by Jill Shalvis
Mindy let herself in, tripping over all the stuff. Her stuff. Linc’s stuff. Kid stuff. Pool stuff. Brooke had tried to tell her this place wasn’t a guesthouse of any sort, but she’d ignored it because she hadn’t had the brainpower to devote to one more thing. She’d just shoved her sister in here with no thoughts to her comfort. Mindy had managed to make her feel unwelcome without even trying, in her own childhood home, no less.
Brooke didn’t acknowledge her, not when she opened the door and not when she walked to the bed. “I’m sorry,” Mindy said quietly. “I know I’ve been . . . difficult.”
No reaction from Brooke, of course.
With a sigh, Mindy kicked off her shoes, set the child monitors on the coffee table, and got onto the futon. In the past, she’d read to Brooke long into the night because her sister had always wanted to know more about the world beyond Wildstone. Sometimes Mindy would change the characters’ names to Mindy and Brooke Lemon, or she’d make up a Lemon Sisters Adventure. “I should’ve brought a book for old times’ sake, yeah?”
Brooke maintained her silence.
Tough crowd. Exhausted, and worried she was never going to find her way back to her sister—or any other part of her life—Mindy settled in and closed her eyes. Which was when Brooke finally spoke. Her voice was quiet. Distant. “We’re grown-ups now, Min. We don’t need each other like we used to. Your words, remember?”
Mindy froze and felt her face heat, even though those had been her words. She just hadn’t realized how harsh they were until she heard them hurtled back at her. Sliding out of the bed, she slunk back to her own, tiptoeing past Linc, who’d apparently gotten home and had fallen asleep on the couch. She went to her room, feeling even worse about her life than she’d felt that morning, which was saying something.
Chapter 15
“Don’t look down, and whatever you do, don’t let go.”
Early the next morning, Brooke headed out with her camera and a huge to-go cup of tea in tow. She didn’t mess around with her caffeine. She liked it hot and by the gallon. Halfway to her car, she stopped in surprise.
Garrett was leaning against the passenger door, casual as you please.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I know you’ve been taking the early mornings to go hike or climb. Thought maybe I’d go with.”
The morning part was true. She’d been going out on her own before helping Mindy with the kids or working on the photo gig. She’d been trying to reacquaint herself with . . . well, herself. “The point of going out alone is to be alone.”
“Once upon a time we used to go together.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, we ‘used to’ do a whole lot of things.” Such as love each other . . . She unlocked her car. “And you’ve got work.”
“That’s the perk of being my own boss. I set my hours.”
To be honest, that was what she loved about the new photo gig, too. No set hours, and no one telling her what to do. “Trust me, you’ll be bored. Because FYI, I walk. Not hike. Not climb.”
Without responding, he took her hand and steered her to his truck.
“What’s wrong with my car?” she asked.
“It’s not a truck.”
She rolled her eyes again. At this rate, if she kept it up, they’d roll right out of her head before she got back to LA.
He waited until they were both buckled in before he took off his sunglasses and turned to her.
“What?” she asked. “You just realized how dumb this is?”
“No. I just want to talk to you first.”
“Oh boy.” Nothing good ever came from a statement like that. “Look, we really don’t need to talk about what happened. You made it clear what you think of me, and I get it, so—”
“You have no idea what I think. But I said something to you that I shouldn’t have, and I can’t let it stand.”
She let out a breath. It was too early for emotions. She didn’t have enough caffeine in her for it yet. “You’re going to have to be more clear, since you said lots of things. Like . . . ‘Oh yeah, babe, just like that,’ and ‘Brooke, you feel hot as f—”’
“I meant the next morning,” he said, sliding her a look.
Right. “Well, as much fun as this talk would be, I’m going to take a hard pass . . .” She started to open the door, but he put a hand over hers.
“I said you were a mistake.” He spoke quietly. “You’re not. You never were.”
Every muscle had clenched when he’d started this conversation, braced for something bad. So she felt unprepared for how his words went straight to her heart and squeezed so hard it took her a moment to speak. “It’s okay if I am. I’d get it.”
“You’re not,” he said with a quiet intensity that made her chest squeeze again.
Since he was still looking at her, seeming to be waiting for a response of some kind, she swallowed the lump in her throat and gave him a small but real smile and a nod. “Okay, thanks.”
He nodded and matched her small smile, looking relieved. Realizing he didn’t expect additional uncomfortable deep talk, or for her to spill her guts, her smile spread a little with a whole lot of relief. “So . . . we’re okay?”
“As okay as we ever get,” he said.
That, she could live with. “You don’t need to come with, now that we’re square.”
“I know. But I’d like to, if that’s okay with you.”
Since she actually sort of wanted company, his company, she nodded and then had to ignore the way his smile made her get warm from the inside out.
They hit the road, and five minutes later, Garrett pulled into a convenience store. “A pit stop for snacks to take on the hike and climb.”
“You mean walk,” she said. “We’re going on a walk.”
“I’ve never known you to walk a day in your life. You’ve got two speeds, Brooke: full steam ahead and fast asleep.”
She gave a rough laugh. “Yeah, well, as you might’ve noticed—things change.” But not one to ever turn down food, she walked into the store and eyed the hot dogs rolling on the cooker at the checkout. It’d been years since she’d had a hot dog for breakfast. That streak ended today.
Garrett came up next to her, his arms loaded with a large assortment of chips, cookies, and other goodies. Dumping everything on the counter, he looked around for the still unseen clerk.
Brooke gestured to his stash. “You look like an unsupervised nine-year-old who was given a hundred bucks.”
He grinned, and something low in her belly quivered. She eyed the Slim Jims in his pile and her senses were overtaken with memories, flashing her back to a climb they’d once taken up the rocky face of the Playground, where they’d watched the sunrise. It’d taken two hours to get to the top and she’d been starving. He’d pulled a Slim Jim from his pocket. She’d laughed at his idea of breakfast food, but she’d eaten her half, and then, at his insistence, his half as well. Then she’d nibbled his fingers and in turn he’d nibbled her mouth, and then they’d . . . well. She glanced up and met his gaze, which was hot and locked on hers.
She wasn’t the only one remembering what had come next, how they’d pretty much leapt at each other. They’d been lucky no one had discovered them before they’d surfaced.
Garrett cleared his throat and looked around for the clerk. “Anyone home?”
“Right here.” The elderly male voice sounded familiar to Brooke, but she couldn’t quite place it. Not until the man came shuffling out from the back, straining to carry a crate of wine bottles that was clearly too heavy for him.
Garrett’s dad.
“Hello, son,” he said.
Brooke heard a whoosh of breath escape Garrett’s lungs. But he recovered before she did, moving around the counter to take the heavy crate from his dad. “Where?” was all he said.
His dad pointed to a counter and Garrett set the case down. There was a horribly awkward beat of silence, and then his dad moved toward the cash register. “Anythi
ng else?” he asked, and looked at Brooke.
“Two hot dogs, please.”
With a smile, he handed them to her and began to ring them up.
“What are you doing?” Garrett asked.
“Working.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
His dad reached for a brown bag and slid their purchases into it, his hands shaking terribly.
Garrett reached out and took over. “I’ve got it,” he said quietly.
“You replaced the spark plugs in my truck,” his dad said. “Why?”
Brooke looked at Garrett in time to see him shrug. “Your truck needed them. It needs a lot of things.”
The two men stared at each other awkwardly and then Garrett went back to tossing things into the bag.
Brooke felt her eyes sting at the look on Garrett’s dad’s face as Garrett did his job for him. Shame. Regret. She wanted to reach into her pocket and pull out all her money and hand it over so he didn’t have to work like this, in a position that was clearly too physically demanding for him.
“Dad.” Garrett pressed his thumbs to his eye sockets like they hurt before dropping his hands to his sides. “I’ve got a bunch of jobs I’m working on, and I’m shorthanded. I could use help.”
“I don’t need a pity job.”
“Did I say anything about pity?”
The two men stared at each other some more. “I’ll think about it,” his dad said.
Garrett nodded and then turned to her. “Brooke.”
She looked up and realized Garrett had their bag of goodies and was holding the door open for her. She smiled at his dad and walked out, aware of Garrett right on her tail. He opened the passenger door for her and waited until she’d climbed in and secured her seat belt before handing her their bag.
She set it at her feet as he walked around the front of the truck. She watched him scan the lot, clearly looking for something, and then fix on another truck parked close by. The windows were down and a smiling black Lab sat in the driver’s seat. Garrett headed over there, and the dog’s tail went crazy with excitement. Garrett gave him a one-armed hug and got a big wet kiss across his face for his efforts.
Brooke couldn’t blame the dog—she had good reason to know that Garrett tasted delicious.
After a moment, he came back to the truck, slid behind the wheel, and pulled out of the lot. She waited, but he didn’t speak as they headed west toward the ocean. She opened the bag and started doctoring up her hot dog with ketchup and mustard. She did the mustard with slow purpose, baiting him, because he hated mustard with the passion of a thousand suns and had always given her shit for using it.
He said nothing.
She repeated the routine with hot dog number two. Still nothing from Garrett, not even when she held out the last bite, slathered in mustard, and offered it to him. “Wow,” she said. “You’re taking this whole silent thing very seriously. You’ve really got nothing to say?”
“You smell like mustard.”
She smiled.
He looked over at her and shook his head. Okay, so he wasn’t feeling playful . . . And as for the intimidating intensity coming off him, the dark sunglasses were a nice touch. “Are we really just going to pretend that didn’t happen?” she asked.
“Brooke.”
That was it, just her name, uttered in a low warning tone that suggested he was considering pulling over to let her out. Before she could tell him to do just that, he’d turned off on the narrow dirt road, where if you knew the area, you could get to the good spots to climb, and an extremely little-known one in particular called the Playground.
Her heart started to pound. “Um.”
He turned off the truck. “You don’t want to talk about us, and I don’t want to talk about my dad. You still up for this?”
“I assumed we were going to the bluffs,” she said.
He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. “You used to say the bluffs were for tourists.”
“When are you going to hear me—things change.”
He paused, cocking his head to one side as he studied her. “Are you telling me you haven’t been to the Playground at all?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
He arched a brow, and she sighed. “Look, I’ve wanted to. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that sometimes you’ve got to try a different route to get where you want to go.”
“And where do you want to go?” he asked.
She tilted her head back and eyed the climb she hadn’t made in years. “Up,” she admitted.
He nodded and took in their view. “Do you trust me?”
She just looked at him.
A rough laugh escaped him. “Okay, so you don’t.”
“Actually, I do.” She paused. “At least with my body—which I’m pretty sure I made clear several times the other night.”
“But?”
“But my brain’s a different beast.”
He nodded. “Then let’s just go for a walk.”
“A walk. To the Playground,” she said, heavy on disbelief.
“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s just go look at it.”
So they got out of the truck. Again she tipped her head back and looked straight up the set of rocky cliffs that once upon a time she could’ve free climbed in her sleep. There were several options available. First, there was what she’d always thought of as the safe way—only a 100-foot climb to a trail that you could use to walk the slow, long way around the back to the top. Second, there was a midlevel option on the far right, a 350-foot jaunt that caught the trail at the midway point. And third, there was the take-your-own-life-in-your-hands way to go, 750 vertical feet straight up.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“That I wish I hadn’t eaten both hot dogs.”
He snorted and she stepped closer to the rock, eyes locked on the easy route. She’d start there. And before she could give it too much thought, she reached for her first handholds.
Muscle memory was the most amazing thing, she discovered. Her body took over from her brain, and before she knew it, she was halfway up—which she knew because she made the mistake of looking down. “Oh shit,” she whispered, freezing with fifty feet up or fifty feet down to go, a cool breeze brushing over her sweaty face.
“You’re okay.” Garrett was right behind her. As in literally behind her, practically on top of her, clearly in protective mode. “Breathe, Bee.”
Right. She was holding her breath. She gulped in air as he climbed up next to her and came into her personal space bubble, letting go with one hand so he could wrap an arm around her. “Good. Do it again,” he said, and watched her breathe for a beat before giving her a warm smile. “Remember the two tricks.”
“Which are . . . ?”
“Don’t look down, and whatever you do, don’t let go.”
With a breathless laugh, she turned her head and pressed her face into him, which, given their positions, meant into his armpit. He was warm but not sweaty, and he smelled . . . damn. Delicious. Basically the opposite of her. She was hot and clammy. And very sweaty. One, two, three, four . . .
“Look at me, Bee.”
His voice was quiet, calm, and utterly authoritative, so much so that she lifted her head and met those mesmerizing light hazel eyes.
“You’ve got this.”
He could have said, “I’ve got you,” and that would’ve been sweet. But he’d said, “You’ve got this,” meaning he believed in her, and somehow . . . somehow that converted her panic into confidence. With a nod, she looked up . . . and climbed the last fifty feet. Crawling shakily over the edge, she collapsed in a boneless heap. Not great for her ego, and neither was the way she was pulling in air like a beached fish. She hadn’t even started up the trail to the top yet, but she found herself grinning at the sky anyway.
Garrett came over the edge with his usual animal grace. He didn’t speak, just sat at her side, legs out in front of him, arms braced behind him, t
aking in the view. Letting her have her moment. She’d never felt more grateful to another human being in her entire life, and she felt tears sting her eyes. No shame in that, she told herself.
“There’s no shame here at all,” Garrett said quietly, making her realize she’d spoken out loud.
She drew in a deep breath. “My pulse is at stroke level,” she said, pressing a hand to her pounding heart. “I’m considering throwing up. Fair warning.”
He wrapped his hand around her wrist, and she realized he was checking her pulse.
“How bad is it?” she asked with an embarrassed laugh.
“Not bad considering you had two hot dogs, a gallon of tea, and a big adrenaline rush.”
Rolling her eyes, she reached out and grabbed his wrist. His pulse was slow and steady, the bastard. “What would it take to get your heart rate as high as mine?”
He turned his head and slid her a look. “You in those white shorts from the other day.”
That tugged a reluctant laugh from her, but she was actually feeling anything but amused. She was starting to realize how much more he’d anted up in this . . . whatever they were doing . . . so much more than she had. She’d kept things from the people who cared about her, and guilt was a heavy burden. Glancing over, she found Garrett looking out at the ocean, sprawled in all its glory for as far as the eye could see, which made it slightly easier to attempt to spill some hard-earned truth. Sitting up, she hugged her knees to her chest. “My feet haven’t left the ground since the helicopter crash,” she murmured.
He turned and looked at her, and if she’d thought her heart was beating fast before, that had nothing on what it was doing now, which was basically threatening to pound its way right out of her chest. She hadn’t been the only one impacted by the crash. Not that he’d say so. Not that he’d let his emotions be more important than hers, and at the thought, at how much he’d given her without her even realizing it, she felt her eyes well. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to go on before she lost her nerve. “I haven’t even flown—other than when I left the hospital in Peru to come back to the States, and they had to sedate me for that. It’s not heights, necessarily. It’s . . .” She grimaced. “This is going to sound really dumb . . . it’s a fear of the adrenaline rush. It’s . . . paralyzing.”