“Stop moaning. You, Mr. Tycoon, are about to get up close and personal with the mighty Colorado River.” And she was going to get up close and personal with him, if he wanted that too. She’d made her decision, and she was sure about it. Josh was the most exciting man she’d met in a long time, maybe ever. She loved the way he was with Kathleen, and the way he talked about his brother. She loved his sense of humor. Most of all she loved the way she felt when she was around him. With Josh, she never felt less. She never felt as if she should be more or different. He never chipped at her edges, tried to change who she was or make her smaller. Life had shaved pieces from her confidence, but being with him healed all those raw places.

She was happy, and that was enough.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t know what the future held. No one did, really. They thought they did, but so much was out of your control. If her grandmother hadn’t died, Martha might have finished her degree but then she would have been on a different track and who was to say that would have been happy? For a start she wouldn’t have met Kathleen. If she hadn’t needed to get away from her family and Steven so badly there was no way she would have taken a driving job, and no way she’d be sitting here now on the mighty Colorado River with the walls of the Grand Canyon rising up all around her, alongside a man who made her heart race. Basically, there wasn’t a single thing about the past she’d change, except perhaps finding a way to make people you loved live forever. But all anyone really had was right now, and she was determined to make the most of right now. And no doubt her family would disapprove of her current choices, but if there was one thing she’d learned on this trip it was that the only opinion that mattered was your own.

She lifted her face to the sun and smiled, feeling good about life for the first time in ages. About herself.

“I hope you’re still smiling when you’re submerged by icy river water.” Josh tugged her closer. “The average temperature of the Colorado River at this time of year is—”

“Don’t tell me! I’ll find out for myself, no doubt.”

But she loved his sense of humor, and the way he could recite facts from memory.