid.”
The roar of rushing water grew louder. My heart beat faster as we rounded the bend. What appeared ahead did NOT look like practice anything.
“Those are not ripples!” White foam churned over rocks, creating a series of waves that looked decidedly un-chill. “Those are definitely not …”
The kayak nose dipped into the first wave, and ice-cold water sprayed across my face. I screamed, the sound echoing off the canyon walls like I was auditioning for a horror movie.
“Lean forward!” Diego shouted over my shrieking. “Work with the waves!”
Ricky Martin started playing in my head as I shimmied my hips.
“No, forward, not side to side!”
“But you said …”
Another splash hit me square in the mouth. I sputtered and coughed, certain we were about to capsize.
A flash of red caught my eye as Noah glided past us, making the waves look like little more than inconvenient speed bumps. He had one hand on his paddle while the other casually held my phone out over the side of his boat. His expression contained the nonchalance of someone watching paint dry rather than navigating what was clearly a death trap.
“Safety first!” I yelled between screams as we bounced through another wave.
Yeti barked happily from Noah’s kayak, her tongue flapping in the wind like a victory flag.
