The Merced River roared up ahead. I felt like throwing my pack down right there, as sick as I was of the weight of the damn thing. But I tried not to think about any of that. I kept my eyes pasted on the signs for the trailhead, trudging along step by aching step.

I knew she’d be there to meet me at the trailhead. The knowledge caused me to step up my pace. I couldn’t wait to see her again, pull her into my arms…God, I missed her.

Ahead, I sensed the presence of a southbound hiker so I tucked in toward the right side of the trail. I didn’t even look up. I was feeling far from the spry, sociable dude who’d set out on this hike last month. That idiot had been left behind somewhere on the grueling stretch between Mount Whitney and the Silver Pass.

The hiker who approached me was a woman. I could tell by the sound of her gait. She shifted her position on the trail so that she was headed straight for me. I stepped back toward the center and she moved straight at me so that we nearly collided before I stopped. I looked up, about to unleash an angry string of epithets before I saw her beautiful, smiling face.

She was gorgeous. Long, dark brown hair with hints of red and large amber-brown eyes that were the exact same color as her hair. She was on the tall side for a woman and she had long, curvy legs extending from the shorts she wore. And I hadn’t laid eyes on her in five weeks. Emilia.

I heaved a sigh of relief and dropped my pack, which smacked on the ground.

“Adam?” she said with laughter in her voice. “Is that you?”

I pulled her into my arms. “Damn—you are a sight for sore eyes.” I muttered, burying my face into her sweet-smelling neck. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t so sweet-smelling, but she returned the hug. I ignored the persistent ache in my muscles and tightened my hold around her.

Her body was soft, yielding against me and pulling her into my arms felt like home. Her hair was silky on my whisker-rough face. And that peaches and vanilla smell…I could get drunk with it. I pressed my face to her neck again.

She flinched, laughing. “You look like a mountain man!”

I supposed that meant she didn’t want a kiss—with my thirty-five days’ growth of beard and hair? Well, tough shit, I was kissing her anyway.

I turned and pressed my lips to hers and she returned my kiss before pulling away with a laugh. “Your kisses tickle now.”

I grinned. “C’mere and let me tickle you some more.” I planted a few more kisses on her before she pulled away again.

“How was your hike?”

I heaved a sigh. “Long.”

She smiled. “That it? No deep revelations about life?”

“I’ve decided that backpacks are evil.”

She bent and picked up my backpack, hefting it over one of her shoulders. “This thing’s pretty heavy.”

I reached for it, but she stopped me. “You’ve carried it five hundred miles. I think I can carry it for two.”

I looked at her grimly, about to argue, when she raised her brows at me. “Stop being stubborn. It’s a modern world. I can carry your pack for you. You can make up for it later by carrying my books to class. Come on. You look exhausted.”

I maintained my dour façade while admiring that stubbornness that made me love her so much. That strength. That independence that was so Emilia. It had gotten her through a lot of hard shit in her life and it had made her the amazing woman she was. Sometimes it aggravated me, but it was what made her her.

“More starving than exhausted.” She turned and I fell into step next to her as we continued toward the trailhead together, shoulder to shoulder.

True concern crossed her beautiful features. “How did that happen? Did we miscalculate your food drops?”

There were stations all along the trail where new supplies could be mailed. We’d calculated what amount I would need and where to mail it before I’d ever set foot on this exercise in insanity.

I hesitated, wondering if I should tell the truth about why I ran out of food and risk looking like a jackass. Maybe there was another excuse I could come up with. My whisker-covered cheeks heated with embarrassment. Oh, what the hell.

“Two nights ago, I left the bear canister too close to a hillside slope. When I woke up in the morning, it was gone—at the bottom of a steep ravine.” Because of the strict rules to keep bears from getting into hikers’ food supplies, all backcountry hikers were required to carry their food in bear-proof canisters. There were strict rules against hanging our food in trees as well. We also weren’t supposed to leave them too close to our sleeping areas, either, lest we attract bears into our tent. But some adventurous bear had come along sometime during the night and rolled my food down into a steep ravine.