He refused to be derailed by the rising anger in her voice. “You’ve tracked me, at least a little, because you know I live in Annapolis. Well, I know what you’ve been doing since we broke up, and the point is you trained that group and when something happened, a guy panicked and took his friend down the mountain with him.”
“We should have—”
“The other people in the group said you insisted everyone go down. You followed your own rules and didn’t screw around. The guy ignored you.”
“It was as if he expected me to chase him up the mountain.”
“Not to speak ill of the dead, but his ego took over. That’s on him, not you.” Joel had watched her struggle with male stupidity more than once in her work. She had all the skills and knowledge, but you put a bunch of guys together and sometimes a certain type would show off. Add in how pretty she was and some guys underestimated her.
Joel never did. She was stunning and fierce...and he loved her as much today as he did when he had walked out. Maybe more.
“All he had to do was turn around and slam his ax into the ice.” She whispered the words, lost in whatever mental image played in her head. “He was tied to his friend and they both raced down the slope and...”
“Listen to me.” Joel’s hand went into her hair and he turned her to face him. “I deal with danger and guilt all the time. I know the difference between negligence and horrible tragedy. You lived through the latter.”
“It destroyed my love of climbing.”
He leaned in and kissed her because he couldn’t stand not to right then. “It’s too soon to know that.”
“I just wanted to start over, find something else I loved, and now this.” She tucked her head under his chin.
“Also not your fault.”
The vanilla scent of her shampoo and smell of her skin had his mind blanking. He had to close his eyes to stay in comfort mode and away from whatever mode it was that had him wanting to push her back into the sleeping bag.
“The comment is funny coming from you.” Her hand pressed against his chest, and her fingers toyed with the neck band of his T-shirt. “You take on the weight of everyone else’s sins and let them define your life.”
“That’s not true.” He wouldn’t let that be true.
She lifted her head then and stared at him with those big brown eyes. “You left me because of things that have nothing to do with us.”
She kissed his chin. Let her fingertips dance over his cheek.
“Hope, don’t—”
“You love me.” She pressed her fingers to his lips.
He kissed the tips. “Always.”
“Yet we’re not together.”
“My feelings and reality are two different things.” The mantra played in his head, but his body and his heart rebelled. The need for her kicked strong enough to knock him over.
Being this close to her, holding her, seemed so easy. Made him doubt everything he believed about how his life should go. How he should stay alone rather than risk dragging someone else into his life.
Bottom line was he could easily become his father one day. The old man had been normal once, or so their old neighbors said. But at some point, he’d lost it. Joel worried every day he’d travel down the same road.
No, he was right. They couldn’t make this work. “We’re never going to agree on this.”
“How about this?” She swept her lips over his, gentle and quick.
His temperature spiked and somewhere in his brain an alarm bell rang. “What are you doing?”
“Wow, it really has been a long time for you, hasn’t it?” Her sexy smile promised a sleepless night.
It also smashed through his control with the destructive crush of a bulldozer. “This is a bad idea.”
“Then let’s do something bad.” She slid out of his arms and fell back against the mattress with her hair spilling over the small pillow.
Maybe if he kept saying her name his brain would have time to restart. “Hope...”
Having none of it, she pulled him down on top of her. “You want me. I want you.”
He balanced his weight on his elbows and stared down at her. “What we feel is deeper than that, and sleeping together could mess it all up.”
It took every last bit of his strength to get the words out. He didn’t mean them and hated saying them.
Her arms wrapped around his neck, and her body slid against his. “Do you honestly think our relationship could be a bigger mess than it is?”
“We broke up.” But he had nothing left. No way to fight her.
“And neither of us has moved on.” She treated him to a lingering kiss. “Do you want me to move on, Joel?”