A Risk Worth Taking

by Brynn Kelly

  “Samira,” he said, his heart sinking. He didn’t want to disappoint her, not on Christmas Day. He shouldn’t have used the phrase but it just seemed right. “We need to live in the moment. Appreciate what we’ve got right now and leave with happy memories. We’ll always have the loch.” Her lashes flickered down, hiding her eyes. Aye, he was a jerk. They continued swaying gently to the music. “Maybe this isn’t the best day for that talk.”

  Roberta filled the silence. After another verse, Samira stomped one boot on the floor, and pushed his chest. He released her. Damn.

  “Screw it,” she said, hands fisted by her sides, eyes glittering with reflected flames as if the fire were in them, not the grate. “I’ve faced down my biggest fears and damn well won. If I’m brave enough to do all that, I’m brave enough to open my mouth and speak my mind.”

  “You should always feel like you can speak your mind to me.” But don’t call it quits on me on Christmas Day. Just one more week...

  “Always. You keep on saying things like that—one day, someday, always... But you’re not open to there being an always, or even a one day or a someday. You only want there to be a now because you can’t face the past and you refuse to think about the future.”

  “What future can I offer you, Samira? I fucked up my future and I’m not going to fuck up yours. I used to be a bloody surgeon. Then I could have offered you something. I’m nobody now, just a penniless grunt who can’t operate in the real world.”

  “I don’t care about what you did for a job or what you do. I care about who you are. I’m not asking you to give me anything but yourself.” She fumbled with the knot on her scarf, yanked it off and tossed it on a chair.

  He turned, on the pretense of checking the fire, and chucked another chunk of wood on it. Sparks jumped. “You’re asking for something I can’t give.”

  She stepped up to him, took his face in both hands and coaxed him to look at her. “All along I’ve thought I was the fearful one. But it’s you who’s afraid. You’re stuck in this mind-set that you’re defined by your achievements, rather than by the man you are. You’re scared to take the risk of just being yourself. You, of all people—scared.”

  He raised his eyebrows. That struck where it hurt. “Aye, that’s...pretty much it. You see right through me.”

  She slid her hands to his neck, then to his chest, gripping his jumper like she was scared he’d run. “Does that concern you, honestly? And for God’s sake, no jokes.”

  He dropped his hands to her jean-clad hips. “I don’t think anybody’s ever tried to look that hard. As you say, people like the happy-go-lucky joker, so I guess I stick with that. He’s a fun guy to be around and that’s all anybody wants.”

  “And I like that side of you, too. But I like the many other sides. You’ve given me so much, and I’m not going to let you give up on yourself so easily. Jamie, ever since we met, you’ve made me feel like this confident woman I thought I wasn’t. But now, after everything that’s happened, I realize I am that woman. That just because I worry about things, because I feel things deeply, because sometimes my body panics, because I don’t have that tough-girl bravado of, say, Tess or Holly, it doesn’t mean I’m weak. That I can be reserved and careful, and strong and brave at the same time.”

  “You can. And so many other things. But I don’t want to be the man who ultimately messes that up. You deserve more than I can give.”

  She flattened her hands onto his chest. “So I finally feel like I’m good enough for you and—what? Now you think you’re not good enough for me?”

  Oh why did she have to choose Christmas Day? “Samira, you were always good enough for me. And I was never good enough for you—I’m still not. I just pretended to be what you needed me to be, as long as I could.”

  “Can I be the judge of that? Because...” She patted his chest. Her tone was forceful but it trembled, like she was exploring a new part of her voice she hadn’t yet mastered. “You are so good for me. Trust me to know my own mind and make my own decisions.”

  “Oh I do. I just don’t trust my future self. What happens when I fall off the wagon again?”

  “Maybe I can help you stop that happening. Maybe you can get some help. Maybe I can be there to pick you up. I don’t know. I know nothing about addiction but I can learn. It’s a journey we can make together.”

  He took her hands, clutching them to his chest. “I don’t want to disappoint you, Samira. And I will, sooner or later. And that would break both our hearts.”

  Samira leaned her forehead against their linked hands. The fire popped. After half a minute she pushed away again. “What if I told you that you already have my approval and it’s not going to change? What if you didn’t have to worry about winning my...?” She looked down a few seconds, her eyes hidden under flickering eyelashes, then up again, jutting her jaw a little. “Okay, I’m going to say it, because I feel it and I don’t want to pretend this is all a holiday fling anymore because to me it’s not—and I don’t think it is to you, either, if you’re honest with yourself... What if you didn’t have to worry about winning my love, or losing it? What if you just considered it won? How would that change things?”

  Her whole body seemed to be fizzing. Her fear had given way to a fight.

  Damn, she was fighting for him, for them. And why was he fighting this, when he wanted it so bad, wanted her so bad? He swallowed. “You know, when you first started seeing through my jokes, seeing my many flaws, I felt physically sick, physically smaller, even. That night at the cottage, the way I let you down, the disappointment in your eyes...” Nausea bubbled in his stomach at the thought. “But after that passed, it was kind of a relief that you knew the worst, that you understood where I was coming from, even if it meant you lost respect for me.”

  She opened her mouth to speak.

  “And I know you did lose respect, Samira,” he said, jumping in. “But somehow that made this thing between us more honest. I’ve never let anybody this far in. You say I’ve given you so much? Well, you’ve given me more, in such a short time. I liked you the minute I met you—you had this quiet strength. And I keep finding more and more things to...” Hell, she’d said the L word. So could he. “To love.”

  She smiled, but she still had a sadness in her eyes. “I’m glad. I feel that way about you, too. More and more things...”

  He released her hands, cupped her jaw and leaned in, with a pang of guilt that he wasn’t quite giving her what she wanted. Was she right? Could there be someday, a one day—an always? As they kissed, she wound her hands around his back, burrowing under his clothing until she found bare skin. Her hands were cold but he bore down on his muscles to stop from flinching. The kiss was soft and pliant but insistent. A kiss of love, not just passing lust. A kiss with a future in it.

  She pulled back, and nestled her head against his neck. “It’s all so perfect here,” she said, wistfully. “I wish we could stay in this borrowed life.”

  His stomach coiled tight. He didn’t want a borrowed life. He wanted to own his life. He wanted a future he could strive toward, not this effortless rolling away of days. Samira wanted him and he wanted her. She was good for him and he was good for her. So why was he pushing her away? He was fighting himself, which made no sense at all.

  He wrapped his arms around her. Maybe he did have a choice here, after all. Maybe all the poor choices he’d made in the past didn’t have to determine what happened to him forever.

  “Corsica is nice, too,” he said, his lips grazing her silky hair, his voice a little shaky. “You’d like it there.”

  * * *

  SAMIRA PULLED BACK, her heart thudding. Jamie wore the slightest of frowns.

  “What are you saying?” she whispered.

  “I’m saying life would be just too dour if I went back without you. The dourest.” He didn’t come near to pulling off the joke. “But I do need to go back, a
t least for now. I don’t know if I can start over with a totally blank slate. I don’t know if it’s wise for me to step straight into a vacuum, even with you there. I need boundaries, structure.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving. “But maybe I can slowly move those boundaries, change those structures. With your help.”

  She filled her lungs. Pine, smoke, him. Delicious. “Anything,” she whispered.

  “I can move out of the barracks and we can find a little place to rent—maybe a simple cottage like this one. Except, you know—warmer. Tess has decided to base herself there, as a Europe correspondent for her network, and Rafe and Holly are there. There’s a solid group of other wives and partners. Can you do whatever it is you do for a day job from there? I’m sure we could sort out a visa now that I’m eligible for a French passport, if my British one isn’t en—”

  She laid a finger on his lips. “You don’t need to talk me into the logistics of it. I can live anywhere, I can work from anywhere—I just need to figure out what I want to do. But is this really what you want?”

  “Oh God, yes.” He rubbed her upper arms. “Wow, it’s such a relief to say that. I want this. I want you. I want us. Come with me, to Corsica—as a first step in whatever direction this journey might take us. I can’t see what the future holds for me—I used to be able to see it so well.”

  “I know that feeling exactly.”

  “But I do know I’d like a future with you in it. We’re good for each other, you and I.”

  “We are. And we can both rebuild our lives, together.”

  He bent slightly, grabbed an end of her scarf from the chair and reeled it in.

  “La couleur de minuit,” he said, draping it around her shoulders. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I am so thoroughly happy when I’m with you, inside and out. I didn’t know I could be properly happy again.”

  She smiled, her chest expanding at the utter beauty of it all. “Me, too. I don’t need four Js. Just the one.”

  He frowned for a second, then smiled as he figured it out. Outside, a bird called. He looked away, as if expecting to see the creature sitting on the mantelpiece. “And maybe sometimes we can have holidays right here. Because I have some relationships to fix.” He turned back with a bone-melting smile. “And one to begin.”

  “I think it’s already well begun, don’t you?”

  “Oh aye. Come here, mo ghràidh.”

  “I’m already here. Always.”

  He leaned in, still smiling as their lips touched. Roberta drifted into “Bridge over Troubled Water.” Samira wrapped her hands around his neck and he took her waist. As the lyrics floated around the room, the singer taking her slow, delicious time, they settled into a softly swaying dance, Jamie singing along in a low murmur. Samira burrowed under his thick layers of clothing to find his smooth, broad back. His deep, rich voice, the crackle of the fire, the warmth in her cheeks, his arms around her, his face in her hair...

  A one day and a someday and an always.

  Perfect.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from FORBIDDEN RIVER by Brynn Kelly

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It may be my name alone on the front cover of this book but it takes a village to raise a good story. I’m fortunate that my personal village is populated with so many smart and supportive people.

  First and foremost, my reliably perceptive and always charming editor Allison Carroll, and the rest of the talented team at HQN Books.

  My agent Nalini Akolekar of Spencerhill Associates. Grateful to have you in my corner.

  My technical advisers, beta readers, critique partners and support crew, who are always there when I need feedback, fact-checking, reality checks, talking back down from the cliff, and/or wine, including Mia Kay, Jennifer Brodie, Alexa Rowan, Brad McEvoy, Rosalind Martin, C.A. Speakman, Kari Lemor, Carrie Nichols, M.A. Grant, Stefanie London, Taryn Leigh Taylor, Tanya Wright, Jean Barrett, and my uplifting network of local friends. And my unfailingly wise, supportive and good-humored writing groups, primarily the Dragonflies and Romance Writers of New Zealand.

  I am blessed and honored to share this journey with such fine people.

  Ready for more pulse-pounding action? Take the plunge with the devilish legionnaire Cody as he plays a dangerous game at the end of the earth—in FORBIDDEN RIVER by Brynn Kelly, a novella guaranteed to capture your heart and take your breath away.

  Read on for a sneak peek at FORBIDDEN RIVER by Brynn Kelly!

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE CHOPPER APPEARED on the horizon, hovering like a dragonfly over the slate-blue mountain range. Right on time. A second later the bass throb of its blades ricocheted around the valley, on air so crisp Cody Castillo felt he could reach out and snap it.

  He hauled his kayak and paddle from a baggage cart parked outside the airport terminal, loaded with the few supplies he needed for a river paddle. Food, pup tent, sleeping bag, thermals, first aid kit, safety gear, wet weather gear. His gut fizzed. One night in an alpine hut—alone, hopefully—and then nobody and nothing for four beautiful days. Fuck right off, world.

  CROOKED VALLEY AIRPORT, the sign read. Well, Crooked Alley. The V had fallen off the line of letters spaced along the roof of the squat hangar that passed for a terminal. The Y was on its side, the T just hanging in there. Way out here at the end of the world, if you needed a sign to tell you where you’d wound up, you were crazy lost.

  He’d been to plenty middles of nowhere—Marfa in Texas, the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia, Camopi in French Guiana... Like this, they weren’t the kinds of places you happened upon, pit stops on a road trip, derelict stations on a train line. Nope, it took full commitment to get nowhere. For him, in this case: a ride in a rattly legion Peugeot 4WD from his base at Calvi to Bastia, a ferry from Corsica to Nice, a flight to Paris and then Auckland, via Hong Kong. That sucked up the first forty-eight hours of his leave. Then to Christchurch and a two-day wait for a flight over the Southern Alps aboard a five-seater Cessna piloted by a farmer who might have learned to fly in World War II, going by his age and the way he dipped and dived like he was still dodging the Luftwaffe. Just one journey left—a chopper ride to the source of the legendary Awatapu River—and then he was on his own steam.

  Cody laid the kayak on the deserted tarmac, grit scraping the hull. Yep, Crooked Valley/Alley was his kind of airport, where the arrival of a plane seemed to baffle the skeleton staff. No baggage carousels—just the cart pulled by a quad bike, driven by the ace pilot himself, once he’d shut down the plane. “Security” was a ninety-year-old unarmed guard in a uniform she might have worn for half a century, shrinking into it every year until it hung off her like a kid’s costume. No gates, no announcements—more a bus stop than an airport.

  The helicopter began to descend, surfing the clouds sloshing over the range. Ah, New Zealand. A throwback to the days when the biggest threat to aviation was a Canada goose. One-third the size of home—

  One-third the size of Texas. A long time since Texas had been home.

  As it neared, the chopper mutated from insect to bird to machine, the blades beating a different note from the engine. An older model Eurocopter. Not the armored, camo-painted Puma or Tigre he usually rode but a tidy little Écureuil. A squirrel. He shaded his eyes as the chopper kissed the tarmac and settled, late-afternoon sun bouncing off the windshield. The rotors slowed until the disc dissolved and the blades became distinguishable—twelve, nine, six, then the regular three as they whined to a stop. What was the pilot’s name again? Cody squinted, trying to picture the address on the confirmation email. Tia, right? Tia Kupa.

  The pilot’s door hinged back and he stepped out. No, not he, not with those curves rounding out the tight blue jeans and that thick black hair swaying to her shoulders. She, and one hell of a she.

  She swiveled and walked his way, shoving her hands in the pockets of a black leather fligh
t jacket. The kind of woman his mom would call handsome rather than pretty. Statuesque. Square jaw, cut cheekbones, smooth skin a little darker than his own, dark brown freckles splattered across her nose and cheeks. Maybe thirty, so about his age. She had the commanding aura of an officer, someone who quietly assumed she’d be respected, and thus was respected. Māori, he guessed.

  “You’re my guy?” She pushed sunglasses off her face and looked him down and up. Her eyes weren’t the brown he’d expected—not that he’d stopped to think about it—but a blazing green, almost hard to look at with the sun striking them. “The kayaker?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Tex—I mean Cody.” It felt weird to be that guy again—no one called him Cody anymore. But introducing himself as “Texas” felt off. His commando team had inflicted the nickname on him years ago but he didn’t offer it around.

  She assessed his shiny orange kayak, nose to stern. “You might want to ditch the price tag.” She nodded at the ticket attached to a grab loop.

  “Yeah. Easier to buy a new kit than transport it.” Not that he needed to explain.

  “If you have the money, sure, why not?” There was a bite in her voice. Yep, she had him all figured out. The kind of adventure tourist who bought new gear and chartered a helicopter? He wouldn’t take kindly to that guy, either. But hey, who cared what she thought, as long as she dropped him somewhere remote and deserted. “I’m busting for a wee. Keep an eye on her for me.” She waved vaguely at the chopper.

  He looked left and right. Apart from the security guard, who was sitting slumped at a graying bench dragged up against the hangar wall, there was no life for several dead-flat miles. “You expecting a hijacking or a parking ticket?”

  “Funny,” she said, her tone indicating it wasn’t. “Don’t go any closer till I get back.”

  She flicked her sunglasses onto her nose and walked away, ruffling her hair, her stride lithe and confident. Owning it.