Free Out of This World by Jill Shalvis

am.”
    She tossed back her wet hair, and sent me a mulish look. “If you’re so worried, you’d have…”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œOffered to carry me or something,” she muttered.
    I had visions of tossing her over my shoulder and stalking off with her to my cave like a caveman. Me Tarzan, you Jane. “Do you want me to carry you?”
    â€œOf course not.”
    Yeah, definitely pissy, which made me a whole lot relieved. After all, how hurt could she be if she was already back to her usual disagreeable self?
    â€œI’m worried,” I promised. “Enough that I nearly had heart failure back there, all for you. Okay?”
    â€œOkay.”
    I reached my hand out to her and wiggled my fingers.
    She looked at them.
    She was beautiful, but what made her so irresistible, at least to me, was that she couldn’t hold a grudge. Not when we were kids and I did some stupid boy thing, or when we were teenagers and I did some even more stupid boy thing. And not now…
    Truth was, at heart she was a happy-go-lucky soul, optimistic and hopeful. Staying mad just wasn’t in her genes, and she wrapped her fingers around mine. We looked at the growth and trees all around us, dripping from the oddly violent but short-lived downpour, and at my side, Rach shivered.
    â€œIt’s funny,” she said, craning her neck, her eyes apprehensive, “but I can’t even remember which way I came from. Everything looks so different.”
    Looked different and felt different, though I wasn’t exactly sure how. It was hard to concentrate with her standing there, clothes wet and clinging to her every inch. And there were a lot of off-the-chart gorgeous inches on her. I was trying really hard not to notice, or at least, not to make it obvious, when a rustling sound came from the bushes just to our right.
    Rachel latched onto me. “Kel.”
    Pretending to be tough and secure, I held her against me—not exactly a hardship—and turned to face the alarming sound.
    Axel crashed his way free of the bushes. “Hey, dudes. What’s shaking?”
    Rachel pulled free. “How did you find us?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Just get us back to Hideaway.”
    â€œWhy, what happened?”
    â€œWell, did you see that lightning?” she asked.
    Axel scratched his head through his wool beanie. The tassels swung with his every movement. “Lightning? We don’t get much lightning here in Alaska. Now wind—we get a lot of that. One-hundred-mile-an-hour gusts that can knock a man flat on his ass.”
    â€œYou’re sure you didn’t see the lightning? Or hear the thunder?” she asked him incredulously. “It shook the earth like a huge quake.”
    â€œI heard the rain, that’s it.” Axel peered into Rach’s eyes. “You been smoking or something?”
    Rachel made a sound of annoyance and looked at me, the question in her eyes.
    In answer, I shook my head. I had no idea how Axel could have missed the unmistakable thunder-and-lightning storm, brief as it’d been.
    â€œ Whoa, ” Axel said, getting a good look at us.
    â€œWhat?” I actually glanced behind us for the source of horror on his face, but to my great relief, I saw nothing.
    â€œDude, look,” Axel insisted, pointing at my chest. “You’re smoking.”
    Rachel looked at me as well, and gasped. “I told you!”
    I glanced down at myself. It was a little disconcerting to find it was true. I was smoking.
    â€œWe had a little incident,” I said.
    â€œSweet.”
    Sweet?
    â€œListen,” Axel said, looking around us a little uneasily, “I think we should go back to the inn.”
    â€œI agree,” Rachel said. “You lead the way.”
    â€œOh.” Axel eyeballed the landscape all around us. Then he stuck his hands into his pockets, and looked around some more. “Why, you lost or