She pushed her toes over a new foothold, but struggled to lock in her balance. “Very. I worked in the kitchen at Kismet for two years. Busted my butt to get an apprenticeship under the head chef, actually.” Whoa, the peg under her foot was a lot narrower than she’d thought. Damn it. “But despite all that hard work and the thousands of dishes I made in that kitchen, do you know how many people I fed who really needed it?”
“Here. Try using your instep rather than your toes. Like this.” Alex shifted his hips back to give her a clear line of sight on his feet as he demonstrated the new maneuver before returning to her question with attention that hadn’t even skipped a pulse. “How many?”
“None.” Zoe angled the inside curve of her arch across the slim ridge of the foothold, and wow, that sure did the trick on her wobbly balance. “Don’t get me wrong. As much as I love being in the kitchen, I understand that restaurants are businesses. They have to make money. But working at Kismet felt so commercial, like the thing I loved most about being a chef was getting lost in the translation of doing as many covers as possible during any given shift. Like despite all my hard work and all the heart I was putting into the food, none of it really mattered.”
She hesitated, filling the silence with a reach for the large handhold an arm’s length above her. This was right about the point in the conversation where she usually lost everyone. Hell, if she’d had this conversation with herself three years ago, she’d have thought she’d lost her crackers.
But Alex just waited, his expression completely unvarnished, from the strong set of his jaw to the tropical-ocean blue of his stare, and it prompted the rest of the story right past Zoe’s lips.
“At first I thought I was just restless working the line. While I don’t mind doing straight labor and prep, potential chefs aren’t exactly taught a lack of initiative in culinary school. Working in a kitchen is extremely competitive.”
“Cutting your teeth as a rookie can suck pretty bad,” he agreed with a laugh. “For us, at least, a decent chunk of the first year is training and dress rehearsal so you can get used to the work and learn how to manage your adrenaline. It’s tough to do the watch-and-learn when you’ve been eating ambition for breakfast all the way through school, though.”
Forget culinary school. Zoe had been lining up goals and knocking them down like bowling pins ever since middle school. Her parents had never expected anything less, and she’d never delivered anything but the best, for them and herself. “Exactly. I was sure that if I earned my way off the line and studied under one of the best chefs in DC, I’d make more of a difference as a sous chef and my unease would let up.”
“But?” Apparently, patience wasn’t one of Alex’s virtues. Not that she’d expected it to be.
“But a year later, all I’d done was the same dance with different steps. I know it sounds sappy and idealistic, but I don’t just love food for me. I want to nurture people, and I became a chef so I could make an impact with my cooking. I tried to gut it out at Kismet, I really did, but—”
“You became a chef so you could feed people, and you didn’t want to go halfway.”
Holy crap. Not only had Alex filled in the blanks of her sentence with freakish accuracy, but his easy nod suggested that he hadn’t just taken a lucky stab at what he thought she might say.
For a split second, he looked like he actually got it.
Zoe pulled in a fortifying breath, but it got stuck in the vicinity of her windpipe. “You know, most people think I’m crazy when I tell them I left one of Washingtonian’s Top 100 Restaurants so I could come back to my hometown to start a soup kitchen in the projects on half a shoestring.”
“First of all, I think we’ve already established that I’m not really the most accurate barometer for deciding what’s crazy. Secondly . . . what do you think?”
“Huh?” Great. Now she was confused and ineloquent. But even in the face of her verbal bumbling, Alex remained completely even keeled.
“It’s not a trick question, Zoe.” His eyes glinted in the over-bright fluorescent lights, and sweet baby Jesus, since when did the king of recklessness have an innocent look? “I just want to know what you think about leaving the restaurant circuit to run the kitchen at Hope House.”
Something broke free in her chest, letting the words bubble out one over the other like a stockpot left to simmer for too long. “I think that when I went to culinary school, I just wanted the truth of the food, to make a difference by feeding people. The reality of working in a restaurant, with all that focus on the bottom line rather than the big picture never felt like it quite fit me. But working at Hope House does. Even if it isn’t upscale or glamorous . . . it’s still mine. It’s what I love.”
Alex froze into place, not moving against the dark sheen of the climbing wall. “Wanting to do what you love doesn’t sound crazy to me. It sounds like you’re not waiting around to live your life. It sounds honest.”
Zoe blurted out her answer before she could lock it down inside her mouth. “You want to know the really crazy part? No one’s ever asked me what I thought before. I mean, I’ve told my former boss and my parents what I felt plenty of times.” Not that they’d ever really heard her. “But they were all so lasered in on what I was leaving and what they thought I was throwing away that they missed the part that mattered the most. None of them actually asked me why I wanted to run a soup kitchen.”
“Leaving the primrose path is actually a little risky,” he said, wrapping his fingers around his belay line and navigating his body around hers just enough to lock her left leg into place with his right. “Want to know what else is risky?”
Zoe blinked, remotely aware of Alex’s arm snaking back around her waist. “What?”
“Look down.”
For a second, his words didn’t register. But then she dropped her gaze from his face to the floor, and a wave of freezing cold fear went skidding through her gut.
They were more than halfway up the wall. Three stories. Thirty feet.
And she hadn’t been scared.
No, scratch that. She’d been so at ease, she hadn’t even noticed.
“Oh my God.” Zoe’s muscles seized without her permission, her grip going from easy does it to a thermonuclear crush in about two seconds flat. As if he’d anticipated her reaction, Alex firmed his grip on her rib cage, enough to hold her steady but not so much as to alter her position or throw her off balance. He dropped his chin to the spot just above her ear, his slow, easy exhale tickling the back of her neck as his voice threaded past the soundtrack of oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit being pumped out by her heart.
“Zoe, take a breath. All the way in.”
Miraculously, she did. “We’re really high off the ground.”
“We’re a good ways up,” Alex agreed, and his honesty hooked her attention just enough to get her to stop clutching. Okay, mostly. “But you’re perfectly fine, just like you were a minute ago. In fact, you’re actually doing great.”
She chanced a peek over her shoulder. Kyle stood in the exact spot where they’d left him, with her belay line wrapped carefully around both of his hands, and she slid one palm over the smooth nylon of the harness keeping her in check. Her peek became a longer look, and a strange sensation infused her chest before moving outward to her limbs.
“I feel great. Also, a little terrified,” Zoe qualified, because hello, they were still dangling above the ground at the equivalent height of a three-story apartment building. “But it’s maybe not as horrible as I thought it would be.”
“Well, then. I guess that leaves me with just one thing to say.”
Although Zoe had regained her balance on the hand and footholds in front of her, Alex didn’t scale back on his proximity. The warmth of his murmur coasted over her neck, settling in at her belly as she braced for the gloating that would surely follow.
Only it didn’t.
“Up or down?”
“What?” She blinked, certain she’d misunderstood, but Alex just released her with a wi
de-open grin.
“Do you want to keep climbing up, or should we head back down to the ground?”
Although the cocky gleam in his eyes told her he’d merely tabled his victory dance, right now, in this moment, with her muscles humming from use and her bloodstream soaked with a double dose of bulletproof endorphins, Zoe didn’t care.
“A little farther wouldn’t hurt. After all, I promised you an honest go, and you’re right. I’m a woman of my word.”
Chapter Ten
While Alex Donovan had been called a lot of things by a lot of people, patient had never once graced the list. So the fact that he waited to claim his win for nearly five hours while he and Zoe climbed the north wall a half dozen times, took breathers in between to discuss mechanics and practice a few techniques, and had a spirited conversation with both Jocelyn and Kyle about the most intense outdoor climbs they’d ever been on? Hell, that even took him by surprise. But now that they were back in Zoe’s car, with her smile bright enough to power a nuclear reactor and the energy to match, the gloves were coming off.
“You look like you enjoyed yourself today,” he said, going for the understatement rather than the kill. He did have just under four whole weeks to gloat. Anyway, she looked so frigging cute over there, tapping her fingers to a tuneless beat over the steering wheel as she smiled intermittently to herself and followed the backlit path to his house on her phone’s GPS. While half of Alex’s purpose today had been to win the bet, the other half had been to prove that getting a little reckless wasn’t such a heinous infraction. After all, if you weren’t busy grabbing life by the hey-nannies, you were pretty much just wasting time.
And time had a way of disappearing with a whole lot of someday still left on the table.
“A little. Maybe.” Zoe folded her latest smile between her teeth, but even in the dusky evening shadows starting to darken the car, her expression had pure, uncut bliss scrawled all over it.
“You bought a six-month open climb membership before we even went up the wall a fourth time,” Alex said, bringing himself all the way back to the moment with a laugh. “I hate to break it to you, but your definition of maybe looks pretty tilted from over here.”
“Okay, okay!” She broke ranks with her careful ten-and-two-hand positioning on the steering wheel just long enough to nudge him with an elbow. “As much as it pains me to say you were right, I’m not above giving credit where it’s due. Even though I have no idea how you pulled it off, I didn’t hate rock climbing.”
He tamped down the urge to let his inner twelve-year-old break free for an elaborate fist-pump, oh-yeah celebration, opting instead to keep his smile tacked into place. “I didn’t think you would. But for the record, I didn’t pull anything off. You did.”
Zoe crossed the boundary to his neighborhood, squinting hard at the path Alex had known for over half his life. “How’s that? You’re the one who showed me what to do.”
“True,” he said, the adrenaline of the day combining with the carefree look on her face to send his blood on a faster circuit through his veins. “But you’re the one who took the leap.”
“How did you know? That I wouldn’t hate it, I mean. Or was that a risk, too?”
“I’ve got to admit, you threw me for a bit of a rope-a-dope when you said you were afraid of heights.” Truly, it had been Alex’s only moment of doubt for the entire afternoon. Not that he’d been about to let a little thing like steeper odds stand in his path. Shit. Most of the time, that just gave the risk at hand more of a kick. “But I still had a feeling that if you gave climbing an honest shake, you’d get into it anyway.”
She pulled into the narrow stretch of asphalt serving as his driveway, shooting him what she’d probably intended to be a cool stare. Too bad for her, the smile still lifting the corners of her mouth destroyed her game face. “You’re a little presumptuous, don’t you think?”
“It’s not presumptuous if I’m right,” he said, releasing his seat belt with a muted click. Okay, now he was kind of messing with her, but come on. With the holy trinity of a great climb, a winning bet, and the bold look taking up residence on Zoe’s pretty face right now? He had enough feel-good endorphins kicking through him to bench press a Sherman tank.
Alex popped the handle on the passenger door of the Prius, retrieving his gear bag from the backseat and waiting for Zoe to slide out from the driver’s side before continuing. “Look, I didn’t take you rock climbing today to change who you are or how you think, Zoe. You might cover it up most of the time, but under all that by-the-book rule-following and carefully constructed caution, I think you’ve got a reckless streak. I only took you climbing to prove that letting it out once in a while won’t hurt.”
Her bright peal of laughter threaded through the cool evening air, tagging Alex right in the chest. “Right. I’m sure the way I nearly called it quits before we even started climbing is a prime example of my wild side.”
“Maybe not. But the way you tackled the north wall once you put your mind to it sure was.”
“Listen, I’m not trying to renege on our bet,” she said, holding up one hand to punctuate the words as she followed him toward the garage. “But believe me, any recklessness you saw from me today was an anomaly.”
“And what about five years ago, at the FFD barbecue? Was that an anomaly, too?”
Ah, hell. Alex’s unbreakable mood had ushered the question past his lips before he could cage it. But as dangerous as the topic might be, he wasn’t about to deny wanting to know what had sparked the by-the-book attitude that hadn’t been there five years ago.
Not to mention why she was hiding her boldness beneath it.
Zoe’s cheeks pinkened, deep enough for the blush to be visible even in the waning daylight around them. “You remember that?”
Her tanned, muscular legs in the cutoff shorts she’d been wearing, the flush of a couple of beers mixed with the summer heat on her pretty, pixie face . . . Jesus, she had to be completely off her rocker if she thought he’d ever be able to forget.
“Of course I remember it,” he said, punching in the garage code and turning to face her as the door trundled up the track with a rhythmic clack-clack-clack. “You were wearing a white tank top and that pair of dangly earrings. They kept getting caught in your hair.”
“I hated those things.” She laughed, soft and self-deprecating. Still, her chin stayed up, and damn, she was the perfect mix of sweet and strong.
“Then why’d you wear them?”
“I wanted to look grown up.” Another laugh puffed past her lips, just as enticing as the first. “Fat lot of good it did me.”
“You looked pretty grown up when you asked me to kiss you,” Alex said, all truth, and although her blush gained intensity, Zoe answered the same way.
“I’d had a few. And by a few, I mean like six. But it doesn’t really matter. Just because I was tipsy and voiced my ridiculous crush on you doesn’t make me reckless, although I’m sure you got a great laugh out of the whole thing later.”
His head jacked up, matching his pulse. “You think I was laughing at you?”
“I don’t know.” Zoe paused, lifting one fleece-wrapped shoulder before following him all the way into the tidy, shadow-covered space of the garage. “The captain’s socially awkward and moderately sloshed daughter who you look at like a kid sister asks you to kiss her, and well . . . yeah. To be honest, once I sobered up, I thought there was no way you weren’t laughing.”
She couldn’t be serious. He’d spent the rest of that day alternating between mentally reciting baseball stats to get rid of his hard-on and kicking himself for his sudden and ill-timed attack of scruples.
Alex unshouldered his backpack, lowering it to the narrow wooden workbench nailed along the back wall of the garage. “You’re out of your damn mind.”
“The concept of a brain to mouth filter is lost on you, isn’t it?”
“I don’t see much point in trying to pretty things up. Life’s too short for bullshit.”<
br />
Zoe’s lips opened just slightly, bold fire combining with unmistakable want in her eyes, and in that instant, the thread snapped.
Pushing off from the workbench to cover the space between them in only a few steps, Alex angled closer, capturing a tendril of hair that had fallen loose from one of her low-slung braids. Without hesitation, he let his fingers glide all the way to the end of the silky length, bringing them to a stop right over her collarbone. “In fact, life’s too short for lots of things.”
“Like what?” Zoe asked, her voice no more than a husky whisper. She reached up to wrap her fingers around his hand, and that one small gesture was all the encouragement Alex needed.
“Like this.”
The space between them was gone in a breath, his mouth covering hers at the same moment she pressed forward to meet him. The kiss was the polar opposite of the way she’d claimed to be, fierce and fast and daring, and Alex gave in to the rush with a groan. Thrusting his fingers through Zoe’s hair, he parted her lips with his tongue, cupping the back of her neck and swinging her toward the workbench as he searched and tasted and took. But rather than following his lead or melting into the intensity of the kiss, she met him measure for measure. Zoe’s hands scooped up to tangle in his hair, the tug of her grip as she held him close and kissed him hard sending ripples of pleasure-pain on a straight shot to his cock.
This wasn’t impulse. It was insanity.
And Zoe felt so unbelievably hot, with her tongue sweeping over his bottom lip and her teeth following suit with just enough pressure to excite without stinging, that Alex didn’t care.
Even though a voice somewhere deep in the basest part of him growled its displeasure, he broke from Zoe’s mouth to place a string of kisses across her jaw, nudging her chin up with a rasp of stubble on sweet skin. Not only did Zoe oblige, but her grasp on him tightened. A heavy, want-soaked sigh sifted up from her chest and he lowered his mouth over the soft column of her neck.
Christ. How could this woman taste like sin and innocence? And more importantly, why was it driving him so fucking mad?
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