Two days. Forty-eight hours of acting normal while the memory of her legs wrapped around my hips and her mouth open on mine played on a loop I couldn't shut off. We'd been polite. We'd eaten breakfast across from each other at the table and talked about the weather and her client presentation and whether the trail to the south ridge was passable yet. The entire time I could feel the ghost of her fingers digging into my shoulders, hear the sound she'd made when I'd kissed her throat. I'd had to leave the room twice to keep from touching her again.
I wasn't new to wanting. I'd wanted plenty of women. Wanted them in bars and truck beds and the occasional motel room, and it had always been simple. A pull, a yes, a morning where nobody pretended it meant more than it did. What I hadn't had was this. The wanting that came with her laugh and the sugar by her coffee and the look she'd given me in the outpost with her back pressed against the doorframe and her knees going soft. I'd seen it. I'd kept my hands on the rope because if I touched her in that room I wasn't going to stop.
The axe hit the round clean and the two halves kicked apart. I stacked them and grabbed another.
She hadn't mentioned the kiss. I hadn't mentioned the kiss. We'd developed a mutual agreement to pretend the kiss had not happened, which was working great except for the part where it was a lie and we both knew it and the cabin was eight hundred square feet.
I buried the axe in the stump and went inside.
She was at the table, laptop open, hair twisted up with a pen holding it. My flannel was too big on her, the cuffs rolled, the collar showing the line of her throat. She had her own clothes now. We'd made a Moose's run the week before, and she'd come back with trail shoes and layers and a jacket that actually fit. But every morning she came out of the bedroom in my shirt. She looked up when the door opened.
"How much wood did you split?"
"Enough."
"For what? Winter?"
"Possibly." I poured coffee and leaned against the counter. The same counter. I put my mug down and moved to the stool instead.
She watched me move and I saw the corner of her mouth pull, just barely. She knew. Of course she knew. She was the smartest person I'd ever met and she'd figured out exactly why Iwas standing six feet from a surface I'd been leaning against for three years.
"I'm taking a client group on a half-day Thursday," I said. "You want to try rock climbing before that? Basic moves. Might help if Drew shows up again and wants another outing."
She closed her laptop. "How basic?"
"Bouldering. Low wall, crash pad underneath. Nothing that'll kill you."
"That's a low bar for recreation."
"It's the Cascades. That IS the bar."
I TOOK HER TO THE BOULDERINGwall after lunch. It was a natural rock face about ten minutes up the trail from the cabin, twelve feet high with good holds, and I'd set crash pads at the base. She'd put on her new hiking shoes and a pair of dark leggings and a tank top, and her hair was pulled back tight. When she looked up at the wall her jaw did that thing, the tightening she got when she was deciding whether to be afraid or competitive.
Competitive won. It always won with her.
"Hands here and here." I positioned her fingers on the first holds. "Grip with your fingertips, not your palms. Push with your legs. Your arms are for balance, not lifting."
She pulled herself up two feet and immediately tried to arm her way to the next hold.
"Legs."
"I'm using my legs."
"You're using your arms and your legs are just hanging there being decorative."
She shot me a look over her shoulder that would have made a weaker man apologize. I grinned. She turned back to the wall,planted her foot on a lower hold, and pushed up with her thigh. She gained a foot.
"Better."
"Don't patronize me."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
She slipped on the third move and dropped to the pad. Stood up, brushed her hands on her leggings, and went again. And again. By the fifth attempt she'd made it halfway up and her forearms were shaking and there was chalk dust on her cheekbone and she was breathing hard and grinning.
"I need you to move your right foot to the hold at two o'clock," I said from below.
"I don't see it."
