Rugged Fire [Rugged Savage Valley, Colorado 4] by Edith DuBois Page A

a rigorous form of exertion. Here. Take one of these eggs.” She held out a carton, and Seb obliged. “A small one, mind you. If you get one that’s too large, it may not settle well, but I don’t see the harm in one small egg.”
    Their mother continued extolling the merits of hard-boiled eggs as they finished their breakfast. After they got her settled in her favorite chair beside the window with a book and her knitting needles, they headed out to the back. Their fathers had built a large work shed many years back, and they kept a few canoes, various tools, and yard-work machinery in it. They hauled one of the canoes down from its hanging pegs and placed it over their shoulders. Seb was in front, Will in back, and they began walking toward Brown Trout Lake.
    The lake was a good ways out of town, and they had to walk down Main Street to get there, but the walk through town didn’t bother him. In fact, hardly anyone was out and about, and Seb liked the feeling of being the first ones to greet the roads and familiar buildings of Savage Valley. Despite its faults and shortcomings, it was his town and his home. Whether he wanted it or not, his footsteps would always belong on these roads.
    As they neared the center of town, he looked over at the bundle of shops—the thrift store, the diner, the newspaper—and was surprised to find Lianne standing in front of The Ninth Time, bundled up and bouncing from foot to foot.
    “Seb?” she asked. “Is that you? Will?”
    “Hold up,” he said to his brother. He lifted the canoe, and Will did the same. They rolled it off their shoulders in a fluid motion, popped it over their heads, and then set it on the ground in front of the resale shop. He could hear frost crunching under its hull as it settled onto the ground.
    “Whoa,” Lianne said. “What—oh my—why are you two dressed like that? What are you doing?”
    “The canoe didn’t give us away?” Seb asked, walking toward her. He noted her small step back as her eyes swept up and down his body a couple times in quick succession. He’d left the top of his wetsuit unzipped, and the sleeves were hanging around his waist. The only thing he wore on top was a white T-shirt, and he’d broken a small sweat carrying the canoe. The thin cotton clung to his chest, and the wetsuit clung to everything below his waist, and he could tell the sight was having an effect on Lianne. It had been a couple days since their steamy kisses on the porch, and the feel of Lianne’s plump lips on his, the way her body pressed into him with desperate wanting, her breath mingling with his—these things kept pounding and pounding through his mind. He couldn’t get them out, had thought of little else since that night, and finding her here that morning felt serendipitous. He’d planned on seeing her again that day, one way or another, and circumstances had brought them together as if the fates approved of his decision to pursue her. He had to wonder, though, what it was exactly that had her out in the close-to-freezing temperatures.
    “What are you doing here? It’s barely seven in the morning.”
    “I forgot that I’m hosting a book club with a couple friends in two days, and I haven’t even bought the book or begun to read it. I’m just freaking out. I have to read that and get a fresh batch of lotion samples whipped up today because I thought I had enough, but I don’t, and anyways, I’m just trying to see if the Abbotts had one here before having to make an emergency trip to Denver.”
    “First of all, breathe.” He sucked in a breath in illustration and then another. Lianne caught on and began to breathe with him, rolling her eyes and grinning at him. “Second of all, what book is it? We might have a copy.”
    Her regulated breathing came to a halt. “Oh no, I highly doubt that.”
    Seb noticed she looked more uncomfortable than usual. “Give us a try,” he said. “We’re pretty well read. You might be surprised.”
    She