Page 32 of Enticing Her Love

“My feet are calloused. Yours are soft.”

Her brows knitted. “How do you know? And don’t say because you saw my painted toes.”

“Your delicate little heel touched my back last night when we were doing that thing we weren’t supposed to be doing.”

Their gazes held, and her cheeks pinked up. “Fine. I’ll wear them.”

He turned his back to her, studying the river, unwilling to let his desire for her cloud his need to protect her. “You need to keep your eyes and ears open while we’re in the water.”

“I know.” She stepped beside him.

“Stay near shore. They sent a twelve-foot net, which we’ll stretch between us and drag through the water. If you feel anything, your goal is to get to land. Okay?”

She nodded. “Should we film this?”

“Shit. How did I forget that? Hold this.” He handed her the net and grabbed the tripod out of the pack. He set it up on the bank, so it captured about halfway across the water, hoping to avoid getting himself in the shot. When he was done, he took the net from Sutton and handed her one end of it before heading into the murky water. She started to follow him, but he held up his hand. “Stay there.”

“You just said we both have to be in the water.”

“We do, but I don’t want you in there any longer than you have to be.” When he was waist deep, he scanned the surface and the riverbanks, praying nothing surprised them, and motioned for her to get in. “Stay close to shore as we move through the water.”

“Okay.” She walked in slowly. “It’s warmer than I thought it would be, and so dirty. Are you sure this is safe?”

He couldn’t be sure anything was safe in the rainforest, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “The indigenous people have been fishing this river for ages.” His senses were on high alert as she waded in up to her thighs. She was so damn brave, she blew him away. “That’s far enough. You okay?”

“As long as I don’t think too hard about what I can’t see under the surface.”

“Sorry, babe, but you need to think about what’s under there.”

“I know. I am. Don’t worry.”

“A’right, then, let’s do this. Try to stay even with me.”

As they dragged the net through the water, her eyes remained trained on the water in front of her, while his skated around them, over both riverbanks, and behind them, all the while keeping a pulse on the net, feeling every hitch and sway.

“Did you fish like this growing up?” she asked.

“Yes, and a hundred times since.”

“I never thought of my life as small, but it seems that way compared to yours.”

“There’s nothing small about your life, Steele. Look where you are and where you grew up. People would pay big bucks to grow up on an island and be the star of one of the hottest discovery shows out there.” The net caught on something, and he stilled, holding up his hand, warning Sutton to stop so he could focus. His pulse sped up, feeling her worried eyes on him as he measured the stillness of the net to determine whether it was stuck in the undergrowth or in something dangerous. He breathed easier when there were no signs of life struggling against it. “It’s okay. It’s just undergrowth.” He moved along the net, lifting until it freed from its tethers.

“That was nerve-racking,” she said as they started walking again.

“Are you okay to keep going?”

“Yes.” Her eyes remained trained on the water. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Go for it.”

“Last night you said you knew what it was like to want something of your own in a big family. Is that why you went on Wilderness Warrior?”

“I’m sure that was part of it. I was an arrogant kid, and really competitive with my brothers. Seth is brilliant. He started making money hand over fist when he was in college, and don’t ask me how, because he’s got brains that I can’t keep up with, and Clay had already paved his way into the NFL. I wanted to show them I could be a success, too.”

“I can understand that. What was the other part? The money?”

“Hell yeah. A million dollars is a lot of dough. But I didn’t want to use the money to party or dick around. I wanted to explore and raise awareness about the plights of others.” He wanted to tell what his grandfather called heart-driven stories.