Heartbreaker by Karen Robards Page B

bruising usually did get worse before it got better, she reminded herself.
    Lynn prayed that bruising was all it was.
    “My head hurts.” Rory paused, looking as if she had to work to collect her thoughts. “What happened?”
    “We fell off the cliff.” Lynn smoothed her daughter’s hair away from the greasy salve, touched her cheek, and smiled at her.
    “I thought so. Jess saved us, didn’t he? Or at least me. He brought me down the cliff. I thought it was a dream.”
    “It wasn’t a dream,” Lynn said sourly.
    “Then he saved my life. That makes him a hero, doesn’t it? Thanks, Jess.”
    Rory smiled up at him, her arms curling close around his neck, then planted a quick kiss on the underside of his jaw. The kittenish performance sent quivers of alarm through Lynn. Unable to do anything more constructive, she glared ferociously at Jess, who just happened to be looking right at her.
    Did she read guilt in his expression? Or something more sinister?
    “My pleasure.” Dismissing Lynn with a glance, Jess smiled back at Rory. “You are very welcome.”
    His gaze moved back to Lynn’s face. This time she had no trouble reading the silent mockery in his eyes. “Hey, Mom, do you think you could hurry with that flashlight?”
    “I’m doing my best.” Gritting her teeth against responding to that Mom —she knew perfectly well he had called her that just to irritate her—Lynn went back to fishing for the flashlight. Her fingers found the distinctive shape at last, and she pulled it out. Sized to fit in a palm, it was small and lightweight but powerful. Unfortunately, the net effect when Lynn turned on the light was to make the deepening shadows around them seem even darker in comparison. She glanced around uneasily.
    “Do you think you can stand up?” Jess said to Rory. Before she could answer he was setting her on her feet.
    Rory swayed and put a hand to her head. “I feel dizzy.”
    Jess’s arm was still around her, supporting her, as she sat cross-legged on the path.
    “Let’s take a break,” he said.
    “Here?” Lynn asked.
    The forest seemed to be coming alive as night fell. The flashlight was no help whatsoever. It was no more than a tiny pinprick of light doing battle against a looming, ever-deepening darkness. Red fir and ponderosa pines lent their distinctive scent to the rapidly cooling air. A mule deer, identifiable by its rabbitlike ears, was caught in the flashlight’s beam. It turned to stare at the human intruders for a frozen instant before leaping out of sight. The crash of its passing alerted other nocturnal creatures. The light picked up a half-dozen pairs of eyes glowing at them from the ground and the trees and everywhere in between. At least, Lynn thought, shivering, they looked too small to belong to bears.
    “No, at that Hilton over there.” Jess’s voice had an edge to it. He eased the pack off his back and crouched beside it and Rory as he spoke. “Could I have the flashlight?”
    Lynn gave it to him, shed her own pack, and dropped down beside Rory, trying not to imagine exactly what kind of things were out there going bump in the night. Jess rummaged in his pack, coming up with green plastic bottles of spring water and packaged strips of beef jerky.
    “I can’t believe Adventure, Inc. doesn’t have some kind of plan in place for when something like this happens!” she groused, accepting the water and jerky he passed her with a scowl. Anxiety and exhaustion—to say nothing of nicotine withdrawal—combined to make Lynn feel as if she wanted to jump out of her skin.
    “Next time we will. Isn’t there a famous saying to the effect that you can never go broke overestimating the stupidity of the American tourist?” Jess was still rummaging in his pack.
    “No, there’s not.” Lynn twisted the cap from Rory’s water bottle, passed it to her daughter, and with her teeth attacked the plastic wrap guarding the beef.
    Jess glanced up. Their gazes clashed. “There should