The Passionate G-Man

“Don’t you even know how to row a boat?”

“Of course I know how to row a boat.” She’d seen it done plenty of times in the movies.

“You don’t row from the stern thwart, you row from amidship.”

“I know that.”

“Then move!”

“You’re there. Amidship, I mean.” He was propped up against a seat cushion on the whatsis up front, but his legs stretched out so that his feet were under the middle seat.

“Straddle my damned feet!”

She’d rather straddle his damned neck. With her bare hands.

But she moved, rocking the boat, causing him to gasp so that she was thoroughly ashamed of herself. The man was injured. She didn’t really want to hurt him any worse than he was already hurting, but if anyone deserved a bit of pain, he probably did.

Once settled on the edge of the wooden seat, she eyed him cautiously and reached for the oars. There were no oarlocks, only wooden notches that had been wallowed out until they were all but useless.

The oars stretched almost all the way across the creek. Cypress knees reached out from both sides. Lyon could have told her she’d need to shove from the stern until they cleared the fallen gum. Once past that point, the creek widened out.

He didn’t tell her because the last thing he needed was a clumsy, clueless beanpole dancing around in the stern of his boat. They’d both end up overboard, and he’d sink like a stone.

She muttered enough so that he pinned down her accent. Bible Belt with a faint patina of West Coast, polished by a few diction lessons. He wondered what the devil she was doing here, and then he quit wondering about anything except whether or not he would survive the night.

If he could’ve gotten his hands on all those muscle relaxants he’d quit taking cold turkey, he’d have downed the lot. And then, if he was still capable of unscrewing a cap, he’d have started in on the painkillers.

She shipped the oars as they approached the fallen gum tree. One of them swiveled around and struck him in the shoulder. The other one rolled across his shin.

“Oops. Sorry,” she said. “It’s getting dark. How far is this camp place of yours?”

“About six and three-quarters miles.”

Her mouth fell open. She had a nice mouth, well curved, full lower hp, but not too full. The swelling on her right cheek and eye was probably poison ivy. Even with most of his attention taken up by his own situation, he’d noticed her trying not to scratch. She’d reach up, hesitate, frown at her grimy nails and sigh. He’d have scratched it for her if his back had permitted him to reach out.

“I can’t go that far, I have to get back to the motel.”

“Fine. Pull over to the bank and get out.”

“What about you?”

“What about me? I won’t starve, if that’s what you’re worried about. I had half a can of Vienna sausage for lunch.”

“How will you get home?”

“Not your problem.”

“It is so my problem! I can’t see my way back to the motel in the dark. I’ll take you to your camp and you can lend me a flashlight and point me in the direction of the road, and...”

She gaped at him, her mahogany-colored eyes growing round. Even the one that was swollen half shut. “Did you say six and three-quarter miles?” she whispered.

The boat scraped against a cypress knee, and without even looking, she reached out, grabbed the thing and shoved off. Her survival skills were on a par with her rowing ability.

“Like I said, pull over to the bank and get out. Follow the creek to where you found me and then retrace your steps back to wherever you came from.” If he’d known there was a motel within walking distance, he might have gone even deeper into the swamp.

Company, he didn’t need.

Jasmine was having trouble making out his features. He was facing away from the rapidly fading light. His shoulders looked enormous in the baggy gray sweatshirt. She had a feeling they would look even more impressive without it. A surly man with shoulders the size of a refrigerator she didn’t need.

With a heavy sigh, she retrieved the oars now that the creek had widened out. One of them scraped his hip. He caught his breath, she apologized, and told herself it would make a wonderful travel piece. Lost in the wilderness, surrounded by silence, Spanish moss, cypress knees and a perfectly splendid sunset that was reflected, now that she’d come around a bend, on the water.

So far she’d seen no signs of any predators, but she had seen a huge, graceful bird she recognized as a heron type. It lifted from the bank just as they’d rounded the bend and flapped right overhead. If she’d been standing, she could have reached out and touched it.

If she’d been standing, she would have probably fallen overboard. Heaven help her if that happened, because she couldn’t swim a stroke and whatsisname wouldn’t be able to pull her out.

“What is your name, anyway?” She slapped at a mosquito and winced when it set off her itching again.

He hesitated just long enough for her to wonder why he hesitated at all. “Lyon,” he said.

“Oh, right. As long as it’s not alligator.”

“What’s yours?”

She didn’t hesitate. She, at least, had nothing to hide. “Jasmine. Jasmine Clancy,” she said, just in case he was wondering where he might have seen her before.

“Great. That takes care of the flora and fauna.”

“Ha-ha, very funny. How far is it now?”

“At a guess, I’d say about five and a half miles.”

She groaned. She’d been rowing steadily ever since the creek widened. Thanks to his constant carping, she was beginning to get the hang of it, but her hands would never be the same. “I don’t suppose you have a pair of gloves, do you?”

“I’m sorry.” Actually, Lyon thought, she wasn’t all that bad. Her form was lousy, but what she lacked in physical strength, she made up for in determination. He should have thought about her hands, though. If he could have got to his knife, she could have hacked off his sleeves and pulled them over her hands like a mitt.

Jasmine felt tears sting her eyes. She hated pain, she really did. She hated itching, hated mosquitoes, hated noxious vines that hated her right back, but most of all, she hated being here in the middle of the wilderness, not knowing where she was or how she was ever going to get back.

She was a coward. She’d always been a coward. After her father left, she and her mother never stayed in the same place more than a year or two. She used to wake up in the middle of the night terrified that she would come home from school and find her mother gone, too, and strangers living in her house.

She leaned forward—from the hips, the way he’d told her—and bumped the oars against the wallowed-out wooden oarlocks. Dammit, she would get him there if it killed her! She refused to be put out in the middle of this damned swamp in the dead of night, without so much as a flashlight.

“Take a break.”

“It won’t help.”

“Do it. I’ve got a handkerchief. Dig it out of my hip pocket, rip it in two pieces and wrap it around your palms.”

She really didn’t want to break her rhythm. And she had one, she really did. He had a lousy disposition. He’d fussed at her constantly, but he’d taught her the rudiments of rowing a boat.