But she wasn’t out in the world, and she wasn’t meant to be here. She shouldn’t be seeing this.
He continued his grueling work-out, naked arms glistening with sweat in the moonlight, while O’Neal stood immobile. What could she do? What should she do? Did she intervene and stop him or wait for him to notice her? Whatever fire pushed him to move like that, to speak in tongues, seemed blind to reality.
Oh my God, was he crying? Those were tears running down his face. Or sweat. She had to stop him. Now. Before he hurt himself.
“Kurt.”
Nothing, no change.
“Kurt, what are you… Kurt, stop. Please.” When he continued without pause, she edged closer to him. Should she try to touch him? She didn’t know this guy. What if he went ballistic on her? This wasn’t the man she’d gone to sleep with a short while ago. This was someone else entirely.
“Kurt! You’ll hurt yourself! You can’t summit tomorrow if you don’t sleep. You’ll kill yourself, you’ll die.”
Though it didn’t stop him, his ghostly body slowed. Okay. Good. That was a start. She was close enough to touch him when he dropped down for a grueling round of push-ups. She lowered herself slowly to her knees and, after a brief hesitation, laid her hand gently on his back, right between his shoulder blades.
He stilled.
A million questions ran through her mind, What the hell are you doing? foremost amongst them.
“Come to bed,” she said, instead.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m alive.”
Something prickled her neck, told her to back up slowly, but she ignored it.
“I’m glad you are,” she whispered close to his ear.
“I’m…Jesus, I’m not. I’m not glad.” The words sounded torn from him and she wanted to shove them back in. Don’t do this! She wanted to scream. Don’t unpack this here. Because I have no idea what to do.
She shoved it back and calmed herself enough to say, “Why not, Kurt?”
“I don’t know how to…I don’t know who I am. I’m not the kid I was, not the football player, not the marine. I’m…I’m useless. I’m a pointless waste of breath.”
As she scooted closer, her arm slid around his wide back. Wide, but lean. Too lean, maybe, like a man who worked his earthly shell into the ground because he could no longer stand to inhabit it.
“You’re not,” she whispered, right against his sweaty ear. “You’re not a waste. You’re not.”
“I am.”
And the thing was, what the hell did she know? What did she know about who he was or what he’d done? She knew he could dole out one hell of a climax, but that was about it. She had the feeling, though, for a strange, hushed cluster of seconds, that she was here for a reason—they’d been thrown here for a reason—and if she didn’t say the right thing, she’d lose him, this, it—whatever it was.
She sucked in a wobbly breath, let him feel the weight of her head, and, on a wild seed of inspiration, asked, “Who’s in the wheelchair, Kurt? Who are you pushing up the mountain?”
She went with him as he bent his arms and lowered himself the rest of the way to the ground. It was damp and cold, but the moment was too important to worry about comfort. She’d never seen so much pain, never felt so far from another human’s experience, never been so keen to understand another’s mind.
“Say bee oh.”
“Say what?”
“Eusebio Kline. Sebio for short.”
“He’s a friend?”
“Yes. Yes, more than that. A teammate. A brother. I’m… I failed him.”
“He died?”
Kurt nodded and started to turn away, but she wouldn’t let him. She grabbed his head with both hands, palm flat to his scalding cheeks.
“No. You look at me, Kurt. Look at me and tell me what the hell’s going on.” When he didn’t answer, she got closer, so close their noses touched, so close she could kiss him and make it all better. If this were some fairy tale. Instead she insisted, “I’m not letting you kill yourself. Not on my watch.”
Slowly, he ran his nose side to side against hers, his heating up the cold tip of hers in a slow, sensual Eskimo kiss.
Something in his voice had changed when he finally responded. “Only person who tried to kill me today was you.”
She huffed out a surprised laugh, barely kept it from finishing on a sob, and pressed her lips to his.
“That was yesterday. You haven’t seen what I’ve got in store yet for today.”
“You’re a menace.”
She paused. “What happened to Sebio, Kurt? What happened to you?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Something put him in that wheelchair.”
“An IED put him in that chair.”
“So, what killed him?”
“He did,” he whispered, almost too quiet to hear. “I should’ve been there.”
“Where?”
“He couldn’t stand being stuck in that chair. Should’ve known he’d do it. Went home to Phoenix, to live with his folks and… I knew the VA hospital wasn’t taking care of him. All the privatizing, and they prioritize the problems they can see. You can get all the physical therapy you want, but when it comes time to treat PTSD, or depression, or whatever he had…” He gulped and she scooted close, molded her body to his, tried to meld them together. “He offed himself. Jesus, he shot himself in the head and…look at me. Look at me.”
He shook with silent, wracking breaths, strong enough to rock them both. And, God, it must have hurt him to let them out, to hold it all in so long. She wanted to reach in and soothe his soul, but she had no freaking idea how to do that. All she could do was hold him. All she could do was listen.
“But it wasn’t you, right? You said the VA hospital? That’s a story right there. That’s what we need to tell the world. Vets being left to fend for themselves. Vets let down by our government. The very people they worked for.”
“This isn’t a story, O’Neal. It’s a man’s life.” He was adamant. Almost angry, now, but at least he wasn’t falling apart.
“I want to help, you know. I’ll tell it from his perspective. This is exactly the kind of story I want to share with the world. The way our vets are left behind. And I’ll—”
“No.” The word was final, decisive, and she backed down. “Bet you wish you hadn’t stayed now.”
Shit, it hurt that he thought that. Did she seem so mercenary? Was everything she did for a story? Was everything meant to keep people at a distance? She opened her mouth to tell him that she hadn’t slept in his tent for his story…and closed it again.
Fuck. She had done exactly that, hadn’t she?
The realization left her breathless, uncomfortable, filled with shame.
This time, when she spoke, she opted for the truth. Not the trying to get to the heart of a story truth, but the actual truth—the one that hurt deep inside. “I don’t know what to do right now.”
“Nothing you can do, O’Neal.”
She nodded and her eyes landed on the wheelchair.
“What are you doing with his chair?”
It took a moment to realize, when he started shaking again, that he was laughing this time.
“Jesus, I know how crazy I look. I know, I know.” He rolled away from her, onto his back, pressed his fingers hard to his eyelids and shook with quiet laughter, wiping the tears away. When he finally opened his eyes and focused on her, he seemed like himself for the first time since she’d emerged to find him here. “We always said we’d climb the country’s tallest peaks. All of ’em. Sebio figured he’d wind up being a climbing Ranger, maybe work Rainier, and I just like big mountains. We were gonna do ’em all, on leave and then as old men. We’d talk about it when we were deployed, you know? Reminisce about home, snowy glaciers and stuff. Just silly dreams. Silly. Then we were both discharged. He lost both legs, I…” He pointed to his midsection, and she wondered what hell he’d gone through. “I had some
pretty messed up surgeries. Lost some intestine.” He shifted away, all business now, and sat up, leaving her to follow.
“So you’re hiking them without him? Is that the deal?”
“Yeah. I…I was in DC. Just got a place and a decent contractor job and decided I’d take his chair on a hike, you know? Kind of symbolic. So I took a weekend and drove to Virginia. Figured I’d do a quick hike up Old Rag, just to give him one last mountain top.”
“And then what?”
“Couldn’t stop.”
“So…you…?”
“Didn’t return. Never got my car from the lot. Never went back to my place. Never showed up for my first day of work.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Crazy, right?”
She lifted her brows.
“Hiked the Appalachian Trail for a while. Went south, first, to Georgia, ’cause it was getting cold out. Had money saved up, bank card, monthly disability. Buy new clothes when I need ’em. Get a hotel room every now and then. I’m just…a wanderer, I guess.”
“You’re a Lee Child character.”
“Huh?”
“You ever hear of Jack Reacher?”
“No.”
“He’s ex-military, a vagabond. Walks around the US sort of…solving crimes and protecting people and stuff.” She didn’t mention that the character had affairs as he went along. Or how sexy he was.
“Yeah, well, I just climb mountains.”
“When are you gonna stop?”
He took a shaky breath and let it out. “This is the last one.”
“There’s always Denali,” she half-joked, though she didn’t like the idea of him climbing it on his own.
“You know I thought about it.”
“Course you did.”
She put a hand on his back, stroked him a bit, leaned her head on his shoulder and sort of urged him to give her some weight. “You can’t do this forever, you know?”
“I know. I know.”
“Where’s your family?” They should be here! she wanted to scream. They should be watching out for you! “Your parents and sister and stuff?”
“They’re back east.”
“They know where you are?”
“They know I…freaked out. I check in to let ’em know I’m safe.”
For once in her life, O’Neal wanted to stop with the questions. And for once, she asked them, not to satisfy some need in herself, but for him. Because this man needed to share. “What happens when you stop, Kurt?”
“Got no fucking clue. No clue.”
She nodded and pulled him tighter. Jesus, she’d regret all this closeness in the morning.
“You still planning to summit tomorrow?”
He nodded.
“Better sleep then.”
He turned to her, nudged her head with his, making her breath come in quick and hard. “Hey, O’Neal?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
She swallowed back a rush of fear and brushed off his words. “Didn’t do anything.”
“You stuck around.”
“For the wrong reasons.”
“You still here to write a story?”
Her own messed up sense of self-preservation begged her to tell him the story kept her here, but no matter how hard it was, she couldn’t lie.
“No, Kurt,” she said, defeated. “I’m here for you.” Which was the wrong reason, given who she was and what she wanted—generally—but in this moment, it felt so damned right.
He put his lips to hers in something that was so much more than a kiss. It was so much emotion, so much feeling that she couldn’t possibly begin to understand. She responded as she could, kissing him back with just as much fervor and possibly more warmth, and did her best to shove away the unbearable tenderness that threatened to swamp her.
She’d leave first thing in the morning. As with every other one-night stand she’d ever had, she’d get up early, slip on her shoes, and give this mountain its first walk of shame.
But Jesus Christ, she couldn’t do that to this man.
“I’m going with you tomorrow,” she promised just before they fell asleep.
He did not object.
After some discussion, they left packs and equipment at the camp site and summited late in the day, high and breathless in the bright, white sunlight, and all alone on the mountain. Alone, that was, except for Sebio, whose chair Kurt carried folded up and strapped to his back.
He planted the flag in the snow and worked to breathe through the spike in his chest. This is it, he told himself over and over. After last night’s meltdown—with a witness, no less—something had changed in him. He couldn’t define it, although he felt the shift. His ribs were still too tight, his head still a mess, but for the first time since he’d set off on this mission, he thought there might be an end in sight. Even if that end looked like the edge of the world and beyond it was a gaping void.
He snuck a glance at O’Neal, whose shocking blue eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, like his own. She was pretty much the perfect woman, wasn’t she? All long, lithe limbs, and free spirit. The woman drove around with climbing gear in her car, for God’s sake. And she knew how to use it.
If that wasn’t dream material, he wasn’t sure what was. Not to mention the taste of her—but that was a whole other level of desirability, and he wasn’t convinced she’d give him another chance after last night’s fiasco.
“What now?” she asked, flushed from the climb and the cold and probably from the harsh rays of the sun. Christ, he wanted to kiss her. Would she let him?
“I need to release him.”
“What?”
“Sebio.”
Even behind her massive glasses, he could see the puzzlement.
“Please tell me you don’t have his ashes.”
“I have his ashes.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Good thing you’re an incredible kisser. Or else I might be tempted to turn around right now and leave you alone up here.”
“Sorry.”
“All right. Where is it?”
He unzipped the tiny pack he’d been carrying around and pulled out the box, lifted the lid, and then closed it again.
“Can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“I know he’s gone. He’s dead and this is just ashes. I know that, it’s just…” He squeezed his eyes shut tight, but the orange sunlight still shone through his shades and his lids. “Once I let this go, I have nothing left. No more purpose.”
She didn’t say anything for a while, and when he opened his eyes, she was looking off at the carpet of mountains, turning into ocean and then nothing but sky beyond.
“You’re worried about your purpose. Okay. But what about him? Have you thought about that, Kurt?” He blinked. The last thing he’d expected from her was tough love. “Right now, Sebio’s just some ashes in a box. Well, and a burden to you, honestly. He’s a million-ton anchor, sending you on this crazy fucking crusade to…what? Where? There’s no ending if you don’t set him free and…Jesus Christ, that’s such a ridiculously stereotypical thing to say and I can’t believe I’m the one saying it, but dude. If you love the guy…let him go. Let him go, Kurt. Let. Him. Go.”
“Here.” He shoved the box into her hands.
“What? No, no. Hell, no, I’m not—”
“He’d want a hot woman to do it. He’d like that. In fact, maybe this is what was missing. You.”
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
“Fine.” She lifted the lid, gloves making her awkward, pulled out the bag, yanked her scarf over her mouth and nose and waited for him to do the same before flinging the ashes out into the wind. It picked up, almost magically, at that moment, and dispersed the dust to nothing. Nothing.
Kurt waited. He should feel lighter, like a burden had lifted, but nothing changed.
“Need another minute?”
“No.”
She made as if to move and then paused. “You say goodbye?”
“Not really.”
“Say it.”
“What?”
“Say goodbye.”
“Out loud?”
“If you think that’s what he needs.”
No. No way.
Embarrassed, he shook his head and squinted into the distance, definitely not speaking aloud to his dead friend. His brain picked that moment to offer up a memory of Sebio in drag. Nobody else in their right mind would have hunted down lipstick and thrown on a scarf for shits and giggles. Nobody’d carried it off the way Sebio could. Why the fuck was this the memory that came up? His team goofing off instead of doing the serious business of fighting and protecting?
Because Sebio’d understood shit. He’d known when to be a goofball and when to be serious. Jesus, they’d laughed their asses off that night, like almost pissed their pants laughing, and they’d needed it. Sebio, somehow, had known that and he’d provided that dose of lifesaving comic relief to their team. Inappropriate, no doubt, but man it had felt amazing to laugh. He’d cried laughing that night. They all had.
The fact was, Sebio would do this. Right now. Sebio would have said goodbye, out loud, to any member of their team. Without shame, without worrying what anyone thought. At least the old Sebio would have and that was the guy he wanted to remember today.
“Goodbye, Sebio,” he croaked, and cleared his throat. “Happy travels, buddy.”
A shiver didn’t go through him until O’Neal gave her voice to the wind. “Farewell, Eusebio. May you find peace wherever you are.”
Peace. Yeah. Jesus, that choked him up. He swallowed it back, because hadn’t he made enough of an ass of himself in front of this woman?
“Come on.” She shoved the now-empty box in the pack, helped him return the folded-up chair to his back, and grabbed his hand. “Let’s go.”
They walked back down in near-silence, only communicating briefly to watch a step or for pit stops. Quietly, they gathered their gear and returned to her car. A couple hundred feet from where she’d parked her car, where the path was widest, she put a hand over his, where it still gripped Sebio’s chair.
She opened her car. “Can I give you a ride?” she asked, almost shyly.
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