“Okay, hang on.” She kicked off her shoes, pulled her shirt over her head, and started pulling down her shorts.

• 116 •


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“What are you doing?” Shannon watched her in the mirror on the wall adjacent to the tub.

“Getting in with you,” Caroline answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “You can’t do it yourself and I don’t feel like falling in when I’m helping you.” She was now as naked as Shannon.

“Is there a problem?”

Caroline watched as Shannon’s eyes roamed over her body.

They had seen each other naked hundreds of times but never as grown women. Time and hard work had transformed her body from girlish to all woman, and by the look on Shannon’s face, she had done a fine job of it. She knew the look of desire in Shannon’s eyes and her body heated under the intense approval.

“Stop it, Shannon. You can barely stand on your own two feet and you’re getting into this tub right now.” Caroline stepped into the warm water first then helped Shannon in. Caroline lowered herself and Shannon into the frothy water, her back sliding down the porcelain side. Shannon moaned as her raw skin came in contact with the warm water. Caroline knew the sound wasn’t from ecstasy but agony and she ached for the pain Shannon must be in. “I know it hurts,” she said stupidly. This time Shannon hissed and cursed.

“Just try to relax.” That was the second stupid thing she said.

“Easy for you to say,” Shannon snapped.

Caroline didn’t know what to do with her hands so she cupped them with water and poured it down Shannon’s back.

“Thanks. I think that’s the only place on my body that doesn’t hurt. At least right now. Tomorrow, however, will be a totally different story.”Caroline repeated the motion several times and on the last handful followed the trail of water with the palms of her hands massaging the tight muscles in Shannon’s back.

Her heart raced and her pulse beat loudly in her head each time she touched Shannon. Her skin was soft and slick from the water, her fingers gliding over the firm, tan flesh. The patch of skin that was much lighter than the rest of her back was just where she remembered it—just below her right shoulder blade. Caroline remembered when she first discovered the birthmark and how she had traced the shape with her

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fingertip first, then with her tongue. She shuddered at the memory and the water suddenly got much hotter.

“Caroline?” Shannon asked, piercing her haze of arousal. “I don’t feel too good.”

Shannon’s comment and the weakness of her voice jolted Caroline out of her trip down memory lane. “Lean back against me for a minute.”

It was the only thing she could think of. She surely couldn’t lift Shannon out of the tub if she passed out. Maybe if she sat back for a few minutes she would feel good enough to at least help Caroline get her out.

All medicinal thought flew out of her head when Shannon’s back made contact with her breasts. Her nipples were already hard and had excellent recall of Shannon’s body and tightened even harder. When Shannon’s head dropped back on her shoulder, Caroline swallowed hard and forced herself to maintain her composure.

Shannon’s hair was just under her nose, the scent not an unpleasant combination of strawberry and dirt. Her arms rested on the side of the tub and her nipples peeked out from the water with each rise and fall from her breathing. Caroline’s legs were on either side of Shannon, her left one bent at the knee so as not to come in contact with Shannon’s injured leg.

Any other time Caroline would be taking advantage of their position, and on more than one occasion in the past, she had. But this time Shannon was hurt, seriously hurt, but the way her body was reacting to Shannon’s closeness—her familiarity, her nakedness pressed against her—it didn’t seem to know that. Caroline had thought Shannon had fallen asleep and jerked when she spoke.

“I think I should get out. The drugs they gave me at the clinic are putting me to sleep and I’d hate to slide down and drown. However nice it would be to die in your arms.”

Shannon was starting to slur her words and Caroline wasn’t sure she heard the last part correctly. She wanted to ask but didn’t dare.

Instead, she pushed Shannon into a sitting position. “You’re right. The water is getting cold and we’ve still got to change your bandages and get you into bed.”

Caroline stood, her legs shaky from the inactivity as well as the sight in front of her. She grabbed a towel from the stack on the shelf above her head, quickly wiping off her hands and arms.

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“Okay, let’s get you up. On three. Ready?” As she counted, Caroline put her hands under Shannon’s arms and lifted. She froze when Shannon screamed. “Oh my God, Shannon, what is it?”

Shannon’s breathing was coming in short, fast pants. It took her several moments before she was able to answer. “It just hurts,” she finally said.

“What? Where?” Caroline’s heart was still in her throat, her own breathing shallow and quick.

“Everything. It’s all right, just get me out of here.”

Five minutes later Shannon was lying in the large bed, the covers drawn up over her nakedness. Caroline was wrapping the last of the gauze around her elbow, its whiteness a stark contrast to the red, raw skin. “There, that should do it.” She secured the last piece of tape.

Caroline looked into dark eyes slightly glazed from pain and medication. “Try to get some sleep.” She had an overwhelming urge to kiss Shannon’s forehead like her mother used to when she was sick.

She stopped herself as she started to lean toward her.

“Thanks.” Shannon’s voice was barely a whisper. As she fell asleep, Caroline gave in to the need and placed a light kiss just above her eyebrows.

• 119 •


• 120 •


Descent

ChaPTER FiFTEEN

Caroline watched the rhythmic rise and fall of Shannon’s chest for the next several hours. It felt like her heart stopped every time she relived the scene of Shannon missing the turn and tumbling headfirst into the stand of trees. Due to the JumboTron at the finish line, all twelve thousand people in attendance saw it as well. The eerie quiet after the screech of horror was nerve-wracking until Shannon waved from the litter she was carried on. She was taken immediately to the on-site clinic. Caroline had no idea of her condition until after she received the third place medal and practically bolted off the stand in the direction of the first aid tent. She was stopped before she could enter, but the man on the door told her that Shannon was conscious and all of her limbs were moving. Caroline almost collapsed in relief.

She couldn’t help but notice Shannon’s body both when she was in the tub and as she helped her into bed. She was thin almost to the point of being skinny, every muscle defined and hard. She had a tattoo of an abstract female bike rider going downhill on the outside of her right calf and a series of symbols on her left. Her breasts were small and Caroline’s palms tingled as if remembering just how perfectly they fit in them.

No matter how much she wanted to forget, various things over the past ten years reminded her of Shannon and at the oddest times.

A flavor of ice cream, a movie title, even the words to a song flashed feelings of warmth or pain through her gut.

Caroline had no idea what she was doing here, in Shannon’s room.

Well, she did, but why was the question. Other racers she knew had

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been injured, some more severely than Shannon, and she never felt the unrelenting need to see how they were. She needed to verify with her own eyes that Shannon was all right. She hadn’t even bothered to change out of her riding shorts and shirt. She had dropped her safety gear off at the trailer and found Fran to tell her where she was going.

They were supposed to meet back at the Shimano tent after the awards ceremony and interviews and head back to the hotel together. But Fran nodded her understanding and Caroline found herself at Shannon’s door soon thereafter.

As she watched her sleep, Caroline thought back on their conversation earlier in the week. What was Shannon trying to do?

What was her intention? What did she want from her? She admitted she hadn’t given her a chance to say much, but laid into her instead. She didn’t realize that she was still angry and hurt over the way it ended between them. Good God, it was ten years ago and she was seventeen at the time. What did she expect? Some sort of nice, neat closure? It had been anything but. And why hadn’t Shannon called? Caroline had asked herself that question hundreds of times over the following year, each time imagining what she would say to Shannon when she did.

She had called Shannon until the numbers wore off her phone.

She used mutual friends to get in touch with her, but for two weeks all they were able to do was trade voicemails. It was frustrating and when they finally did connect their conversation was forced and stilted.

They used to talk about everything, but during that last conversation they had almost nothing to talk about. It was amazing that at seventeen how quickly things went from great to over. Caroline buried her hurt in training and driving herself to exhaustion studying for her Ph.D.

And now here she was. Five feet from the woman who at one time meant everything to her—or at least she thought she did. But that was a lifetime ago when she thought Shannon was the love of her life. That they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. But when she had heard via the rumor mill that Shannon was with someone else, she knew it was simply a teenage thing. Here one day, gone another. So what was she doing here now, hovering over Shannon’s every breath, worrying herself sick that she would be okay? While Shannon slept she had watched her, looked at her, and fought the urge to touch her.