Page 38 of Live a Little!

7

“JAKE. I’M SCARED of heights,”she hissedfrantically.

The receiving area was completely fenced in, the gate heavily padlocked. But he led her away from the gate, to a shadowy corner. As they got closer, the fence appeared to grow higher. It had to be eight feet at least. “After you,” hesaid.

Where was her bravado now? Nothing in those empowerment books had mentioned climbing eight-foot fences in tight jeans. “I can’t climb up there. I just told you, I’m scared ofheights.”

“How else do you plan to get out ofhere?”

“I was going to spend thenight.”

He gestured impatiently with his thumb. “Up.”

She raised her foot, then had a thought. “It’s not an electric fence, isit?”

“Not at the moment. Up.” His hands cupped her butt and lifted her, not exactly gently, off the ground, so she had no choice but to find what foothold she could in the fencing and startclimbing.

She’d never been any good at this stuff as a kid, and age hadn’t increased her agility or her courage. The cold metal fencing dug into the fleshy parts of her fingers, scraped her knees and barely gave purchase to her sneakers.. She’d have given up and taken her chances hiding on the property till morning, but Jake didn’t offer her a choice. He was right behind her, urging her on—close enough that she’d fall on him if sheslipped.

“Don’t look down. Just keep climbing. You’re doinggreat.”

As she hoisted herself almost to the top, she glanced down and forgot to be scared at how high up she was perched. Jake was looking at herbutt.

“What are you doing?” she whisperedfuriously.

“Enjoying theview.”

“You’ll be enjoying it for a while. I’m stuck.” And she was. The barbed wire stared her in the face and she had no idea how to get overit.

She heard a muttered curse, then scuffling below her. Jake handed his black leather jacket up to her. “Put that over the barbed wire. Try not to ripit.”

She hated letting go even with one hand. But it was the only way she was going to get down. Luckily, it was dark enough that she couldn’t see the ground all that clearly. Refusing to even think about that, she gingerly took the jacket, still warm from his body, and laid it over the spiky wire. “Nowwhat?”

“Climb up, get one leg over, find a foothold and pull the other leg over. Don’t think about it. And don’t lookdown.”

Her teeth were starting to chatter. She gulped and got one leg over. Andfroze.

“You can do it.” His voice was so calm and reasonable, some of the rigid fear seeped out. He clung like some kind of superhero to the wire fence, urging heron.

Keeping her eyes on him, she muttered a prayer and scrambled over the top. Then she half climbed, half slid to the ground as fast as possible. She hit the dirt with a thud. Once she knew she was on solid ground again she thought she was going to throw up. She bent forward, hugging her aching arms andgasping.

A dark shape plopped down at herside.

“You’re okay. Hang on,” he said, and put his jacket around her shoulders. “Let’s get youhome.”

“DON’T YOU EVER,EVER do anything so stupid again!” Jake raged. “You could have blown the whole operation. Destroyed months of work. You could have beenkilled.”

“So could you,” she reminded him. Now that they were safe and the night’s adventure over, she had time to savor her first night as a kick-ass investigator. She’d searched for drugs, evaded guards, climbed a sky-high fence. And that didn’t even include the sex. No wonder she was high from her evening’sadventures.

And Jake with his yelling wasn’t going to spoil hermood.

She drank hot tea seriously doctored with rum while Jake stalked up and down. It was four in the morning, but sleep was out of thequestion.

In fact, the more he ranted, the more she started to feel her own anger bubble, until she snapped, “What’s the point in me working there if you won’t let me do anything but reconcileinvoices?”

“You’re supposed to study the books, find discrepancies in the accounting.You—”

“The books are clean, Jake. I’ve told you that. There has to be another set somewhere. But I don’t know where. If we found drugs wecould—”

---