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He was locked in to a short tether at the very top of the rock, feet spread wide for balance and leaning his whole body back as if he were relaxing into a recliner instead of a hundred-foot void. He had complete confidence in the equipment, and she had almost complete confidence in him. Her legs felt a little stronger as she hoisted herself up.
Then the rock turned suddenly smooth. One minute there were a dozen handholds to choose from, and the next there was nothing but a shiny expanse of gray striation climbing six feet above her.
Her gaze flew up to Gabe.
“Take your time,” he said. “You’ll figure it out. Just make your way toward me.”
Figure it out? What was there to figure out? There was nothing for her to hold on to. No purchase at all for her feet. Her ears buzzed, adding a high note to the ragged sound of her breathing. She knew there must be a way to traverse this because Gabe was up above her.
She looked left and then right, wondering if she was supposed to edge sideways before going up, but no, the edges of rock that she held on to didn’t continue much farther than five inches on either side.
She was going to be stuck here. There was no way she could feel her way back down to her safe cliff, and there was no way to move up. Her fingertips went numb and she saw that she’d pressed them so hard into the rock that they’d gone white at the tips.
Gabe waited silently above. He didn’t offer instruction or reassurance and she wasn’t sure if she was grateful or not.
Her heart beat too hard as her eyes swept back and forth over the smooth rock. She forced herself to draw a deep breath and heard her heartbeat slow as the seconds ticked past. Her eyes locked on an incongruous sight: a tiny white flower emerging on a grass-like stem from a crack in the rock. She watched that little round-petaled flower bob in the wind and tried to let her brain work.
Okay. Gabe had told her to move toward him and he wasn’t directly above her—he was a few feet toward the right. She looked down at her feet and saw that even though there was no step-like foothold, there was a slight concavity in the rock that eased up at an angle toward Gabe.
She moved her left foot carefully up and pressed down. It wasn’t flat, but the soft sole of the climbing shoe seemed to stick to the curve. Her eyes rose to the flower emerging from the tiny crack. With a silent apology to the plant, she placed her fingers on top of it and clung tight as she put her full weight on that tentative foothold.
Stop being afraid.
She lifted her other foot and slid herself along the mountain, keeping her body as close to the rock as possible.
It took an eternity to ease herself up six feet of rock. She had to smother every instinct her body had in order to keep going. She wanted to stop and weep and beg for help, but she didn’t. And finally, the smooth expanse of rock ended in one last sweep of amber granite and the jagged handholds were back. She put her knee against a solid lip of rock and surged up.
Twenty feet later and she was even with Gabe. He grinned at her. “You did it,” he said, waving his hand toward an edge of rock a foot above her head.
Veronica couldn’t speak, and she couldn’t return his smile, but she nodded and climbed past him to the most beautiful sight she’d ever laid eyes on: a wide expanse of flat rock that seemed to go on for a hundred feet. She hoisted herself up and collapsed onto the ground, eyes closed against the bright sun that beat down on her face.
When she heard the clink of Gabe’s gear, she opened her eyes to see him kneeling next to her.
“Okay?” he asked.
She nodded.
“You did it. On your own.”
Tears welled in her eyes as she nodded again.
He lay down next to her and reached for her hand. She was embarrassed at the way her whole arm trembled but thankful for the way his fingers wrapped around hers. They stared up at the clouds together for a while. The sun soaked into her.
“It’s quiet, isn’t it?” he murmured.
It was, just as he’d promised, the quietest place she’d ever been. The only sound up here was the occasional whisper of breeze against her ear.
She turned her head to the side and looked out over sky and mountains. “It’s beautiful.”
He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it, drawing her attention back to him. He was beautiful, too, watching her as though he had all the time in the world, his chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm that settled her own pulse. His sweet eyes and cute beard and muscled shoulders were framed so perfectly by the mountain peaks behind him, as if this was his natural place in the world.
If they’d only been dating a little longer, she’d have told him that she loved him. Loved him for bringing her up here and forcing her to be brave. Loved him for looking at her as if she was as beautiful as these mountains. She did love him a little, just for this moment, but she didn’t say it. She just tipped her head back toward the sky and closed her eyes.
***
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EVENFROMNINETY-FIVE feet up, Gabe could see Veronica’s wide grin when she touched down on solid ground. He checked the rope one last time, started the easy rappel down and hit the ground thirty seconds later.
