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There were two more sets of rapids before the river finally turned peaceful.

By the time they reached the designated area where all the teams were to set up camp, it was late afternoon and, to a man and/or woman, the contestants were all completely exhausted.

They were also more than an entire team shy.

Joe watched as two other teams dragged their rafts out of the water, parking them beside theirs on the riverbank. He and his team had been the first to make it to land, managing to arrive a little more than ten minutes ahead of the next team. That meant that tomorrow, they got that much of a start on the others.

Of the fifteen people in the game besides his own team, he saw only nine.

He turned toward Theresa, curious. “Where’s the fourth raft?”

Theresa shook her head. “I’ll go and find out,” she volunteered.

Hands shoved into her back pockets, she headed over to Reed. The producer was sitting in a director’s chair, watching over the proceedings like Nero presiding over his less than pleased subjects. He took to the role like a duck to water.

oe dropped on the grass a few feet away from their raft, too tired at the moment to move or to even think about eating. A quick scan of the inside of the raft told him that it looked as if none of their packs had gone overboard.

Which was damn lucky, he thought. Grateful or not, he sincerely doubted that Theresa would have gone so far as to share her food with him.

Thinking about it, even her sharing her tent seemed like a stretch. He’d seen the look in her eyes the afternoon they’d been told that they had made the cut. Triumph instead of pleasure. As if she’d expected it.

The woman was aggressive and she wanted to win. At all costs. Which was why her sharing the tent with him was strange. All she had to do was say nothing and he would have been disqualified.

But maybe, he argued, she would have felt just too guilty, since he had saved her.

Whatever the reason, he was glad that he still managed to remain in the contest without having to sacrifice any of his principles.

Propping himself up on his elbows, he contemplated getting up again. The food wasn’t going to just pop into his mouth.

Maybe just a couple of more minutes to pull himself together. He noticed that no one else appeared to be doing much moving, either. The all too real life-and-death struggle with the river had taken a great deal out of all of them.

The next thing he was aware of was Theresa depositing herself on the grass beside him. Her leg brushed against his and if he wasn’t so damn tired, he would have sworn that another shock wave of electricity had accompanied the fleeting contact.

It looked as if the river had taken more out of him than he’d thought. Otherwise, why was he feeling things now, in the middle of what was supposed to be a life-and-death contest?

“The last team won’t be coming,” Theresa informed him. There was that triumphant look again, he thought. She reminded him of a warrior queen he’d seen in a docudrama on one of the public TV stations. Magnificent in her confidence. That was the word for her, he decided. Magnificent. “Their raft turned over. They had to be rescued.” She wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her head on her knees. “So did Holden.”

Something strong and urgent stirred inside him. Joe banked down the urge to run the back of his hand along her cheek. Instead, he focused on what she was saying.

“Holden?”

“The guy in that team,” she pointed out several people close by. Grouped and immobile around their raft, by his count there were only four people on the grass. Which meant that one of their number had dropped out. “He didn’t have anyone on his raft willing to catch him.”

It struck him as odd to have two such accidents occur at the same time. Especially with the safety precautions they’d taken. Everyone had strapped in the second they were in the raft.

“Wasn’t he strapped in?”

“Yeah, but his belt broke.” She raised her eyes to his. “Just like mine.”

Was she insinuating something? “Think it was done on purpose?”

She shrugged carelessly, even though she knew the answer to that. “Who knows? The producers like to throw curves at people.”

His eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”

She looked at him sharply, but there was no accusation in his eyes, only the vague question shimmering between them. She told herself she was being too paranoid.

Theresa allowed herself a small smile. The man was easy to smile at. “Don't you watch reality programs?”

He shook his head. “Never touch the stuff.”

It was an odd admission for a man embroiled in the middle of the newest reality show slated to hit the airwaves. “What do you watch?”

“Police dramas. An occasional comedy when I think it might be funny instead of dumb.” He paused, then admitted, “Saturday morning cartoons with my son. You?”

“I don't watch much TV — except for a couple of the reality programs,” she added quickly. “I’m usually at the gym, teaching a class or making up a workout for a client.”

He’d seen her in the gym when they were being tested. She was a thing of beauty. Her body moved like poetry. It took effort to remind himself that he was a prose kind of person. “What do you do for fun?”

He was sitting way too close. And she was thinking things that were completely out of line for what she needed to do. Twilight was stirring things up too much, she decided. Making her feel strangely vulnerable. That had never happened before, not even once.

Theresa deliberately scooted back on the bank.

“Sleep,” she finally said. “I’m usually dead tired by the end of the day.”

He thought of his life ever since he’d returned to the ranch with Jesse. Filled end to end with either work or his son. That didn’t leave much time for him. “I know exactly what you mean.”

The air seemed to stand still between them. Urges began to move through her. This wasn’t the time and it certainly wasn’t the place. At best, they were misguided. She’d been vulnerable back there and Joe had rescued her. What she was feeling now was strictly a knee-jerk reaction to the situation.

Problem was, it wasn’t just her knee that was involved.

The problem got worse.

Maybe volunteering to share a tent with Joe hadn’t been such a good idea, Theresa thought. The tent was small, the space crammed. It was filled with arms and legs and a hell of a lot of tension that seemed to be left over from their life-and-death struggle on the river earlier.

She could tell by his breathing that he was awake. “Joe?”

“Yeah?”

His voice was low, sexy in the dark. “You’re not asleep, are you?”

She heard the soft laugh. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Why did you rescue me today?” Turning, she propped herself up on her elbow. His face was mostly in shadow. She could just about make it out. “Don’t you want the money?”

“Yes, but I’m not about to sacrifice who I am to get it. Besides, you could have gotten hurt.”

His words, his concern, thrilled her. She didn’t want them to. She wasn’t here for that. “They had rescue teams standing by.”

He’d never been one of those people who could just stand by and let things happen without trying to do something about it. “By the time one of them reached you, a lot of things could have happened.”

She smiled to herself as she shook her head. “Have you always been this decent?”

She saw him shrug. “It’s a congenital thing.”

Desire flared up another notch. She needed to diffuse it a little. “Don’t take this the wrong way.”

He braced himself for some flippant assessment of his code of ethics. “Okay.”

Instead of words, he found her leaning into him. Felt her breath along his face. Her lips softly pressing against his.

The graveyard that had been his soul suddenly experienced life. Vividly. He felt something warm unfurling inside his belly. Long, golden fingers of light reached out, probing through all the darken corners of his being.

“I don't think it’s possible to take that the wrong way,” he murmured when she finally moved back.

She smiled. “I just wanted to say thank-you.”

With that, she lay down again and turned her back to him.

It took a long time for his pulse to settle. Even longer for the rest of his body to catch up. He was going to feel like hell in the morning. Maybe that was even her intent, he thought, recalling what she’d said to him on the dance floor.

He didn’t know. All he knew was that for now, he felt pretty damn good.



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