Chapter 7
Seven
I’d like to schedule a meeting ASAP to get an update on your thesis. And I know you took time off, but I really need you back in the lab.
Sarah stared at the text that had come in from Dr. Osborne, her thesis advisor.
It had hit her phone almost as soon as she and Beckett had returned to camp from their scouting trip.
She hadn’t actually responded yet because…
well, she didn’t know what exactly she was going to say.
That left her unsettled. This entire trip was supposed to have given her clarity so she could go back and finish writing the damned thing in time to defend before fall semester.
Instead, she’d met a man who had her questioning everything.
“You can see we’ve got some more challenging climbs here.” At the front of the room, Beckett went over the sites they’d scouted with the rest of the climbing staff, marking positions on the topographical map of the area that took up one wall.
From her position in the back, Sarah pulled the memory card from her camera and popped it into her laptop.
She’d taken photos of all the sites and wanted to be able to pull them up should he want them.
As row after row of RAW files loaded on her screen, she winced.
Finding those specific images would be a challenge.
There were hundreds of shots here to comb through.
Even before their trip into the state park, she’d been carrying her camera everywhere because the area was too gorgeous not to take advantage, and she’d been having so much fun getting to shoot again.
When had she stopped? Certainly, she’d done the same thing during her first few months in New York.
But the stress of being in the city, studying, and all the things associated with being a success in an Ivy League master’s program had forced her to set it aside.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it.
Beckett had helped remind her why she loved it so much, and in doing so, had reawakened that dream she’d dismissed so long ago, of finding a way to do this as a career.
That was a dangerous headspace to be in just now. The change of pace from coming up here was supposed to break the months-long writer’s block so she could move forward. Because moving forward was simply what she did. Always.
For every random job and thing that Taryn tried and bailed on, Sarah had always felt she had to prove she could finish something.
As if they were two halves of a whole in the worst possible way.
As if she had to balance out her sister’s poor choices and experimentation.
As if she had to be perfect at everything.
Finish Master’s. Get PhD. That was the plan. In the beginning, when Sarah had set out on this path, more school had been the obvious conclusion. A doctorate was the penultimate achievement. The challenge of that had excited her. But now?
While she still found the material interesting, the idea of spending the rest of her life with all the data and numbers filled her with dread instead of exhilaration.
And that was terrifying. Because what if Beckett was right?
What if she wasn’t meant to get this PhD?
If she didn’t do that, then what came next?
Well, a job, obviously. But she had no idea what sort of jobs were available with just a Master’s in neurobiology. Chances were they’d include all the things that were no longer exciting to her about the PhD track.
Which meant… what? That she’d wasted all her time on these degrees?
That after all her big talk to her sister about the importance of finishing things, that the things she’d finished weren’t actually getting her any closer to a career than the impulsive, somewhat itinerant job-hopping that Taryn had engaged in?
The mere idea of it made her queasy and felt like failure in its own right.
Sarah didn’t do failure.
“—will do a group trip for all the staff to make those climbs when we get closer to the Scout Wars session. The participants that week should have a lot more training than the average camper, but I want everybody familiar.”
Plans were being made about the rest of the summer.
Plans she wouldn’t be around to see. The clock was ticking, and Sarah was painfully aware that her time at Camp Firefly Falls was drawing short.
She was doing the job, following through on all the trainings and other work of orientation.
And she had to admit that she’d enjoyed the change of pace.
She’d enjoyed everything she’d done up here.
It was the first time since she’d left for college that she hadn’t been in active classes doing work toward an academic goal.
If she’d taken any time at all to breathe before now, would she have changed her mind about what she wanted?
The notion of it left her uncomfortable.
That made it seem as if her whole life was merely a product of momentum and inertia.
But wasn’t that how lots of people lived life?
They got on a path that became a rut and often didn’t pause to consider whether it was the right one unless something outside themselves forced the issue.
Beckett had been that for her. Because of Taryn, yes, but it was him who was making her question everything. She stopped her scroll of images on a shot of him on the trail, looking supremely at ease and in his element. An element he might not have found if he hadn’t walked out of that MBA program.
You have to leave the bubble sometime.
His words played through her head again.
Was it finally time to get out of school and figure her life out?
Maybe. As he continued to go over details with the rest of the staff, she found herself wishing there was some way she could stay up here for the summer after Taryn finally arrived.
Was there any kind of a job she could get here at this late date?
It hardly mattered if there was. Letting everyone know that there were two of them would undoubtedly expose their subterfuge, and Taryn needed this job.
But, God, Sarah wanted the chance. She wanted the time to spend with Beckett.
She wanted more time away from her thesis.
Which was reckless as hell. She was the responsible twin.
The idea that she’d choose a guy over finishing her thesis, finishing her degree, was patently absurd.
What did she gain from that choice?
A lot of really great sex? Yes.
Great conversation? Absolutely.
The chance to find out if he was the one?
The question made her brain grind to a screeching halt and her heart start to pound.
They barely knew each other. And yet she felt closer to Beckett after little more than a week than she did people she’d known for years. She’d felt strongly enough that she’d leapt into bed with him, without regrets.
Was it the lust talking?
No. It was more than that. He interested her. He challenged her. And he was putting himself on the line for her.
No one had ever done that.
Then again, no one had ever needed to.
All she knew for certain was that she needed more time with him. Which was exactly why she wanted the summer. To give them time to find out if this connection between them was the kind that could last.
But she didn’t see how it was possible. Because of the sister who was the whole reason Sarah had even met Beckett. So that she finally stood a chance of crawling out of the hole she’d landed in. Taryn had to come first in this. Which meant in four days she’d be going back to New York.
A band tightened around Sarah’s chest at the thought. But no matter how much it was going to hurt to leave him, she wouldn’t have traded this time for anything in the world. Even if he was making her panic about the plan she’d been perfectly fine with two weeks ago.
Maybe, after all this was over, it was time for her to start making decisions about her life purely for herself instead of running it all through a lens of what it would mean for her sister. In which case, she had a lot she needed to figure out.
The end of everything was coming, and that meant decisions had to be made.
Knowing she had to say something, she toggled over to the text thread with Dr. Osborne and tapped out a reply.
Sarah: I’m so sorry. I’m out of town for the rest of this week. Can we meet when I get back next week?
Before she could change her mind, she sent it.
A meeting would be good. Maybe it would give her some more clarity.
Maybe she’d step back into the lab and it would feel like coming home and this whole couple of weeks would be some kind of dream.
Or maybe she’d feel it in her bones that this was where she was supposed to stop.
She could discuss potential job options with a terminal Master’s degree with Dr. Osborne.
Not that the program she was in was a terminal Master’s.
The degree was just a checkmark on the way to that PhD. Nobody just stopped there.
But she was considering it.
Already she could imagine the look of profound disappointment on her mentor’s face.
Shoving the thought aside, Sarah looked up at the man she was rapidly falling for and wondered if she’d be brave enough to make a different choice than the one she’d mapped out.
Beckett loved summer storms. To his mind, nothing beat a good thunderstorm for driving people inside and encouraging naps—or other horizontal activities.
Not that Sarah was cooperating on either front, just now.
She stood at the doorway to his cabin, looking out at the torrential downpour that had granted them an unexpected reprieve from all the hard work of the week.
The other staff had mostly holed up at the big lodge for games.
Those who hadn’t were ensconced in their own cabins, making the most of their leisure.
He knew what he’d rather be doing with his.
“Will you come sit down?”