Pausing to wipe the sweat from her brow, Lily looked at the group ahead of her and smiled. They were halfway through their tour of the Everglades and Lily was enjoying herself emensly. She loved seeing the nature in action as she was seeing it today. They were now pausing at a bridge over the swamp for a moments rest.
Lily watched as Howie and Brian looked over the side of the bridge and chatted excitedly about what they had seen while AJ and Nick stood leaning against the opposite side of the bridge complaining about the heat. Kevin stood to one side and observed the group without saying a word, much like Lily was doing now.
Brian and Nick were the only ones of the guys who were wearing shorts today, Brian wore his long khaki shorts with a white T-shirt, as did Nick. The other three guys were wishing they'd wore shorts today because the heat was sweltering. They all wore khakis and Howie wore his with a T-shirt while both AJ, who also wore his trademark sunglasses, and Kevin wore wife-beaters, AJ's a dark, army green and Kevin's black. Lily stepped back from her assessment of the guys and looked down at herself. Like Nick and Brian, she too wore a pair of khaki shorts but with a white tank top and her curly red hair pulled back into a brown baseball cap.
As the group became restless, the tour guide signaled for them to continue the hike. Following the tour guide, Lily and Brian headed the group, followed by the rest of the guys.
As the tour wound on, they walked on and saw much of the swamp. During one particular slow walk, Lily stepped away from the group for a moment. and walked to a lake that looked to be clean and intended to dip her hands in the water to cool her face off with. As her hands were just about to reach the water, she felt someone grab her arm and haul her up against the solid wall of his chest.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?!" Kevin yelled down at her.
"Don't you do anything besides yell?!" Lily yelled back. "You big, stupid man! That's the only way you've ever spoken to me is with your voice raised! If you would just-" She stopped because Kevin had given her a little shake and interrupted her.
"You could have gotten yourself killed!" He repeated.
"I don't see how-" she was once again interrupted, this time by Kevin forcibly turning her to look at the lake she'd just been about to stick her hands in. "Oh my God." she whispered as she watched as a alligator surfaced only a few feet away and then emerged itself back into the water.
"Do you see now? They have been trained not to come on land when people are around but if you would have stuck your hands into the water it would have dragged you in!"
Lily had her hands to her ears and was shaking her head to his yelling. "I didn't know!" she whispered with her eyes closed but opened them briefly when Brian appeared to take her out of Kevin's grasp and embrace her.
"What's wrong with you, Kevin?" he yelled. "She could have been seriously hurt and you stand here yelling at her! What's wrong with you?" he repeated "You haven't been the same ever since we started this vacation."
Kevin stood with his jaw clenched and waited for Brian to finish. When he did, Kevin looked at him with a hard look in his eye. "Take her back to the trail, Brian. And keep her there." he said tightly and Brian led Lily back to the trail, leaving Kevin alone.
The tour continued on until lunch, when they all headed back to a restaurant to eat. As they all sat around a large square table, eating lunch, they chatted about various things.
"Lily, what do you do for a living?" AJ asked her just before eating another forkful of food.
Lily set her fork down on her plate and looked at AJ. "I'm a writer." she told him.
AJ raised his eyebrows and Howie asked "What do you write?"
Lily smiled at him and said "I write romance novels."
"Oooh, sex books." AJ said playfully.
Lily rolled her eyes and returned her attention to her plate. "That's everyone's first reaction. Everyone thinks that since I write about romance that there must be a whole lot of sex in my books. Truthfully, my books are quite classy, if I do say so myself."
"How many books have you written?" Howie asked her.
"I wrote my first book when I was twenty." she told them "And I've written four books since then."
The rest of the meal, they conversed casually and when they finished lunch they headed back outside to finish the hike.
At the end of the day, a very tired and dirty group showed up at the cottage resort to claim their rooms. Brian approached the desk and inquired about his cottage while Lily stood beside him, exhausted and wanting nothing more than a bath.
"I'm sorry sir, but we don't have a reservation for a Littrell." the receptionist told him. Brian looked at her in question and asked her to please look again because he was sure he had a reservation. "I'm sorry." she repeated. "It's not here." Brian frowned and looked behind him and motioned for Kevin to come forward.
"She said there is no reservation for Littrell." he told Kevin, who had made the reservations.
"That's because it's under my name." Kevin told Brian and then turned toward the receptionist. "There should be five cottages under Richardson." he told her.
"There is only one cottage reserved under Richardson." the receptionist told him.
Kevin frowned and said "I called up here weeks ago and reserved five cottages under my name. What happened?"
"Um...hang on a second, I'll get my manager." the girl said and left, returning moments later with a balding middle aged man who was apparently her manager. The girl related to him the problem and the man consulted the computer for a few moments and returned his gaze back to Kevin.
"What seems to be the problem here, Mr. Richardson, is that the receptionist who took your call....um.....misunderstood you and thought that you wanted a reservation for five people in one cottage, therefore, you only have one cottage reserved."
Kevin sighed and said "OK, then just give me four more cottages and it will be fine."
"I'm sorry Mr. Richardson, but we're all booked up. The only open cottage is the one you have reserved. I'm sorry for the inconvenience but there is nothing we can do."
Kevin frowned and his mouth was drawn in a thin line of frustration. "Let's just take the cottage, Kevin. We'll only be there for one night anyway." AJ said, exasperated. "Besides, I really need a bath." Kevin nodded and turned back to get a key from the man and they all went to the cottage. When they got there they deposited all of their bags and all of the guys agreed that Lily could have the first shower.
Lily took her shower and dressed into her night clothes in the bathroom which consisted of a pair of green plaid pajama bottoms and a white tank top. Instead of blow drying her hair, she simply pulled it back into a pony tail.
When she came out of the bathroom, Brian went in and took his shower. With nothing else to do, she got her laptop out of one of her bags and continued work on her latest book. As each of the guys took their turns in the shower, Lily sat at a desk and typed. AJ pulled a chair up beside her and sat in it, backwards. "Whatcha writtin?" he asked, peering into her computer screen.
"Sorry, AJ." she said, snapping her computer closed. "But no one sees my work until I'm done with it." she smiled at him to soften the effect.
AJ grinned at her and winked. "We'll see about that." he said, getting up out of the chair. "It's my turn for the shower anyway." and with that he was gone, into the bathroom.
Lily smiled at the door he just closed and went and sat down beside Brian where he sat at a square table, playing a game of cards with Howie. She sat there and watched the game for a few minutes until AJ finally emerged from the bathroom, singing.
"I know he's driving a fancy car." he sang, loudly "When you're with him you're feeling like a star." as he sang the last line he crossed the room and bent down on one knee on Lily's other side and sang to her. "But when I'm at home alone, I think only of you." he pointed to her. "So what do you know? How does it grow?" He took her hand and grinning, placed a kiss on the back of it.
"So how can he by a love that's not for sale?" Brian started from her other side of her. "If you two are so in love I couldn't tell." He took her other hand and clasped it to his chest as he sang to her. "Cause when I'm at home alone, I hear your heart it spells. You gotta know, how does it grow?"
At this point, both of them started singing, accompanied by Howie, from across the table. "Who do you love? Who do you love?" Brian called her attention back to him by singing, solo "Girl I know that you are torn between what was and what could be." Howie and AJ once again joined him for "I wanna know, gotta know, wanna know, gotta know..." and AJ finished off the serenade with "Who do you love?"
As they stopped their song, they all turned smiling faces to her and she rolled her eyes at them all, pulling her hands out of their grasps.
"I choose Nick." she told them, smiling. They all laughed as Nick, who was just coming out of the bathroom, looked up confused and said "Huh?" Kevin shook his head and exited the room, into the bathroom.
Howie and Brian continued their card game and made allowances for AJ who decided to join the game. Lily laid her head on Brian's shoulder and watched the game sleepily, her exhaustion of the day beginning to take over.
Kevin came out of the shower wearing only a pair of gray sweat pants and his hair still dripping wet. Lily looked across the room at him and her thoughts returned to yesterday morning in Kevin's kitchen. They had been arguing as usual but Lily had felt it when the atmosphere changed. Lily had watched as the anger in his eyes that was so easily recognized was masked behind desire as his eyes trailed down her face to her lips. Lily had felt her heart skip a beat as his tongue barely emerged to wet his lips and leaned forward before Brain had entered the kitchen.
Looking at him now, Lily thought of him as an incredibly handsome man. He was tall, dark and handsome and much like the heroes she wrote about in her romance novels. The utter perfection of his body made her wonder how a person could be so outwardly attractive yet inwardly, have such a foul temper and almost always present bad mood.
Suddenly realizing the track her mind was traveling down as she watched Kevin move around the room, Lily straightened and moved away from Brian. He looked at her quizzically but Lily guiltily avoided his gaze. Silently she moved to one of the cots that the maid had brought to the room and laid down on the one Brian had placed close to his own.
Being unable to sleep, Lily tossed and turned until Brian came to her and leaned down to speak into her ear. "Are you OK, Lil?" he whispered into her ear. "You've been tossing and turning for about thirty minutes. Are you feeling OK?"
"I'm fine, Brian. I'm just a little too tired. I'll be fine." Brian smiled at her and then without a word laid down on the cot beside her and was quickly asleep. Feeling reassured, Lily turned over on her other side and quickly fell asleep.
***************
The next morning Lily woke up and silently made her way into the kitchen. As she entered the kitchen she was surprised to see Kevin sitting at the table, drinking coffee.
"What are you doing awake?" she asked.
"Why wouldn't I be?" he countered.
"Well, I've just heard that you sleep later than everyone else, that's all." she answered and walked over to the counter top and grabbed a orange and picked out a knife from the drawer and began slicing it. Kevin watched her as she did this and had a chance to look her over. Having just woke up, her hair was mussed and her clothes were rumpled but Kevin still found her desirable. He had been unable to sleep the night before because, although Lily thought she was being descreet, he saw the way she'd looked at him after he got out of his shower. He'd seen the way her eyes had traveled over him and watched as she got a distant look in her eyes and instinctively he knew she was thinking about when he'd almost kissed her in the kitchen the day before. His heart had skipped a beat because that meant that she wanted him too. It also meant trouble. Inside, Kevin knew this was going to be the longest month of his life, wanting her and not being able to have her. Inwardly he groaned and tore his gaze from Lily as she sliced the orange.
After she had it sliced, she put the slices on a plate and sat down across from Kevin at the table. As soon as she sat down, Kevin got up and refilled his coffee cup. Telling himself that it was OK to just want to be close to her and he absolutely wouldn’t touch her he then sat back down beside her instead of in front of her. Lily looked up at him sharply and began to say something but stopped when she saw the look of challenge in his eyes. Never one to turn down a challenge, she kept her mouth shut and returned her attention to her oranges.
"So, what are we doing today?" she asked him.
"Going to the airport and catching a plane to Colorado." he answered huskily, trying to keep the desire from his voice. He didn't know what was wrong with him. He'd never let his desires rule him as he was doing now. At that moment, he couldn't think of anything else but how much he wanted to touch her and hold her. Never before had he ever put his desire for a woman above his common sense. But then again, never before had he wanted a woman like he did this particular woman. And his discovery that she returned his desire only fanned the flames.
Lily mumbled something and Kevin leaned forward to hear her.
"What did you say?" he whispered. Being so close to her, Kevin wasn't interested in her answer, he was staring at her lips as she delicately took a bite of the orange slice. He watched, mesmerized, as a drop of juice settled on her lower lip. Lily froze as Kevin slowly leaned forward. Her breathing stopped as he hovered so close, yet not touching and then, never breaking eye contact with her, his tongue slowly snaked out of his mouth and found her bottom lip where the drop of orange juice was. When his tongue returned to his own mouth, he looked into her eyes a few more seconds before he finally realized what he had just done.
Straightening up, he inhaled a sharp breath and dared another look into Lily's eyes. What he saw there was the same desire he too was feeling. Getting out of the chair, he crossed the kitchen and turned his back to her.
"I'm sorry Lily." he said, his deep voice made even deeper by his desire. "I wasn't thinking." He turned toward her to judge her reaction, only to discover she had already exited the kitchen.
