Page 33 of Challenged By the Mountain Man

"Because they're good reasons!"

"They're excuses." He treads water, looking up at me. "When's the last time you did something just because? Not because it made sense or because you planned it or because it was safe. When's the last time you just... did something?"

I open my mouth to answer and realize I don't have one. Everything I've done for years has been calculated. Planned. Safe. Even coming up here was researched to death, every detail controlled.

And look where that got me. Sitting in a freezing cabin at dawn, still seeing guns that aren't there.

"This is insane," I say, standing up.

"Probably."

"You're insane."

"Already established that."

I pull off my jacket, then my sweater, and I can feel his eyes on me, but I don't let myself think about it. I'm not thinking about anything. I'm just doing.

Boots off. Socks off. I hesitate at my jeans, then figure what the hell, my thermal shirt is long enough to be decent, and my underwear isn't that different from a bathing suit anyway. The jeans come off.

"Hannah—"

"Shut up. If I think about this, I'm going to chicken out."

I don't let myself hesitate. Don't let myself calculate the temperature or worry about what I look like or think about anything except the water and the jump and the absolute insanity of what I'm about to do.

I run.

The rock is cold under my bare feet. The air is sharp in my lungs. And then I'm jumping, and for one perfect second I'm weightless, suspended between the rock and the water, between fear and freedom, between who I was and who I might be.

Then I hit the water and every thought in my head disappears in a shock of cold. I surface gasping, my whole body screaming at me that this was a terrible idea, that I need to get out now, that I'm going to die of hypothermia in this stupid waterfall in the middle of nowhere.

But Griffin is laughing, a sound I didn't think he was capable of, and somehow that makes it better.

"Told you it was cold," he says.

"You—asshole—you said—" I can barely get the words out through my gasping and the chattering of my teeth. "You said it was fifty degrees!"

"I said probably. I didn't say it was a good probably."

I splash water at him, which is stupid because we're both already soaking wet, but it feels good anyway. He splashes back, and suddenly we're in a full-on splash fight, both of us laughing like idiots, the cold forgotten in the sheer absurdity of it all.

When we finally stop, both of us are breathing hard, and I realize something.

I'm not thinking about the gun.

I'm not replaying the robbery.

I'm just... here. In this moment. Freezing my ass off in a mountain pool with a man I barely know, and I feel more alive than I have in weeks.

"You're right," I say, still catching my breath.

"About what?"

"I needed this."

He nods, pushing wet hair out of his face. "Yeah. I know."

Chapter 8 - Griffin