Without a word she slipped the shorts down her legs and tossed them aside. She pulled the tank top up over her head and laid it on the cot. It wasn’t the first time Jonas had seen her in her underwear, but she still felt a tingle of nervousness.

His hands moved from her back to her stomach, massaging the gel into her abs. His hands pressed into her in large, rhythmic circles, lightly touching the underside of her breasts.

Peyton felt butterflies rise in her stomach.

“That was very smart work, finding the village,” Jonas said quietly. “We might be close to solving this thing.”

“It was just a guess.” Peyton tried to keep her voice even, despite breathing faster.

“You guess right a lot, in my experience.”

He massaged the analgesic into her sides, coating her ribs all the way up to just under her armpits. “You know, as long as we’ve worked together, you’ve never really talked about yourself. I know almost nothing about you—personally.”

“Not much to tell.”

“I don’t believe that. Tell me something I don’t know about you. What do you do for fun?”

“Not a lot. I work all the time.”

“And when you’re not?”

“I read. I run.”

Peyton heard Jonas squeeze more of the gel from the tube, felt his hands moving up her back, applying pressure, slipping under her bra strap, pulling it tight against her chest.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure,” she whispered.

“I think you’re an amazing person. Smart. Funny. You’ve got a wonderful heart. Why haven’t you settled down?”

Peyton felt his hands stop at her shoulders, him waiting for her to answer. For a moment, she thought about her brother. Then her father. And finally, about the man who had left all those years ago. “I’ve never met a man who was there when I really needed him.”

“I’ve always been there when you needed me,” Jonas said.

“That’s true.”

Jonas pulled his legs back and moved around in front of her. They sat in silence in the tent for a long moment. He searched her eyes, asking a question Peyton was completely unprepared for. When his lips moved toward hers, she felt a completely new type of fear.

In the next tent, Hannah Watson was busy applying an anti-inflammatory to her own skin. She had stripped down to her bra and panties for the task; her sweat-drenched clothes hung from a string she’d tied across the tent frame. She expected them to be dry soon. The rest of her items were unpacked, aligned neatly on her side of the tent. Her roommate’s side was a sharp contrast: Millen’s personal effects were strewn about like the aftermath of a raid by a family of bears.