“He’s fine.”
“If he was fine, you would let me talk to him.”
The bodyguard is too big for me to see anything but his chest, but the canyon wall is too close behind him for Derek to be more than a few feet away. He can probably hear everything we’re saying, unless he really is having a panic attack, in which case Hunter shouldn’t be standing here blocking me. I can help him.
“Derek,” I say, a little louder. “Are you okay?”
“Yep.” His response is quiet, but it sounds like he’s even closer than I thought.
Strange as it feels to talk to a man’s brawny chest, I do it anyway. “Are you sure?”
“Yep.”
“Donovan,” Hunter says, his tone full of warning. Based on his glare, I only have a few seconds before he forces me back to the camp.
No matter what I say to Derek right now, he’s not going to hear it, so I take a step back, holding my hands up to show Hunter that I’ll leave without his assistance. “I’m not going to push,” I say, though I don’t do a good job of hiding my reluctance. “But everything is okay. I promise.”
This can’t be about leaving the paddle. That’s such an inconsequential thing, and I’m sure everyone will forget about it by tonight. Even if they don’t, now they know firsthand what happens when it’s left behind, so no one is going to do it again. If not for his reaction, I would have thought Derek would be the first to own up to the mistake, using his personability to laugh it off and smooth things over with the women who had to wait.
But he didn’t.
With one more glance at Hunter, who furrows his eyebrows, I turn around and walk back to the kitchen, hating that Derek doesn’t trust me with whatever he’s dealing with. Then again, I haven’t given him any reasons to trust me, and guilt starts building in my stomach. I’ve been letting my fears and my past guide my interactions, and that’s not fair to Derek.
Everyone deserves a clean slate when they’re out here, the same way I did.
Derek doesn’t come back to camp until right before we start eating breakfast, and he keeps on the outskirts of the group, ignoring the whispers of everyone wondering why he’s less social than he was yesterday. He only meets my gaze once, when he climbs into the gear boat two hours later and settles at the very back, where I won’t be able to see him, but that look says a lot.
It’s the only time he lets emotion filter into his expression, and what he shows me is fear. A silent plea not to ask.
Unfortunately for him, Pops taught me how to recognize a soul in need, and I can’t stand by and let Derek suffer in silence. Not when I can do something about it. I’ll give him what he wants, but he’s going to get what he needs too.
Hopefully this doesn’t blow up in my face.
Chapter Fourteen
Derek
Hunterwasright.Weshould have gone to a resort. Or I should have spent this week with Cole so I could distract him from his worries and get some time with him before his baby comes. I should have read through some indie scripts to see if any are interesting enough to take on. Anything but trapping myself with a bunch of strangers, with no places to hide.
And while I’m terrified of Donovan, she’s a whole lot less daunting than a boat full of fans. At least there’s some space between us and the other boats now that we’ve been on the river for a while, and after that disastrous start this morning, I’ll take every positive spin on the day that I can get.
“So,” Donovan says after an hour of blessed, torturous silence broken only by the creak of her oars. “I have a question.”
She probably has many. “Okay.”
“Okay, you’ll answer? Or ‘okay, but keep your mouth shut’?”
“The second one.”
She twists her head to smirk at me, which I expected. “Nice try, Riley, but my job is to get you down this river safely, and I intend to do that.”
“Nothing about this river is dangerous,” I argue lamely. I know what’s coming in a couple of days, but right now the water is as flat as ever. It has a current, but I could jump in and float in my life jacket for the next several miles without issue.
Donovan shifts the blade of her right oar all the way forward, tucking it between the spare oar strapped to the side of the boat and the boat itself. Then she does the same on the left, and I brace myself for when she spins around to face me, crossing her legs underneath her and leaning her elbows on her knees.
“A panic attack can be dangerous,” she says, lifting her eyebrows.
Hide. Keep calm. Tuck it all away. I blink, delaying my response as long as I can, as if it might delay this conversation. “I didn’t have a panic attack,” I say eventually.
