His light eyes sparkled, and he lifted one dark eyebrow in a way that again seemed to spark a memory. “I can’t help you from here.”
“Wonderful.” I tried to smile, but it probably came out more like a grimace. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t need your help. It isn’t far, just a few feet.”
“It is more than a few feet. Your toes wouldn’t reach my head.”
“I do this all the time.” The shaking in my arms was a direct contradiction to my words. Every muscle in my fingers begged for relief.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I highly doubt that, Anna. Or I would have found you here sooner.”
My eyes flew to his face again. He knew my name? Who was he? Not a Preston—Mrs. and Mr. Preston’s children were all several years my senior. And none of the Mortensen boys could be this well dressed. I’d spent my summer with poor tenants and members of the Preston family. Who else would even remember me? Perhaps someone I’d met at church a time or two, but if that were the case, I had no recollection of him. “How do you know me?”
“Never mind that,” he said, walking toward me once again. “I’m going to catch you.”
His legs made short work of the few feet left between us.
I sucked in a sharp breath of air. “Just don’t look up!”
“Don’t look up?” he repeated and then stopped his forward progress for a moment. “How am I going to catch you if I don’t look up?”
“If you must look up, close your eyes, at least.”
He chuckled, and the deep way it resonated in his throat had me questioning my earlier assessment of his age. A man of twenty didn’t sound like that, did they? “Close my eyes?” he asked, incredulity clearly written on his face.
Was this man going to stand there and repeat every word I said? I might not be so fortunate as to have stumbled upon a blind man, but perhaps he had trouble with his memory. He could help me, go on his way, and forget I’d ever been foolish enough to climb this tree.
Of course, the fact that he somehow recognized me from my summer of living in the Prestons’ cottage over eight years ago dashed the hope that his brain might be addled. His memory was better than mine.
My right hand finally slipped, and I fell from the tree with a scream.
He jumped forward to catch me, and without his feet steady beneath him, we both tumbled to the ground.
We landed in a flurry of skirts and muffled curses, made mostly by me, before the world settled and became suddenly quiet. I wasfacedown and definitely resting on top of someone. I kept my eyes closed tightly as I tested my lungs, making certain I could still breathe. Then I tried moving my fingers and toes. They all worked, and my only pain was my sore hands.
A deep rumble under my chest was the first reminder of whom exactly I had to thank for my safe, if not gracious, landing.
The rumble turned into a laugh, and I opened my eyes to find myself face-to-face with my rescuer, his back on the ground. His eyes shined with mirth, and his broad grin didn’t even try to contain his merriment. His dark hair was disheveled, but it did nothing to diminish his appearance; if anything, it enhanced it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the action of it reminding me of our indelicate situation. I hurriedly rolled off his chest and sat up, but he stayed there, lying on the ground with his arms splayed out.
Laughing.
“Thank you,” I managed to squeak out.
More laughing.
“I’ll be more careful from now on.”
This made him laugh even harder, and he brought a hand to his eye to wipe away a tear. He sat up in a graceful movement and lifted one knee so he could wrap his arms around it. “Welcome back to Breckenridge. It is uncommonly good to see you again.”
A strange feeling bubbled into my chest at his words—feelings directly associated with being memorable to a very handsome young gentleman and the way his eyes found mine, as if we had a long history together. Why couldn’t I place him? His cheekbones were high, and his form lithe and wiry but strong. And his eyes? Surely I’d seen them before. He raised one eyebrow and quirked his head to the side. He was expressing questions with his face, and somehow, I could hear them. And just like that, I knew exactly who he was. I’d been trying to picture a man, but when I’d left eight years ago, he’d still been a child.
I pointed at him. “You’re that boy, David!”
At the sound of me calling him a boy, he threw his chest back, and with the same athletic movement from before, he swept onto his feet. The last time I’d been here, I’d been at least three or four inches taller than he, but just like the tree I’d fallen from, the pace of his growth had outmatched my own.
I had to look up to meet his eyes—not far, I was above average in height, and he was under average for a man, but still, it was a strange thing to have our positions so drastically altered.
“No one has called me a boy for at least four years.”
Memories came rushing back. How old had he been? I might have guessed twelve. He’d been a slight fellow with stick-like arms, but the man in front of me had to be older than twenty if he hadn’t been called a boy for over four years. My chest warmed at the thought of how well he’d turned out. It was good to know that for some, life improved with time. Everything I saw in him now seemed to point to the fact that his path had made a turn for the better. His clothing, his health, the way he so readily laughed now. I smiled. Seeing him grown into this man of distinction left me feeling lighter than I had for a long time.
