“I get it,” he said, his mouth pressed into a hard line. “I’m not allowed to question you about your past if—”
“You won’t let me do the same about yours? I’m actually okay with you asking, Jacob. It’d be nice if you at least recognized the double standard, though.”
He looked out the window, his face turned in profile. In the distance, she saw the Sierra Nevada mountains falling away from them.
“But not of heights,” she heard him s
ay very quietly.
“Excuse me?”
“You weren’t afraid of heights,” he clarified. At first, she was puzzled by his statement, but after a moment, she considered it seriously.
“I used to be pretty nervous about heights, when I was really little,” she replied thoughtfully, examining their clasped hands where they rested on his long, solid thigh.
“But not anymore?” Jacob asked. She realized she’d sounded a little wistful, and that he’d turned and was peering at her.
“No,” she replied softly. “Not anymore.”
“Your father cured you of that fear, too?”
“Not my father. Someone else.”
From the periphery of her vision, she saw him open his mouth. He closed it without speaking. She stared out the window as they soared through the air, only feeling a sense of calm power as he held her hand tightly in his.
Twenty Years Ago
When Jake opened his eyes the next morning at dawn, it was like waking up in a different body. A different world. His nose was buried in Harper’s soft hair. It smelled of hay from the loft, and peaches. They were on their sides, her back pressed against his front. He held her against him with one arm encircling her waist.
Combining their heat had worked. He was warm.
And he ached . . .
The realization made him scoot away from her as fast as if he’d realized he hugged a tarantula to him. His hasty scuttling in the blankets made her stir. He regretted awakening her. But it was mortifying, the uncontrollable reaction of his body. It was as embarrassing as it would have been if he’d peed his pants in the middle of the night, and a girl was about to discover it. And not one of the giggling, swarming girls from Poplar Gorge Junior High, either.
This wasn’t just any girl. It was Harper McFadden.
“Jake?” she asked sleepily.
“Yeah. It’s okay. Go back to sleep,” he ordered gruffly, reaching for a discarded sock.
“’S okay. I’ll get up, if you are.”
Both of them went to the waterfall and washed their hands and faces, then drank mouthfuls of the cool water. Slowly, Jake started to ache a little less, and his self-consciousness faded. They put on their tennis shoes silently. Harper sat cross-legged on the blankets when she was done. Her nose wrinkled.
“What’s wrong?” Jake asked her warily.
“I smell,” she said.
“Like peaches,” he mumbled under his breath, tying his shoe off extra hard. He froze. His eyes widened at the recognition of his misstep.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” he muttered.
“I wish I could take a bath,” she said longingly, staring at the opening to the cave in the distance. Pale morning light was starting to shine through the small hole in the rocks.
“I brought some soap. I could give you some privacy and you could wash in the waterfall. Water’s ice cold, though.”