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The ground slid beneath it.

A spray of dirt and small stones poured over the edge and vanished.

Isabella’s arms windmilled as she tried to catch her balance, but her momentum was already carrying her forward.

Her second foot slipped, and I lunged.

My left hand caught the top of her backpack. My right hand closed around a fistful of her shirt between her shoulder blades.

Her weight jerked me toward the edge.

Fuck.

I dropped backward, drove my right boot against a thick exposed root, and heaved with everything I had.

For half a second, Isabella hung at an angle over nothing.

Just empty air beneath her and a sheer wall of black volcanic rock dropping into a ravine.

Loose dirt trickled past us and disappeared.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

I hauled back and dragged Isabella from the edge.

She landed partly across me. I wrapped one arm around her middle and rolled us farther from the edge before the loose ground decided to send us both over the cliff.

We stopped against a rocky outcrop several feet back, and for a few seconds, neither of us moved.

I was breathing as if I’d just run the entire way from Manhattan. Every injury I’d ignored on the way down the mountain had caught up with me, and Isabella was sprawled across my chest.

She was still alive, and that was all that mattered.

When she finally lifted her head, her gaze went past me toward the cliff.

The ravine dropped almost straight down, sheer volcanic rock disappearing into trees far below. There was no slope to catch a fall. No ledge. No second chance.

Nothing that would have stopped her.

Her entire body began to shake.

“I—I didn’t…”

“Isabella, it’s okay.”

She kept staring at the cliff, and my eyes dropped to her mouth when those beautiful, full lips moved without producing a word.

I caught her face between my hands and turned her back to me.

“Look at me.”

Her eyes found mine, wide and blinking.

“Are you hurt?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

That answer did absolutely nothing for my blood pressure.