“You said you weren’t afraid of heights,” he called back.
“I don’t recall that conversation.” She was terrified, especially now that she would have to perch on that small square of real estate, thirty feet up.
“The whole idea,” explained their patient handler named Jon, who would never get past a bouncer unless his fake ID was good enough, “is to build trust. It’s teamwork. He can’t go without you and vice versa.”
“That guy?” she whispered, pointing at Noah. “He was born to do ropes courses. He might have actually invented them. Me? I do not like falling. Or high places. I have to show up to work on Monday.” Or lose everything.
“You’re safe. I’ve got you,” said the man-boy, indicating the safety rope he had attached to her harness. Unless a stiff breeze blew him over. “And so does he,” he added, pointing up at Noah, who was merely clipped to a safety cable line above his head instead of spotted from below.
The tremor started in her legs and worked its way up the rest of her.
I joyfully embrace new situations. I feel confident in the choices I make. My instincts are focused and wise…about men and…ropes. She tilted her helmeted head up toward him, glad she was wearing sunglasses against the bright sunshine and the achingly blue sky. At least he couldn’t see her glaring at him.
Going up wasn’t so bad. She simply refused to look down. Zip-lining and balancing on two-inch twines of cable in midair had never been on her bucket list. But this whole “let’s do whatever you want” challenge had been her brilliant idea and now she was stuck with it. But she had to admit, Noah, catching her, at the other end of this terrifying pole, wasn’t exactly a horrible prospect.
Hand over hand, she made her way up the pegged pole, passing branches of the thick pines standing nearby. A squirrel perched on the tip of one, scolding her with a tut-tut-tut for invading his space. She leveled a withering look at him and kept climbing.
Distracting her was the memory of what had happened last night, after the picnic. The evening at the river had been lovely. Everything she’d imagined. His friends couldn’t have included her more, made her feel part of—while all the time, guilt had been seeping under her door, knowing she was deceiving each of them and, worst of all, Noah. Time and again, she’d reminded herself that was her job. This wasn’t personal—except for, of course, how doing this would personally benefit her and her career. This was classic Journalism 101: Don’t get personally involved with your story.
And wasn’t he just as guilty as her, deceiving his friends and her with a name that didn’t belong to him? She told herself they were on equal footing in that regard. But what she was doing didn’t feel good. Or right.
Still they’d walked home together—strolled, really—through Marietta under the starry night sky. They’d chatted about little things. About nothing. And he’d taken her hand to help her over a concrete barrier, then never let go. His touch felt intimate and comforting at once and she knew she should let his hand go, but she didn’t. Instead, he made her laugh, telling her about the tenant in New York who had once lived above him with her potty-mouthed parrot who had the vocabulary of a felon.
In a moment of déjà vu, he stopped at her door, waiting for her to find her key. But this time, without asking permission, without so much as a by-your-leave, he kissed her—a long, perfect kiss that felt nothing like an Ashton kiss…one of those distracted this is as close as you’ll ever get to me kind of kisseses. Noah’s kiss had burned into her soul—made her toes tingle and her head spin.
His mouth on hers felt oh-so-right. Unapologetic, yet merciful. Yielding and yet possessive. And oh…she remembered the taste of him—campfire smoke, the cool Montana night and a hint of the beer they’d drunk around the fire with his friends. And some deliciousness that belonged only to him.
It might have been a simple good night had he not pulled her up against him, deepening the kiss. She’d gone willingly. Foolishly. Wrapping her arms around his neck, lost in the moment, her fingers tangled in his hair. Everything about him felt strong and sure. While she felt lost and confused.
And just when things might have gone further, Frannie’s ringtone sounded on her cell phone.
Gemma jumped at the sound and broke the kiss. Like getting caught with one hand in the proverbial cookie jar. With Noah as the cookie.
“Do you have to get that?” he asked, his voice thick and breathless as the phone continued to ring.
Bless Frannie.
Curse Frannie.
“I should.” She rummaged through her purse searching for it. “Yes. It’s…it’s a friend who’s going through something.” Something like freaking out over the photo I texted her. But the phone stopped ringing.
Her eyes met his again.
Every bit of her wanted to ignore reasonableness. Fall back into his arms and kiss him some more. They both knew where that kiss was heading. Where kissing him like this would lead if they allowed their growing attraction to each other free rein. But she should no more get involved with Noah Mathis than with his wealthy alter ego, Eamon Connelly. They were from two different worlds. Three, if you counted the one he invented.
So finally, she’d said, “I’d better go…call her back.”
And that was that.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. No strings attached and without recrimination. The look in his eyes, though, made her feel as if she were alone in the world with him, where nothing and no one else mattered. “Tomorrow then, nine a.m.?”
She nodded. “Nine a.m. Night, Noah.”
A man who didn’t press his advantage to take more was outside her realm of experience. A man who didn’t have expectations or, seemingly, even judgments about what was happening in a new relationship, was an anomaly. And she didn’t know what to make of it. Or him.
He confused her so much, she spent another few hours digging into research about his history and writing the start of her article on him. The more she learned about the ordeal he’d gone through as a teenager, how unfair everything had been, the more she began to think maybe this clear, unvarnished view of him, here in Marietta, might actually help him to shrug off the whiff of scandal that had dogged him since his younger sister’s disappearance. Draw him in a new light and free him of the past he was still trying to avoid.
Or maybe that was just magical thinking on her part. Or justification.
Now, he reached for her hand and tugged her up beside him on the bird-sized perch, which led to a bridge constructed of a single cable connected with V-shaped knotted railing, made of rope. The idea, apparently, was to walk across this nightmare to the next pole over, some forty feet away. Even though the kid named Jon held her safety rope, she could imagine herself plunging to the ground the moment he got a phone call.
Noah’s hand, gripping hers, felt safe and good and she pressed herself against the hard expanse of him, eliminating any extraneous space where calamity might invade.
“There you go,” he murmured when she’d stopped hyperventilating. “That wasn’t so bad.”
She gave him the side-eye. “This is my competitive nature dressed in an optical illusion of confidence,” she assured him. “I’m not sure how I let you talk me into this.”
“I think you said something like ‘Let’s do it.’”
“Fine. But next time—if, indeed, there is a next time—I get to pick the adventure.”
“Oh, there will be a next time.” Said the man who knew that today wasn’t his day to die. “You trust me, don’t you?”
She squinted at him. Now there was a loaded question. “Yes?”
He maneuvered his arm from around her, but she clung to his shirt.
“I’ll go first. You follow me across.”
She shook her head, frozen against the pole.
He took to the rope bridge, going a few feet from her. “See? No sweat. We did more intense obstacle courses in BUDs training—only without the harnesses. Once you get past the beginning, things get easier. Sort of
.”
“Okay. Okay. That’s really, really helpful.” She might hate him before this morning was over. “Tell me something else about you I don’t know.”
He thought for a moment and she could tell he was sorting through what he could and could not say. “I can make a mean paella.”
“Really?” Be brave! She reached for the rope railing and edged her foot out onto the cable waiting to flip her upside down. Her heart thudded riotously. “How did you learn?”
“A Spanish woman I knew taught me when I was younger.”
Friend? Lover? Personal chef? “I love paella.”
“Now you,” he urged. “Take a step and tell me something I don’t know about you. Which is pretty much everything.”
It might be true that she’d shared very little about herself with him. She edged out onto the cable, which wobbled wildly. Feeling her safety cable tighten, she glanced down at Jon who was thankfully, paying no attention to his phone. “I…um…learned to swim in Germany. My father threw me off the dock in the lake near our base and told me to swim. Luckily, I did.”
He frowned. “Military?”
She nodded. “Air Force. He died when I was very young. I don’t remember him well. I do remember that lake though.” She took another few steps, working up her courage.
“I’m guessing you have trust issues around men.” He took another few steps down the cable.
She looked up at him and smiled. He might have a small point there. “Your turn.”
“I was the first in my family to go into the military,” he said. “It wasn’t a ‘thing’ in our family.”
“What was their ‘thing’?”
“Education. My father was big on education. That and capitalism.”
Gemma crept toward him, finding her legs. She warned herself not to look down. “I never really knew my father, but my mother believed in capitalism. She just couldn’t ever get her hands on any. And how do you feel about capitalism?”
“Overrated. Capitalism has its place. Just not above all else.” He gripped the side ropes as he edged along the tightrope of cable.
“I wouldn’t know about that. I’ll be almost fifty before I pay off my student loans. So, capitalism is pretty much just theoretical in my world.”
He was watching her closely. “Tell me something else about you.”
She considered, feeling his look as if he was touching her. “I…I liked that kiss last night.”
He shot a look at the boy standing below them, then sent her a private, heated grin. “Yeah? Me, too. How’s your friend?”
“My—?” Frannie. “Oh, she’s okay. We talked everything out.” Frannie had confirmed her ID of Noah/Eamon and had dug up a half-profile shot someone had taken of him a few years ago. Not that she had any doubts of her own. Frannie was pushing for this story and said there were other outlets hungry for it, too. Gemma couldn’t think about that now. She didn’t want to.
They were halfway across. She edged closer to him. “She’s a good friend. I’ve spent the last few years working so hard, I’ve lost track of some of my old friends. You’re very lucky to have those guys back there.”
Something crossed his expression then. A stricken look almost and he turned away from her to grab the ropes ahead of him.
“Friends like that,” she went on, moving closer to him, “and like my friend, Frannie, you can tell them anything, and you know they’ll understand. Even if it’s something you’re not proud of. Even if it’s bad they’ll forgive you.”
“Keep ahold of those ropes,” he instructed over his shoulder. “Try to stay centered.”
But almost as if his words had the opposite effect, she lost her balance and the rope railing flipped sideways. “Whoa—!”
Jon jerked her safety rope from below and Gemma flipped upside down, her feet in the air, sailing above the rope bridge and swinging wildly over it. “I got you!” Jon called.
“Aaaahhhhh!” she cried, swimming in midair, searching for purchase anywhere and finding none. Panic rushed through her. “Noahhhhh!”
He rushed across the swaying bridge, fighting for balance and, moments later, he was reaching for her hand and pulling her toward him. Slowly, Jon lowered her back down to the cable where she clutched Noah like a baby koala, doing her best not to climb him like a tree.
“Sorry,” he murmured, holding her. “Sorry. You okay?”
“Not your fault. I warned you I wasn’t any good at this. Can we go back now?” Trembling and speaking into his shoulder was not the bravest thing she’d ever done, though this whole ordeal felt fairly point-proving in her book.
“We can,” he said, his hand soothing her back. “If you want to. But that’s the worst that can happen and you’ve gotten that out of the way. From here on out, what’s left is a piece of cake.”
Cake? Hardly. However, if she quit, that would be the end for him, too. And that felt a little unfair, considering this was on his bucket list of things to do. Maybe he was right. Maybe that was the worst. Maybe she could screw up her courage and tough this out. After all, falling hadn’t killed her. She hadn’t actually hit the ground. Danger was more an illusion than a reality.
“Okay,” she said finally. “Okay, let’s go. Let’s get across this thing and move on to something else.”
“That’a girl.” He guided her hands back to the rope railings and headed across in front of her. Surefooted as a goat, he breezed across and she realized he’d only slowed before to help her. She set her jaw and forced herself to quick-time it to the other side. Once she let go of the fear of falling, the trip across was oddly incident free. The rush was amazing.
“Thanks,” she told him at the other side. “For forcing me. That felt weirdly…monumental.”
“Mastering something you’re afraid of doing is pretty monumental. That bleeds over into your life,” he said. “At least, for a while.”
“You must not be afraid of anything, then. There probably isn’t a scarier training than SEAL training. So I’ve heard.”
“Physically, yes,” he admitted. “There aren’t many more barriers to push past than that physically. But does that mean I’m fearless?” He chuckled. “Hell, no. Anyway, a little fear is a good thing. It’s your instinct’s way of protecting your behind.”
She exhaled a laugh. “Well, my instincts are notoriously bad. So there’s that.”
“You’re cute.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.” Containing a smile, he glanced over at the ladder netting, which was the next challenge. He switched her safety cable to one connected to a line above them. “I’ll give you a ten-second head start.”
After assessing the situation, she offered, “Twenty.”
“Fifteen.”
“Seventeen.” And without another word, she took off running for the rope ladder netting.
He looked at his watch. “Fine—” he called after her. “Seventeen. But you just bought yourself an illegal extra second!”
“I never promised not to cheat!”
Chapter Six
Noah beat her anyway, reaching the top a full five seconds before she did. He was sitting on the perch as she struggled the last few feet. Reaching down, he swung her up beside him.
Chugging for air, she braced her hands on either side of her knees and bent over. “Did I mention…that I’m…competitive?”
“I got that.” He leaned over and kissed her, quickly, leaving her even more breathless. “I like that you are.”
Surprised by the kiss, she studied his face. “But it’s good you didn’t let me win.” Her hazel eyes glimmered in the sunlight with a hint of gold.
“It would have been the gentlemanly thing to do.”
“Once upon a time, maybe. But in the age of feminism, no. Not with me.”
“Duly noted.”
She smiled, staring up at the blue, blue sky. “I have to admit, I haven’t pushed myself that hard or scared myself like that for a long time.”
“And?” he p
rompted.
“And…every now and then I think we should scare ourselves silly over something or other, just to stay on our toes.” Instantly, she looked as if she wanted to swallow her words. “I didn’t mean… It’s not as if you and your friends haven’t already had more than your share of… What I meant was—”
“I know what you meant.” He glanced around the ropes course. “I’ve intentionally avoided pretty much everything that reminded me of duty for a long time. Even avoided the guys, to be honest. But I never feel more authentically myself than when I’m with them. Or—” he lifted a rope in his hand “—pushing myself to remember how it felt to commit to something the way I did the SEALs.”
Pensive, she swung her feet against the netting. “If you don’t mind my asking, why have you avoided the guys? Seems like they’re all so supportive.”
He wished he had a good answer for that. “You know how they say you can’t go home again?”
“Thomas Wolfe?”
He raised an impressed brow.
“English lit major in college,” she said in her own defense. “Does that make me sound like a nerd?”
“A little. In a good way. But, the quote’s still true. At both ends. Here with my brothers and back where I came from.”
“But you said—”
“It’s complicated. I can’t really explain it.”
“Okay. So…” She twisted her safety cable in her fingers. “What’s left is…somewhere in the middle?”
“I suppose.” He got to his feet and extended a hand to her. “I’ll let you know when I find it.”
“I really hope you do,” she said with a smile, hopping up beside him.
“Ready for more?”
“Only if doing so doesn’t require me to jump off tall poles in a single bound.”
“How do you feel about zip lines?”
“Ahhhh. I’m…warming to the idea.”
They spent the rest of the morning together on the course, alternately challenging each other and themselves with tasks that looked outwardly impossible but ended up being absolutely doable. He knew, from past experience, the end result. A rush of adrenaline, a feeling of ‘I can do anything,’ that lasted for at least an hour or two. She’d flown down the zip line through the pine trees with the abandon of a child and at the other end, he’d caught her, laughing and happy. He was glad he’d thought of doing this with her. This side of her was one he hadn’t seen and that she’d allowed herself to be seen by him made him grateful.
Unexpected Hero Page 9
