His gaze drops. “They got you here.”
“Barely.”
“Then they’ll get you over.”
“You’ve got narrow heels,” he says.
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s an observation.”
“I miss compliments.”
The words slip out too softly.
Hudson’s hand stills. I stare down at the top of his dark head and wish I could pull the sentence back, crush it into dust, toss it into the lake, and pretend I am not the kind of woman who says vulnerable things to near-strangers on cliffs.
He looks up. His eyes hold mine.
“Then you’ve been around the wrong men.”
The sentence lands with a strange, painful sweetness. He saidmen. Plural.
There has only really been Harold for a long time. Harold, who was not cruel. Harold, who remembered to put gas in my car when the tank was low. Harold, who sent flowers on our anniversary because his calendar reminded him. Harold, who once told me, in what I truly believe he thought was kindness, that I had “settled nicely into my life.”
Settled. Like dust.
Hudson’s gaze drops to my feet again. Not my face.
“What?” I ask, already defensive.
“You’re not jumping in those.”
I look down at the water shoes strapped around my feet. “You told me to wear shoes that grip.”
“For the trail.”
I blink at him. “That distinction feels important enough to have mentioned earlier.”
His mouth twitches. “I’m mentioning it now.”
I stare at him and he stares back. The man is immovable. A dark-haired, blue-eyed wall of calm mountain certainty, standing there as if he has not just asked me to remove the one thin layer of protection between my ugly toes and public humiliation.
“My shoes are fine,” I say.
“They’re fine for walking over roots and loose gravel. Not for jumping.”
“Why?”
“They’ll drag when you hit. Might shift. Might come loose. Might make you think about your feet instead of your body.”
“I’m already thinking about my feet.”
“I noticed.”
Heat floods my face.
I fold my arms over my chest. “You notice too much.”
