Chapter 48
Alec
Now I’m praying because I’m late. My watch has been buzzing for hours, a tiny, relentless jury reminding me that I’m failing the one person I can’t afford to fail. My girl. She’s probably seething and hurt, and I hate that I’m the reason for both.
The storm broke just long enough for me to rappel off the glacier, and Rob flew his rust-bucket plane back to Misthaven on fumes. He dropped me a mile out from Frog River, and my boots were on dirt before the plane skidded to a stop.
Seven minutes of running like hell. Seven minutes of lungs burning, legs screaming, the world tilting with every stride. Still, when I broke through the tree line, the kayaks were already in the water.
I spot the shade of orange in the middle of the pack. I’d know that color anywhere, the same way I can pick one blaze of leaves from a forest in autumn.
Clementine’s in the stern of our kayak, rushing forward. Every stroke says the same thing: She doesn’t need me. She’ll run this race on her own, and she won’t look back.
“Clementine!” My throat shreds raw around her name. The sound comes out with everything I’ve held in since the storm broke.
She doesn’t falter. Doesn’t even turn her head.
The crowd catches me then, hundreds of onlookers swiveling toward the man screaming his lungs out on the riverbank. My pulse slams harder. There’s no hiding now, no waiting, no begging for a better moment.
She’s already out there, and I’m losing her with every yard of the current.
“Where the hell were you?” Finn’s voice snaps, cutting through the roar. He wheels toward me, Yura close behind, her face tight with confusion.
“Make sure my pack’s at checkpoint two!” I bark, shoving past them. It doesn’t matter. I don’t have time to explain. Every second is another stroke of her paddle pulling her farther away.
The river greets me like a fist, slamming against my legs, freezing and merciless. October water in Alaska isn’t just cold, it’s violent. It cuts straight through fabric and skin, latches on to bone, clamping down on my lungs like a vise.
My breath seizes, but I dive anyway.
Cold swallows me whole. It’s teeth on every nerve, fire and ice ripping through my chest. My ribs feel crushed, lungs screaming for air.
Hulls slice past like blades, the current throwing me under, spitting me up, dragging me under again.
I choke on river water, spit, claw forward, my arms burning, my body howling to stop.
The current doesn’t just want to sweep me; it wants to keep me.
But none of it matters.
Because she’s out there. And if I don’t reach her now, I may never get another chance.
Under. Up. Under again. Eventually, I manage to break the surface beside her hull, gasping.
Her mouth is a flat line, all the hurt I put there hidden behind it, and it’s more than I can stand.
“You left,” she hisses, eyes hot enough to boil water. “I thought you left me. I thought—” She breaks off, swallowing it, like the words themselves burn.
“I’m sorry, Clem.” The apology feels flimsy. “There was a storm—on the glacier—I couldn’t—”
Her paddle jerks, the boat angling away, but her eyes never leave mine. Blue fire. Fury, betrayal, a thousand questions stacked between us.
“What glacier?”
“I left you a note,” I choke out. “Under your door.”
“There was no note.”
The thought makes me sick. She thought I just walked away. Vanished. No word. No reason.
A paddle smacks the side of my skull as another boat cuts past. White sparks explode in my vision. I spit water, cough, and push closer to her hull.
“Clem,” I rasp, teeth chattering, lips already numb, “you have to let me in the boat. I won’t make it the next ten minutes like this.”
I see the fight in her, the part of her that wants me to stay right where I am, to feel every ounce of what she’s felt.
Another wave slams me sideways.
She curses under her breath, then jerks her paddle toward the stern. “Fine. Front seat. Now.”
I hook an arm over the side, haul myself in clumsily and half-drowned, water pouring off me in sheets. My hands barely work. She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t ask if I’m okay. Just keeps rowing, shoulders set, back rigid with anger and adrenaline.
“Clem, I—”
“Tonight.” Her voice is stern, but there’s something trembling underneath. “We’ll talk tonight. Right now, we’ve got a race to win.”
I hunch low, grab the spare paddle from the side of the boat with fingers stiff as wood, but I fall into rhythm with her.
And God help me, I’ve never loved her more.
By the time we drag our kayak up the bank, my back is on fire, mud is sucking at my boots, and my shoulders are shredded from two hours and forty-three minutes of paddling. Our fastest run yet. One of the first five boats to land.
We should be celebrating.
But Clementine hasn’t spoken to me since I pulled myself out of the river, and her silence feels worse than drowning.
Fuck, what if she’s already done? What if I lost her before I even had the chance to say everything that’s been clawing through me?
“We’ll set up here.” She shoulders her pack and drags it a few feet from the waterline, dropping it with a heavy thud. “Get the tent out.”
The sun is still high, tents popping up around us, and I just stand there. “Clem,” I rasp. “I fucked up. I know I did. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to spin some storm story,” she sighs, grabbing the tent from my pack and dumping the contents on the ground.
“Rob said you weren’t cleared to climb that glacier until late October.
Just admit it—you panicked. I almost said I loved you in Paris.
I made you a room. I brought Mozart into your life.
I pushed too hard. And you never wanted that, so you ran. ”
She doesn’t give me her eyes. She just grabs a stake and hammers it into the mud.
And that kills me more than if she’d screamed.
“That’s not true. Rob called. Said there was a window. I thought I could be back before Wild Trails. Then the storm hit. I was stuck. I was a fucking fool.”
Her head snaps up. “You could’ve texted. Called. Anything.”
“You’re right.” My chest heaves like I just took a punch. “Fuck, you’re right. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I left a note ’cause my phone died, and I didn’t want to wake you or worry you.” I shake my head. “I don’t know how to try and do this, Clem. I’ve never known.”
“Communication isn’t something you try, Alec. It’s the bare minimum. You were supposed to be my partner.”
“I know.” My hands curl into fists. “But I had to do that climb.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to face this race, or my life, as half a man.” I tear the words from my chest. “I owed you more than that. I thought if I could climb, if I could take the glacier alone, then maybe I could take you too.”
“So, what—you thought nearly dying on a glacier would make you worthy of me?”
“No. Because the mountain wasn’t the fear. It’s you. Not you—fuck—not you. I feel for you, Clem. And I didn’t know what to do with that.” My voice breaks, a jagged sound, close to a sob. “This whole time, I thought if I kept you at arm’s length, I couldn’t ruin you when I didn’t come home.”
“That’s not your decision to make. It’s mine.” Her breath comes out clipped. “But you do scare me, Alec. Not just the mountains. You. I don’t know how any of this is meant to work when I may be waiting for a call that might never come.”
I step closer, every nerve on fire. “And I don’t know if I can live without you. So, tell me—what the fuck do we do about that?”
Her eyes flash. “You tell me.”
“Christ, Clementine.” I drag a hand over my face. “You’re the reason I want to survive all of it. I’ve never felt more alive than I do when I’m watching you laugh, or listening to you argue with me, or paddling that damn lake with you. You think I want to throw myself off mountains now? I don’t.”
She stares at me, chest rising fast. Then she rips her sleeping bag out of her pack and hurls it at me. The weight thuds against my ribs. Around us, people are staring, but I don’t give a damn.
“Fuck you.” Tears streak her face, but her hands don’t stop moving as she clicks the tentpoles into place, sliding them through the loops. “You don’t get to disappear, leave me to worry all night, and then show up with the most you’ve ever said to me.”
“Then don’t believe the words. Believe what I do. Believe I’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that if you’ll let me. Believe that I’ll choose you every goddamn day.”
“You’re maddening, Alec!”
“I am.”
“Ugh,” she groans. “Everything I’ve ever teased you about, it’s all true.” Her voice cracks, but she keeps going. “You scared me so badly. Do you understand that?”
“I know. I do understand. I am every joke you make of me, every poke and prod and tease. I’m not great at this, I’m not.
” I swallow, trying to figure out my words.
“Clementine, you are the home I spent my entire life searching for on peaks.” I close the space between us, and she doesn’t step away.
“And I don’t want to throw my life away for a summit anymore.
I don’t need the death-defying climbs, the solo risks.
I need you. It’s you. Not the mountain. You. ”
“I thought I lost you. I was so sure. And I didn’t know how I’d survive that.”
Her hand jerks upward in exasperation, but I catch it mid-swing, steady, my fingers firm around hers. She doesn’t fight me. Her eyes shine, glassy with fear.
“You quiet my head,” I whisper, swiping a tear from her rosy cheek.
“You make me feel like a kid again, before all the years of pain.” She’s trembling, furious.
I cup her jaw with my other hand and tilt her face to mine.
“I love you, Clementine,” I say. “And I will spend every day proving it to you.”
Her whole body jolts, like the words knock something loose inside her. She shakes her head once, twice, tears spilling unchecked. Finally, she crumples into me, fists balled, pressing against my chest like she wants to shove me away and hold on at the same time.
I wrap my arms around her, bury my face in her hair, and breathe her in like air after almost drowning.
She sobs, “You’re such an asshole.”
“I know,” I murmur, holding her tighter. “But I’m your asshole, and I fucking love you.”
“I fucking love you too,” she says into my chest.