She grimaced and a flash of something that looked like pain moved through her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve never climbed with him. Until this competition, he’s never expressed any interest.”
What kind of guy wouldn’t even try something his girlfriend was as passionate about as Amanda was about climbing? How could Ethan claim to care about her and not be willing to share that with her?It would be one thing if he was scared of heights or if he tried and didn’t like it for some reason, but disinterest didn’t make any sense. Not with a woman like Amanda.
Schooling his face to hide his shock, he nodded. “Then I guess we’ll all find out together.”
They followed the exit for Stone Mountain State Park and for a few minutes, he thought she wasn’t going to bring it up again. He was kind of hoping, actually. He’d have a hard time talking about it without letting his feelings show and that wouldn’t do either of them any good.
“He doesn’t have a lot of time,” she said. “He works a lot.”
It sounded like an excuse. He couldn’t imagine a man who wouldn’t make time for a woman like Amanda, but it wouldn’t earn him any points to call attention to that fact.
“Have you guys been dating for long?”Frying pan, meet fire. Nothing about that question was going to help him with his Amanda problem.
“A couple of months.” She kept her gaze on the road and her hands at ten and two, gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline. Maybe she was fighting for her own kind of control.
“That sounds serious then.” He’d been hoping for awe’ve only been out a couple of timesanswer even though he knew before he’d asked the question that wasn’t the case.
Amanda glanced over to look at him, the line in the center of her forehead threatening to set up permanent residence.
“I’m not sure how that’s relevant,” she said.
Well, aside from the fact that significant parts of his world would probably work better if Ethan was out of the picture, he wasn’t sure either. All he knew was that he couldn’t stand the idea of her wasting time with a guy who didn’t appreciate her or at least try to meet her halfway. At least he was smart enough to realize that telling her that wasn’t going to get him anywhere he wanted to be.
“It’s not. I was just being nosy. It comes from growing up in a house full of sisters. I blame them.” He flashed her a grin and hoped his change in tone would be enough to let them move forward. After a moment, she smiled back and something in his chest relaxed. Kate, Jennifer and Kristin would give him hell if they ever found out he used them as an excuse with Amanda, but they weren’t around. And he liked her expression much better after his comment than the one she wore when she was defending her semi-serious boyfriend from him.
“How many sisters do you have?”
“Three. All older. All trouble.”
She smiled at him again and he felt some of the awkwardness from earlier dissipate.
“What about you? Just Becca and Gabe?”
“I have another brother. Emerson. He and Gabe run Southerland Security. He’s been handling a big international client right now so he’s out of the country more than he’s here.”
Maybe that was a thing with her. She looked almost wistful when she talked about the brother with the high-power career. And she was dating the company guy who might not appreciate her, but who was definitely on the way up the corporate ladder. He hated thinking that was the reason she stayed with a guy like Ethan, but maybe the power and prestige mattered to her. He glanced over at her, hoping with a fervor bordering on irrational that that wasn’t true.
“Come on,” she said, catching him watching her as she pulled the car into the gravel lot at the base of the mountain. “Let’s climb.”
––––––––
AMANDA WAS STILL trying to work out why Michael’s questions bugged her so much when they reached the small cluster of buildings that made up the Hutchinson Homestead. Her relationship with Ethan had nothing to do with the gym owner with the too-perfect body and the even more perfect smile, so why did she care what he thought? He hadn’t even actually said what he thought. She’d built most of it on her own, in her head.
So her boyfriend didn’t climb with her. It wasn’t like she’d ever made that big of a deal out of it. If she’d told him it was important to her, he probably would have made the time.Probably, she thought, remembering Sunday dinner with her family. It didn’t matter. She’d never pushed and it wasn’t like she could get mad at Ethan for not reading her mind. Except she was mad. She was angry that it had taken some company event to get him to agree to go climbing and she was angry at Michael for not letting her forget it. It wasn’t any of his business.
She strode past the historic buildings, ignoring the small crowd of sightseers. In addition to climbers, the state park drew people interested in history, ecology, and anyone who just wanted to see the six-hundred-foot granite dome rise out of the earth. On any other day, she’d take a minute to soak in the majesty of the mountain, but she couldn’t stop replaying Michael’s words in her head.
Every pass over his questions about her relationship made her stomp a little harder toward the ranger station, which didn’t make any sense. It’s not like he asked anything inappropriate or even too personal. It was more the way she felt him judging her. Like he was questioning whether she and Ethan were really serious.Again, crazy.It was none of his business, and if she was being honest, she was probably projecting all of it.
They filled out the climbing day passes, and she included Ethan and the rest of their party. She’d told him about filling one of the slips out, but she couldn’t be a hundred percent sure he’d been paying attention. It was simpler to take care of it herself. Tearing off the bottom half of the page, she slipped the top half of the form into the metal box and tucked the other half into her day pack. Michael followed her lead and tucked his pass into the bag he carried with the rest of their gear.
Almost as if he could read her mood, he fell into step behind her without saying a word and followed her along the trail through the meadow to the base of the mountain. By the time they reached the talus field, she’d worked out a fair bit of her frustration. At least she’d found enough perspective to realize whatever she’d felt was on her and not part of anything Michael had done.
She took a tentative step up on one of the broken boulders scattered in a tumble around the base of the granite dome. There was nothing too difficult or treacherous to get over, but the last thing she wanted to do was twist her ankle on the waytothe climb. If anything knocked her out of the competition, Ethan would never let her live it down. Not to mention she’d been looking forward to taking Michael up the rock. Realizing she’d been wrong about him made her want a redo of their original climb. With training for the competition taking up more and more of their time, this climb was as close as they were likely to get.
She took another careful step, moving from one boulder to the other, her arms outstretched for balance. A warm, strong hand gripped hers, and she looked over her shoulder and into Michael’s dark eyes. The jolt of his touch combined with the look in his eyes almost knocked her off balance, but then he smiled at her—kind, open, available—and her world steadied.
