Free Firelight at Mustang Ridge by Jesse Hayworth Page B

sure?”
    â€œFor now, yes. Beyond that, I’ll take it day by day.” Not so much when it came to Brandon—the shock had worn off and the sting had already started to fade. It would take longer to work through the dreams, though, and the fears.
    â€œYeah.” He nodded. “I know how that goes.”
    â€œSo I heard.” At his sharp look, she said, “Gran told me a few things about you. I hope you don’t mind.”
    â€œIt’s a small town. Gossip happens.” He took a pull on his beer, then added, “I’m flattered my name came up.”
    Was he fishing to see if she was interested? She couldn’t tell, not with him sitting close enough that she could feel an echo of his body heat on her skin and see that there was silver and blue mixed in with the gray of his eyes.Leaning away, she said, “I figured I should apologize to her for letting the fire get out of hand. She kind of took it from there. Mostly, I think, because she wanted to tell me what a nice guy you are.”
    He rolled his shoulders, but said only, “Well, since you know my story, or at least some of it, it seems only fair for you to even things up by answering a question for me.”
    She hesitated, but then surprised herself. “Okay. Ask.”
    â€œWhat do you have against the
Rambling Rose
?”
    â€œWhat . . .
That’s
what you want to know about me?”
    His teeth flashed. “Not necessarily. But it’s a start.”
    A quiver of awareness went through her, a feminine
aha
that said he was interested, all right, or at least flirting a little. And the thing was, she was tempted to flirt a little right back. He had given her his sledgehammer, after all, and he had those big, wide hands. So she said, “I don’t like small spaces, especially dead ends. The tent has zips in the front and back, and I sleep with a knife under my pillow in case I need to cut my way out.”
    â€œAlways?”
    â€œDo I always sleep with a knife under my pillow?”
    Faint lines deepened at the corners of his eyes. “Have you always been claustrophobic?”
    â€œIt’s only been the past eighteen months or so.” Aware that she knew more about him than he probably wanted, and turnabout was only fair, she backed up some. “Before that, growing up in Maine, I was the one who was always poking in the smallest, darkest hidey-hole I could find, just to see what was inside.” Which made it that much worse, having lost that, too. “It didn’t even matter if I got stuck, because my parentswere always there to pull me out. Or my sister, Charlie. Our parents never scolded us, never told us to be more careful. They just wanted to know what we had found. Bigger, better, faster, higher . . . that’s the Traveler family motto. Or one of them, at any rate. We were all about the outdoors, all the time—skiing, climbing, obstacle races . . . If I could win it, I tried it, and usually did pretty well. I won a bunch, crashed some, healed up, and did it all over again. Until one day, my luck ran out.” Her voice went hollow on the last word.
    â€œYou don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” But his eyes were steady on hers and he seemed somehow very
solid
beside her.
    â€œThere’s not much to tell, really.” Not if she wanted to sleep tonight. “My ex-boyfriend and I were out climbing with a few friends—the route wasn’t all that gnarly, and it had a great picnic spot at the top. There was this one section of chimney we wanted to try—that’s a narrow gap where you put your back on one rock face, your hands and feet on the other, and work your way to the top.” Swallowing to loosen the sudden tightness in her throat, she said, “It was a little sketchy because we had to drop in halfway and climb up from there, and things were real narrow, with jagged rocks at the bottom. But