Walk of Shame (15 page)

I smiled. "You just went and
checked out all my toys, didn't you?"

"You haven't looked around
on the lot, yet?"

I shook my head. "I want to
know who belongs to which one first. Then I'll start taking an inventory so I
can associate the right rig to the right guy. And the mountain bike comes in
handy for exploring. I'd be surprised if you didn't have one for getting down
into the areas you have to for on-site planning."

"I do have one. I also
travel around with a dirt bike. Makes getting from my campsite to the worksite
a little easier when parking along the roads gets tight with all the
construction vehicles."

"Nice. Sounds like you have
plenty of toys of your own."

Our conversation continued and he
showed me pictures of some other projects he'd worked on. I'd been to some of the
same sites, and had undoubtedly biked, hiked, or driven over some of his
handiwork. I did get the last few minutes of our time steered around to our
childhoods and I came away with the impression that his family thought he had
the ability to walk on water, they were so proud of him.

At the end of our time together,
Mike did such a simple thing they threw me completely off-guard. I'd gotten to
the point that I'd kind of figured that all my guys would start making the move
to kiss me. And he did, but he didn't aim for my mouth. He pulled me to him and
gave me a simple kiss on the forehead before releasing me to take my hand and
lead me back upstairs.

I turned my head to the camera
and grinned like an idiot. I'd found his simple gesture so endearing, it was ridiculous.

I met Tyler back up on the top
deck for his turn. The yacht was now headed for a cove where the crew would anchor
us, and we'd be able to get off for the swimming and jet-skiing portion of the
day. He'd found out that the area we were going through now was the best place
along the route to look for spotting sea life. And so that's what we did as the
conversation flowed between us. Once Tyler had the distraction of searching for
wildlife, he seemed to relax and really talk to me for the first time.

At first, I had thought it was
me, that something about me was the reason that we'd never connected. I'd
invited him to stay last week simply because I couldn't find any fault with the
man. But I'd half expected him to decline and go home. Now though, I was
thinking that maybe it was the cameras making him hold back and keep
conversations with me superficial. Once he was busy looking for the animals
with me, he forgot about our audience watching from behind us. Fortunately, the
chase boat was focused on capturing some wildlife footage of their own and so
didn't come in close looking for a shot of us.

I found out that he was an
efficiency expert for a firm that sends him all over North America. He also had
a seven-year-old daughter who spends the summers with him, and the school year
with her mother.

I'd been hoping that I could have
just as enlightening a conversation with Mitch, but he'd made plans of his own
for us. When his turn came up, he put us on a jet ski and we went exploring
around the area. He did stop a few times, and we were able to have bits of a
conversation. But then he'd scooter us off to another spot to check out.

Don't get me wrong, I had fun. And
I was glad that they had thought to make sure I had a chance to experience all
of the activities. I just wasn't able to end my time with him feeling much
closer to him than I was before. Which was a shame, because I'd seen him
beginning to open up to the group of guys more and more as the days went by.

Mitch motored us back to the boat
and dropped me off with Phillip, who had a couple small rafts waiting for us.
We climbed on and paddled around to a spot away from the others. The camera
guys did their best with their zoom lenses to film us and catch our
conversation. The chase boat proved to be annoying and loud, but they backed
off once they had some quality close-ups.

"I feel like I should be
feeding you," he teased.

"I feel like I need to have
you over to the cottage and cook for you, just to try and be fair," I
said.

"I'll come visit you any time
you want."

"I may just take you up on
that."

He reached over and flipped me
off the raft. I let out a shriek before going under. I resurfaced giggling and
flipped him into the water. When he came back up, he pulled our two rafts
together, stacked one on top of the other, and held them between us and the
boat with one arm, using them as a shield from the prying eyes of the other
guys, and wrapped his other arm around me. "We can't have you getting all
lonely, now can we?" he whispered.

I turned into his embrace and
cuddled against him in the water. "No, that wouldn't be any good," I
whispered back.

He leaned in and started making
out with me. He proved his strength out there in the water, because I became so
focused and involved with kissing him back that I forgot to help him keep us
afloat.

We pulled apart eventually and
paddled around with our rafts. When he spoke of his parents, I was smacked in
the face with our age differences once again. His parents had waited later on
in life to have kids. Mine hadn't. That meant that because of our age
differences, added to our parents' age differences, there was an entire
generation's worth of time between them and me. His parents were the same age
as my grandparents. I might have thought Phillip's maturity was sexy as hell,
but that one was going to take me a little bit to get past.

We all had to re-board the boat
to continue with our journey for the day. Jared grabbed two bottles of water,
and my hand, and led me back up to the lounge area. Jared and I were already
ahead in the conversation department because of the rooftop the other night,
and I didn't feel like there was much of a need to steer us in a particular
direction.

I grabbed my bottle of sunscreen
and started reapplying now that I was done being in the water. When I was done
smearing the areas I could reach, I handed the bottle to Jared and lay down on
my stomach.

He stretched out beside me with a
devilish grin. He supported his weight with one arm, and kneaded my muscles as
he massaged the lotion into my skin with his other hand. And in between, he
leaned down and kissed the back of my neck so lightly I got shivers.

He stopped the intimacy there and
my mind drifted back to a conversation I'd had with Troy. He'd told me that all
the men had been given certain parameters to adhere to so that no one would
cross any lines that would throw the rest of the pack of males into a frenzy.
Nor did anyone want me to feel so pushed in a physical aspect too quickly. Nobody
wanted to go home just because they couldn't keep their hands to themselves at
a time when I had the potential for so many hands to be reaching for me that it
might turn me off to all of them.

Jared seemed to like to put just
a little bit of a different twist on our time spent together. He had us turn our
backs on the ocean that we'd spent the afternoon watching, apart from each
other, and do some cloud watching together. Arms touched and hands intertwined as
the conversation flowed easily for us. We discussed favorite movies, foods,
hobbies, and I found out that I wasn't the only one with a sister who insisted
on constant updates.

"In all fairness," he
said towards the end of his time slot, "I should tell you about my
boy."

I turned my head toward his.
"You have a boy? How old?"

"Oh, yeah. He's five. He's
very well behaved and earns his keep."

The corner of his mouth lifted
and I smiled in response. "What does he do to earn his keep?"

"He lets me know when other
creatures are around, or getting too close to the rig. And, when needed, he can
corral a wild animal well enough for me to get out of a dangerous
situation."

"I'm almost scared to ask
what species your boy belongs to."

"He's a black lab. His name
is Buster. I take him into the field with me. He's the most obedient dog I've
ever seen."

"He gets all muddy with you,
doesn't he?"

"Yeah. And when you go to
hose him off, he stands up on his back legs and turns in a circle for you so
you can spray him down easier."

"He does not!"

"Yeah, he does. You want to
see a video?"

"Uh,
yeah
."

He grinned and pulled out his
phone, searching for the footage to show me.

"That is so awesome," I
told him. "I should tell you that I have dog as well. Getting a big dog
was one concession my father insisted that I make before heading out on my
own."

"Boy or girl?"

"Girl."

"Is she fixed?"

"Yes."

"Too bad."

"Why? I didn't want her out
there one-night-standing some poor lovesick dog and then finding out three
states later that she was knocked up. Poor, fatherless, puppies that I'd have
to find homes for."

"We could have bred our dogs,
and trained them up. I know a lot of people who'd be interested in protective,
obedient dogs for fieldwork."

"You didn't get your dog
fixed? Isn't that just kind of a standard thing to do, especially if they'll be
running around to find other dogs?"

He wiggled uncomfortably. "I
couldn't do that to him. A vasectomy I could understand, but to chop things off
and render him useless as a man-dog. I couldn't do it."

I laughed aloud. "With your
work in the kitchen, or at least dining portions of the rig, and my stuff
taking up a portion of the living room, plus two dogs trying to run in there,
where would we have put the puppies?"

"I don't know. They'd
probably have to be separated from the workspace for awhile."

"Well, that makes for a
crowded bedroom."

He finally turned his head toward
mine, "Yeah, too crowded. Maybe it's a good thing your dog was
spayed."

"Hmm, that does beg a
question though," I said as I totally turned on my own sultry/simmering
gaze.

His eyes were moving from my
gaze, to my lips, and back again. "What's that?"

"Where would we ever put a
baby?"

His eyes flew to mine, searching
for meaning, before they settled on my mouth and he used a hand to draw my chin
closer to his. "I'm sure we could figure it out," he whispered before
sealing his lips over mine in a searing kiss.

If there was one thing I felt
with Jared more than anybody else at this point, it was heat. It might have
come on in flashes with the other guys when certain qualities came shining
through, but with Jared it seemed to always flow just under the surface. There
was something about him that was different, and I liked it.

Liam was the last man standing.
He approached with a rum punch in hand. I'd heard they were being offered on
the main deck, but had forced myself to resist the urge.

"Thank you," I said,
and tried not to wrinkle my nose at it as I set the icy cold concoction in a
cup holder.

"It's non-alcoholic, if
that's the problem."

My face brightened. "Oh,
awesome." I picked it back up and took a few sips before I reached over
and hit the button to put the canopy back up.

He looked up at the canopy and
gave me a quizzical look.

"Your fair skin looks like
it's three shades into a burn," I explained.

"Ah. I didn't think you'd do
very well with alcohol, having been out in so much direct sun today
yourself."

I nodded. "Not to mention
the constant movement of the waves. There's no way to keep eight men attracted
to me if I started throwing up all over one of them, so I've abstained
completely today."

"No, but it would make for an
interesting way of eliminating one of us."

I laughed and continued to sip.

"So are you going to be able
to keep it straight, who did and said what, in your head after all this
today?"

I paused long enough to stare at
him over the rim of my cup until I believed I knew where this conversation was
going to lead. "I admit I might confuse the finer details of things that
were said. But if something someone said or did either impressed me or turned
me off, I will remember which reaction goes with each guy. I'm getting much
better at compartmentalizing everyone in my mind and associating certain
personality traits and pieces of information with each face."

"And you have all the names
straight?"

"Yes, Liam. Though given
your height, red hair, and the fact that you showed up the first night in a
kilt and played the bagpipes for me, I've known who you were all along without
fail."

"But you're admittedly
horrible with names. You might have remembered I was the Scot, and associated
everything I did with 'the Scot', but that doesn't mean you remembered my name
or what I did."

"I never thought of you as
'the Scot'."

One red eyebrow raised in
question.

"I have more flair than
that." I rolled my eyes and gave in. "I thought of you as 'Scottie
McHottie'. And then as I was learning to associate each profession to the man
who did it, I started thinking of you as my 'Mountain Man'. There, are you
happy?"

He grinned. "Very. And now
that you have all these wonderful associations, what else have you learned
about me."

I met his eyes again, trying to
judge whether he was testing me for his own amusement, or if he genuinely
needed to know that my interest in keeping him around was sincere. "You
walk, speak, and move with a quiet authority. You don't seem to take the reins
of control, but yet people look at you for your opinion and approval of the
plan. So, to me, it seems as if you're always a co-leader of the pack. You
noticed that Phillip was always the one cooking, so you've decided to step in occasionally
to give him a break from that self-imposed duty. You try to keep the balance in
the group going. That's what I've noticed."