Empty and not at all happy about it, his stomach protested with a growl loud enough to disturb the wildlife within a three-mile radius. A friendly reminder he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
He’d already consumed most of what he’d brought but sent up a prayer anyway and dug around the bottom of his pack. He hit pay dirt when his fingers sank into the doughy freshness of his last homemade sandwich.
Hungry and in a hurry, he opted for quick access by circumventing security measures and tearing the cellophane open in the middle.
Oh baby. Come to Daddy.
Movement above the tree line on the rock face north of his location prevented him from consuming his meal in the usual four bites. To free up his hands, he jammed the mangled peanut butter sandwich into his mouth and brought his binoculars back up for a look.
Worth more than he earned in four months, his new high-tech toy wasn’t even on the market yet. But given the detail he could see with the advanced image intensification system, Chase was grateful his new glasses were seriously jacked.
A video-out function allowing him to record, download, and view again later, all with the push of a button? Sweet.And if his bionic eyes weren’t deceiving him, he was definitely looking at something worth recording.
Hello, spectacular ass.
Attention captured, he noted the long legs, the slight curve of narrow hips, and the wave of dark brown hair spilling over the climber’s shoulders. By the way she handled herself and her equipment, she clearly wasn’t a vertical rock virgin by any means.
With sure quick movements, the owner of the coveted assets scaled the wall in front of her. When she closed in on the halfway mark, she paused to flex her fingers, and he finished his meal while he admired the view.
Jesus. Even from this distance, she had a striking profile. A long time since a woman had turned his head, Chase could happily watch her all day. Too bad he had to keep his focus on the opposite side of the lake, because as far as distractions went, the climber was a hella sexy one.
Under normal circumstances,clinging to the side of a cliff by her fingers and toes was one of Gray’s all-time favorite adrenaline rushes. Unfortunately, in addition to her love of climbing, she was also a heat junkie.
Surprise.The sun produced no heat north of the border in early October.
With overcast skies and temperatures hovering around fifty degrees, she wanted to get this assignment over with, get on a plane, and get the hell out of Dodge. Two days in the Great White North were two days too many as far as she was concerned.
Screw Jackson, in the nonliteral sense of the word. She wanted to be back in Miami—with Tara—listening to her gush about Travis and his magical penis. Two phone calls a day and a string of texts consisting of memes about cock sizes didn’t cut it when her best friend was falling head over heels for a man she’d just met.
Gray needed to be there to poke under the drummer’s hood. Make sure Travis had the goods to be the kind of boyfriend Tara deserved. She needed a strong partner. A steady partner. Someone who was the complete opposite of Gray.
Someone who didn’t have a panic attack every time the c-word came up in conversation. Gray couldn’t help herself. She didn’t handle family stress well, and with her mother and brother both gone, and her father estranged, Tara was the only family she had left.
And if anything ever happened to her—
Oh God, Gray’s stomach executed a rollover for multiple reasons as her toe slipped from its hold. Already three hundred feet in the air, now would probably be a good time for her to pay attention to what the fuck she was doing.
Tara would be fine. Gray would be home on Monday. They’d go to the oncologist appointment together on Tuesday. The tests would show no signs of cancer. They’d celebrate like rock stars after the Grammys, and any bad thoughts would be banished for the next six months.
Drawing a deep breath and exhaling slowly, Gray centered herself, and ignoring the piercing cold penetrating her yoga pants, she focused on the flex and stretch of muscles. Hand over hand, she let her instincts do their thing, and settling into a rhythm she was familiar with, she propelled herself upward at a steady pace.
Climb a few feet. Feed the solo lead rope. Climb a few feet. And repeat. Once she hit her stride, it didn’t take long to reach her destination. The narrow ledge the local climbing guide had given her a heads-up on was where he said it would be. On a bolted route, a third of the way from the top of Cougar Wall.
Winded from the fast climb, she double anchored, switched from her Wren Soloist to her ATC rappelling device, and plunked her freezing butt down on the unforgiving stone. Heart racing, she took a short breather and admired the view before she started hauling up her gear.
Trees. A billion fucking trees.And a lake. Long and narrow, the dark water looked cold enough to make a man’s balls crawl back inside his body. Gray shivered. Jesus, this had better be worth her while, or God help him, Jackson would be in for one pissed-off tornado of a woman when she landed back in his neck of the woods.
As usual, he hadn’t told her much about her assignment. After his standard five-minute safety speech, he handed her a plane ticket, shoved a map in the back pocket of her pants, and then planted one doozy of a kiss on her lips.
Annoyed, Gray had wondered out loud why his girlfriend put up with his lousy technique. Aimed at her back, his trademark falsetto “Hurtful”had made a number of curious heads turn.
On the plane, she discovered her instructions consisted of a date, place, and time scrawled in black Sharpie across the province of British Columbia. It was her job to figure out the rest. And Jackson didn’t like to make it easy. Not that she minded.
It was the way they worked, and it worked for them. She never had any preconceived notions about what she’d be shooting. In her opinion, it kept her photographs from feeling staged.
It also served to assuage Jackson’s need for secrecy. At the best of times, her partner channeled an overcautious old lady. When he was nosing around a big story, he also turned into a paranoid bastard.
The arrival of her equipment via bicep-express refocused her attention, and instantly, she was all about business. With practiced hands, she freed her Nikon from its case and attached the telephoto lens. Then checking her watch, she noted the time, lifted her camera, and set her focus on the log building on the opposite side of Kalamalka Lake.
