Reign: A Royal Military Romance (62 page)

Jake laughed.

“We actually haven’t interviewed that subject yet,” she said. “We’re going over there next. I think it’ll be... enlightening.”

“Who was it?”

Ariana took a small notebook from her bag and flipped it open.

“Dustin Tanner?” she said.

“Oh, Dusty,” said Jake. He leaned back in the booth, his hands behind his head, his flannel shirt stretching across his big chest. “He’s a hoot. Hope you’re ready to hear two hours of tall tales.”

“Are we ever,” said Theresa, still sipping her milkshake.

* * *

W
hen Darlene came back
with the check, Ariana grabbed it before Jake even had a chance.

“What do I owe you?” he said smoothly. He couldn’t let the girls pay for him. It was unseemly, somehow.

“It’s on us,” said Ariana. “Or, rather, it’s on the CRF.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely,” she said. She still held the check, and it was increasingly obvious to Jake that what Ariana wanted, Ariana got.

“Well, thanks,” Jake said. He looked down at the map, briefly. He knew he had to say something, ask her out, do something that meant he could see her again. “Can I do anything else for you?”

Why was he suddenly so
nervous
around this girl?

“Would we be able to hike to the backcountry log for this spot?” Ariana asked, tapping her finger on the X in the middle of nowhere.

“Unless I’m mistaken, that’s about six miles in, and they’re rough miles,” he said. “People have a tough time doing that in a day, but it’s an easy overnight trip.”

“Oh,” said Ariana. She seemed disappointed, and exchanged a look with Theresa.

“I could lend you backpacking gear from our office, no problem,” offered Jake. “Hell, I’d be happy to take you out there myself.”

The girls exchanged a look again.

What’s gotten into you?
Thought Jake.
You’ve got a job to do, you can’t just take off and go hiking with a cute girl whenever you want
.

“Really?” said the blond with a blue streak in her hair, the one who was sipping the milkshake flirtily.

“Sure,” he said, only looking at Ariana, the brunette. He couldn’t wait to spend two full days with her, watching her climb a mountain in front of him, her hips swinging as she walked...

“I’m not sure it’s a good use of our time here,” said Ariana. “We don’t even know if someone signed in.”

“Come on,” Jake said. His heart thumped. Somehow, he had to figure out a way to see her again. “I’m more than happy to take you.”

Ariana bit her lip and looked up at him. He wondered if she knew how devastatingly sexy she looked just then.

“All right,” she said. “Should we come by to pick up gear and plan?”

“The forest office closes at seven,” he said. “Stop by whenever.”

“We should go,” said Theresa. “We’re meeting Dustin soon.”

“Crap, you’re right,” said Ariana. Then, to Jake, she said, “See you later tonight?”

“Absolutely,” he said.

Then he watched her walk out of the diner, get into her car, and drive off to meet Dustin.

Jake leaned back in the booth and stared off into space. What
was
it about her? Sitting here, in the diner, he’d felt almost lightheaded just being near her. Sure, she was gorgeous and driven, but so were plenty of women.

Ariana, though. There was something in particular about her. Jake shook his head, trying to clear it, and then went back to his office where he got no work done.

“
Y
ou should give him a call
,” Theresa was saying, over in the passenger seat. “I’d let him take me on a hike
any
day of the week.”

“I just want to make sure it’s a good use of our time.”

“I would climb him like a
tree
,” Theresa said. “Did you see his forearms? Oh my god.”

Yes. Yes, I did,
thought Ariana.
I’d also climb him like a — no I wouldn’t, because I have a boyfriend
.

“He was cute,” said Ariana.

“Ariana,” said Theresa, turning fully in her seat, “We don’t have real jobs. We’re here because our boss is a weird billionaire who wants to find Bigfoot.” She paused for a moment, letting that sink in. “Let’s go camping with the hot ranger.”

Ariana bit her lip.
Boyfriend, boyfriend
, she thought. What was it about Jake that made her feel so
weird
inside? Was it only that he was hot, or was there something else?

The image of his eyes, boring into her, came to her suddenly, and she felt almost giddy for a moment.

“Okay,” she said. “We can go camping.”

* * *

D
ustin had wanted
to meet at the Last Chance, the bar where he’d originally seen Bigfoot. When the girls walked in, an older guy wearing a plaid shirt and drinking a Budweiser waved to them from a booth, and they walked over.

“You’ve got to be the Bigfoot gals,” he said.

“That’s us,” said Ariana. Her mind was still half back in the diner, and on the fact that she’d agreed to go camping with Jake, the hot, hunky lumberjack.

“So, you want to hear my story?” he asked.

It was a surprisingly long story for an event that hadn’t taken more than thirty seconds. It began the morning of the sighting, when Dustin considered driving down to the river for a few hours, or going fishing in the lake. He’d retired a couple years before and had never married, so his time was his own, as he liked to say frequently.

Ariana was fervently glad that he’d been scheduled last for their day, because at the rate his story was going, it could take hours.

In any case, he’d gone to the hardware store to get some sort of hinge to replace a rusty one on his door, gone home to replace it, watched a little of Judge Judy on TV (“I like her ‘cause she don’t take no bullshit,” he said), and then finally decided to head up to the Last Chance for a couple of drinks.

“Why here?” asked Theresa.

“It’s real nice,” he said. “They know me, and during happy hour they got one dollar beers.”

“I see,” said Ariana.

Finally, they got to the sighting part of the story: three beers in, Dustin had been aimlessly watching the gravel parking lot. The sun was just starting to go down, and suddenly, he saw a very tall, very hairy bipedal animal walk out of the woods, cross the parking lot, do something to the tire of a green Ford truck, and then get in the truck and drive away.

“It was tall, and hairy, and had long arms that swung like this,” he told the girls, swinging his arms in an exaggerated, cartoonish way.

“Did you see which way the truck went?”

“Toward town,” he said.

“Can you remember anything else?”

Dustin shrugged. “I was so surprised that I finally saw him, I didn’t think to look for too many details,” he said.

“Did anyone else see it?”

“Don’t think so,” he said. “But you know, about ten years ago, Ernest Longmire who passed away just two years ago came across Bigfoot when he was out hunting one day, long before this was all protected...”

It was only forty-five minutes before the girls got out of there.

J
ake was putting
the finishing touches on a report when the front door to the station opened. He was the only one still there, just waiting for Ariana and Theresa to show up. He hadn’t been able to pay a lot of attention to the report, but it wasn’t a big deal. The Department of the Interior didn’t expect a lot from former lumberjacks in terms of grammar and punctuation anyway.

“Hello?” she called.

Jake was out of his chair and out of his office before Ariana could take even another step.

“Hey there,” he said. “Ready to get outfitted?”

“Sure am,” she said.

He looked through the door behind her, wondering where the other girl was.

“Oh, she wanted to take a nap,” Ariana said. “Or at least that’s what she said. I think she’d probably just watching TV in her room.”

God, she even
smelled
good, like fresh coffee and lilac and sunshine, all rolled into one.

“Well, it’s just me here,” Jake said, smiling. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not if you don’t,” she said.

“Come on back and check out the equipment,” he said. “We’ve got enough to send Napoleon’s army backpacking for a week.”

He wished they were going backpacking for a week, but he’d have to make do with two days. At least she’d come alone tonight, without that other girl. It would give him a chance.

* * *

S
tanding
, Ariana realized that Jake towered over her by a good eight inches. She wasn’t a small girl — five foot nine in stocking feet — and she was used to looking men in the eye. Jake she had to look up at, though, and she found she didn’t mind in the least. They were alone in the ranger’s office, surrounded by gray cubicles and walls that were floor-to-ceiling window.

She followed him through the office to a back room. When he flipped on the lights, she realized that all four walls were covered in shelving, top-to-bottom hiking gear.

“Is that all forest service stuff?” she asked.

“Only some,” he said. “People leave things with us all the time, or donate it. You’d be surprised how many people come here from Europe on vacation, go backpacking a couple of times, and donate their gear before they fly back.”

“It’s probably cheaper than baggage fees,” she said. “Though some of this is really nice stuff.”

Jake shrugged. “All right,” he said. “You need a pack, at least, and a sleeping bag and a tent. You got boots?”

“I brought boots,” said Ariana. “I’ve got a pack at home, but I didn’t think I’d be going on an overnight tour of the forest, so I didn’t bring it.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “Not a problem at all.”

Even though the room looked like a mess to Ariana, Jake quickly zeroed in on a couple of packs, all the way on the top shelf. It was hard not to be impressed as he reached all the way up, lifting packs and supplies out of the way like they were no big deal.

Finally, he held one out to her. “Okay,” he said. “Try this one on.”

She waited for him to hand it to her, but he stood there, holding it up for her. Finally she turned around and tried it on, his big hands brushing against her shoulders. Ariana was having a hard time concentrating on how well the pack fit — instead she was all too aware of her proximity to Jake, of his eyes on her.

“This seems okay,” she said.

“You gotta buckle the bottom,” he said. “I thought you said you knew what you were doing?” he said, teasingly.

“It’s been a while since I used my pack,” she said. She grabbed both ends of the buckle and tried to fit them together, only to realize that one was twisted.

“Sure it has,” he said, and then she felt him behind her. He took both ends of the buckle in his own hands, untwisted them, and fit them together neatly, the
click
loud in the suddenly-quiet little room.

He kept his arms around her, his hands on her hips, for just a beat longer than necessary. Ariana could feel herself blushing bright red, her pulse quickening.

That was really nice
, she thought, ashamed of herself.

Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend
.

“I think that one might be a little too big for you,” Jake said. He slipped two fingers under the shoulder strap and lifted, frowning at her. “Yup, it’s a little loose.”

His hand was warm, even through her t-shirt, and all she could think about was the way his muscles rippled through his forearms.

Jake turned around and reached for another pack on the shelf. “Try this one,” he said. “It’s a little smaller. I think it’ll fit better.”

This time, Ariana fumbled with the straps deliberately and just like before, Jake put his arms around her, securing them fast, looking her over with an appraising eye. He pulled at her shoulder straps again, this time releasing them and making them longer.

“Too short,” he finally said. “This’ll pull on your shoulders and you’ll be a wreck four miles into the hike.”

“Got another one?” Ariana asked, unbuckling herself and placing the pack gently on the floor. It was a very nice pack, probably upwards of $300 at the store.

“I told you,” he said easily, putting his hands on his hips and surveying the shelves. “I got packs until Kingdom Come.” He began lifting things off of shelves again, seemingly looking for something specific.

Ariana nudged a metal box with her foot, found it solid, and sat on it.

“How long have you been with the forest service?” she asked.

“About five years now, I think,” Jake said. “Six, maybe. Time flies here, you know.”

“What made you join?”

“They took away my other job.”

Ariana frowned. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I was a lumberjack until this all became national forest,” he said. “Now it’s protected from logging, but they were nice enough to hire me and smart enough to realize they needed people who knew the area.”

“You were not,” she said.

“I sure was,” Jake said. He looked over his shoulder, smiling down at her. “Why couldn’t I be?”

“I didn’t think there were still lumberjacks,” she said. “Didn’t they get replaced by, I don’t know, sawmills or something?”

Jake laughed, a deep, booming sound. “When’s the last time a sawmill went through a forest and only cut down the trees big enough to go?” He pulled something off of a high shelf and then held it out. “People still gotta do some of the work. Come over here and try this one out.”

Arian was aware that her blush was heading slowly down her chest as she tried not to imagine Jake, all six-foot-whatever of him, swinging a axe at a tree, watching it crash down. Shirtless, maybe. She slid her arms through the straps of this pack, moving her hair out of the way.

She felt his fingertips move across the back of her neck, just quickly enough to be accidental, but slowly enough to be deliberate. This time she didn’t have to do anything for him to reach his arms around her and buckle her waist strap for her.

When he finally let go, she turned in a circle.

“What do you think?” she asked. “This one fit?”

She was aware of his eyes looking her up and down, and even more aware that she didn’t mind, not at all.

“I think that one’s perfect,” he said.

She stood there, facing him, staring for another moment, feeling almost like she couldn’t breathe.

“Sleeping bag,” she finally said.

Jake moved to another part of the room, going through a small mountain of bags until he found one. “Give this a shot,” he said. “Synthetic so it’ll dry faster, women’s tall.”

“Tent?”

“Tents are where we aren’t so hot, believe it or not,” he said. “We don’t have any three-person tent, only one and two person tents. I figure the two of you can share. I’ve got my own, anyway.”

“Extra-tall?” she asked.

“You got it,” he said, and took something down off of a high shelf. “Here, I’ll show you how to put this one together.”

The tent wasn’t complicated, and even without the instructions, Ariana and Jake had it up inside five minutes.

“Then, the rain fly just goes on over top of this if you need it,” he said.

“We probably will,” Ariana said.

“We’re supposed to get lucky,” Jake said. “No rain the next couple of days, but we’ll see how that holds out.” He gestured at the tent. “Try it out.”

Ariana climbed in and laid on her back, more aware than usual of the space she took up. She wasn’t crazy about the idea of sharing the tent with Theresa, but there was no real way around it. Besides, the other girl wouldn’t care.

“It’s nice,” she said, and looked down.

Jake was on his hands and knees, getting in the other side of the tent. Ariana’s heart hammered and she looked away, quickly.

He laid down beside her, the carpeted floor of the office beneath the thin layer of tent nylon. His head and feet stretched the tent in two directions, as he was easily six inches too tall for it.

“I don’t think you fit,” she said, teasingly.

“What are you talking about?” Jake asked, stretching, making the tent shake. “This is perfect.”

Ariana laughed. He was pressed against her right side, his body warm against hers, and it was making her have terrible thoughts.

“I do love camping out beneath the fluorescent lights,” she said.

He pointed at the ceiling, totally visible beyond the tent. “The stapler constellation is very visible this time of year,” he said. “And if you look over on the horizon, you can just barely see the lights that make up Copier Major.”

Ariana laughed out loud. “I hear the lights are totally different in the Southern Office-sphere.”

“That they are,” said Jake, very seriously. “But you can see the Coffee Way much better.”

Ariana giggled and turned her head to face him, about to say something else.

Instead, she found he was facing her, only inches from her. She completely forgot the joke she’d been about to make.

All she could think was,
I want to kiss him. I want to kiss him.

Jake inched forward, and she could feel his warm breath, the proximity of his lips.

Ariana swallowed and closed her eyes, their lips just about to meet.

“I have a boyfriend!” she blurted out.

Then she flung herself out of the tent as fast as she could, tripped over some sleeping bags, and booked it back to her rental car as fast as she could.