Sexy, Single And Searching: Sexy, Single And Searching / Eager, Eligible And Alaskan

She didn’t reply, just kept her nose buried firmly in her book. Hy-ca-rumba. She’d come all the way to Alaska to sit on a couch and read?

Shaking his head, Mack left the B&B. Time to go home. He was done with chasing after his fantasy woman. At least for tonight.

HE STILL hadn’t recognized her, Cammie Jo fumed as she combed through the lupines on her hands and knees outside the back door of the community center. It was after midnight, the sun had finally gone down and she had a pocket penlight clutched between her teeth.

Was the man as dumb as a post? Or was he so blinded by Camryn’s supposed beauty he couldn’t see that the blah woman right in front of him was the same one he’d been drooling over all night?

Or was the truth plainer than that? Had he instantly labeled Cammie Jo a nonsexual entity and dismissed her the same way men had been dismissing her for years? She knew the conclusion he had drawn about her. Baggy clothes + thick glasses + no makeup + books = a boring spinster woman.

The thought made her blood boil.

Men, the simple beasts. They were so swayed by appearances.

Take one push-up bra, a pair of colored contact lenses, high-heeled shoes, professional grade makeup and voilà—the cinder girl becomes a princess.

She was put out, disgusted, annoyed and still very attracted to that bothersome Mr. McCaulley.

And for some vexatious reason she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Or the way his lips had tasted on hers.

Why hadn’t she simply come out and said, “Look, I’m Camryn. That’s my real name but everyone’s called me Cammie Jo since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

Why? Because without the totem she was too damned shy to speak such things to him. And because she would hate to see the disappointment on his face when he realized she wasn’t the hot, sexy babe he thought she was.

Well phooey on him anyway. She hadn’t come to Alaska to snag a husband. Marriage was the furthest thing from her mind. She wanted adventure and plenty of it. She wanted to sample new foods, drink in novel sights, inhale fresh smells. She wanted to see moose and bald eagles and grizzly bears.

But she wasn’t getting her wish unless she found the missing totem.

Just when she was about to give up, her hand hit something solid in the grass and she yelped with glee. Yes! The hiking trip to the Tongass National Forest was back on for the morning. Cammie Jo shone her penlight over the necklace, found where the string had broken, tied it into a secure knot and slipped it over her head.

Instantly, she felt stronger.

There. To heck with Mack. She was brave Camryn again and as long as she had the totem, nothing or no one was stopping her from having the time of her life.

CAMMIE JO woke at the crack of dawn ready for the hiking tour. She opened her window and breathed in the fresh, clean mountain air. She dressed, laced up her hiking books, double knotted the totem and slipped the necklace over her bulky azure sweater. She wasn’t losing it a second time.

After several attempts, she finally got the contact lenses in her eyes. She tried her best to recreate Kay’s makeup job, and she managed a serviceable replication. She brushed out her hair and let the curls trail down her shoulders as she’d worn it the night before. She checked herself in the mirror.

All right! Camryn Josephine was back.

She scurried through the lobby, apparently the only one awake in the whole place save for the elderly desk clerk who never looked up from the morning paper. Once outside, she found the street filled with passengers leaving the cruise ships for shore excursions. The restaurants were hopping, and the air was permeated with the tantalizing aroma of omelettes, bacon and strong coffee. She purchased orange juice and a blueberry muffin from a street vendor, then headed for the tour bus.

The bus that was to take them to the Tongass National Forest for their four-mile hike idled at a wooden park bench just a few feet from the B&B. Cammie Jo hurried over to find more than a dozen attractive young women and a few middle-aged couples already aboard.

She plunked down in the seat behind the driver. He looked familiar and after a few minutes of studying him she recognized him, not only from the party the night before, but from the Metropolitan magazine ad as well.

He was, quite frankly, the most handsome man she had ever seen, with coal-black hair and eyes the piercing blue of a glacier. He was probably the reason the bus was packed with so many single gals at this time of the morning.

Where as Mack was handsome in a rugged way, this man was handsome in the way of perfect Greek statues and paintings of heavenly beings. She found his beauty incredibly intimidating. On the dashboard in front of him lay a well-worn copy of a book by John Muir.

Caleb, she remembered. Caleb Greenleaf, the naturalist and apparently bus driver as well.

A few more women boarded—they giggled and flirted up a storm with Caleb before finding seats. Then Caleb rose to his feet and began to count heads. He consulted a clipboard. “Looks like everyone’s here except my assistant. He must be running late. We’ll give him a few minutes because it’s hard for me to lead a group of this size by myself.”

Everyone must have been pretty happy just to sit and eyeball Caleb because no one protested too much, although Cammie Jo heard someone behind her whisper, “We’ve got to be back on the cruise ship by noon.”

At that moment, a man in a brown bomber jacket sprang onto the bus.

“Morning, folks,” greeted Mack McCaulley. “Sorry I’m late.”

A wave of forgiving female twitters sounded around the bus.

He held on to the grab bar and remained standing while Caleb closed the door and put the bus in gear. Mack picked up the microphone and held it to his mouth as if to start into the regular tourist spiel when his eyes lit on Cammie Jo.

They both inhaled in unison and their gazes welded.

Mack’s sharp intake of breath crackled over the microphone.

Cammie Jo’s heart slipped sideways in her chest. What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he out flying his plane?

He recovered quickly, introduced himself and began telling everyone about the trip ahead. But Cammie Jo didn’t hear a single word he said. Her mind was a frayed ball of twine unraveling at an alarming rate.

She wrapped a fist around the totem and began to breathe easier. It was okay. She was all right.

They arrived at the edge of the forest in under ten minutes and Caleb parked the bus. He gave instructions for the people to divide into two groups of twelve. One group was to go with him, the other group to follow Mack.

Caleb climbed off the bus and the tourists followed. Mack stayed rooted to the spot, his eyes never leaving her face. Cammie Jo hesitated, not knowing what to do.

Her pulse jumped like water droplets on a redhot griddle and her tummy tugged to and fro with this swishy-swashy sensation like a washing machine set to agitate.

She shouldn’t be scared. But then she realized the emotion wreaking havoc on her insides was not fear at all. But rather excitement tinged with something else. A feeling she’d never experienced with such intensity.

Sexual arousal.

The air between them was charged with more voltage than any high line wire. Every hair on her arm stood at erect attention.

Cammie Jo gulped. Hard. She was hot and wet and achy down there.

And then the bus was completely empty, save for her and Mack.

He trod slowly toward her, his boots echoing with a solid thud, thud, thud, that matched the crazy rhythm of her heart.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” he said.

Cammie Jo jerked her head around, looking for a way out. Not because she was afraid of this bundle of walking testosterone but exactly because she wasn’t. She should have been scared to death because he was so close, so manly, so gosh darn p.o.’d at her. Instead she was turned on like a faucet twisted to full blast.

“No place to run, Sugar Plum.” He was standing directly in front of her in the middle of the aisle, his big hands planted on the backs of either seat. “If you want off this bus, you’ll have to come through me.”