Free Heartbreaker by Karen Robards

concentration, and felt despair.
    He looked as if he belonged in an ad in a glossy magazine: the Marlboro Man as mountain climber.
    She and Rory needed a real hero, not a phony one.
    A sneeze exploded from her body out of nowhere, shaking her grip, shaking the tree, sending her plummeting another couple of inches closer to death. Lynn gasped, holding on for dear life.
    “For God’s sake, stay still !”
    Jess shoved off from the side of the mountain. Riding the rope, he swooped down to land about a foot to the right of her tree.
    Lynn decided that a phony hero was better than no hero at all. Much better.
    “H-help,” she said faintly.
    “It’s all right. I’ll have you safe in a couple of minutes. Just don’t move.”
    The caution was unnecessary. Lynn had no intention of moving, if she could help it. The misting had stopped at last, but the small fir was as soaked as she was and the branches she clung to were growing increasingly slippery beneath her death grip.
    Her nose itched.
    The thought of sneezing again filled her with terror. Grimly, she willed herself think of something else.
    “Rory,” she said, her voice stronger. “Get her first. Please.”
    “I’ll get her, don’t worry.” He bunny-hopped across the rock toward her. The evergreen grew about fifteen feet out from the face of the cliff, and Lynn lay along its outermost branches. That put her some nine feet beyond his reach. Dangling as she was above a drop of approximately fifteen stories straight down, those nine feet might as well have been nine miles.
    “I think … I think Rory might be hurt.” The conversation was conducted at a near shout as Jess jockeyed for position at the base of the tree.
    “She’s alive; I saw her move.” His noncommittal answer told Lynn that he, too, suspected Rory was hurt.
    “I want you to rescue Rory first!”
    “I don’t give a damn what you want. You’re higher up than she is, which means I got to you first, so you get rescued first. If you’ll just shut up and do what I tell you, I’ll soon have you both safe.”
    “Rory—”
    “The longer you argue, the longer it is until I get to her.”
    That silenced Lynn.
    “How sturdy does that tree feel to you? Do you think it’ll support my weight as well as yours?”
    Lynn realized what he was thinking: that he could walk out along the tree trunk to reach her.
    “No!” she cried, clinging tighter as rising wind currents made the branches shake. Near though Jess was to her, if the fir uprooted now there was no way he could catch her before she plunged to the ground. For Lynn, who weighed about 110 pounds, the tree was a precarious perch. Add Jess’s approximately 170 pounds to the equation, and Lynn feared the probable result.
    “Okay, okay!” He seemed to reconsider. He looked down, looked up, and appeared to come to a decision. Lynn watched warily as he did something to the rope at his waist. The air was growing colder. Gusts were shooting up from the canyon floor, causing the tree to sway, sending her hair—and his—billowing skyward. Lynn realized that she was wet through, and freezing with it. The cold and the fear were making her shiver.
    “Lynn.” The way he said her name put her on red alert. “Lynn, listen to me. I’ve tied myself off so that I can’t drop any lower. I can’t fall . Do you understand that?”
    “You can’t fall,” Lynn repeated, thinking, bully for you .
    “I’m going to swing out and get you. When you feel me touch you I want you to let go of the tree and grab on to me for dear life.”
    “What?” Lynn’s eyes widened as she absorbed the implications of that. She clung tighter to her branches.
    “I’m going to swing out and get you. All you have to do is let go of the tree and grab on to me.”
    “That’s all ?” It was hard to pack the appropriate degree of sarcasm into a near-shout. “Have you looked down? We’re about a hundred fifty feet up. What happens if you miss? What happens if the tree uproots?