Jen's Legacy.
Distracting himself... if she'd let him.

He reinforced behind the dam this time, striving to ignore her as she struggled to pull her shorts up to cover herself, seeing her shirt fall away from her even more as she did that, setting his nerves jangling and sending him back into madness; but a nice kind of madness.

She decided not to struggle too hard to pull them any farther, or to fasten them or zip them up with him watching her, leaving them near the top of her legs.

She would have to stand up to pull them up where they needed to be, and if she got anything caught in the zip, as she was sure to in her haste, that would be painful. Though it would get him involved with her to help her again and in an exceptionally personal way, rescuing her from that sudden pain as he freed some of that hair from the zip, as he would have to do.

There were many other little things like that, that she could do to bring them closer together, and would do, if it became necessary, but all in good time. She had already decided what her priorities had to be, and that would be even more of a challenge for him as well as for her. If she had the courage; and she did now.

Was this—the way she was thinking and behaving now—how a woman in love was prepared to behave when that special man came into her life; tossing aside everything she had been taught about how to behave as a modest young woman should? She surprised herself by answering her own question without hesitation.

Damn right it was!

And if necessary she would go even further; as far as she needed to go. It would happen now, or it would happen later, but happen... it... would.

She pulled her shorts as far as they would go without her changing her position, conscious of his attention as he tried not to watch her, though it was obvious that he was mesmerized by everything he could see of her as she moved around to do that, then he came back to join her after he’d checked on the fire and their meal.

He was blushing, and his ears were red. How much more of this torment could he survive without declaring himself more obviously to her. He was already too obvious for his own good, just as he had been earlier that morning when he’d walked out of the river, and he didn’t want to scare her.

It was pointless struggling with her shorts any further. Her body had relaxed after the elasticity of that swimsuit had held her body in its tight grip, like an old-fashioned corset, and had caused this other irritating problem for her. Her shorts should not be fastened. They would irritate too much.

“About now, I guess, is when your parents will learn that you are missing, if that rafting party was able to get a signal out, or they met up with any park rangers. They should be close to Marsden if they are not there already. How will your parents deal with what they are likely to hear, and to be faced with?”

She’d not wanted to think of that. The emotional burden would be intense, but at least she was alive, and no matter what they feared, or were advised, they would not be looking for a corpse. She could vouch for that, the way Royce was looking at her.

She put it into words. “They will be worried beyond belief; horrified, but it is my grandmother I most worry about.

“My parents are both traveling in Europe, as I said, but Gran will be the one to get things started for a search party, and she will. I wish I could let her know.”

She fell silent considering that, and the pain her grandmother would be feeling, as he gently splashed water up onto her shirt for her, to dampen it down again while she was distracted with this other thought, seeing that her shirt was displaced as the water hit it, showing a little more of her breasts and an expanse of skin from her neck to below her naval as she considered that other family problem.

He’d never seen anything so beautiful as when he’d returned with that wood and had stood transfixed, watching her lying there naked, floating, admiring her vibrantly awakening body, wanting to throw everything aside at that moment, disrobe totally, join her and tell her how much he loved her.

And scare the life out of her!

She might not believe him, that he could be in love with her already, and would despise him for his weakness of character, being so inconstant and faithless; in love with Jen, one minute, and then so quickly able to transfer that same feeling—that exact same feeling—to another woman. He didn’t understand it himself.

Unless it were Jen that was pushing him do that, encouraging him to do that, just as she had sent him over those precipices down to the river like a madman, which was what he had been, and to leap in to rescue her. Perhaps Claire, was Jen, as he’d first sensed! Impossible! But he so much wanted them to be one and the same, and even that the unborn, Claire, was also somewhere here.

These were powerful feelings that made no sense. It defied logic, though it would have answered all of his emotional needs.

If only.... He wished.

Claire was still speaking about her parents, unaware of his internal conflicts and distractions.

“I should have gone with them to Europe, but Gran knew that I didn’t want to go, so she suggested this trip instead, and booked me on it before they could object. I’m glad she did, despite…” despite her almost dying. But maybe she had died, and this was just a cruel dream where she had been rescued only into a temporary alternative life. No, that would be too cruel, although, if it were so, she would at least be with him.

He touched her hand and brought her back to him.

“So was I… glad that she signed you up, or I might never have met you, though it would have been better if we’d met in less difficult circumstances.”

Oh, god! She even looked at him as Jen had looked at him, causing his heart, and his head... both, to do handsprings and to befuddle his emotions until after they had made love, to settle him down again, and had given his sanity back to him. That had always been the answer to most of his problems. But not now, dammit!

She was not sure about that... meeting in a different way. If she’d not met him at the exact moment she had, she might not have met him at all. She would have drowned and never would have felt what she was feeling now, or have been given the chance to put both of their lives on a track together, if she could.

Without them meeting there would have been two lives lost. They would both be dead, just a few days apart. A real tragedy.

Such gentle overtures between them, with so much not being said, but with other feelings running so high between them that she could feel the air thick with them, made her wonder when he would reach out to her again, and not just to touch her feet or her face, but to move her shirt aside and discover more of her.

He had done something like that after that climb, as he’d knelt with her, kissing her tears of relief away, running his hands up her legs behind her, startling her with his familiarity as he checked for rope burns. It would not take much to move her shirt aside, and to deal with her as she wanted him to do, so that she could return that favor, and console him properly in turn as he most needed, by letting him make love to her. Except she was not sure how that would go, or what it would involve. Most virgins had to come to grips with this situation, or one like it, when a man came into their lives as Royce had done.

Maybe she would have to be the one to encourage him? But did she have the courage?

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