Chapter 25 Brynn #2
“Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just... Well, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? Of course I’m just assuming
Sudworth is your real name. It’s not actually Parker or Jones or something, is it?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Afraid not.”
I waited until the laughter had dissipated, and then I glanced at him to make sure he still appeared at ease.
There was a chance it was still too soon, but with that professional delivery of three simple words—two of which were his name—he’d made it blatantly obvious he belonged in a newsroom.
It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
“Sebastian?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you give it up?”
The good humor was gone again. Instantly. I watched as his hands clenched tighter around the wheel, and I listened as silence
moved in where laughter had been. I turned away and began looking out the window again, half expecting the radio to turn back
on in a moment.
And then, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but can I count on you not to talk to anyone about anything I say?”
Something about the vulnerability in his voice made me certain we were embarking on a confidence I would never dare to betray.
But it was still more fun to tease.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but what makes you think I could ever find anything about you interesting enough to share?”
I turned back to him in time to see him bite at the inside of his cheek, causing the corner of his mouth to tighten as it
rose and some rather appealing crinkles to appear around his eyes. Teasing him had been the right play.
We had stopped climbing in elevation, and I opened my mouth in the beginning of a yawn to pop my ears, just as he did the same.
It was quiet for thirty seconds more, but I knew he would start talking when he was ready.
And I knew not to pressure him. I didn’t have any idea what he was about to tell me.
My internet searches hadn’t pulled up anything more than rumors and speculation and a lot of headlines that included the words “mysterious circumstances.” So I didn’t know how to prepare myself, or even if preparation was necessary.
I just knew that he was at least contemplating talking to me about something he didn’t usually talk about.
I was honored even by the contemplation.
“I was in Maungdaw Township.” He darted his eyes to the right and said, “That’s an area in—”
“Rakhine State in Myanmar. Yeah. You were there reporting on the Rohingya genocide, presumably?”
“I didn’t expect you to know that.” He took a deep breath as he looked into the rearview mirror and then pulled off to the
right at the old abandoned Adelaide Gulch ski pass. “I’m sorry that I didn’t expect you to know that.”
I shrugged. “I’m used to being underestimated. The first time I met Mark Irvine, he told me that his first rule of journalism
was to never trust anyone with dimples.”
Sebastian exclaimed, “Ouch!” and laughed, though somewhat painfully, and I joined him. He shifted the vehicle into Park and
then turned to face me.
“I have no doubt it was a sexist insult coming from Irvine, but in fairness, I adopted the same rule after meeting Morley
Safer the first time.”
Laughter erupted from deep within me, and he watched me and chortled softly to himself. Then he pointed behind my head. “This
an okay spot, you think?”
I nodded. I didn’t have to look behind me to know where we were or exactly what we would find when we got out and explored
on foot. When I was a kid, Adelaide Gulch had still been a thriving tourist location. Maybe even the primary attraction, apart
from those four revolutionary days in September. Adelaide Gulch, though not technically within city limits, made the town
of Adelaide Springs a traveler’s destination rather than just a place to rest for the night and grab a quick meal before continuing
on in the journey to somewhere a little more worth planning a trip around.
“The Inn Between . . . ,” I muttered and then laughed softly.
We were each getting out of our respective sides of the vehicle, so thankfully Sebastian hadn’t overheard the moment, right then, when the cleverness of the name of Mrs. Stoddard’s bed-and-breakfast finally clicked in my brain.
I would have hated to admit I’d slept there three nights without catching it.
I’d have certainly negated at least some of those “Don’t underestimate Brynn Cornell’s intelligence! ” points I had just won.
“Hope you don’t mind getting those boots wet,” he called out over the top of the vehicle and then reached in and grabbed his
own much more rugged and broken-in boots from the back seat. He bent over and quickly pulled off his Vans and slipped into
the boots.
“It’ll be good for them,” I called back.
It wouldn’t be. Walking up the rough, rocky, and muddy path that still had up to a couple feet of snow in certain places would
destroy them. But I was still itching to get them on the trail and see what they could do.
Sebastian came around to where I stood and stared up with me at the ski lift that hadn’t been used in twenty-five years. “I
would have loved to see this place in its prime.”
I nodded, wishing there was a way to invite him into the memories that had been stored in the deep recesses of my mind and
yet had sprung to the surface in a flash. “It really was something.” I began walking up the trail, and he followed me. We
climbed at a forty-five-degree angle for a full minute before I pointed to the right, up about thirty more feet in elevation.
“Just on the other side of that ridge there—”
“Stop talking!”
I whipped around to see what was behind the urgent instruction—my first guess was a bear; my second was he was enjoying the view, and the sound of my voice ruined it. But I hadn’t expected to see him running back down the rocky, snow-covered yards we had traveled, back to the vehicle.
“What are you doing?” I shouted at him. I wanted to be insulted that he had cut off my nostalgia in such a rude way, but as
I watched him expertly jump from rock to rock—the faster way, but certainly the more perilous—I was just amused. “If you think
abandoning me here would be a good way to kill me, you’re wrong! I could Donner Party it up in these mountains for years.
Years , I tell you!”
He didn’t respond, not that I would have heard him if he had. He was facing away from me, down the mountain, and with that
much distance between us, the wind would have carried everything away.
Ah. The wind. There it was. If I remembered correctly, we were right around eleven thousand feet now and climbing. It probably
hadn’t been my smartest move to leave my coat at the inn, but smart didn’t matter right then. What mattered was the way I
suddenly felt more alive than I had in twenty years.
I stepped out from the shadows of the giant snow-covered pines and aspens and into a patch of sun, and that exact feeling—near-frozen,
wind-chafed skin responding to the sun’s rays by spreading joy and thankfulness through every nerve center in my body—felt
like home. The best parts of it, and none of the bad.
Nothing I’d held on to and allowed to fester for twenty years, and everything I’d pretended had never existed.
“Brynn?” His voice only inches away didn’t startle me, even though at some point my eyes had closed.
“Hmm?” I asked. My arms were spread out and my face was tilted toward the sun, and my wind-stung eyes were releasing gentle
tears from the corners. They almost made it to my ears, but the wind and the sun worked together to dry them before they got
that far.
The wind and the sun and Sebastian’s thumb.
His voice hadn’t startled me, but his touch sent shock waves.
I tilted my head down slowly, instinctively afraid to move too fast for fear I would ruin something. Even if I had no idea
what that something was. My eyes opened and caught him studying me, his right hand still on my cheek. His thumb still toying
with the tears as their trajectory adjusted with the direction of gravity.
“The mountains suit you.” His voice was still only inches away, but it was no longer his voice I was focused on. The moisture
had stopped streaming from the corners of my eyes, but his hand hadn’t budged, apart from the meticulous trail his thumb was
tracing across my jawline.
“You too.” I’d never spoken a truer statement. My internet research had proven Sebastian Sudworth was a man who looked equally
at ease in war-torn strongholds, chasing down militant combatants and demanding answers, and in the Oval Office, asking the
questions no one else dared ask. But he belonged here . The wind whipping the wisps of hair that couldn’t be contained by his cap, his black-rimmed glasses fogging up a little
bit from the warmth of his breath, his lips parted as his lungs worked overtime after the run back up the rocks at more than
two miles in elevation.
All too often in books and movies, kisses seem to be these uncontrollable things with lives of their own. Someone just can’t
help but close that gap between themselves and someone else, throwing caution and consequences to the wind. That’s nice and
all, but all too often, once the impetuous kiss is over, they have to say they’re sorry and talk about how they don’t know
what came over them.
That wasn’t the case with me. I knew I was going to kiss him. I knew we were both going to like it very much. And I knew I
wasn’t going to be sorry.
I also knew that if I was wrong about any of those things, it was going to be a very long trip back down the mountain, but that was a chance I very intentionally chose to take.
I leaned into his hand, just as the pressure from it eased and it seemed as if he might be preparing to pull away. His green
puffer jacket was only closed to his collarbone, and I gripped each of my hands around the unzipped material. I hesitated
just a second as our eyes locked, giving him an opportunity to protest before it was too late. Because, seriously... if
I misread the cues, I might have to put my wilderness survival money where my big-time Donner Party–talking mouth was.
But I hadn’t misread a thing.
He leaned forward and whispered, softer than the wind, as his thumb made one last sweep over my cheekbone and his fingers
fanned through my hair to the back of my head. “We might regret this when we’re no longer caught up in the romance of the
mountain.”
“Then let’s never come down.”
I rose on my toes, and we pulled each other closer simultaneously. I’d expected urgency, but his lips met mine with tenderness
and careful, gentle exploration. I gave in without hesitation and let him set the tone. I wasn’t wearing glasses, but the
warmth of his breath had the same effect on me that it had on his lenses. I felt the steam spread throughout my head, creating
a fog in my brain and over my eyes.
With my fists clenched around his jacket at his chest, tightly squeezed between his body and mine, I could feel our intermingling
pulses, but the material was doing an admirable job keeping his body temperature all to him. And as his lips continued their
tantalizing exploration of mine, I felt the need to be closer to him. I needed more. I was jealous for his warmth and desperate
for that feeling. The one that I knew would signal I was no longer alone. That I wasn’t the only one invested in my survival.
I began unzipping his jacket but began to panic when his lips stilled on mine. There it was. I’d known I would eventually
ruin things by moving at the wrong time or speaking when I shouldn’t, and it had finally happened. He probably thought I was
trying to undress him. I was the girl who had made out with one of the One Direction guys in a dark NYC club on New Year’s
Eve, after all. (I honestly only knew Harry and Niall, and it wasn’t either of them. Not my proudest moment, even in a lifetime
of questionable choices.) What would make him think I was above trying to seduce him right there on the mountain, in calf-deep
snow?
He doesn’t know about that , I reminded myself. He doesn’t know anything about you. And he already doesn’t like you.
His fingers were no longer in my hair. My eyes fluttered open, and I wanted nothing more than to go back and implore my hands
to stay right where they were, so that his would stay right where it had been. So his lips would never leave mine. But it
was too late. The spell had been broken.
But his eyes didn’t seem to know that yet. They were only two inches from mine, full of questions and answers, it seemed.
He leaned in and brushed his lips against mine, lingering for just a moment on my bottom lip. Then he pulled back again, our
eyes locked into intimacy I wanted to run from and to, and placed his hand over mine and finished lowering the zipper of his
jacket. Tears pooled in my eyes as he held it open and smiled. My lip trembled as I responded to the invitation in his eyes
and wrapped my arms around his abdomen and spread my hands out across his back, between the warmth of his down jacket and
his T-shirt. I rested my cheek against his chest, and he kissed the top of my head and wrapped his arm around my shoulders
as my tears let loose all over Janet Jackson.