Lost Without You by Heather Thurmeier Page B

past the fish guts.”
    As if he knew they were talking about his appearance, Rick got up from the fire and grabbed the bottle of water from Zoe’s hand without asking.
    â€œHey,” she started to protest, but her voice got stuck in her throat when he opened the bottle and upended it over his head and shoulders.
    Rivers of water cascaded over him, washing away the fishiness from his body and leaving behind only a canvass of sleek, glistening muscles waiting to be wiped dry. Zoe suddenly wanted to take the shirt off her back and dry him. Of course, that would leave her in a bra, but somehow, she didn’t think he would mind too much.
    â€œBetter,” he said, handing her back the empty bottle. “You wouldn’t happen to have a towel handy would you, baby?”
    â€œHere you go,” Chip said, throwing a towel in Rick’s direction. It landed across his face. Chip didn’t seem to care as he grabbed Zoe’s arm and steered her away from the team’s cooking area. “If you’ll excuse Zoe, she has other teams to film before we run out of cooking time.”
    Zoe pulled her arm back out from Chip’s grip and stopped behind a particularly thick cluster of trees.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” she demanded.
    â€œI was serious. There’s only ten minutes left and you still haven’t checked in with the last team.”
    â€œI have plenty of time. It takes two seconds to ask ‘whatcha cooking in there?’ so I want to know what the hell that was really about. You threw a towel in Rick’s face for no reason.”
    Chip tried unsuccessfully to hide a smirk. “What? He asked for a towel. It’s not my problem he can’t catch. Besides, I needed to get you to do your job and stop hanging out with the contestants like they’re your best friends. That’s all.”
    â€œReally? It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Rick was flirting with me again? While shirtless.”
    The edge of Chip’s jaw bulged then relaxed as he plastered the fakest smile she’d ever seen on his face. “Nope. I hadn’t even noticed. Was he shirtless? Huh. Interesting that you feel the need to bring it up.”
    She eyed him for a moment and wondered if it was worth her time and effort to call him out on that blatant pile of bullshit he’d just spewed. He glanced at his watch, again motioning for her to head over to the last team. She glanced over too. They were getting out their plates and organizing them on the ground near their fire. If she didn’t hurry, she really would miss her opportunity to speak with them before the cooking segment was done.
    Confronting Chip on why he was acting so strange would have to wait until they were done filming and on their way back to camp.
    â€œFine. Let’s get this over with.”

Chapter Six
    Chip held in a laugh as Zoe obviously tried not to gag on the food the teams had put in front of her. Her attempts at tasting the first few plates had been much more convincing. Now he was worried that she might actually get sick on camera. Good thing he could edit that out if needed.
    He couldn’t blame her really. Only so much could be done with leaves and berries found in the wild. Although the fish Rick’s team cooked smelled damned good and the other teams seemed to enjoy the dish as well.
    Too bad. He would have loved something to take Rick’s opinion of himself down a peg or two. Hopefully the first elimination challenge would be too much for his team. That was the one that really mattered, not this silly food challenge.
    â€œThat was … interesting,” Zoe said, taking a big drink of water from her third bottle.
    He didn’t want to be the one to tell her that she should cut back on the liquids a little. She probably wasn’t going to like it much when she realized how far away from base camp she was. She’d like it even less when her only option for a