Page 50 of Holiday Cheese and Capers
“For something that wasn’t even your fault!” The words burst out of him. “For an accident that I caused by ME being reckless and stupid and trying to impress you!”
They stared at each other, breathing hard.
“I’m going canyoning.” Bayard’s left eye twitched. His jaw was set. “I’m facing this. And you can either come with me, or you can stay here. But I’m done playing it safe and hiding from things that scare me.”
He walked away, his cane smacking the floor with frustrated self-loathing thwacks. Technically, he’d just told another lie. If he was really done hiding, he would have stayed planted in his seat and told her that even after all these years, he was still in love with her.
Exandra sat alone at the table for several minutes, her hands shaking.
Then she stood and marched herself into the activities office. She was going to speak with Geraldo and get herself added to the canyoning group.
The canyoning group was small.There were only six people total including Bayard and Exandra, plus their guide, a weathered Andalusian man named Carlos who’d been running groups through these gorges for forty years.
“The water is a little higher than normal today,” Carlos explained as they geared up. “Recent rain in the mountains. Nothing dangerous, but you’ll feel the current more than usual. Everyone comfortable with that?”
Everyone nodded. Exandra caught Bayard’s eye, and he stared back, defiant.
The first challenge was a twenty-foot rappel down a waterfall. The water crashed over rocks, sending up spray that caught the morning sunlight in rainbow patterns.
“Who wants to go first?” Carlos asked.
“I will,” Bayard volunteered.
Exandra’s hands clenched, but she said nothing.
Carlos checked Bayard’s harness and gave him instructions, and then Bayard positioned himself at the edge of the cliff.
For a moment, he just stood there, looking down at the churning water below. Exandra watched as he tested his grip, his hands firm and sure on the thick ropes. His eyes were sparkling in a way they hadn’t sparkled for years and Bayard was grinning like a silly fool. As he stood in the mist, with Carlos performing one last check on the gear, the mist from the waterfall formed a halo around his head. Then that halo came alive. Exandra could have sworn she saw arrows shooting at love hearts all around him. He wagged his voluminous brows at her. She noticed his helmet was the exact same bright blue as his hiking shoes. A sticker on the side read “I’m the G.O.A.T.”
Exandra couldn’t stop herself. “Bayard, please be?—”
“Sssh…. I will,” he interrupted.
Then, with a wink, he pushed himself backward and jumped over the edge.
Bayard descended smoothly, his movements sure and controlled despite the water streaming over him. At the bottom, he unclipped and looked up at the group and held two thumbs up, triumph written across his face.
Exandra went last, rappelling down with practiced ease. At the bottom, she found Bayard waiting, dripping wet but grinning.
“See?” he said. “I told you I could handle it.”
“I do see that now,” she admitted.
They waited as the rest of the group descended, and in that moment of relative privacy, Bayard said, “I need to come clean.”
“What?”
“The upstream incident. The one that started all this. The Culture Vulture’s supposed first incident?” He took a breath. “Zephyr was right. It was me. And I made it all up.”
Exandra stared at him. “I know. I mean,obviouslyI knew. What I didn’t know was why.”
“I guess I hoped that maybe if you caught wind of it, you might change your mind about joining us on the trip. I just...” He laughed in a self-deprecating way. “I just wanted an excuse to stay in touch with you. To have a reason for you to respond.”
Exandra was very quiet.
“I’m sorry,” Bayard said. “I know it was manipulative and wrong and?—”
“I’m using vacation days,” Exandra interrupted.
