“Dormez bien,” he whispered. Dani stepped back and let the door close in front of her. As the door locked, Zed hung his head. Sometimes being a grown-up really sucked.

6

Dani

Dani was pretty sure she was dying.

Wading through the waist-high ferns on the outskirts of the Afarpiece Swamp felt like fighting through quicksand that took her intrusion personally. She’d hiked mountains in Peru and jungles in Malaysia and she’d never felt the heat pull on her physical strength like this. Zed clearly wasn’t struggling with the exertion, but he probably did considerably more cardio than she did. Her only consolation was the pretty picture he made, shoving the vegetation aside like unwelcome paparazzi to make way for her. Seriously, the man had a back side like a Greek marble sculpture. She would know because one of her favorite tacky souvenirs was a fridge magnet from the Bode Museum in Berlin, that was a framed close-up of a Greek marble sculpture’s butt. And it looked exactly like Zed’s.

Women would gladly give up their entire 401K’s for a ticket to this show. She just had to keep the goal (and not Zed’s formidable hip-to-shoulder ratio) in mind. She was here to work. As attractive and funny and cinnamon roll sweet as Zed was, she was here in Mystic Bayou to earn the money her Grandad needed. And yes, while she enjoyed Zed and his ridiculous body and the brain-melting kisses he’d bestowed on her under the almost-dead Spanish moss tree, she could not get distracted by them. Zed was a probably relationship guy, the most dangerous variety of potential hook-up partners. And a relationship would slow her progress down, and that would provoke Jillian’s anger, which could get her fired, which would mean her Grandad would lose his farm. So there would be no boning of Zed. No matter how much she wanted to.

And she really, really wanted to.

Dani paused to adjust her backpack straps. She was wearing her sensible boots, nylon hiking pants, and a purple athletic shirt that wicked the sweat from her skin, and yet she still felt like she was swimming through a thick pudding of humidity. She’d carefully packed the backpack with water, snacks, sunscreen, bug spray, and camera equipment, but she was starting to wonder if she should have included a second set of clothes, because these were starting to feel particularly swampy.