“I am now,” he said, smiling at me, taking a bite of a turkey sandwich.
I wanted to kiss him. He looked extra rugged and handsome today. Heaven help us both if he did one more sexy man-thing around here. If he took off his shirt and started splitting logs, I’d probably drag him into a bush and let him have his way with me.
“How cold is that water?”
He shrugged. “Forty-five? Forty-six degrees?”
“Wow. That’s cold. But you’re dry in there?” I peered into the front of his camouflaged waders.
“Want to put a hand inside and check?” His eyes gleamed.
I dipped the tips of my fingers into the lake and flicked him with water. He laughed.
The sun warmed the planks of the dock. A speaker played Journey somewhere, and Tucker ran soaking wet back and forth along the shore with about half a dozen other dogs. Every pickup truck that had pulled onto the property this morning had had a hunting dog in the front seat.
“I have a confession to make,” I said, drumming my fingers on my cheek. “I was checking you out on the roof earlier. I didn’t really need to get anything out of the car three times.”
He grinned at me over his sandwich. “And I had to talk myself down from sneaking into your room last night. Only the thought of my mom catching us stopped me.”
“I locked my door last night. I figured I might have to protect you from yourself. I know how much of a risk taker you are.” I ticked off on my fingers. “Kissing me on a first date, volunteering to meet Kristen and Josh, making out with me in the hallway with your parents in the other room. You have no self-preservation instincts.”
“Not with you I don’t.”
I laughed.
He finished eating and I got up and grabbed him a fresh beer from the cooler. “Do you put in your parents’ dock every spring?” I asked, sitting back down in front of him.
He put his hand on my thigh and rubbed it absently with his thumb. “I try to. They’re getting older. They need the help.” He took a drink of his beer. “You know, I got my stage name putting in the dock.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. It was a few years ago. David’s oldest, Camille, was three and she couldn’t say Jason. She used to call me Jaxon. I was standing in the lake and she pointed at me and said, ‘Jaxon in the water.’ I liked it, so I used it.”
I gave him a smile. “I wondered about that. There wasn’t anything about it on your Wikipedia page. I was going to ask you.”
“Nobody knows that but my family. And you.”
I smiled, and we watched each other for a moment. “I wish I could kiss you,” I said quietly. “I’ve been wishing I could kiss you all day.”
A slow grin crept across his face. He put his beer down. “Well, I don’t see how I can refuse that request.”
He closed in on me, the lake swirling around him, and his fingers traveled past my jaw into my hair. He paused a moment, grinning an inch from my lips, and I inhaled him, his masculine smell, the hops on his breath, the faint intoxicating scent of his cologne mixed with his sweat. Then he closed his eyes and kissed me.
The hoots and whistles started almost immediately. Even the dogs howled.
“I’m gonna catch a ton of shit for this,” he breathed against my smiling mouth, his eyes closed.
“Well, I hope it was worth it.”
He answered by kissing me again, and even though the cheering got louder, I don’t think either of us really heard it.
When he broke away, he put his hands around my face and held my eyes with his. “The reports say there’s a good chance of seeing the northern lights tonight.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He glanced down at my lips. “It happens late, so we’ll probably need a tent, some sleeping bags. I’ll set us up.” He looked back up at me.
My heart pounded. I knew what he was saying to me.
We would be alone.
* * *
After dinner, as soon as Jason got out of the shower, I took a quick one of my own. He’d instructed me to dress warmly, so I put on almost everything I’d brought.
He double-checked my layers and mumbled with a smile about his California girl getting cold. Not satisfied, he made me put on his bulky Twins sweatshirt. We said our goodbyes, left Tucker with Patricia, and made our way down to the rack of canoes outside the garage.
He handed me some paddles to carry, then lifted a canoe seat-side down onto his shoulders and walked it to the water. He tossed a large green pack inside.
Watching him carry that canoe so effortlessly was very, very sexy.
“Where are we going?” I asked, as he lifted me in and handed me a life jacket.
“Somewhere special.” He pulled on his own life jacket and stepped right into the frigid water in his boots.
We slid across the lake as the sun started to set. The house fell away from view, and nothing but nature folded in on either side. The trees rose up like sentinels along the shoreline in an impenetrable wall of foliage. There wasn’t the faintest hint of anything man-made, not a house, not a dock or boat. Not a single piece of trash or even a plane crossing the sky. It was just stillness and the sound of the paddle churning the water. Occasionally he would point out a beaver dam or a bald eagle flying overhead. But besides that, we didn’t talk.
After a long ride he pulled up to some rocks on an island, banking the canoe sideways, expertly. He hoisted the pack, helped me out, and lifted the canoe from the water and set it on shore.
We hiked into the forest and up a rise, coming out into a rocky clearing overlooking the lake.
“We’re here,” he said, opening up the pack and pulling out a tent.
“This is where we’re sleeping?”
“Yup,” he said, laying down a tent pad. “This is the Boundary Waters. Two million acres if you combine the Canadian and American sides—some of the most pristine wilderness in the world.”
I smiled as I helped him set up the tent. We blew up some sleeping pads and camping pillows, zipped our sleeping bags together so we’d both fit, and tossed them inside. He set up two camp chairs and got a fire going, and we watched the flames jumping as the last of the light faded.
I could see every star in the sky. I hadn’t even known there were that many stars. This was nothing like any kind of camping I’d ever done. This was truly remote. No car sounds, no lights pricking in the distance. Nothing with you except what you carried in.
The wood shifted, sparks cracked and climbed, and I tucked my legs into my sweatshirt and hugged them. Jason sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands together, looking at the flames. He’d grown quiet. The air smelled like pine and smoke. It got colder and colder by the second. I looked out over the dark lake toward the distant sound of the lapping of the water on the shore. “I could paint this place. It’s so breathtaking,” I said.
“You should see it in the fall and winter.” He nestled another log on the fire and sat back down. “Which reminds me, I have some news I wanted to tell you.”
“Good news or bad?”
“Good. I mean, for my career it’s great. I haven’t told anyone yet, not even my parents. My label’s extended my tour. Two more months here and eight months overseas. It’s going to be worldwide.”