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He might as well have walked across a solid stone bridge two feet above a lazy stream, Morgan thought as she watched him.
“You’re fine,” Miles said from behind her.
She spared him one dubious look, held her breath, stepped off the platform.
It swayed all right, but she kept her eyes on the second platform, even when Howl howled from below.
She didn’t fall, and didn’t end up dangling in humiliation.
“You did great! Want to go across first this time?”
“No, second’s fine with me.”
“Remember what to do?”
“Yeah, I’ve got the not-falling part down solid.”
She watched Liam walk over vertical logs that seemed unnecessarily narrow and spaced unnecessarily wide, then glanced back to see Miles cross the bridge with the same ease as his brother.
Show-offs, she decided, and carefully unlocked her first carabiner, switched it to the next wire, gave it a nice testing tug before she did the second.
The logs swayed, too, but the idea of freezing halfway across kept her moving, kept her stretching a leg out to step from one to the next. The fact she swallowed a couple of squeals before they sounded boosted her confidence.
There were narrow wood swings that swayed, a rope net to traverse.
Liam let out a hoot of approval as she managed them. “You’ve got it! We could sign you up on crew!”
No, she thought as she made her careful way over a long vertical log, then what was, essentially, a tightrope. Definitely no to that.
She climbed a rope ladder, felt her abs sing as she swayed and balanced over the course of tires.
But the trapeze got her. She watched Liam grip it, swing like a circus act from perch to platform.
Her heart hammered; her muscles trembled. This was work! But she gripped the trapeze, sucked in her breath, and pushed off.
And it was like flying. For a second, maybe two, like flying with the air on her face, her body—as the song said—defying gravity.
When she landed on the last platform, her laugh rang out.
“That!” She threw her arms around Liam before she turned to where Miles waited on the trapeze perch behind. “Who knew?”
And that, he knew, was the moment. She stood, face flushed with the effort, with the sudden delight, her arms still around his brother.
Her smile could’ve lit the world.
He didn’t slide out of affection into love, didn’t slip from attraction into forever, but fell long and hard. No safety system could have stopped the fall.
It left him breathless, stunned, and a little bit pissed off.
So he’d think about it later, he told himself. Later, when he’d cleared his head and she wasn’t right there distracting him.
When they’d started down, he swung over, then joined them on the ground.
“Fun, right?”
“More than I expected,” she told Liam. “A lot more than.”
“Wanna go again? There’s time before the next group. I wasn’t sure how long it would take you, but you’re a natural.”
