Walk of Shame (33 page)

I moaned and shifted under him to
find his lips with mine.

"You won't get a splinter
from my boat," he whispered against my mouth.

"Don't
tempt me."

"What the hell is
this?" Liam's voice boomed across the water, followed by the distinct
sound of Phillip's chuckle.

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes to
find that I was turned on my side, cuddled against Jared, with one hand on the
floor between us and the other laying on Jared's chest. I sat up, careful to
not rock the boat too much and wake up Jared, and looked around. Last night's
camera crew was still drifting in their boat, not thirty feet away from us,
looking bleary-eyed. I tried to feel bad about that, but it didn't work. Liam
and Phillip were closing in the distance between us. "What time is
it?" I called out.

"Almost nine," Phillip
answered. "We were wondering if you had anything on the agenda for the
day, but then we realized that none of us knew where you even were."

"And then," Liam added,
"we realized that Jared was the only one of the guys missing."

"That's when Mike said that
we should probably track you two down and see what's going on, before we egged his
rig," Phillip said.

Jared kept his eyes closed and
stayed horizontal, but he let a smile spread across his face.

"Well, I'm still fully
dressed. Hell, I even slept in my bra. And we were chaperoned all night,"
I said with a nod in the direction of the crew boat. "I don't think
anything needs to be egged."

"All right," Liam
agreed. "But if a wrapper or a condom falls out of anybody's pocket, all
bets are off."

I grinned, but then I turned
suspicious. "How did you know that I wasn't in my bed?"

"Because, Goldie was still
running around outside," Liam answered.

"Oh, my God!"
How
had I forgotten about her?
I was going to have to get used to taking care
of her again. We weren't on the gated lot anymore.

"She's fine. We think she
slept under your rig. We fed her," Liam said.

"I'm a crappy mother,"
I muttered.

"It's okay," Jared
said, finally making his presence known. "You practice with a dog so you
don't screw up a kid later."

I reached down and slapped his
leg. "Not funny."

Liam and Phillip chuckled.

"Did you have plans for the
day?" Liam asked.

"Nope."

"Well, good. Head back to
shore, get something to eat, maybe change your clothes if you want, then you're
all mine," Liam said with a sparkle in his eyes. Then he turned to the
camera crew. "You two will have to trade off with the other crew, after
being up all night out here, you won't be safe where we're going."

Jared sighed and sat up to start
rowing while I just stared at Liam, wondering what was in store for me.

We pulled the boats up onshore
and I went in search of Chloe. "Why didn't you let Goldie inside last
night to sleep?" I asked when I found her hosing off my indoor-outdoor
carpeting that she'd laid out, under my awning.

"Because Goldie has decided
that she's ticked off with me and wouldn't come in last night."

"Why?"

"I cooked a hot dog over the
fire for her last night. When it was done, I flung it off the skewer. It hit
the ground and bounced up. She caught it and gobbled it down. Her tongue got
burnt because she didn't sniff it first and let it cool."

"Is she all right?"

"Yeah, a medic checked her
out. They took a picture of her tongue and sent it to a vet. She's fine, we
gave her tons of ice water and I gave her one of those baby aspirin you keep on
hand for her."

"She's been around all kinds
of people for weeks and there's never been a problem. You're here one night and
you break her. You're a bad doggy-aunt."

"Yeah, but I tried to fix
her, that has to count for something."

I rolled my eyes and grabbed a
bowl of fresh fruit salad that catering had provided. I ate on my way inside
the fifth wheel to grab a shower, confident that wardrobe would find something
date appropriate for me to put on when I came out.

I knew I was in for it when they
put me in tight-fitting athletic gear.

I stepped down out of my rig and
landed my eyes on Liam. "Is today some sort of payback?"

He grinned. "Yes, and I have
everyone's blessing to put you through your paces."

I laughed. "I'm sure you
do."

He turned to Chloe and winked.
"You wanna come tag-along?"

Chloe shook her head. "No,
thank you, Mountain Man. I'll keep my feet on solid ground."

Liam grinned at me.
"Mountain Man?"

"That's how I keep all you
people straight," Chloe said, reclaiming his attention. She held up a hand
and started ticking off fingers, "There's Mountain Man, Park Guy, Swamp
Thing, Animal Dude, Photo Booth," then held up the thumb on her opposite
hand, "and the Cook."

"Hey," Phillip said,
grinning from ear to ear, "I'm on the list twice."

"Photo Booth?" Stephen
repeated at the same time.

Chloe looked down at her hands
and then did a mental head-count of the guys. "Shit." She looked at
Phillip, "I thought you were the cook."

"I am," he said.
"I'm also the animal dude."

"I thought she got rid of
the animal dude." She turned to me. "Were there two animal
guys?"

"No. There was Music Man,
Dino Digger, and Driver Guy."

"But I thought Phillip was a
chef or something."

I tried to hide my smile, but it
wasn't working. "No. He isn't a cook. It's that he
can
cook. So can
Liam."

"The Park Guy! Doesn't he
work with the animals living in the parks?"

"Uh, no," Mike said.
"I build bridges over rivers and tunnels through mountains. I scout out
roadway paths through mountain chains and lay out trails. I work in
construction."

Chloe turned from Mike to me. "See?
This is why I wanted you to send me pictures of everybody."

"I thought you had a chart
you were keeping track of them on," I said.

She sighed. "I'm going to
have to pull it out and see where I went wrong."

I turned from her to the guys.
"She really is intelligent, I swear."

They smiled.

"I can't keep who they are,
who they work for, what they do, and what their interests are all in my
head," she muttered.

"She's a visual
learner," I told them. "Anything you say to her goes in one ear and
out the other. Just ask our parents."

"Shut up," she said.

I turned back to her and grew
serious. "What are you going to do today?"

"Well, first, I'm going to
sit down with the guys and redo my chart," she quipped. "Then, since
I didn't get to talk with Jared last night, he and I are going to go for a
little walk."

"Did you weed anybody out
for me, yet?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes and gave me
an exasperated look. "Let's make sure my opinions are going to the right
guys first, before I tell you who it is I don't like for you, okay?"

I smiled. "Okay." I
started to walk away from her, but then looked back over my shoulder to tease
her one last time. "You do know that the one with the Scottish accent came
from Scotland and the one with the southern accent is from the south,
right?"

The look she shot me was loaded
with daggers. "Shut. Up."

Phillip turned to her and
extended a hand toward her. "I'm Phillip from the Philippines."

Mike extended his hand out to
her. "And I'm Michael from the Michappines."

She showed no facial response to
them, just turned around and started walking toward the lake.

"They're lying, you
know," Stephen called out to her.

She paused in her walking.

"Phillip is from
Philadelphia," he said.

She lifted a hand over her head and
gave us all the middle finger.

I let out the chuckle I'd been
holding in and moved to take Liam's hand as we walked over to an SUV.

Liam got in next to me, still
laughing.

The driver pulled away from the
area that we'd taken over and headed down a dirt road.

"You knew I called you
Mountain Man," I told him.

"Well, yeah. But I didn't
know you had spread the word about it," he said with a smile.

I tilted my head back against the
headrest and turned to him with a grin. "Do you know what I thought that
first night I met you and found out you worked in the mountains?"

His blue eyes sparkled in reaction
to my flirty tone. A devilish grin flashed across his face as the sun shone on
his red hair from the rear window, looking so freaking handsome that it was
almost a crime. "What?"

"That you were as big as a Himalaya,"
I whispered. I let my eyes sweep over him as I reached down and unbuckled my
seatbelt. "And then I thought," I moved into his lap, straddling him,
and let my lips fall just short of his, "I've always wanted to climb a
Himalaya." Then I let my lips touch his, cupped his face in my hands, and
put some effort into the kiss.

His hands drew up my back and he
pulled me closer to him.

We ignored the camera pointed at
us and continued kissing for several minutes, until the tire hit a hole in the
road, jarring my lips off his. He landed a kiss on my nose before letting me
get back into my own seat.

I clicked the seatbelt into place
and let out a happy sigh.

He looked at me from the corner
of his eye and chuckled.

We hit another pothole and I sat
up to take a look around at where we were. "Are we about to do some
wilderness survival exercise?"

"No."

"They're not going to drop
us somewhere in the park and we have to find our way out?"

"No."

"Then what are we going to
do?"

He leaned over and gave me a peck
on the mouth. "You'll see."

Ten minutes later, I was looking
up at the sheer face of a mountain while people were getting themselves and
their equipment into position.

"So, Mountain Man wants to
go mountain climbing. Isn't that a little predictable?" I asked, turning
to him.

He shrugged in contrast to the
smile he was wearing. "You said you wanted to get to know more about what
we all do, since you'll be living on location."

I looked back up at the rock
face. "I need a bottle of water."

"If you'd rather, we can
walk around and hike up the side. Then we can just repel down."

"Pfft. No. You want to
climb, we climb." I walked over to the base, propped a foot on the wall,
and started stretching.

One of the production members
brought a bottle of water over and handed it to me.

"Thank you," I told
them. I unscrewed the cap and downed the water.

"What are you doing?"
Liam asked.

"Hydrating and stretching.
It's called, 'not getting a muscle cramp a hundred feet off the ground'."

He smiled. "Been there, done
that?"

I returned his smile as I shifted
to stretch my other leg. "Not my first rodeo, my friend."

He grinned and took the empty
bottle out of my hands to toss to a waiting crewmember.

Guides came over to us with
safety gear and Liam took the stuff from them. We had a ball strapping each
other into it all. The guides double-checked the fit and buckle closures before
we clipped onto the ropes that were strung down the face of the mountain.

We returned to our campsites
three hours later. I grabbed two half-frozen water bottles out of the nearest
cooler and lay down on a picnic table bench. I lifted the top of the front of
my shirt and slid a bottle underneath, between my boobs. I held the other one
against the back of my neck.

Stephen looked on with amused
confusion. "Are those sweat stains on your shirt?"

"You know how your arm pits
sweat?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, I didn't think to put
deodorant under my boobs this morning."

"You mean like, boob
pits?" Liam teased.

"They sweat?" Stephen
asked, still not comprehending.

"They float, too,"
Chloe added as she came out of my RV, holding a bottle of soda.

"They float?" Stephen
asked. "How did I not know about this?"

"Hey," I said. "I
didn't know until a few years ago that a guy's nether regions shrink in cold
water."

"Wait," Chloe said with
wide eyes. "It shrinks?"

"Like a turtle pulling its
head into its shell," I said.

"What!?"

"Funniest damn thing I think
I've ever seen."

Four of the guys were laughing at
Chloe's expression. Stephen was still reeling, "Did you guys all know
about boob sweat?" he asked.

"I worked a summer in the
Poconos with two women, where the humidity is ridiculous. They had marks on
their shirts all the time," Liam said.

"My sister works her ass off
outside," Jared said.

"I worked with female
soldiers in the middle of the desert," Mike answered.

Phillip shrugged his shoulders.
"I was married."

Cooled down enough to function
again, I sat up and pulled the bottle out from under my shirt. I downed another
bottle of water, then got up to go take my second shower of the day. Production
wanted to make up the pretty, pretty princess from scratch again before I moved
on with my day.

"What is up with this
outfit?" I asked the MA.

"You're going out
again," she answered.

"Am I climbing another
mountain?"

She grinned. "Not that I'm
aware of."

"Are they aware that last
night wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever gotten?"

She laughed. "I believe that
may be why they're piling on the physical activities today. You weren't supposed
to be doing this activity until tomorrow."

I sighed and sat down so she
could get the hair and makeup prep done.

Mike was lounging back against a
picnic table, with a pleased smile on his face, when I stepped out of the rig.
"Ready?" he asked.

"Sure, do I need to sign
disclaimer papers for this adventure, too?"

"Actually, yes. But it's not
as dangerous as what I'd originally planned."