Page 62 of Stay this Christmas
His voice held no hint of teasing, as though it were a perfectly serious offer. As though I really might head back up and see if I’d have a different outcome this time. My impulse was to laugh in his face and get the heck out of the building, stat, but I hesitated. I’d been having fun climbing that wall—right until the actual height hit me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to write it off forever.
I didn’t want to get back up there anytimesoon, but that didn’t have to mean never.
“Maybe next time.”
He nodded. “That’s my girl.”
NINETEEN
sam
So.Rock climbing hadnotgone as well as I’d hoped.
Should have been my time to shine. Show Harper a little bit of what I could do and connect with her over a sport I loved.
Instead, she’d had a panic attack on the wall. Not her fault, but at least partially mine.
I’d let her climb as high as she liked on her first try, thinking she’d stop when she felt ready. Truthfully, I’d figured her competitive streak would send her straight to the top, even if her muscles had revolted. Hadn’t even considered the possibility she’d have trouble with the height. She hadn’t been in danger—I’d had her the whole time—but that she’dfeltshe’d been in danger still left me sick inside.
It’d bothered her, too, even if she hadn’t mentioned it. But from how she’d worried her bottom lip the whole drive back, easy to guess she saw what happened back there as a failure.
After going through a drive-through on our way out of Austin to give her the salty shot of starch she’d needed to physically recover, I’d brought her back to her place, where she’d taken a quick shower, laid out some of the sugar cookies we’d made a few days ago, and tucked herself beneath one of her soft blankets on her couch.
She might have recovered from her shock on the wall, but now, I needed a few minutes to pull myself together. She’d taken her hair out of its braid and changed into pajamas printed with Christmas elves. The pajamas I could handle. Well, barely. Her cozy T-shirt and lounge pants sent my pulse into overdrive, but I would manage it.
But the hair? I hadn’t seen her hair down since I’d been back in Magnolia Ridge. She’d always kept it in braids or buns, up and out of the way for work or for exercise classes. But now, seeing that golden-red glory sweep over her shoulders, wisps of it trailing along her jaw, I was like a man dying of thirst catching sight of a cool glass of water. My mouth went dry, my attention caught, my hands flexing with the need to feel her hair run through my fingers.
Yeah, way to be normal at her house, dude.
“Can we skip ahead to Christmas movies?” she asked. “I just want to veg for a while.”
“Sounds good to me.” I sat in the middle of the couch and patted my thighs.
Funny how a long-gone habit could come back so easily. But Harper didn’t hesitate, just twisted in her seat and stretched her legs out so her calves laid across my lap. I covered them with her blanket and worked them a little with my hands, loosening her up from her shins to her socked feet.
“Were you a massage therapist, too?”
I chuckled, squeezing her toes through the blanket. “Nope. Haven’t tried that one yet.”
She clicked around on the remote until a movie pulled up on the TV screen. A couple gazed lovingly at each other in front of a snow-covered house.
“Am I about to find out what a ghost romance is?”
She laughed, pressing Play. “You’re going to love it.”
We watched for a while, my hands moving aimlessly over Harper’s calves and feet. I tried to pay attention to the story, but my brain was shorting out over this much contact with her. I didn’t feel too bad about not following the movie’s plot, since she seemed as distracted as I was. After a while, she turned to watch me instead of the television.
“You’re thinking awfully loudly,” I said, finally shifting to face her.
She shrugged, her fingers playing over the plush blanket covering her lap. “I’m just wondering.”
Pretty sure I could guess what she was wondering, but I still had to ask. “What?”
“Have you ever had something like that happen to you? On the wall?”
I kicked myself all over again. I could have at least warned her. A little heads-up might have helped her be aware of her feelings about the height before they had a chance to overwhelm her. She’d climbed too far without looking, and the change had shocked her.
“It’s more common than you think. Plenty of people get thirty or forty feet up before their brain’s self-preservation instinct kicks in, demanding they return to the ground. A lot of seasoned climbers deal with it, too. You’re in good company.”
