“Yeah, fine.” Her voice had a startled wobble but nothing that betrayed more than the usual shock of taking a fall while climbing. “You?”
“I’m good. Hooray for helmets,” he shouted back.
Tabitha chuckled. “Sorry about my good aim.”
“Your attempted assassination has been thwarted.”
“What was that?” she hollered down.
“I said, your attempted—oh fuck it. Never mind.” The jokes could wait, especially since some of the nuance would get lost in all the yelling. “You good to keep going?”
“Yeah. Gimme a second. Gotta find another way.”
Made sense. She’d just—accidentally—removed the next hold, so she’d have to figure out the next move to get past it. “Take your time.”
After a brief wait, she began chalking her hands again for another attempt.
“Climbing,” she announced.
“Climb on.”
As Tabitha regained the vertical progress she’d lost in her fall, she neared the spot where she’d come off the wall. With that hold gone, she shifted her weight in the opposite direction, opting to use the break as a toe hold.
Clever woman.
Once again, she looked so stable, so solid in her movements that Zac was shocked when her foot slipped and slammed into the large rock with the red X painted on its face.
Chapter forty-one
Tabitha
“Rock!Fuck,Zac,move!”
They say when you experience danger, time slows down and you see things in chillingly slow motion. But for Tabitha, the dislodged rock fell with terrifying speed and those four words barely left her lips before it landed on the ledge below with a sickening crack.
“Zac!” she shrieked, too scared to look down and see her once-was-lover smashed by the small boulder.
“I’m ok, tabby cat!” he called up with shock sticking to each syllable.
“Thank god,” she muttered into the warm afternoon air. Her heart slammed against her ribcage as though it were trying to escape. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, her palms. When she saw how much her hands tremored, she grabbed onto the rope to steady them. Her grip tightened as though she could stop the shaking if she squeezed hard enough.
“Are you in one piece up there?”
“Yeah,” she assured him, trying desperately to quiet her pulse and regain her breath. “Startled and shaky but fine considering.”
“Good.”
“Give me a bit to relax and I’ll be ready to finish the pitch.” Her form would be sloppy but getting to the top was all that mattered. And fortunately, the final route rated only slightly harder than the first pitch they’d climbed. “All I need is, like, five minutes—”
“Uh. About that . . .” Zac’s words trailed off and Tabitha’s gut plummeted nearly as fast as that falling boulder had.
“About what?” she asked, trying her damnedest to maintain the sliver of calm she’d managed to gather with her breathing exercises.
He didn’t respond right away. From where she hung, she could see the top of Zac’s helmet and everything behind him but nothing ahead of him on the inner part of the ledge. Tabitha extended her legs and pushed away from the wall to get a better look. He appeared to be fiddling with the rope and emitting quiet expletives that she couldn’t quite make out.
“I say again . . . Aboutwhat, Zachariah Sebastian Hartford the third?” Her agitation bubbled to the surface and she wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. Containing it would have been best, but that ship had sailed so far out of the harbor that it was a blip on the horizon. Panic was nipping at her heels and without anywhere to run, she was at the emotion's mercy.
Zac stepped back and craned his neck to look up at her. Even from so high up Tabitha could see the constricted line of his knitted brows.
