A Family Under The Stars - Christy Jeffries Mills & Boon Cherish

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seeing his grandfather’s hard-earned, but sun-damaged skin, it was easy to see why Alex was more careful to protect his own.

      Her guide pulled out a fishing pole that had been strapped inside the raft. “I’ll catch a fish, but I’m not comfortable with you wandering far from the beach. Rule number one is stay within sight.”

      “I’ll stick close by.” The promise would be an easy one to keep. Charlotte wasn’t a fan of being alone and she was even less a fan of being alone and lost in the wilds, no matter how breathtaking they were. She tilted her neck to take in the tall pines and rugged green landscape. “It’s absolutely beautiful here. I might take a few pictures of the scenery.”

      “Just don’t try and make it look too desirable,” he said, as he tied a hook to the end of his line. “Last thing we need is a bunch of city folks wanting to come up and beautify the land.”

      Commodore—she still smiled when she thought of the older man introducing himself by a nickname she’d only ever associated with yachting—had made virtually the same plea on the drive to the put-in location. Like grandfather, like grandson. Of course, Charlotte could understand why the locals would want to keep their pristine rivers and mountains exactly the way they were. The views were amazingly spectacular. But the remote area also lacked all the modern conveniences of San Francisco.

      She pulled her waterproof pack out of the raft and looked inside at the disposable box encased in a clear plastic shell. Commodore had said, in not so many words, that it had been left behind by one of their previous guests. This wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind when she’d asked for a waterproof camera, but she couldn’t very well expect them to have professional photography equipment on hand just because her crew hadn’t showed up with theirs.

      Charlotte would get better quality shots from her cell phone, which was also in its own plastic case, bought specifically for this trip. She checked the signal, hoping for a text from Kylie saying the girls were okay and doing well. But there was still no reception. She’d left a message for them before they’d launched into the river, and Commodore said he knew the Gregsons and would personally stop by Kylie’s house to make sure her friend got the message.

      She took some shots of the river and the mountains in the distance, then studied the dark, damp soil for any clues as to what may be growing nearby. Good thing she’d studied up on the local plant life because the last thing she wanted to do was ask Mr. Preserve-the-Land for more help. She looked back to where he was balancing on a boulder, holding a fishing pole and far enough away that he couldn’t hear her gasp of breath at his handsome profile and masculine stance.

      This wasn’t the type of scenery she’d originally envisioned when the magazine had booked her trip. And she would die of shame if he turned in that exact second and caught her snapping a photo of him. But how could she pass up the chance? The red plaid shirt couldn’t hide his athletic build any better than the thick dark stubble on his jaw could hide his handsome looks. Alex Russell looked exactly like every woman’s dream of a rugged mountain man come to life and Charlotte told herself it would’ve been sloppy journalism to not capture the alluring image.

      She knew what her readers wanted, even if she was only providing the perception of an ideal setting with an ideal man. The key word was perception. Charlotte had absolutely no idea what kind of man Alex Russell was. And she knew from past experience that it would take more than a couple of hours on the Sugar River to find out that he probably wasn’t anything like he seemed. Nobody ever was. She glanced down at the clock on her phone. Good thing she had a job to do and two loving daughters to hurry back to. She didn’t have time for disillusionment today.

       Chapter Two

      “Here’s the deal,” her guide said less than ten minutes later, as he walked toward Charlotte with his fishing pole resting on one of his broad shoulders. She had to command the air to exhale from her lungs.

      Alex glanced down at her dirt-creased fingers, the ones that had been digging up wild ginger roots in the fertile soil, and, embarrassed, Charlotte wiped them clean on her pants. “This rain isn’t going to hold off for much longer. I know you’d prefer to make things look as realistic as possible, but I think it’d be safer for us to shove off and try to get a few more miles downriver before we do much more.”

      “What about the fish?” She swallowed, trying not to look directly into the bulging dead eyes of the trout he’d easily caught.

      “We can cook it when we stop next. Back at the put-in, I went over the map with my grandfather and gave him an itinerary of sorts, just in case things get dicey and someone needs to come looking for us.”

      Dicey? That didn’t sound good. Blood rushed to her feet, giving Charlotte the urge to put these too-snug hiking boots in motion and run back to Sugar Falls. Her children had already lost one parent, so to speak, and Charlotte didn’t believe in taking any unnecessary risks. She flexed her toes, telling herself she really did need a few more pictures. Besides, the sun had just broken through, and while she was no weather expert, it surely would hold off a little longer.

      “There’s an inlet farther down with a nice clearing to set up a pretend camp,” he added. “And it usually has decent phone reception.”

      Phone reception was all the convincing she needed.

      “You’re the expert,” she said. And realized she meant it. For someone who’d practically raised herself—if one didn’t count the revolving door of au pairs and boarding school staff—it was a foreign feeling for Charlotte to willingly give over control of her environment to another person. Yet, so far, she’d felt reasonably safe in Alex Russell’s capable hands. Well, not in his hands, literally, but more than a few times, she’d looked at his strong, tanned fingers maneuvering the oar and wondered how many women on whitewater rafting vacations had volunteered to ride next to him.

      “Just let me make sure I haven’t forgotten anything.” She pulled her laminated list of supplies out of the small pack strapped around her waist and ran her finger down each item.

      “I thought we went over that thing several times already, back when we loaded the raft.” They had, and he’d been extremely patient the first time she’d reviewed it. Now, though, she was getting the feeling he didn’t appreciate her ability to always be prepared. Probably because he was rolling his head back the way Audrey did whenever Charlotte told the five-year-old to pick up her My Little Ponies before she could have dessert.

      “We did, but I don’t like to leave anything to chance.”

      “Well, it’s not like we could simply row ourselves to the nearest department store in the event you forgot something. Besides, you haven’t taken anything out yet, so it should all still be there, right?” He rubbed his hand against the back of his neck, the gesture similar to his grandfather’s earlier, and Charlotte fought the impulse to reach up and straighten his collar.

      “Hopefully.” She smiled, but didn’t apologize for her organizational skills. It only took a moment before she nodded and walked quickly toward the raft, getting her expensive new boots soaking wet in the process, since the filled raft was too heavy to pull entirely onto shore and had stayed shin-deep in the water. She had one leg over the side, but her sore arms and bulky life vest made it somewhat difficult to heave herself back in. She froze the second she felt his hands on her hips and suddenly her mistake in footwear wasn’t the only thing she felt foolish about.

      “Here you go,” he said, lifting her up as if she was as light as one of her daughter’s plastic toy ponies. Because she wasn’t expecting the help—or her body’s response to his touch—her knee jerked, causing her leg to slip on the outer edge of the bow. Without dropping her, Alex shifted his hands so they were cupping her rear end and gave her a final boost inside.

      When she finally scrambled onto her seat, Charlotte didn’t know what was warmer, the intimate places he’d touched her or her blushing cheeks. After Mitchell’s betrayal, she’d vowed to never fall so easily for a man again. But

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