Chapter 12

Abby stared at her right foot as it came off the demented aerial pathway. She flinched as the left one followed and her weight shifted to stable ground. As it did, everything in her let go, a deep, reaching-right-down-into-her-bowels sigh escaping her.

She was safe. On normal, sane land once again.

And no matter how she’d felt about him, Dare’s hands on her waist, steadying her and providing the knowledge that someone was there for her, hadn’t hurt.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” She inspected the area around them. “Finally. Back on terra firma again.” Palming the carabineer watch swinging from her belt loop she flicked a glance at it, noted the clock. They were well within the time she needed to get things done. The last worry faded.

She’d done it. With his help.

Only with his help.

Suddenly, she couldn’t stop the completely heartfelt expression that she knew was breaking out all over her face. “Hey, thanks for that back there.”

The smile he gave her in return, though, was a bit quizzical.

Ah. If she had to bet, she’d say he was thinking about that kiss. That moment, down there on the rocks.

Her stomach flipped. Stayed upside down. A long-forgotten feeling arced through her.

They’d stumbled into an embrace, the sea spray soaking them. It had been sweet, soft. Awakening long-ago things in her.

Her gaze skimmed over him, stalwart, strong. Muscles firm, even in repose. A rough-hewn soldier if she’d ever seen one. Her stomach did a dance again, and the queasy feeling stayed. Amplified.

And the way he’d made her interests his own and helped her when she’d needed it so badly? Just for a moment, it had shoved away the tiniest bit of hurt and angst about their messy break-up.

Her mind flew back to the last time she’d seen him, when he’d surprised her in New York. She shook her head, remembering.

He’d looked like crap that day, when he’d shown up at her firm unexpectedly. It hadn’t just been the rain he’d walked through to get to her office, the fact he was drenched to the bone, his clothes plastered to him, wet.

No, it’d been his face. His eyes.

He’d looked like the walking dead.

Surprised that he’d shown up, and angry that he had, she’d turned him down flat, looking to hurt him. Make him pay. Watching for the slash of pain to cross his face.

And she hadn’t been disappointed. Though the confusion that accompanied it had rattled her.

She copped another glance at him. Here he was, back. Three years later.

Long, lean. Steady.

Now she knew he’d cared, at least.

And she’d gotten the pictures from hell, so she had bargaining power with the dufus back at camp. A glimmer of a smile escaped her.

She turned to him, happy. Satisfied. “I’m not sure I could have gotten across without you, Dare.”

“No problem,” he replied. The words were matter of fact, and he had no smile.

And the first thread of discomfort stirred through her. Really, it was no big deal, but…

“I have to check my messages.” He turned completely around suddenly, and she found herself staring at his back. A fine back it was too, the line down the middle curving to his…aw, hell.

He’d dismissed her.

He hadn’t even really said the comment to her, though she could say, in actuality, that he had said it to her face.

But not really to her.

Frustration spiked. She was splitting hairs. But still, there was a reversal here, wasn’t there? She pondered.

Icy. Not?

She heard him speak in a hushed tone into the phone. Business, probably. She’d heard a while back about the reno thing he’d started, and realized he’d do well, once he applied both those brains and that beautifully refined brawn.

Really, he was good at everything he did. He took pains to do things right, always. And he was loyal as hell. He’d always been that way.

“Okay,” she muttered, forcing her mind from overanalyzing.

Fumbling around in the camera bag, she found the memory card tucked in its slot for safekeeping. She couldn’t wait to see the pictures again, show Dare a couple too. Just so he saw what he’d helped her score. She’d just slip it in quickly, and…

And then she heard the words.

“Tomorrow. Definitely. Hong Kong, indefinite. Two years to start will be fine.”

She could scarcely believe her ears.

He was leaving?

She watched him slip the phone into its little case before he turned around.

Her face was absolutely frozen, and she couldn’t even feign a casual look to replace the horror she knew she was flushed with. Her fingers just stopped working. She was barely able to hold the memory card as her camera dropped from her hand and bobbed at the end of the lanyard.

Sucking in a breath, his words were clipped. Purposeful. “I’m leaving as soon as we get back. I’ll catch a ride with the cruise ship, grab a flight at the next port of call.”

And there she had it. The huge weight that fell through her system landed with a dull thud in her stomach. It was a physical blocking out of all feeling.

Which was stupid. It didn’t make sense. They had no ties, there were no promises. No agreements. Nothing.

Not even a plan to have coffee together in the distant future.

And yet…there it was.

“It’s for work.” But there was no fire in his voice, in his face. He’d gone… cold.

She took a deep breath, let it out. “I see.”

“Come on, Abby. We go where the work is. Where our careers lead. We always have. Right?”

She blinked.

The muscles around his mouth tightened. “Work comes first, right? Anything else is pushed aside, dumped. Whatever it is. Work is number one. Always.”

Yeah, that sounded like them. What they’d both been like.

Memories she’d been pushing aside for the sake of the job, for work collaboration, for these all-important shots swirled forward in a rush, the failsafe breached.

And she knew, in an instant, that what he said wasn’t right.

He wasn’t right.

Once, she would have given up everything for something, someone, more important.

And despite every effort to not think of it, to keep it hidden from her consciousness the last few years, the past materialized in front of her.

She flashed back to the day she’d left New York to go back home to Dare and mend their disagreement, a few weeks into her adventure. She’d been two different people at once, it’d seemed. Thrilled for the opportunity of her internship, yet determined to keep their relationship solid. Strong.

And she’d been a tiny bit scared.

Because she didn’t want to lose Dare over it all. Over her determination to make something of herself, in her own right. To not depend on the Haines money ever again, and to use her talents to create in the world she loved with all of her being.

To be the person she knew she truly was.

Standing uninvited on the doorstep to his tiny house, she’d thought of all the times they’d spent there. Special times, as well as ordinary ones, but all of them together.

She’d loved it all.

She’d taken the extra seconds to calm her racing mind, then stepped into the cramped entryway where he’d constantly used the tight space as an excuse to mold her against the wall, or grab her waist. She’d smiled, listened for the sounds of him tossing cereal into a bowl in the kitchen, but it was quiet, despite the noise her key had made in the old lock.

And then she’d heard it.

The sultry voice calling from the bedroom. “Dare. Is that you out there? Get in here, fast. Naked is best.” The sleepy giggle.

Seeing the rest of the clothing dotting the floor in a path to his bedroom. Mostly woman’s clothing in the hallway. His in front of the bedroom door. Pants, briefs, discarded. As if he hadn’t been able to wait to slide into a stranger’s pussy.

Well, you’re gone. You’re already gone. Aren’t you?

Had that been her parents? Or Dare?

She didn’t know anymore.

He was standing there right now, the tropical sun blazing behind his back. Handsome to a fault. Rugged. He’d just held her tight, gotten her through what could have been a spectacular fail.

But suddenly, he wasn’t Dare, the guy who’d loved her more than life.

He was the guy who’d not only bedded another woman the millisecond he thought she was gone but had spent the whole night with the woman’s warmth heating his bed.

Not a quickie.

Sharing early morning sweetness together. Waking up together. Laughing over one of his burned omelets in the kitchen, as he did his rendition of the naked chef—naked except for the tiny apron she’d bought him for Valentine’s Day.

And he’d never even known she’d been there, caught him in the bloody act. She’d made sure of that. Her pride had stayed intact.

It still was. Intact.

Calmness enveloped her. Her heartbeat slowed down. Still thudded dully, noticeably in her ears the way it did when she was anxious, but slower.

And yes. That next breath came easier. Full in, full out, as she watched him.

“You of all people should understand, Abby,” Dare repeated. “You were the one that took off, last time. We never got over that, remember?”

“Yeah, I suppose I should understand. Right?” She looked at him as if he was a stranger.

Calm. In control.

And she saw the first stirrings of unease in him.

A series of expressions flicked across his face. A flash of shame—she saw it in the microscopic widening of his pupils. As if he’d been uncovered. As if he thought she could see exactly what his thoughts were, and it scared him.

Then—confusion, as she stood her ground.

She could read the cycling of thoughts on his face as plainly as if they were written on a teleprompter.

He chose attack as his final presentation. Anything to hide the rotten thing he’d done. He schooled his face admirably, she thought.

“Well, yeah. You left everything for your career. Why is it different when I take a job I’ve been waiting months for?”

She’d thought she was immune, but her chest was suddenly full. Of unhappiness. Pain. The death of illusions that had slipped back in to warm her, that had felt so much like home, however briefly. “It’s not.”

Her hand pulled toward her belly again, but she didn’t allow it. Instead, her fingers curved around the lanyard, and she held on for dear life.

Her life, her career. It came first these days. It had to. “But you’ll pardon me if I don’t wish to discuss it.”

The bravado evaporated from him. A semblance of misery ricocheted across his face. “Abby…no. Let’s talk. We need to talk about it. All of that—” he waved his hand toward the crazy scene they’d just emerged from, “—meant something. What’s the deal? Why are you so crazy about entering that contest? Doing all this?””

Part of her soul cried out to tell him, to have him understand.

But he’d shut the door on her dream once, effectively barred her from seizing the gift the Universe had tossed her unexpectedly. The gift to break into the industry, get across the chasm of being a nobody and trying to prove herself, with no help.

Yeah, The internship. It’d been like a damn vine rope. Sure, she’d had to grab hold of it, then swing across the chasm to get what she wanted, but nonetheless, it was a gift that most others didn’t get. If she wanted the dream, she’d gotten the help.

And she’d had to shore herself up and trust like hell in the old maxim—leap, and the net will be there.

And he’d wanted her to ignore it.

Actually, when she hadn’t cut the gift rope down with her own two bare hands, hacking it to shreds herself, he’d withdrawn his support. Turned his back on her, left her alone. Shivering, and in shreds, but damn it.

She’d gotten across the chasm alone, and made something of herself. Without him.

And he wanted to know why, at this moment, all this meant something to her?

She stiffened. The hell if she’d tell him.

Dare Logan was on his own.