Chapter Eleven
Harper liked to think she was unshakeable.
The last ten years were surely a testament to that.
All the ridiculous, impossible positions she’d found herself in, coming face-to-face with danger, dangling off cliffs, frozen in the wind to get that perfect shot.
More than once––less than thrice––that had included the very real possibility that she might die.
And all she’d hoped for was that Harry would play Angels by Robbie Williams at her funeral.
She hoped the speeches would be short and that no one would be allowed to cry.
She’d always wanted her life to be celebrated. Not mourned.
But waking up this morning with the memory of that kiss and the feel of Elise’s lips on hers was worse than any danger she had faced in her career.
The image of Elise jerking her head back so quickly she’d banged it against the wall kept replaying, and the truth was, it left her more than just shaky.
Harper stepped onto the smooth, sun-warmed pebbles and let her gaze take in the Fiordo di Furore.
A narrow inlet on the coastline between Praiano and Conca dei Marini.
To Harper, it looked like a sharp pocket carved between two cliffs where the Mediterranean shoved itself inland.
The water was so blue and so bright, it basically glowed.
Above, an old stone bridge arched across the fjord, where cars drove slowly along it.
On one side of the water was a narrow path winding along the cliff, and on the other side, limestone rose up sharp and jagged with streaks of green where moss and shrubs clung stubbornly.
There were a few small wooden boats hauled ashore, and small pastel-painted houses were stacked on one side like sugar cubes.
Production had, of course, done the impossible and secured the entire inlet for the morning. No tourists. No sunbathers. Just Megan and Amelia, whom she had chosen for the first one-on-one date of the season.
Harper scanned the beach. A handful of camera operators were focused on Megan and Amelia.
They were both standing thigh-deep in the water.
She was surrounded by the crew. Two camera assistants were fussing with reflectors to Harper’s right, and the sound guys were crouched over their equipment under a small blue teepee to her left.
Elise was nowhere to be found. This wasn’t a surprise.
Harper expected her to pop up somewhere, but wished she could do it sooner rather than later.
They needed to talk about last night. Frankly, it was absolutely imperative that they did.
Harper was beginning to get offended because Elise had once again kicked her out of her house and spent all morning ignoring her.
But Harper had to talk about it. She was desperate to talk about it.
Last night, during the kiss, Harper had felt a seismic shift so big it had rearranged the terrain under her feet. She needed to know if Elise had felt the same way, and if that was the reason she’d ended the kiss so abruptly. Clearly, Elise was scared.
Which was fine. Harper had been scared, too.
“I feel like I’m in a dream,” Megan said, skimming her palms over the sparkly water’s surface. She was wearing a white and turquoise tie-dye bikini with strings tied at her hips. A waterproof mic was taped securely to her sternum. “This place is amazing.”
Amelia was right next to her in a coral bandeau top and matching bottoms. “Well, I think you look like a dream,” she said, then immediately bowed her head, looking embarrassed.
Which Harper thought was entirely appropriate.
She even inwardly cringed for Amelia, whom she had expected to know how to flirt.
Even Harper, who was terrible at flirting, would never call someone a dream.
She was way too forward for that. The night she had met Harry, she’d bought him a Guinness at the little Irish pub off Camden High Street and told him she liked the way his hair fell in the light and maybe they should just go ahead and have sex.
They’d gone on a second date the very next night.
Then two more before the end of the week, and three months later, Harry had proposed on the Cliffs of Moher while the salty wind whipped Harper’s cheeks.
When it came to Elise, on the other hand, Harper couldn’t remember an exact moment where she had flirted purposefully.
Instead, it had been a series of accidents and small impulses.
Half-smiles that lingered too long. Hands brushed where either she or Elise would jerk their hands away when someone approached.
An offer of a neck rub after a brutal day of filming—which Elise had taken on day fifteen and then proceeded to moan like she was orgasming.
“You’re just saying that because you have to,” Megan said. Her cheeks bloomed pink against her sun-kissed skin. “But please do continue. I haven’t heard this many compliments in the last few days… or ever.”
Amelia laughed and smiled at her so longingly that Harper had to photograph the moment. Which she did. She didn’t even bother checking the screen. She didn’t need to. She knew she’d captured the emotion perfectly.
“Not only do you save lives, but you’ve got a sense of humor as well. I don’t think we could’ve gotten any luckier this season,” Amelia said, dipping her hands in and out of the water.
If Megan’s cheeks could go any redder, they’d probably bleed.
She quickly splashed water on her face and then kicked her legs out to float on her back.
Her brown hair fanned like a halo around her face.
Amelia followed and did the same. Harper changed her position.
In fact, she waded into the water, glad for her hybrid sandals.
“So, what made you become a doctor?” Amelia asked.
Megan took a few good seconds to reply, which Harper took as an opportunity to take a few photos of the sunlight bouncing off the water, the droplets clinging to Megan’s eyelashes like glitter, and Amelia’s toes kicking up miniature geysers of water.
“My sister nearly drowned when she was six,” she finally said.
Harper, who had her camera raised, suddenly froze. Well, that was unexpected. She stopped clicking the shutter and started listening.
“She could swim better than I could,” Megan said.
“But our dog, Rondo, loved zooming around the pool. He was a Ridgeback, so he wasn’t small.
One day we were all inside, but Gabi wasn’t.
My parents had a camera by the pool, so we were able to see what happened.
Rondo had barreled across the tiles like a missile.
He’d clipped Gabi’s feet, and she slipped and hit her head on the side of the pool before she fell in. ”
Amelia gave a small gasp. Harper did too.
“I was eight,” Megan said. “I ended up following the ambulance with my dad, who, as you can imagine, was losing it. When we got to the hospital, there were so many doctors. People were yelling. My parents were yelling.”
“What happened?” Amelia asked, her voice soft and broken. Harper didn’t blame her. Stories like that made everything feel heavier. Even the air in her lungs seemed thicker.
“She lived and had no long-term complications,” Megan said, smiling softly.
“It was November, so the water was ice-cold, and the doctor said that was actually a good thing in her case. Not always, because cold water can also increase the risk of fatal drownings. But in Gabi’s case, the cold water slowed her metabolism, which gave her brain a tiny grace period. ”
“So, you became a doctor because you nearly lost your sister?”
“I guess I did,” Megan said, shrugging, like it wasn’t a huge deal, though Harper could see her fingers flexing in the water.
Apparently, it was a huge deal. “If it hadn’t been for the doctors that day, she wouldn’t be here.
She wouldn’t have gotten married to the love of her life or had my nephew. I wanted to make an impact like that.”
“You’re amazing,” Amelia said.
Megan laughed loudly and splashed Amelia. “You really are a flirt, aren’t you?”
Amelia promptly splashed her back. “Only if it’s working.”
The sun had slid behind the cliff so that one side of the water sparkled like a handful of crushed glass had been scattered across it, and the other sulked under the shadow.
Harper only noticed it when she checked the photos.
They weren’t looking nearly as spectacular as she wanted.
The reflections were all wrong. She needed height.
She needed a vantage point that captured the boats resting on the sand shoreline, the stone-cut pathway, the pastel houses stacked on the cliffs, and the bridge arching overhead.
Getting all of that in one frame would be impossible unless she moved farther from the water, and she had no intention of doing that, especially when she still needed the light exactly where she wanted it.
Suddenly, Harper’s legs itched to climb.
She quickly scanned the cliffside bordering the water to the left.
The rocks were jagged, but not impossible.
If she could just follow the natural grooves and cracks, and press her feet into the tiny ledges, she could inch her way upward safely.
In fact, Harper could probably even do it with her eyes closed.
It was decided. She was already running across the beach.
Her mind was so focused on what she wanted to do she didn’t even consider this might be slightly dangerous for anyone who hadn’t dangled off sandstone cliffs in Utah.
But she had. With a rope that time. But still.
If she fell, which she wouldn’t, she’d fall into the water.
Which was fine. Except… well, for her camera.
She hesitated as she reached the base of the cliff, but then decided there was no way she was going to fall.
A little ascent like this was easy. The rock had ridges and shallow ledges.
She could easily make her way up. She jammed her hand into a jagged groove and felt coarse, gritty stone against her fingertips.
She had to admit this was somewhat exhilarating.
She was beginning to feel like her old self again.
The Harper before the assignments stopped.
The Harper before Harry had set her down in their sunroom with the potted geraniums, begonias and a Cape primrose.
The Harper who took risks like they were vitamins.
She grinned to herself and shifted her camera so the strap wouldn’t swing into the rock.
Then she pressed her feet into the tiny ledges and tested each one before committing her weight.
After that, she shifted her weight forward and kept moving higher and higher until she got to a point where she paused to peek through the viewfinder.
The fjord practically exploded across the frame: Megan and Amelia in the water, the pastel houses, the stone pathway, and the boats parked on the sandy shore. The perfectionist side of Harper itched to catch it all.
But then her right foot skidded across a slick patch of stone, and her stomach suddenly lurched.
Her right hand flew outward, fingers clawing against the rock until they latched onto a narrow ridge.
The impact had dragged her knuckles across the stone and peeled skin in an instant, leaving a hot, stinging stripe that pulsed.
“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath. Her heartbeat gave the tiniest betrayal, a sharp little kick against her ribs.
At least she managed to toe a small protruding rock and right her balance.
She was fine. Totally fine, and this still counted as a success.
She hadn’t fallen. She hadn’t lost her nerve. She could still get the perfect shot…
“HARPER!”
Harper whipped her head toward the beach just in time to see Elise rushing to the water’s edge. Her arms were flailing like broken windmills, and that face that was usually so smooth, so composed, was all scrunched up and panicked.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”