Plain Jane & The Hotshot Read Online Free PDF

dressed in pink shorts and a midriff top. “We’ve got a three-mile hike down to the canyon floor and the river, so let’s make tracks.”
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    Jo hadn’t realized how much her sedentary teaching job had affected her physical condition. After only thirty minutes on the trail—a series of looping switchbacks that descended to the floor of Crying Horse Canyon—she was short of breath. So were the rest of the younger women.
    Yet amazingly, Hazel and the other two seniors were strutting out front, setting the brisk pace, joking and chatting and identifying various birds.
    But no one was suffering the way poor, befuddled Kayla was.
    Jo couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her. Her golden-braised midriff was already pocked with the swollen bites of pesky flies, and several times she had scraped her exposed legs on thornbushes. She even managed to snag her ankle bracelet while stepping over a downed tree branch. If Jo hadn’t caught her in time, Kayla would have been sprawled facedown in the dirt.
    â€œBreak time,” Stella called when they reached the halfway point, a little fern bracken with several fallen trees providing seats.
    Hazel, in the meantime, seemed intent on studying the skyline to the north.
    Thin wisps of smoke curled in the wind, and Jocould hear the steady thucka-thucka of chopper blades as the Forest Service fought blazes in the adjacent canyons.
    â€œIs the fire getting closer?” Jo asked Hazel.
    â€œI can’t tell,” her friend admitted. “But it does feel like the wind’s been rising, instead of dying down as predicted. And if you ask me, the humidity is down, not up.”
    â€œYou can smell flames a little more, too,” Stella said, taking off her floppy jungle hat to swat at flies. “And I’m guessing smoke has forced more insects into this canyon. I’ve never seen this many flies.”
    â€œI hope the fire does spread!” Kayla burst out resentfully. “I’m sick of this Danny Crockett stuff.”
    â€œDavy Crockett,” Hazel corrected her, laughing in disbelief. “Some Texan you are,” she added before leading the women to one of the quiet pools in the river.
    â€œBait your hooks,” she ordered. “This is one of the best fishing holes west of the Great Divide.”
    â€œThis is incredible!” Stella marveled after they’d been fishing for not even an hour. “The trout are practically leaping on the banks for us.”
    Even Kayla had gotten over her pouting. Now she seemed to be having the time of her life as she reeled in fish after fish.
    It was especially remarkable, Jo told herself, because they were all “survival fishing,” using just fish-line and hooks tied to sticks—no fiberglass poles, no reels, only twigs for bobbers.
    â€œAre they suicidal?” Hazel wondered as she tossed another fat trout onto the growing stack.
    â€œIt’s the fires nearby, Hazel,” a friendly masculine voice called out from behind them. “It’s messed up the river ecosystem and forced a huge number of fish into other feeding habitats.”
    All six women turned to see an amazing sight: twelve men in their physical prime, all smudged and rumpled, all jockeying for a better view of the fisherwomen.
    â€œWell, boys,” Hazel greeted them with amiable irony, “am I that much of a sex goddess in blue jeans? Oh, I see—you’ve noticed the children. ”
    â€œMighty fine-looking kids, ma’am,” one of the smoke jumpers cracked, and another added: “We do baby-sitting gigs between fires.”
    The men laughed, including Nick, but he also added in an undertone, “Manners, boys, manners.”
    His eyes found Jo’s, and he sent her a friendly, let’s-make-peace smile.
    Despite being over her earlier anger, however, a mechanical smile was all she could muster. Especially with a dozen men ogling her—although Kayla,