Chapter 16
Alec
I throw the last branch aside and step onto the Lennox property. Ten minutes uphill, and my hands are caked with mud. I wipe them off on my jeans, clip the shears back to my belt, and pick up the thing I brought.
Not a gift, I remind myself. Just fixing a liability.
Fog clings low across the trees. I cross the garden, quiet as a deer. Then I hear it bleeding from the open garage.
The Carnival of the Animals. “The Swan.”
I follow the sound, stopping at the threshold of the garage and staying hidden in the shadow. Fair’s fair. Clementine’s ambushed me enough times.
Inside, she moves in the center of the garage. The place is cluttered with weights and resistance bands, but she doesn’t touch any of it. She dances like the space is hers alone. A single bulb flickers overhead.
Her hair is loose, streaks of pale orange slipping down her back. A green leotard clings to her. She rises en pointe, ankles bending to impossible angles, the kind of thing that makes my joints ache just looking at it.
The cello arcs low.
She leaps, body hanging for a breath before she lands in silence. Then she folds, collapses flat against the concrete before twisting up again, arms slicing the air.
Classical music has always made sense to me. Patterns, form, precision. A well-cut route on a mountain. No wasted steps. No chaos. Just discipline until it looks like freedom. And she is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to freedom.
I should leave.
The piano follows, and she bends back, ribs flaring like wings. Her hair flies, catching the light like the sun burning off snow. She arcs her leg behind her, and I see the shape of a bird lifting off the water. It’s wind reshaping a ridge, or ice breaking free.
My breathing goes ragged, the way it does when the ground slides out from under my boots.
She folds in on herself again, shuddering. And I want to step inside the room, to anchor her against me, to trace the sweat down her spine until I forget my own name.
Instead, I grip the box I’m holding tighter and take one long breath.
Clementine isn’t mine to think about like that.
No one is.
No one will be. At least, that’s what I always believed. There’s never been anyone I wanted to possess. Just summits. Routes. Things I could hold, measure, conquer.
Whatever this is—her jokes, her softness, the way she pulls me into moments I thought I’d aged out of—it’s temporary.
A transaction. I’ll leave Misthaven. She’ll pay off her debt.
Maybe she’ll go back to New York and remind the bastards at NYCB what they lost when they let her slip through their fingers.
I shift back into the fog, box in hand, ready to leave it at her door and stop myself from thinking at all, but my boot clips a rake hidden in the grass. The clang shatters the air, cutting straight through the cello.
She turns. Her eyes catch mine through the mist, wide and bright, her chest rising with the last of the music. Neither of us moves.
“Alec?” she breathes.
And I realize I’ve been caught in the middle of something that feels holy. But she doesn’t look away. She doesn’t tell me to go. She just holds me there in her gaze, as if I belong inside the world she was building for herself.
I open my mouth, then close it, then open it again like an idiot. “I—uh—”
“Did I miss training? Did we have something scheduled today?” Panic crosses her face, and I kick myself for breaking the peace she was in. I should’ve texted her.
“You looked—” I stop, fumbling. Just tell her she looks beautiful, but I can’t seem to. “That was…you were dancing.”
No shit.
Clementine shrugs, fidgeting with the cap of her water bottle. “A little something for myself. Since we’ve been training, my body’s been aching to move in ways that feel familiar.”
I’d pay thousands to see her move like that again.
“It’s like that song was made for you.”
“Not sure if that’s a compliment or not.
It’s Le Cygne,” she says, still avoiding my gaze.
“Most people call it ‘The Dying Swan.’ Pavlova made it famous. She thought of the swan as injured and dying, but later dancers, like Plisetskaya, performed it as an old swan refusing to give in. Kind of inspiring, right? Not giving up.”
“And the cello?”
“Yo-Yo Ma, obviously. This version’s my favorite. I swear, when I see him live, I’ll probably cry. He makes the piece.”
I shake my head. “I think the dancing was all you.”
She waves me off. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She crosses the garage, looping a soft pink wrap around her arms, her earlier embarrassment already gone. Stopping in front of me, she taps the shoebox I’ve been holding.
“Now what do you have here?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
“Please tell me that’s not the dead bird from the river yesterday,” she says. “Because I was joking about a funeral.” I took us on an easier route on the river. Ran it alone first just to make sure it was safe.
“Why would I bring you a dead bird? I’m not a dog.”
“But you are such a good boy.”
If she asked me to bark right now, I might. But I don’t rise to her bait. Instead, I hand her the shoebox. “These are new boots.”
Why?”
“Your old boots are a liability.”
She jerks back, palms out, like I actually handed her something dead. “Alec, I can’t take these.”
“You can, and you will. My team needs solid gear. And you need time to break these in before the qualifiers in nineteen days.” I add, softer, “I even got you the cute ones.”
That makes her hesitate. She edges forward, slowly peeling back the lid, milking the drama like the boots might bite.
The tissue crackles, and she gasps. They are the same model as mine, only smaller and far more pink.
She looks at boots the way I look at mountains, like she’d climb them if she could.
But then the awe sours. She shuts the lid carefully, like she’s putting something fragile back in its box. “I can’t. Those are…they’re two hundred dollars.”
“They’re boots.”
“They’re debt.” She shakes her head, fiddling with the ribbon on her wrap, her voice pitching higher. “I already have a pair.” She points to the corner, where her old ones with zero traction are left slouching, still dark from last week’s rain.
I hear Finn’s teenage voice in my head. Don’t buy me things. I haven’t earned them.
“I didn’t ask you to pay me back,” I tell her, keeping my voice steady. “Call it a bonus. You’ve already painted most of the main room.”
“That wasn’t part of our agreement.”
“There are no hidden intentions with this, I swear. It’s gear. Nothing else.”
“In my world, unannounced generosity usually comes with donor dinners and being paraded around. Sitting at tables with people who flash checkbooks and wear clothes straight off the runway. Clothes that make you want them.”
I glance around the garage, then down at myself, wet flannel, boots caked in mud. “I don’t think these came off a runway.”
Her teeth catch her lip. “No, I guess not.”
“Okay. If you don’t want them—”
“No, I do, I—” She folds her arms tight across her chest, cutting herself off. “I just can’t accept them. Not like this.”
Her jaw clenches, but I see the panic flicker underneath.
Pride and fear all tangled. I recognize it.
The same knot I’ve carried most of my life.
The same one Finn carried too, refusing things he needed because he couldn’t stomach the feeling of being beholden.
But I can’t let her keep the old pair. Not when her safety’s already been compromised on my watch.
Two strides, and I’ve got the old boots in my hands before she can move. The leather is soft, worn to death. Dangerous.
“Alec!”
My arm cocks back, and I launch the left boot into the fog. It disappears with a dull thud.
Her mouth drops open. “What the hell are you doing?” She darts after it, pointe shoes smacking the concrete, then the wet grass outside.
I’ve already got the right one.
“Making sure you wear the new ones.”
The second boot sails into the tree line, swallowed by mist.
Her face is flushed when she whirls back toward me, caught between fury and disbelief.
I stand there, soaked in her stare, refusing to apologize. Because even if she hates me for it, at least she’ll be safe.
“You’re insane!” she shouts, caught between fury and laughter. She jogs back toward me, damp hair clinging to her flushed cheeks, and swats me.
I catch her wrist mid-swing. Her pulse hammers under my thumb.
“And you’re stubborn,” I growl.
“Pot, meet kettle!” Her blue eyes spark.
“You look like you’re seconds away from throwing one of your weights at me.”
“Thank you for the idea.”
She lunges for the shoebox. I hold it higher. She climbs me like a cat, half wrestling, half laughing, trying to pry it free. Her breath is hot against my neck, her fingers scrabbling at my shoulders.
“Give it back!” she pants.
“Not until you say you’ll wear them.”
“Over my dead body.”
She twists again, momentum pitching her straight into me. The shoebox slips to the floor with a thud as I catch her waist. Suddenly, we’re tangled, her wrist in my grip, her body pressed tight to mine, my heartbeat slamming against hers.
If I leaned in, just a fraction, my mouth would be on hers. And she knows it. Her gaze flickers to my lips, then back to my eyes, heat written all over her.
The creak of the porch door cuts the air like an axe.
“Well, holy hell,” Margaret crows from the doorway, wrapped in a pink robe, tea steaming in her hand. “Didn’t know I’d stumble upon foreplay before breakfast.”
Clementine jerks back, nearly tripping over the shoebox. I release her wrist, but she grabs mine again like it’s instinct.
“Gran, we were just—” she starts.
Margaret just grins, eyes twinkling. “Don’t you ‘Gran’ me. I may be old, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I can see what Alec was just doing.” She sips her tea with a wicked smirk. “Though next time, maybe clear the garage floor first. Concrete’s murder on the knees.”
“Gran!” Clementine squeals, her face flaming red.
“Back to it, darlings. Alec, grab a blueberry muffin when you’re done tasting my granddaughter’s muffin.” Margaret cackles all the way back inside, the screen door slamming behind her.
Clementine groans, covering her face with both hands. “She really needs another hobby.”
“Apparently muffin-baking is on the list today,” I mutter.
“Stop.” She peeks at me through her fingers, then collapses onto the floor, dragging the boots into her lap like a shield. “Jokes aside…thank you. I do like the pink.”
“You’ll break them in on the hike today. I think you’re ready for another brick.”
“Exciting,” she deadpans, stroking the leather. Her cheeks are still pink. “At least I’ll look cute in these.”
“And stay dry.”
Her eyes cut up to mine, sly. “Right. Because staying dry is very, very important.”
Every nerve in me screams to grab her again, to show her exactly how dry I don’t want her to be. Instead, I turn toward the trees.
“Where are you going?” she calls.
“I don’t litter.”
“You’re a menace.”
“And you’ve got new boots.”