She was gripping the cable running up the front of her harness with both hands, but so were most of the people ahead of them. Hell, it had been his first impulse, too, as he stepped out. But he reached for her again, and the moment his hand made contact with her back, she let go of her cable with one hand and wrenched his arm around until she was holding his hand with a pretty damned impressive death grip. Now that they were out on the walkway that circled the tower, they were side by side, so he could see her face. Yep, she was scared shitless.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he said, looking out over the lake, his own heart pounding. “No glass, no walls, just us and the sky.” As cliché as it sounded, when you were up high like this, it gave you a kind of perspective on life. Let you rise above all the bullshit. Hence his affinity for towers and observation decks.
Jane was taking deep, shaky breaths, but at least she was breathing. After they shuffled partway around the deck, the guide began walking the participants, one by one, through an exercise where they turned their backs to the view and leaned back, putting their bodies at a sixty-degree angle relative to the tower, making them look a little like they were frozen in place while skydiving.
“Jane!” said the guide, a young outdoorsy dude who had somehow managed to learn everyone’s names. “You’re up!”
“You don’t have to do this,” Cam whispered. Indeed, there had been a woman ahead of them who had refused and was currently plastered against the inner wall of the tower hugging herself with her eyes closed. “We’ll consider the dare fulfilled.” Why he added that, he had no idea. Win or lose, she would never know what—or who—he did after they parted ways.
She shook her head as she turned and followed the guide’s instructions to bend her knees and inch backward until her heels came to the edge. When she was crouched in the ready position, she looked up at him and echoed what he’d said to her downstairs.
“Sometimes you have to open your eyes and jump, right?”
And she fell backward and screamed.
God, she was gorgeous. She was laughing even as she screamed, and the super-saturated bright blue of the sky and lake behind her made everything about her pop. Her wide eyes were jades, her hair, much of which had escaped her ponytail and was flapping around in the wind, mahogany fire. How had he ever thought to describe any aspect of her as muddy? She was a goddess, frozen in place as she plummeted to Earth, like the universe had stopped her before she could fall all the way and sully herself by mixing with the mortals below.
“Your turn,” the guide said to Cam.
He followed the guy’s instructions, turned, and fell. It was his turn to laugh-scream. It was the fear of falling, the relief of not falling, the cold silent sky blanketing the city below them. It was Jane, turning her head to look at him with her mouth hanging open as she hooted and grinned. It was all those sensations swirling as if they were being churned together by the wind that whipped around them.
Unlike most of the others, Jane wasn’t holding on to her cable. She had her arms spread wide, like in that stupid Titanic movie. So he mimicked her pose, spreading his arms, too.
Their fingertips brushed. Maybe it was the adrenaline of being out here, but he felt it as a spark, an extra jolt to his already hyper-alert system.
All too soon the guide had them bringing themselves back to standing on the platform.
His hand sought her back again almost of its own accord, though she clearly didn’t need the reassurance anymore.
As if to hammer home the point, she looked over her shoulder at him, eyes shining, and said, “That. Was. Awesome.”
* * *
Back in the regular old non-outdoor, non-glass-floored observation deck, Jane felt like a rock star. She couldn’t stop exclaiming over the EdgeWalk. Yes, it had been terrifying, but underneath the fear there had also been a whole lot of other stuff. Exhilaration. Wonder at how strange and beautiful the world was from such a radically different vantage point. Then, utter astonishment when she was hit with a revelation that took her breath away: this was how Stephanie, the protagonist of the Clouded Cave series, felt when she first realized the cave was more than a cave.
They were in the Skypod, the tower’s highest observation deck. It was higher than the EdgeWalk level, so when they looked down, they could see another group of people inching their way around the outdoor platform. She studied the commemorative photo they’d given her, of the group extended out over the void. It was hard to believe she had really done that. “You were right,” she said, still buzzing from their adventure. “Sometimes you do have to open your eyes and jump.” She’d been thinking about that phrase. Most people would have said close your eyes and jump. But not Cameron. He did things with his eyes open.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” He cocked his head.
He’d been lost in his thoughts—they both had been—so she repeated herself. “Sometimes you have to open your eyes and—”
“No, the first part.”
Huh? “What first part?”
“The part where you said, ‘You were right.’”
She swatted him, but she couldn’t help laughing as she did so. “Once. You were right once. Don’t let it go to your head.”
They were facing the city, looking across and down at the shiny high-rises of downtown Toronto. He really had seemed like he was somewhere else a moment ago, and now he was rubbing the back of his neck, like he was tense. She followed his gaze back out to the skyline. “How long have you been back in Canada?”
He answered without looking at her. “This is day three.”
“It must be hard to adjust.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “I mean, look at this. It’s probably like night and day from the landscape you’re used to.” Then she shook her head. “Well, of course it is. That was a stupid thing to say.”
He turned then. “Not stupid. You’re right. Coming back is…hard.”
She opened her mouth to ask more, but he made a beckoning motion with his arm and said, “Let’s check out the other side.”
She followed him. “I read that on a clear day, you can see all the way to Niagara Falls from here.”
They squinted in the appropriate direction but didn’t see anything that looked like it was one of the modern wonders of the world.
“Niagara Falls,” he said. “I’ve never been there. Always wanted to see it.”
She sort of assumed that everyone who lived in Ontario had been to Niagara Falls, but of course Thunder Bay, where he’d grown up, was a lot farther away. And since the family had been poor, he probably hadn’t gone on trips there as a kid like she had.
“It’s really something,” she said. “The falls, I mean. The rest of it is cheese ball central.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the town that’s developed around the falls is a total tourist trap. Casinos, tacky souvenirs, carnivals, that sort of thing. They even have an observation tower, but it’s like the shrimpy little sibling of this one.” She patted the railing. “And I don’t think they let you dangle off the side.”
“Let’s do it.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not that far from Toronto, is it? What, maybe an hour and a half?”
“Yessss,” she said warily.
“Remember how you just said I was right?”
“Once. You were right about one thing.”
“Maybe two?”
“I’m not taking you to Niagara Falls.”
“No, I’m taking you to Niagara Falls,” he said, like the decision had already been made. “Tomorrow.”
“I can’t. I have…stuff to do.”
“Beyond babysitting me?”
“I’m not babysitting you,” she lied—for the zillionth time.
“What stuff do you have to do?”
“I have my costume for Comicon to finish.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m sure it can wait one day.”
She shook the phot
o she was clutching. “I have to plaster this all over my author social media accounts.” Which would take all of five minutes. But oh! “I have wedding stuff.” The universal excuse. She pulled out her phone and opened the calendar app. Crap, she actually did have wedding stuff. Calligraphy lessons, to be precise. Lessons Elise had enrolled them in because it would be “fun.” Not because the convenient side effect of the lessons would be a gaggle of bridesmaids armed with the skills necessary to produce three hundred hand-lettered place cards.
Ding.
At that very moment, a new calendar invite popped up.
“Papermaking?” she read aloud. What in heaven’s name?
Then a text from Elise arrived. She swiped over to it.
Hey squad! I added a papermaking session to the calligraphy class tomorrow. When you see these artisanal place cards we can make, you will DIE. I need you all to bring egg cartons though, and any paper towel or toilet paper rolls you might have. We need fibrous things to get the proper vintage look. And one of you needs to pick up some white felt. Okay? C U soon! Xo
Another text arrived, this one from Gia,
White felt. On it.
Jane looked up. “Pick me up at eight tomorrow morning. I’ll text you my address.”
Chapter Six
Normally, Jane was a second-guesser. It wasn’t like her to do something as impulsive as a random weekday day trip to Niagara Falls. And if she did decide to do something so out of character, she usually spent the hours following agonizing over it.
That was not happening in this case.
“See?” said Elise, holding up a small square of ragged-edge beige paper so all the girls clustered around the table could see it. “This sample is a little too mushroomy, but that’s what the white felt is for. They say that we can get it to look more solidly ecru if we add more white felt. You should see it. It’s really something. It’s like this big blender you put all this stuff into to make the pulp that will form the paper.” She sighed happily and took a sip of her wine. “I was going to use regular recycled cardstock, but I love that this option is even more environmentally friendly.”
“But not really,” said Wendy, setting her empty pint glass on the bar table with a thunk. “I mean, if you have to buy felt for it—”
“Already bought!” Gia chirped, shooting Wendy a quelling look and producing said felt from her handbag. Gia always carried one of those giant, ugly designer bags that cost as much as a small sedan. She placed a square of felt in front of Elise. “Now, I made a little bit of an executive decision here. This is a one hundred percent wool felt from Mongolia.” Elise cooed as she ran her hand over it. “I thought that would be a better option than synthetic. I’m friends with one of Karl’s drapers, and he hooked me up with a local source.”
“Lagerfeld?” Elise asked, even though they all knew that if Gia was referencing a Karl, it could only be Lagerfeld.
Gia nodded.
“OMG, Ladybug, you are the best.” “Ladybug” was Elise’s pet name for Gia, dating back to their university years, and it only came out when Elise was extra emotional. Elise looked around at all of them, getting a little teary, and placed her hand over her heart. “You’re all the best. Honestly, I love how everyone is coming together around this wedding.”
“I’m so sorry I’m going to have to miss the big papermaking and calligraphy session tomorrow,” Jane said, coughing to cover the yelp that bubbled up her throat when Wendy stamped on her foot under the table.
“I know,” Elise said, turning and grabbing Jane’s hand. “But that’s what I mean. Everyone on this team is really contributing, leveraging her strengths for the common good.” She brought her hand back to her heart, but took Jane’s along, too. “And you especially, Jane. You have the hardest job of them all. Thank you.”
“Oh, he’s not that bad,” Jane said.
“No, he is that bad,” Elise said emphatically. “He’s hardly spoken to Jay, and you should have seen how he smirked at me when we were introduced this afternoon. But I knew you would be able to manage him. You just…you have such an air of responsibility about you. You’re my most levelheaded friend.”
“Uh, thanks?” Jane ventured, tugging a little to try to get her hand back.
“Let’s do shots!” Elise clapped her hands together, which had the side effect of releasing Jane’s hand. “On me! I’ll run and get them at the bar. Be right back, squad!”
Jane had trained herself not to wince when Elise referred to them as a “squad,” but she still bristled internally. If they weren’t careful, Elise would decide it would be “fun” to re-enact Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood video as part of the wedding festivities. And with Gia in town, they even had their own model.
The moment Elise was out of sight, Jane and her fellow bridesmaids slumped back in their chairs.
“Are you going to finish that?” Gia asked, eyeing Jane’s untouched wine. She hadn’t been planning to drink but hadn’t wanted Elise to get on her case for being a party pooper.
“Be my guest,” Jane said, but before Gia could grab the glass, Wendy swooped in, stole it, and chugged it.
Then she slammed it down next to her already-empty beer glass and said, “Mongolian wool, Gia?”
“Actually…” Gia leaned forward and gestured for them to come in close. “It’s from Dollarama.” Then she rummaged around in her fifty-gallon handbag and produced a crinkly plastic bag, presumably holding the rest of the felt, with the chain store’s logo on it.
“Oh my God, I freaking love you,” said Wendy, throwing her head back and performing the signature cackle that always made Jane smile.
“Look who I found at the bar!”
They all started a little—they’d been so huddled in on each other that they hadn’t noticed Elise’s return. Gia shoved the dollar store bag into her purse with such force that she started to slip off her chair. The only thing stopping her was the insertion of a large, masculine arm breaking her fall.
Jane was next to Gia, so her back was to the newcomers, but she didn’t need to see them to recognize those tattoos. The idea that she had woken this morning with that arm draped around her made her face heat.
“This must be the famous brother!” said Gia, eyes twinkling up at her rescuer.
Elise, looking less thrilled than she had a moment ago when they were talking artisanal paper, made introductions.
Jay was carrying a tray of tequila shooters and lime wedges, which he proceeded to pass around. Jane was about to decline when he set a different one in front of her.
“Cam said you’d want this instead.”
It was a B-52. She glanced at Cameron, who winked at her. Wow, that was…thoughtful. Jane was, frankly, impressed that Cameron was here with his brother. It meant he was keeping to his word about the no hookups thing, honoring the terms of their bet.
He plopped down on Gia’s other side and leaned over like he was intending to speak only to Gia, but Jane, since she was paying such close attention, heard what he said. “Well, I don’t know about famous.” Was it just her or had he turned up that slow, not-quite-southern drawl?
Also: crap! She had been fixated, for some reason, on the idea of him accidentally picking up one of Jay’s friends or neighbors and triggering an unexpected chain of fallout that led to disaster.
She hadn’t even thought about Gia.
Gia was gorgeous. Jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Jane was used to it—it was like she’d had exposure therapy or something—but when you were meeting Gia for the first time? Well, just hope you weren’t simultaneously operating any heavy machinery.
Also, Gia was…how to say it?
A little…slutty.
In the best possible, sex-positive, non-shaming, feminist sense of the word.
But still. If Jane was in a five-years-and-counting dry spell, Gia was more than making up for it. Jane could only hope that Gia’s sense of loyalty to Elise—dollar store felt aside, she was taking her maid of honor duties seriously—would mean she would con
sider Cameron off limits.
Gia scooched her chair closer to Cameron. “So you’re just back from Iraq?”
Apparently not.
“I am indeed,” he answered.
“And what’s up next, Cam?” asked Jay, who, like Jane, must have been listening in on the conversation. “I don’t think you ever said.”
On the surface of things, it was a benign question. Jay’s eyebrows were slightly raised, as if he’d merely asked about how his brother’s day had been. Aside from those elevated eyebrows, Jay was his characteristic cool and unflappable self. Still, though, there was an unmistakable undercurrent of…something there.
“Not sure yet,” Cameron said. A muscle in his jaw twitched.
“And how’s Christie?” Jay asked, so immediately on the heels of Cameron’s answer that it brought to mind a lawyer badgering an opposing witness in court.
“Who’s Christie?” Elise asked.
“Christie is Cameron’s girlfriend,” Jay said, not taking his eyes off his brother.
What? Hadn’t Cameron proclaimed himself “single, young, and back on Canadian soil” just yesterday?
“Christie is my ex-girlfriend,” Cameron answered, staring back at Jay.
Jane found herself strangely relieved. But only because she was glad Cameron wouldn’t be cheating on his girlfriend when he finally got around to checking “hook up with some randoms” off his return-to-civilian-life list.
She was also very curious about this Christie person.
“And how long did you wait after you got back to downgrade her status?” Jay asked.
Elise opened her mouth like she was going to say something. But then she closed it. Jane didn’t blame her. It was hard to know how, or whether, to intervene in this brotherly “discussion.” But she did kind of want it to go on, if only so she could learn what kind of woman Cameron had been with.
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