With Every Breath (Wanderlust #1)

by Lia Riley

  “Don’t let me keep you from doing what you’d normally get up to.” Jesus, I sound like a director. Pretend I’m not here. Act natural for the camera. Let me observe you in your natural habitat. It kind of makes me hate myself.

  Who are you, Rhys MacAskill? What happened to you on that mountain?

  “All right, then.” He links his hands behind his back and stretches out his shoulders. “Let’s go for a scramble.”

  “Scramble?” The word comes out clipped, sharp, like I’m guilty of something.

  “You’ve a better offer?”

  How about star fishing on the ground and slowing my frenzied journalist heart?

  “There.” He points to a steep scree slope. “We’ll get a good view from that vantage.” He glances back. “You up for that?”

  I took my steroid inhaler this morning; everything seems under control except my nerves. “I’ll bring the Albuterol just in case, but if I go slow, I should be OK.” That’s a much more even tone. Better.

  “I’ll grab us a snack.”

  “You think about food a lot.”

  “I’m always hungry,” he answers dryly even as his lips lift in a smile.

  How does he manage to do that? He makes simple things sound so dirty. I can’t afford to be writhing. I need to figure out my next move. Jesus. Is this how Harper sees the world? Reducing people to stepping-stones, tools for her personal advancement?

  “Do you think the stream will drop by tomorrow?” I call out as we set off. I’m trying to keep his pace and failing, my muscles stiff from yesterday’s hike.

  “I imagine so, but it’s hard to say. You want to be rid of me, is that it?” He slows and waits for me to catch up on the rise ahead.

  How much time do I have before it gets weird that I don’t disclose knowing who he is? Jesus, it’s already weird. I’m like an embedded reporter and can’t help but look at him with new eyes. Yes, he’s still as beautiful as before, but now he’s a story, something that I am almost genetically designed to react to, assess, and record. This would slam-dunk me into the coveted Outsider position. I’d be able to be a functioning grown-up with a job in my chosen field.

  “Your company isn’t totally unlikable,” I say when I reach his side, hoping my panting isn’t massively obvious. The sweat sheening my forehead is no doubt a good look, not to mention my whole back is wet.

  “Funny.” He puts me on lockdown with his wolf eyes, or maybe they’re hawk-like. There’s a predatory gleam to them, a little wild, and I can’t shake the feeling I’m in over my head. “I feel the same way about you.”

  “Well, then.” My laugh is weak, a whistle like the last squeeze in a ketchup bottle. “We’re in good company.”

  We continue up the slope. He’s doing switchbacks, obviously for my benefit, rather than heading straight up, but it’s nice of him. He could no doubt rocket up this hill like the Flash. “So…”

  “So…”

  I hunt around for random chitchat and arrive at the most obvious. “Have any resolutions?”

  He frowns. “Resolutions?”

  “For the next year. It’s New Year’s Eve today.” Normally this day doesn’t hold much meaning to me. If anything, it’s a depressing reminder how year in and year out, very little changes in my life. Today is just the opposite. It’s as if the hard rain from last night washed the dust from my eyes. Everything around me seems to sparkle with possibility.

  “New Year’s Eve? Aye, I suppose it is. I’ve lost track of the days.” He’s quiet for a little while. “I’m glad, though. It will be good to see this year finish.”

  “Yeah.” I’m dizzy but not from the thinner air. Rhys’s lazy hooded gaze seems to be sucking away all the available oxygen from my immediate vicinity.

  “You have a boyfriend?” he asks, taking things unexpectedly personal.

  “A boyfriend? Now, just a, um, recent ex,” I answer, flustered. “Brett, to be specific.”

  “What did he do to lose you?”

  I love that he automatically assumes I’m the wronged party. “My twin sister.”

  “A twin?” He turns around slowly.

  I nod my head. “Yeah, I meant that statement in the most literal sense.”

  “Your man shagged your twin sister?” He looks repulsed. Clearly, he has a moral code here. Uncertainty licks me. He can’t be a bad guy despite the fact that the media crowned him as Cain to Cameron’s Abel.

  Maybe he had good reasons for his actions.

  I could help him share his side of the story. Relief floods me. We could be on the same team. Work together. I just need to build his trust, let him see I could help. This relationship could be a win-win.

  “The night before I left to come down here.”

  “Cold.”

  I allow a single nod. “Ice-cold.”

  “Is she identical?”

  “Yeah.” I bite the inside of my cheek. Is he going to turn out to be a creeper like everyone else with an identical-twin fantasy?

  “I can’t imagine there being two of you.”

  “We are nothing like each other.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, OK, here’s one example. Even though we are identical, her genes don’t carry asthma. That’s my special part of the deal.”

  “Really? I thought everything was split.”

  “No. She might possess the capability, but some unknown environmental trigger flipped my switch. I had attacks as a kid. Bad ones. We lived at altitude, in Aspen, where I spent winters inside while she hit the slopes. Mom and Dad saw my sister was good at skiing, a natural athlete, and spared no expense making sure she became great. And great she is, like going to the Olympics in a few months great.”

  He makes an impressed face. “Really?”

  “Yep.” I’m so used to the reaction it’s not even a struggle to restrain my eye roll.

  “She must be driven.”

  I resist the urge to shudder. “An understatement.”

  He scrutinizes me. “You aren’t friendly.”

  “What tipped you off? The part where she screwed my boyfriend?” I’m getting testy, which is unfair. I want him to open up to me, so I need to share my own stuff. Fair’s fair. But fair also kind of sucks.

  “That… and, well, you say her name as if she’s your worst enemy.”

  “She is.” I force a laugh. “Imagine that. My worst enemy shares my face.”

  “So does mine.” He turns and keeps advancing upward. “It’s my reflection in the mirror.”

  I take three steps for his one, trying to focus on the brisk twinge to the air, that my lungs feel OK, anything other than the fact there was still more up to go. “You said you had a brother. What’s your relationship like? Is he an enemy? Frenemy?”

  He hesitates a fraction of a second. “Best friend.”

  “He’s a climber, too?” I keep my voice light, my face relaxed. Just chatting about family, no biggie, certainly not fishing for information. Interviews may be casual, but they aren’t conversations.

  This act is getting dangerously close to being willfully disingenuous.

  12

  AUDEN

  Disingenuousness creates a sickening sensation, as if my insides host a colony of eels. The feeling doesn’t improve when Rhys twists his sexy mouth into an even sexier lopsided smile. “Guess what?” he says. “I’ve sorted my resolution for the coming year.”

  “Care to share?” I’m pumping him for information, but I am also honestly interested. Gah. Second-guessing my own motives sucks. A few hours ago my reactions to him were pure, or at least based on a peculiar mixture of lust, fascination, and curiosity. Now all these different feelings tangle together with guilt and temptation and I’m not sure how to unknot this.

  He squares his broad shoulders. “I want to stop looking backward.”

  The unexpected flash of vulnerability squeezes my heart. “Easier said than done.”

  He stares into the distance. “Is anything worth having ever easy?”


  Farther up the slope a sudden scitter-scatter sound intensifies to a dull roar.

  “Fuck.” Rhys grabs me as if I weigh as much as air, slams my body against his, protecting me, as mere feet away the mountain’s scree slope transforms into a loose river of rock. Some stones are as big as my fist, others larger than beach balls. The rockslide picks up speed, the sound reverberating through my skull, practically rattling my teeth. Is this how my end will come, death not by lightning but stoning? The notion would be ridiculous if it weren’t absolutely terrifying. I bury my face in Rhys’s chest as if he’s an anchor able to hold me fast.

  “I’m scared,” I whimper. That’s all I have air for. All I can think.

  “Easy, lass.” His breath is hot in my ear. “All will be well.”

  And it is easy, far too easy, to trust him. Not just for the confident words, but the way he shields my body with his own, like I’m something precious, worth protecting at all costs.

  And as suddenly as it started, the rocks come to a stop and the mountain returns to silence. The only sign anything happened is my racing pulse and the fact I’m locked in his embrace.

  “A wee landslip.” He releases some pressure, not much.

  “Wee? But… but… I mean, could the whole slope give way?” The idea of the earth slipping underfoot sends a panicked jolt down my spine.

  “No. That was nothing more than a few rocks.” His fierce grip belies the casual tone. The pounding against my back comes from his own heart, a clue he’s not as relaxed as he pretends.

  “You protected me.”

  “Nah, it was nothing.”

  “You’re kidding, right? You almost took a bullet for me, or at least a rock to the head.” The thick scar on his neck, the one that disappears into his hairline—was that caused by a similar sort of accident? “Look at your hands. They’re shaking.” I settle mine over the back of his, travel the ridgeline of his knuckles, trace my fingertips through the narrow valleys between, riveted by the rough, latent strength.

  The way Rhys reacted a moment ago, there wasn’t time to think. He protected me on instinct. This is the second time he’s safeguarded me without a single thought to his well-being. I’m convinced there’s more to his story. He’s not a villain. No way. A bad guy wouldn’t be so naturally self-sacrificing.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought you up here.” A note of uncertainty punctuates his sentence. “I wanted to show you something beautiful, not scare you into an early grave.”

  “No, it’s OK. I’m glad you did. The view’s amazing.” And I tell no tales. Amazing is a weak word for snow-capped peak after peak, bare rock breaking from the dark forest. Far below, a glacier cuts through the valley’s heart, a frozen tongue of ice.

  We stand quietly, and I wait to see if he’ll say more. When he doesn’t, I do. “I actually have my own resolution.”

  The intense way he watches me is intoxicating. Not a stare, it’s active, as if he searches for something. I can’t shake the feeling the landslide cracked whatever wall’s been between us and I’m glimpsing him, the real Rhys, and he can see me a little better, too.

  “I want to say yes more,” I say softly. “I’m always playing it safe. By coming to South America, I took a risk, but I’m glad about how it’s working out. And I’m glad I met you.” And I am. I really am. The story notwithstanding, he is like no one I’ve ever met, and I can’t get enough.

  His gruff laugh is a trifle uncertain. The display of male bluster lodges in my throat like one of these stones. Even though he’s physically strong, there’s a deep fragility about him, as if on the inside he’s unraveled to a gossamer-thin thread. Who are you? What makes you tick?

  “Shall we go back down?” he asks.

  “Good idea.”

  He walks beside me, palpable focus radiating off him. He pays attention to every foothold, guiding me down in a way that’s as safe as possible. Even still, the idea of lurking danger lingers, making me hyperaware and nervous. When I trip over my own feet, he asks me to tell him more about my sister.

  I don’t know if he cares or wants to calm me down, but either way I start talking.

  “Let me see. Harper’s Olympic bid is part of why I came down here. She’s always had this sibling rivalry thing with me. When we were kids, my asthma was bad, sometimes really bad. I had to do breathing treatments, spent lots of time going to the hospital. Harper figured out that skiing got her our parents’ attention. So the long and short is I had the inhaler and the worry; my sister obtained the skis, praise, and success.”

  “How did such a rivalry last beyond your childhood?”

  I throw up my hands. “That’s the million-dollar question. I have no idea. All I know is my sickness seems to have been the seed, and those roots grew deep. Ever since, anything I did, she had to do better, and not just surpass me, but blow up the bridge behind her so I’d never catch up. But I don’t want to compete with her. I don’t want to jockey for any spotlight.”

  “You talk about what you don’t want.” Rhys pauses, leg braced on a boulder, brow quizzical. He’s not particularly close, but it’s like he’s everywhere. All around. Every square inch of my body feels his presence. “What about what you want, Auden?”

  You.

  I could say it, such a simple word, but what if I am misreading the signals? It seems like he’s interested in me, but that could be my wishful thinking. God, Rhys could tell whole stories with those expressive brows. What would it be like to kiss the space between, those deep-set twin lines that hint at worry and pain?

  “How old are you?” I blurt. He doesn’t appear much older than me, but get a good look in his ancient eyes and he could be over a hundred.

  “Twenty-five. You’re evading.”

  I press my lips together for a moment, weighing my words. “I want to know what to do with myself.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “Just publish the profile on La Aguja climbers for now,” I say with a shrug. If I spill the beans that I am considering writing his story, the chances are between very good and excellent that we won’t return to this easy relationship. Not that this is easy. I don’t even know what it is, or if it can be defined as a relationship or even a friendship. But I’m not sure I’m ready to risk it, have him retreat right at the point he’s opening up.

  Or I can do nothing. Ignore the story potential.

  And if I don’t tell him, nothing will happen.

  No one will ever know how close I got to the story of the year or my dream job.

  No one but me.

  He waits for an answer, so I decide to tell him the next-best thing, the partial truth. “I don’t know what I want. I assume eventually I’ll land a job with two weeks’ vacation, dental, and health insurance. I’ll buy a new car with dual airbags and have to make monthly payments. I’ll decorate my apartment in some mash-up of Anthropologie sales items and cute but kinda crappy stuff from Target. Eventually I’ll probably meet someone who I can’t think of a bad reason not to be with. We’ll get married, a spring wedding. Add a mortgage. Stir in a few kids and a yearly trip to Disney World. And suddenly I’d be old. And that will have been my life.”

  His features don’t shift. “Lots of people would be content with that.”

  “But will I?” I shake my head. “I want more. I want to do big things, challenge myself.”

  He reaches out and traces the edge of my jaw in a gesture so quick it’s over before I can register the action. “You can be anything you want.”

  “But I can’t. Not really.” I clear my throat and point at the granite spire looming above us. Hopefully, turning my head hides the sudden hectic warmth spreading across my face. “Can you climb that?”

  “Sure, guess so,” he says offhandedly.

  “That makes me want to pee my pants a little. I’m jealous of hard-core people like you. I see pictures in magazines: scaling cliffs, base jumping, climbing frozen waterfalls, and it feels like you guys must know what it’s like to be really alive.
I wish I had the part inside me that could risk everything for a moment of glory, but I don’t. I don’t even have crumbs of it.”

  His eyes suck air from the atmosphere. “You don’t strike me as someone who isn’t living.”

  “Ignore me.” I look away, and the deflective action helps my lungs return to normal function. “I’m being stupid. First-world white-girl problems.”

  “FWWGP?” He mashes the acronym together into an unexpectedly funny sound.

  I laugh. “Yeah. If you hear me talking like that again, just make that noise, fwwgp.” I reach out; my touch is barely a shoulder skim. He stiffens but doesn’t shake me off. I don’t move. “You’re a good listener. I don’t talk to people like this in my real life.”

  “I’m interested in you.”

  I fake a laugh to cover the lurch in my chest. “Trust me, if I wrote an autobiography, you’d be asleep before chapter two. I’m the human equivalent of Nyquil.”

  “Fwwgp.”

  “Thank you. See, you save me from a rockslide and also my own capacity for emo.”

  He pulls me toward the boulder he’s standing on.

  My up-jump motion is ungainly, and I fall against him. He steadies me with an arm around my waist. Never, in the whole history of touches, have I felt as conscious of body contact as I am right now. I can’t bring myself to look over. I don’t want to break the spell. The valley is spread below, and it’s only us. Stone. Ice. Wind. No sign of anyone. We could be the last two humans on Earth.

  “This valley feels a bit like Eden,” he murmurs, reaching out to smooth a piece of my flyaway hair.

  “So, what, you’re Adam?” I bump my hip at him. “Does that make me Eve?”

  “Depends.” He trails his fingers along the back of my head and leans closer. “You fancy apples, lass?”

  “I fancy a lot of things.” If I turn now, look at him, what will happen?

  There’s another sound, not of rock falling, but gravel crunching. He releases me and points downward, to the west. I hug myself, cooler without his touch.