Maisy quoted the famous line from the movie Jaws, “‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat.’”
“There you go.” Tucker turned back to his whiteboard, wiped it clean with his shirtsleeve, then drew a triangle. “Now, let’s talk about the survival triangle.”
In the three corners of the triangle, he wrote the words Body Temp, Hydration, and Energy. At the center, he wrote Fire.
Fire. Yes, she could use a little more heat. The dampness of the morning seemed to have seeped into her bones, and she wished she’d packed a warmer pair of socks than what she wore. Guess she got an F in preparedness. Gillian nudged her chair closer to the fire pit and listened distractedly as Tucker began to lecture about understanding and prioritizing problems.
The cold didn’t appear to bother him at all. In fact, even as the thought occurred to her, he slipped off his flannel shirt. The man was comfortable and confident and in his element. Her gaze lingered on his broad shoulders, drifted to his muscular arms. He wore his T-shirt tucked into his cargo pants. When he casually unsheathed his wicked-looking knife as he approached the fire, hunkered down on his heels, then used the knife tip to … do something … she really wasn’t paying attention … her gaze drifted to his crotch.
Stop that!
The wanton woman inside her fired back. Why? Why did she need to stop it? She was free, wasn’t she? Single, with a capital S. Why couldn’t she have a casual affair with Tucker McBride and enjoy some no-strings sex?
Because she lived in Redemption, that’s why. The sex always came with strings because small town affairs were never casual. After they ended, they weren’t over because they might just follow you into the bank or sit in the same row at church or take the table next to you at the Bluebonnet. A woman couldn’t live her entire life in the ladies’ room.
Her gaze drifted to the glowing orange embers of the campfire. She was cold, and she wanted to move closer to the heat. The people around her laughed, and judging by Tucker’s mischievous grin, he’d said something amusing that she’d missed.
Whoa, the man was hot when he smiled like that. Of course, he was hot when he scowled too.
She was cold, and she wanted to move closer to the heat.
Jeremy was back in town and pretending all was well. What was she going to do about it?
Survive. That’s what.
She would survive Jeremy Jones.
And she just might let Tucker McBride teach her how.
Chapter Thirteen
“We are going to start a friction fire using a bow drill,” Tucker said. “Learning this skill teaches you one invaluable lesson—always carry matches.”
The comment got the expected chuckle from the group, and so began the first hands-on lesson of his Survival 101 class. He lectured about materials selection, leading the group through the woods in search of the optimum materials for the task before them. “Due to the rain, we won’t be harvesting today—I have dry raw materials set aside. Your first time is challenging enough without adding damp materials into the mix.”
Tucker’s hearing was keen, so he heard it when Maisy murmured to her girlfriends, “And here I always thought that being good and damp made the first time easier.”
Caroline and Gillian both giggled. Tucker pretended not to have heard even as the comment sent his thoughts in a distracting direction. Dammit, he did not need to think about sex. Sex might be required for survival of the species, but despite what the average male liked to believe, it wasn’t necessary for survival, and it didn’t belong at Enchanted Canyon Wilderness School’s Survival 101 class. Tucker was a professional. He needed to keep his mind on professional topics. Nevertheless, he was glad when the dreary sky opened up and drenched his … heat.
Once they made their way back to the pecan bottoms site, as his students gathered around the fire and a few of them—including Gillian—complained about the cold, he used the weather to make a point. “Remember that body temperature should be your number one concern. At unhealthy body temperature levels, your level of consciousness starts to decrease. Your ability to think clearly disappears, and you’re unable to help yourself. That will kill you long before thirst or hunger does. As I said at the beginning, your mind is the most important tool in your toolbox.”
The woman from Amarillo said, “My mind is telling me I should have paid closer attention to the weather report. I didn’t bring adequate rain gear.”
Tucker nodded. “Prevention is the most important survival skill, so if you left our shelter here inadequately prepared, you’ve learned a lesson. However, now that you’re chilled, let’s see about teaching you how to tend to the center of the survival triangle—fire. Tomorrow, we’ll cover shelter construction.”
He gave them an overview of the bow drill process as he set out his demonstration kit, intending to use the teaching technique of telling his audience what he was going to do, then doing it, and finally, telling them again what he’d just done.
He went down on his knees and then picked up the bow and the spindle and explained, “It’s all about duration, pressure, and speed.”
“That’s what I tell my husband,” quipped the doctor’s wife.
That one everybody heard. Instinctively, Tucker’s gaze shifted to Gillian at the same time hers moved toward him. Their gazes held, and in that instant, the switch flipped in Tucker’s primal mind, and from that moment on, everything he said during his fire-making lecture took on a sexual undertone.
“Softer wood doesn’t polish,” took on a new meaning that had nothing to do with wood selection for the spindle.
He saw something other than a hunk of mesquite branch in his hand as he said, “You want the hardest wood for a handhold.”
When he said, “Lubricate your handhold,” he wasn’t thinking of soap or grease.
“Use the whole bow.” Sex. “Take long strokes.” Sex. “Slow and steady until your notch is full, then speed up to light the coal.” Sex. Sex. Sex. “For tinder, look for something fluffy and flammable.” Just kill me now.
By the time he transferred his coal to his tinder and blew a flame gently to life, Tucker wondered if he’d survive the attempt to teach Gillian Thacker how to build a friction fire. He was about to spontaneously combust.
He hoped the situation would improve once the students began attempting to make their own fires, but Gillian’s natural grace and competent manner apparently didn’t transfer to wilderness skills. The woman was an absolute klutz. She handled her knife okay to make her handhold, but she couldn’t tie knots worth a damn, and so she’d needed help stringing her bow.
She’d worn perfume. Who the hell wears perfume to survivalist school?
By the time she had her bow strung, holes drilled in her handhold and fireboard, tinder prepared, and fireboard notched to catch the coal when it formed, half the class already had their fires. She went down on one knee, placed her tools, and began working the bow.
Dammit, he wished she’d worn a thicker coat that better camouflaged the swing of her deliciously full breasts.
She made very little progress before her spindle launched out of the bowstring and she had to start again.
Her second effort was no more successful than the first. She tossed her bow down in frustration. “I can’t do this. I give up. I’m a fire failure.”