Chapter 23
Ginny’s muscles were running on adrenaline fumes and stubborn pride.
Any minute now, her entire metabolism would collapse and her body would scrape its way down – so far down – to the bottom of the rock face.
Telling herself it was only two metres didn’t help.
She was up higher than her own body, clinging to the jagged rock.
She found a nice textured ledge and, for a minute at least, she felt quite secure where she was. The stone was rough under her fingertips, pockmarked and powdery, with layers and facets of grey and gold. She took a moment to suck in a breath, releasing it to the count of five.
Her legs were turning to jelly. She needed to keep moving or she’d freeze up. It had happened frequently when she’d first started with Kira, but she hadn’t panicked for a couple of months. She recognised the creeping sensation.
‘Look for the next holds,’ she muttered to herself through chattering teeth.
She dared a glance upwards. The end of the rope Kira had set for her and Mattia swam in her vision, still so far away. And just beyond it was the shadowy form of another person. She blinked to clear her eyes, finding Rhys above her, his camera lowered.
The delighted smile on his lips shot warmth through her.
‘C’mon, Ginny!’ she heard Kira whining from below. ‘You know how to do this. You’re the toughest wedding planner of them all!’
‘Don’t make me laugh,’ she called back, but her head cleared enough for her to search for the next grip. Keeping her hips in close, as Kira had taught her, she scraped her way up with another few pushes of her legs, fingers scrabbling in the cracks as the rubber of her climbing shoes kept grip.
Another two metres and her muscle memory from the gym kicked in.
Another one and her head cleared, her instincts coming fully online.
Her blood was pumping. No matter what happened now, she’d gained this altitude under her own steam.
Even if gravity pulled her down again, these few metres belonged to her. The attempt was what mattered.
The victory of each further foot buoyed her until the little anchor point holding the top rope was just above her. She reached up and grabbed it, pausing for a moment to let the calm ripple through her, even as elation wanted to butt in.
‘Open your eyes, Ginny.’
She followed the soft instruction without thought, colours suddenly blinding: blue sky, pale rock, the lake an astounding shade of turquoise. The craggy chimney turrets of the Tre Cime were just visible.
The snick of a camera shutter made her look up and Rhys took another shot before lowering the camera again.
‘You did well.’
They were little words, throwaway platitudes from anyone else. But Ginny saw the glow in his eyes, and she lit up even brighter, shooting him a grin.
He inhaled so deeply she heard it from her position, several feet below him. Then he said, ‘Now the others are far enough away, I can tell you how much I want to kiss you.’
The words landed smack in her stomach. ‘Are you trying to make me fall?’ she teased when she could finally form a sentence.
‘No!’ he replied suddenly. ‘Sorry. Maybe I’ve caught your habit of blurting things out.’ His expression was almost comically dismayed.
‘I hope so,’ she said lightly. ‘I would like to know what’s going on in your head.’
‘Right now? It’s just you,’ he said ruefully.
From anyone else, she would have thought it was a line, but this was Rhys, with his blunt tone and low brow. He didn’t look particularly happy about the fact that she was in his head, but she would take the compliment.
‘Well, I’m currently in your viewfinder, so I suppose that makes sense.’ She tilted her head in a pose and he dutifully snapped a photo. ‘I might need that one for my Instagram. I promise I’ll credit you. I assume you’re on there, or are you still on Facebook like the rest of your generation?’
‘Back down with you, Weller,’ he answered gruffly, but he was smiling. Wow, it was lucky he didn’t smile much, because he’d have most of the population swooning from that dimple and his perfect jaw.
‘Ginny?’ she heard Will calling from below. ‘Everything all right?’
Her gaze still locked on Rhys, she replied, ‘Yeah, I’m coming back down!’ Just as soon as she could tear herself away from this private bubble of ease.
The line went taut in response and she gripped the rope in her fist just behind her backside, sitting in her harness as she’d practised over and over at the gym.
Catching Rhys’s eye once more, she said, ‘Well, it was nice flirting with you,’ and she let the rope run through her hand as she bounced neatly in the direction of the ground with her chin in the air, ready for a perfect landing.
When her friends and colleagues were almost life-sized below her, her foot slipped and she went swinging hip first into the wall.
‘Ow!’
Will had her rope taut and she safely dangled for a moment until she found her footing once more.
Of course, she would screw up the landing, but she was proud of how far she’d come, that she was out here amidst the stumpy pines in the crystal air of autumn, with the motley crew of Great Heart Adventures – as one of them, as bizarre as she’d once thought that prospect.
Her little trip only made her laugh harder when she had her feet back on the ground and Kira’s arms cutting off her air supply in a fierce hug.
‘You did it! You sent your first outdoor climb, Ginny!’
Ginny gripped Kira’s shoulders just as hard, both of them bouncing with glee. She could almost believe her instructor and friend was happier than she was, except she was pretty darn happy. ‘I fucking did it!’ she repeated.
‘You fucking did!’
‘Eh-hmm,’ she heard from Andreas, who was pressing his hands over his godson’s ears and scowling at them.
Rhys’s hands itched to fetch his Nikon out of its bag. The previous urge to snap a photo was less than five minutes past, but he’d just noticed the way her hair was caught over her ear and that needed documenting too.
It was unprecedented – and unpleasant – how much of his brain was currently taken up with details of Ginny’s anatomy. He was a nasty cliché: falling for the bright, younger woman who dreamed of more in her future.
He wanted more photos of her – not to keep on a private hard drive, like the ones from before the accident that were only confusing and painful now, but to display in an exhibition.
He’d never considered himself a true artist; the beauty in his photos came from the subject.
But he imagined this was what it felt like to have a muse.
Last night had been… altering. And again today, watching her, something had changed. He hated change.
The strangest part was the urge to talk. He didn’t do talking. It was uncomfortable and usually pointless anyway.
She was sitting across the table from him, not in his eyeline.
He might have thought she was keeping her distance because she was worried about their friends discovering they’d slept together, but she was still buzzing from her climb, laughing and talking with Kira, not thinking about the other high they’d shared within the past twenty-four hours.
It was warm enough in the last glow of the sunny autumn day to sit outside on the terrace of the little restaurant by the lake, but cold enough that the restaurateur had produced a pile of blankets for them.
Steam rose from the soup and Rhys’s Kaiserschmarrn, the smashed pancake dish that he always craved when he was in Tyrol.
‘Wow, I can see why you go on about these dumplings, Andreas,’ Ginny said, digging into her food. ‘Although I still think the name is funny.’
‘It’s not funny,’ Andreas muttered next to Rhys. ‘How many times do I have to say, it’s Knodel? “Canoodle” in German is “Knuddeln”, which is entirely different from Knodel. Sophie has told this joke so many times, and it wasn’t even funny the first time.’
‘It’s totally still funny,’ Kira said with a grin.
‘And actually, I think the joke is my fault,’ Ginny said with a grimace that hid a smile.
‘I knew you two weren’t finished that first night at the Admiral.
Tita and I were joking that you were looking at Sophie as though she were your favourite food – which is apparently Knodel.
And look where we are now – at your wedding! ’
‘We’re not quite at the wedding yet,’ he said quietly enough that Ginny probably didn’t hear. ‘You should try the Kaiserschmarrn,’ he said more loudly. ‘It’s a local speciality too. Mountain food.’
Rhys stared into his plate as Andreas gestured to it.
‘You’ll love it,’ Kira agreed. ‘Try it,’ she said with a nudge.
‘Um…’ Ginny sounded as awkward as he felt.
He didn’t dare look at her, but he could tell she hadn’t lifted her fork. He couldn’t dump a morsel into her soup.
‘I don’t think Rhys wants to share,’ Laurie joked, ramping up the self-conscious tension in him.
‘No, er, here,’ he said in a panic, not sure what else to do to get all the eyes off them. He stabbed a chunk of fluffy pancake, dipped it in the tangy cranberry sauce and held it out to Ginny.
He had to look at her, which was torture in company, with everything he had to hide.
She was staring at him as though he’d lost his mind – at least, that was how he interpreted her wide-eyed look.
He held the loaded fork over the table between them, belatedly worrying about the casual intimacy of the gesture.
‘Trust me, it tastes way better than it looks,’ Kira said with a chuckle, but her perplexed glance between them worried him.
Ginny pressed her palms onto the scarred table and tried to smile as she rose to lean over the table. Shit, she really was going to let him feed her, in front of everyone. Despite his throat closing in concern, he wanted to laugh as she lifted her chin and opened her mouth.
‘Mmm, wow. It’s so light and sweet.’
Rhys’s brain shut down for a moment as he watched her chew with closed lips, replaying the moment he’d fed her in front of everyone over and over in his mind, troubled by the warm suspicion that he wanted them all to know what had happened.
Then Kira’s voice finally broke through the haze in his thoughts. ‘Wow. You guys are so awkward.’