“I’m kidding. It’s nestled safely at the trunk of a tree about ten yards away from the water. Come on, I’ll take you.” He held out his hand to me again, but that time, I didn’t try to talk myself out of the butterflies I was feeling. I felt them, and I acknowledged them for what they were – a budding attraction. A crush. Nate was a man I wanted to let lead me.

   He walked me out into the freezing water until it was barely above my knees, but then stopped short and turned to face me.

   “I’m gonna take you out until the water is about to your belly button,” he said, pressing a hand against my stomach, making my breath stop and my heart pound. “Then I’m gonna go under completely and you’re gonna get on my shoulders. Then I’ll walk through and you’ll stay mostly dry.”

   “You are not,” I scoffed. “I can see the water came up to your neck. You can’t walk through there with me on your shoulders; you’ll drown.”

   He laughed. “I’m not going to drown. Are you always this dramatic?” He lifted a hand to motion toward the gorge. “I might have slipped a little going through the first time and went under a little, but I kept your precious camera dry – I promise.”

   My eyes went wide at his admission. He had fallen in the godforsaken river. But I reminded myself that my camera was fine, that he was only trying to help me.

   “You think you can really carry me on your shoulders through there?”

   He raised one eyebrow at me and pulled his chin back in surprise. “Are you serious? Shut up.”

   I immediately laughed at his words, and then continued to laugh because it felt so good to do so. With one shut up from Nate, I’d lowered a wall I’d had built for years. Granted, it was still pretty much up and surrounding the most vulnerable part of me, but those few bricks that had just collapsed weighed a ton. I’d never felt this light before.

   He tugged me farther into the water and I kept my yelps silent as the water encroached on the apex of my thighs, the icy water causing all kinds of nerves to fire haphazardly. True to his word, when the water had reached my belly button, he stopped and faced me.

   “Okay, I’m gonna go under and you just hop onto my shoulders. When I stand up, hang on tight. If you fall in, this will be all for naught.”

   It was my turn to raise an eyebrow at him. “Did you really just say all for naught?”

   He only winked at me in response, then turned his back to me, and proceeded to dunk himself under the water.

   “Oh, shit, he was serious,” I said to myself as I clamored to climb up onto his shoulders. I managed to get my legs over his shoulders, trying not to think about the jolt of electricity that shot up my spine when his hands wrapped around my thighs, holding me tightly. Once I was situated, he started to rise out of the water. As more of my body left the cold water, it became apparent his body was taking on more and more of my weight, and I started to feel badly for the poor guy.

   When he was standing straight again, I heard him take in a deep breath trying to compensate for the oxygen he missed while underwater. I leaned forward a little, my hands plastered against his forehead. “Am I too heavy?” I asked, but before I could get the last word out, I lost my balance and started to fall forward. Instinctively, my feet wrapped around the back of Nate’s waist, and my hands gripped him below his chin, trying desperately not to fall in the mountain-cold water.

   “Whoa, I got you,” he said, his hands gripping me tighter on my thighs, his big arms squeezing my legs, keeping me in place. “You all right?” I heard him ask, noticing the garbled sound of his voice. It was then I decided to loosen the death grip I had on his face.

   “This was a dumb idea. Just put me down, I’ll swim through.”

   “Evelyn, trust me. I’ve got you.”

   “Okay,” I whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear me.

   I felt him take the first step with me atop his shoulders and I felt my face pull back in excitement and fear. I hadn’t been on anyone’s shoulders since spring break in Cancun my senior year of college when Elliot, Liv, Devon, and I were playing drunken chicken during one of our late-night pool excursions. This was different. Nate’s body was unfamiliar and, any way you looked at it, my most private and sensitive areas were pressed against him. For someone who I didn’t really know that well, it was an unusually familiar situation to be in. But regardless of what my head was telling me about what was appropriate or inappropriate, I liked feeling Nate that close to me, with his strong arms snaked around my legs. It had never been this exciting on Elliot’s shoulders.

   He walked through the canal created by the water and at its deepest, I saw the water ripple from his heavy breathing. He was scarily close to being underwater and I tried not to panic. Surely, my dry shirt wasn’t worth his dying. But then the water line started to lower, and more and more of his body was out of the water. When we’d made it through the deepest part and the water had receded to his waist again, he tapped my thigh with his large hand. Again, I ignored my body’s immediate response to the feeling of his hand and the primal sound it made against the wet skin of my leg.

   “I’m gonna dunk down again so you can climb off, all right?”

   I nodded, still gripping his forehead tightly.

   “Evelyn? You good up there?”

   “Sorry,” I said, realizing he couldn’t hear me nod my head. “I’m fine. Go ahead.” He slowly slipped down into the water, and when it was deep enough, I pushed off his shoulders and found my footing on the riverbed below. He stood up and even if I’d tried, I couldn’t have kept my eyes from watching the water cascade down his back, his arms lifting to run his hands through his wet hair. It was, possibly, the sexiest thing I’d ever seen in person.

   He turned back to face me, eyes wide as cold water rushed down his face. A hand came down and brushed the water away, and then his eyes focused on me. His gaze darted from my eyes, to my shirt, then back up again.

   “You’re dry,” he said with a smirk.

   “Relatively,” I responded quickly, before I thought much about it. I realized what I’d implied, blushed, and then watched as his smirk grew into a smug grin. “Okay,” I groaned, embarrassed, “where’s my camera?”

Chapter Fourteen

Present Day

   True to his word, my camera was safely deposited under a tree, dry as a bone. We continued our wade through the water, and when we came to our next obstacle, I couldn’t hold in my laughter.

   “This is the weirdest hike I’ve ever been on,” I mumbled. Before us, blocking the stream was a naturally made stack of logs. A pile of downed trees had obviously fallen from the tops of the ravine and landed in the gorge. A legitimate logjam. I watched as people climbed over the wooden obstacle course. The image of the logs alone was breathtaking. It was a little amazing to think nature had made something so intricate and beautiful.

   “Hey, I never said it was going to be boring. In fact,” he said, turning to look me in the eyes, “I can pretty much promise it’ll never be boring with me.”

   “Noted,” I breathed. His smiled changed, grew a little warmer, but then his eyes swung back to the mound of logs.

   “It doesn’t look difficult. See, children are climbing over it.” He pointed toward a group of teenagers climbing up the crazy log pile with gusto.

   “I never said I wasn’t going to do it.”

   “Well, all right then. Let’s see what you’ve got.” He winked at me and then started toward our next adventure.

   Not one to ever back down from a challenge, I followed him. Approaching the naturally made ladder of sorts, I tried to think objectively about how best to get to the top. I placed my foot on one log, but then changed my mind and tried another tactic. Nothing felt natural. No step I took felt like the right way to tackle the problem.