Risky Moves

“A sleeping bag, a tent, a mountain bike and a kayak,” she said. “A pair of hiking boots and enough rock-climbing equipment to scale the Manhattan skyline.”

“That about sums it up.” He tilted his head and drained the beer, thinking of two possessions she’d missed—the cane that Zack had kept replacing each time Adam snapped one in frustration and the worn photo that was always buttoned in one of his shirts or jacket pockets. He kept the first under the car seat for the rare times he needed it. The second was Julia on her eighteenth birthday.

“Then you’re free to stay for a while.” Was that hope in her voice or was he imagining it?

“I wasn’t planning on more than a few days.”

“Long enough to teach me to rock climb?”

He sent her a slanted smile. “Kinda hoped you’d forgotten about that.”

“Nope. I’ve penciled you into my date book, smack dab between an estate-tax seminar and the Holliwells’ open house.”

She was kidding. He was sure she was kidding.

Gwendolyn Case came around, passing out hot dogs. Adam took two and chose a twin-pronged stick to roast them on. “You’re looking really good,” Gwen said, lingering.

“You, too, Gwen.” The buxom bridesmaid had put jeans on under her formal dress and bunched the skirts at her waist, strapping them in with a belt. Snagging the bridal bouquet had made her bolder than ever—despite her interest in the admiral, she’d been making a game of sizing up the available choices over the bonfire. Adam’s response was perfunctory at best. To him, Gwen would always be the brassy, bossy baby-sitter who’d once wrestled him out of a tree and sat on him till he’d promised not to climb it again.

“Chuck’s looking hungry,” Julia said.

Gwen spun around, lighting up when she saw that Chuck Cheswick, who was as big as a bear and twice as ravenous, had already finished his third hot dog.

“Sneaky,” Adam said when Gwen had gone.

“A woman with a bridal bouquet is a dangerous creature. A few more seconds and you’d have shot to the top of her eligible bachelor list.” Julia smoothed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “You owe me now.”

“I can take care of myself,” he said, then stopped, feeling uneasy because he’d learned that the statement wasn’t always true. He positioned the hot dogs over a chunk of burned log that glowed orange with black edges, good for a slow roast.

“No excuse not to express appreciation for my diversion tactic.” Julia’s tone was light and teasing, but he could see that she recognized what he was going through. Since the accident, his self-image had taken a serious beating. He still struggled with the adjustment. Against it, truthfully.

He remembered resenting Zack, especially on the days he needed him most. His brother had an easy charm, a large capacity to love and forgive. He also had good fortune, good looks and two good legs. There had been days Adam hated him.

“Leave me alone,” he’d said again and again. Sometimes with bitterness, sometimes with fear or twisted pride or weakness. He hadn’t wanted anyone, even a brother, to see him that way.

Zack refused. “For once you can’t do the leaving, brother. I’m taking advantage of that for as long as I can.” And he’d stayed, with never a complaint. As if it had been for his own benefit.

“I can handle this on my own,” Adam said when he began physical therapy. Never mind that he was running with sweat, clinging to the bars of a walker as though it tilted on the edge of a precipice.

“Of course you can,” Zack said. “I’m just here for the entertainment value. This is better than your teenage Evel Knievel motorcycle act.”

Adam cursed him out all the way across the hospital room till he stood panting at the open door.

Zack had applauded. And then said, “Dare you to keep going.” He’d known exactly how to treat his prickly brother—with brusque affection and a dare. Adam had never turned down a dare.

“All right, all right,” he said now to Julia. “I appreciate you running interference. Just don’t expect a reward.”

“You’re burning the hot dogs.”

He pulled them from the flames, waving as the breeze turned and stinging smoke billowed into their faces. “I am not teaching you to rock climb.”

She squinted. “Yes, you are.” She folded a bun around one of the charred wieners and slid it off the stick. Then the other. “Ketchup, mustard?” she asked, flicking through the packets of condiments that were being passed around the circle. “Relish?”

He stabbed the stick into the sand, digging into the cool grains with his knuckles. “Why should I?”

Carefully she squeezed ketchup over the hot dog balanced on her kneecaps. “Because…” She licked her thumb, looking at Adam from the corners of her eyes. Other noises seemed to recede until he heard only the sound of the lake lapping at the shore, the gentle swish of evergreen branches brushing against each other.

“Because I have something you need.” Julia’s voice was soft, seductive—and as much a part of him as the infinite sky and the flow of water and the silken sand that ran through his fingers faster than before.

Life is short, he’d learned.

Grab her while you can.

THEY ATE HOT DOGS, they talked briefly about Zack and Cathy—whom he really didn’t know at all except that he liked her for not fussing at him for coming late to her wedding—and they joined in a dozen conversations except their own. Adam began to feel easier about being home now that he was past the humps of gossip and open speculation.

“You haven’t changed at all,” one of the women said resentfully when he’d repeated his plan to depart as soon as possible. They were all suddenly interested in knowing what he was doing next. He was operating under the assumption that saying it out loud would make it so, even if he didn’t know where to go or what to do.

Julia smiled a little at that. Secretively. As if she had plans for him. He waited for a spurt of annoyance, but it never came. A prickle of anticipation did.

Eventually one of the guys brought out a guitar, and the music lulled the group into a lazy mood. They sang a few folk songs. Hokey stuff, but he liked it. Julia’s eyes were luminescent, giving him a pleasant jolt each time he intercepted her gaze. He resisted the urge to put his arm around her.

The guitarist played several popular Fleetwood Mac songs and then “Landslide.” A number of the circle sang along until gradually their voices dropped away and only Julia was left. Her voice was smooth and clear as she sang about seasons and changes and reflections in the snow-covered hills. Adam looked at her until the ache in his throat was too much and then he closed his eyes and swallowed hard, unable to stop wanting this to go on forever—Julia’s sweet voice, the strumming guitar, the riveting contrast of cool night and hot flame. And, for once, no restlessness rankling inside him.

Eventually the song ended with a smattering of applause, signaling the end of the evening. The group began to break up. Julia blinked and tucked the stray strand behind her ear again, hesitating for a moment before hopping to her feet. She stuck out her hand to Adam. “Come with me. I have something to show you. And if you’re very good, I’ll even let you have it.”

HE’D INSISTED on taking her in his Jeep. The practical side of her kept pointing out that it would have made more sense for her to lead in her own car, but when did Adam Brody ever listen to sense? To his senses, sure, all the time. But to sense—common sense? Average people didn’t throw themselves off cliffs and out of airplanes in their spare time.

His mother used to say, wringing her hands over his most recent white-water or skydiving adventure, “That boy spent all his common cents years ago.” Whereas Julia had always counted her piggy-bank savings down to the exact penny, knowing in advance exactly where and on what she would spend them, practical soul that she was.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Adam said, following her directions to veer off the highway onto a newly paved road that led to the other side of Mirror Lake.

She laughed at the coincidence. “I was thinking that I probably shouldn’t bring you here. Your mom won’t like it. She wants you home to stay.”

“I’m never home to stay.”

“True.” Julia clutched the door handle, her stomach flip-flopping. Adam wouldn’t stay, no matter what. All she could hope was to prolong his visit by making it slightly more comfortable. “I hear your house is overrun with relatives.”

“Don’t remind me.” Adam whipped the Jeep around a tight turn. The road curved sharply through the thick forest before the vista opened to a cleared section overlooking the eastern end of the lake. He slowed the vehicle drastically at the sight of raw land. “What happened here?”

“It’s a new development.” She indicated the large, flagged sign that announced the project. Evergreen Point, Coming Soon.

She hadn’t counted on the look of devastation on Adam’s face. “I used to camp in these woods,” he said. The Jeep crawled along one of the new roads that wound past rows of homes under construction. Other areas were marked with surveyor’s stakes. “Jeez.”

“I thought you might need a place away from the Brody crowds.”

He looked askance. “You’re trying to sell me a house?”

“No! Of course not. But I am the listing agent for this development. I have keys to the model home.” A bad idea, she thought. He’d sooner pitch a tent in a mall parking lot. “If you wanted to use it,” she said haltingly. “Just to, you know, get away….”

Julia stopped and took a breath. What was wrong with her? She was unflappable; everyone said so.

Adam touched the brakes and turned to look at her. “What are you saying?”

“I’m offering you the use of the model home. At night. You’d have to clear out during working hours. There’s lots of construction going on, and I have clients to show through the house.”

“Sneaky,” he said, raising his brows. “This isn’t like the Goldie I remember. She always followed the rules.”

Heat crawled up Julia’s throat. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

“Guess not. Skydiving, rock climbing, housebreaking. What’s next?”

“This is a straight-up swap. I give you a place to stay, you give me rock-climbing lessons.” She unsnapped her seat belt, eager to get away from his open curiosity. “Are you interested? Shall we take a look?”

“Why not?”

“You might even like it.” He followed her through the most advanced section of the development. Even so, it was like a ghost town—gaping windows, bare bones of new walls, utter silence.

Beyond the lots, the lake glistened, black onyx dappled with silver moonlight. She might have been wrong about the house, but Julia was certain that the desolation would appeal to Adam.

The model home was one of several that were finished, the only one furnished and decorated. It was a large house with a two-story entry and living room. The vast proportions should appeal, as well—Adam could never live in a box.

She took the keys from her purse as they followed the newly laid herringbone brick walk to the front door. “Solid construction,” she said, letting them inside. “Good design. Built to stock plans, but the builders hired Zack to modify the blueprints so each house will be unique.”

“No need to sell me.” Adam’s glance skated across the plush furnishings and went straight to the clerestory windows. Tiny stars dotted the strip of visible sky.

“Sorry. Automatic response.” Regret gripped her. Suddenly it was clear-cut. This wasn’t Adam’s kind of place. “You hate it, don’t you?”

He eyed the pristine decor, the sparkling whiteness of the walls. “It’s straight from the pages of a glossy magazine. I’d be afraid of messing things up.”

“Ha. I know you. You wouldn’t leave a crumb.” He might be reckless with his life, but he was surgically precise in his mode of living. Even tonight, at the bonfire, he’d been the last to leave, tending to the fire pit and sweeping the area free of debris. She’d always thought he was like a night creature lurking in the woods—silent and swift, leaving nary a broken twig or an overturned leaf behind as he passed by. Not one sign that he’d been there.

Except for me, she thought. Inside me. She’d always remember.

“It’s just a place to sleep,” she said, surprised at the roughness of her voice. “You don’t have to like it.”

“Thanks for the offer, but it gives me the creeps.” He walked out the open door without looking back.

“You didn’t even go upstairs. There’s a cupola.” She hurried after him. “You like heights, don’t you? You could bunk down in the cupola. There’s a great view of the lake from up there.”

He turned and scanned the roof. “It’s all glassed in.” Playfully, he put his hands around his neck to simulate choking. “Ever read The Bell Jar?”

Not a joke, although he acted as if it were. At times she wondered if he was claustrophobic. He disliked the indoors more than anyone this side of a South Seas islander, which was why the months after his accident must have been a living hell as much for the confinement as for the threat of paraplegia.

“I suppose you can go back to your parents’ house,” she commented, light as air. “Who’s sharing your bedroom again?”

After a moment, Adam smiled. “My cousin Jack. The one with asthma and the suitcase full of medicine bottles. His vaporizer whistles all night long.”

Wordlessly, Julia held the key to him.

He put out his palm to catch it.

Her impulse was to grab his hand in both of hers, to hold it against her cheek as she folded the key into his palm and pressed kisses over his knuckles. He had artistic hands—long-fingered, nimble, hardened with calluses but ultrasensitive to stimuli. Another little fact about him that she’d filed away in her memory banks for warm dreams on long, cold, lonely winter nights.

But now was not the time to get seriously kissy-faced with his hands. Skilled at turning back her impulses, she dropped the key and stepped away without betraying even one emotion, certain she’d pushed far enough for one night. It wouldn’t do for Adam to guess her feelings so soon when he’d probably put her out of his mind years ago.

No, he hasn’t, an inner voice told her, but it was small and quiet and easy to overlook.

Adam slipped the key into the pocket of his black tuxedo pants before gesturing at one of the unfinished structures. “Now, that, Goldie, is more my speed.”

“You can’t go there,” she said, but he was already gone. She rushed to catch up, her low-heeled boots pounding the dirt. “Adam, no.” She stepped over a pile of bricks. “It’s dangerous.”

He looked at her and smiled, and that was when she knew what she should have done was bonk at least one of them over the head with the closest two-by-four.

Because dangerous was Adam’s middle name.

The house’s walls were up and wrapped in Tyvek, the roof partly shingled. The interior was a hollow shell, whistling with the wind that came in through a couple of openings that weren’t yet glassed in. Their footsteps rang on the plywood subfloor as she followed him to a makeshift staircase that any self-respecting carpenter would have called a ladder.

“Careful,” she whispered. There was no handrail.

“Stay downstairs,” he said. “I’ll take just a quick look.”

“I’m coming.” She tromped up the steep stairs without looking down. Looking down wouldn’t get her anywhere. Her whole life had been spent checking for stumbling blocks because homecoming queens weren’t supposed to fall on their faces. Enough was enough. She wanted to step outside the box and really live.

Adam gave her his hand to help her up the last steps, and that was good because she could blame the gnawing in her stomach on their chemistry instead of queasiness. One quick survey of the second floor and she knew for certain what he was going to do. And that if she were to keep up, she’d have to follow him. “You can’t possibly mean to—”

He did. The house had a cupola similar to the other, except this one was unfinished. Open stud frame, no glass, no stairs, not even a ladder. “Think of the view,” Adam said as he poked his head out the huge hole that would eventually be filled with the master bedroom’s picture window.

She gripped the ledge, taking a quick glance before backing away. “The view’s fine from right here.” Dark water glinted through the heavy fringe of the pine forest.

“You can’t see over the trees.” He leaned farther. She nearly grabbed for his belt, but he wasn’t wearing one. Only thin black suspenders over the pleated tuxedo shirt, its collar open and the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. James Bond after a mission, devastatingly sexy in his throwaway glamour.

“What’s the point?” she nearly wailed when Adam climbed onto the window ledge. For a man who’d seemed unsure of his physical abilities, he was tremendously limber.

Crouching, he threw a glance over his shoulder, calming her with his easy bravado. His face had lost the serious cast that she found so worrisome. “You know what they say about Everest. Because it’s there.” He gave her a boyish, lopsided grin and then leaped like a cat.

She let out an “Eep!” and rushed to the window in time to see Adam’s dangling legs disappear over the eaves. Apparently he’d used a trim board as a step, but she didn’t want to think of how he’d hoisted himself over the edge. There was no way she could follow.

Staring intently at the slanted ceiling, she listened for his footsteps, hearing nothing until he stuck his head out of the gap where the cupola stairs would go. “Over here.”

She circled beneath him, craning her neck and kicking up sawdust. “You’ve done this sort of thing before, haven’t you?”

“Remember the abandoned barn on Old Town Road? I used to swing out the haymow on a rope and walk the peak of the roof to get to the cupola.”

“Figures.” She rocked on her heels. “I hope the view is worth it.” Upside down, his face was still compelling. Even more so because now every shred of reserve was gone. This was the Adam Brody she remembered. For once, she understood the attraction of conquering the unconquerable obstacle. For that, she was glad she’d brought him here.

“Want to see?” He extended an arm, waggling his fingers at her.

She reached, knowing it was useless. Six feet of empty space separated them. “There’s no way.”

“You said you wanted to climb.” The reversed position had reddened his hollow cheeks. “Dare you.”

Adam and his friends had always flung dares around like chicken feed. As Miss Prim and Proper, popularity on a pedestal, she’d never been included.

No way was she turning her first one down.

She looked around the room, finding it littered with various building supplies. Sacks of plaster made an untidy pile against the side wall. “Maybe there’s scaffolding or a ladder,” she said, wishing—absurdly, but since when had her interest in this man ever been sensible?—that for once she could join Adam in midair. “Send in the clowns,” she muttered to herself, grunting as she rearranged the heavy sacks. One of them toppled off the precarious pile, landing with a thud and a puff of white dust.

“I’m coming down,” Adam said, briefly disappearing before his legs swung into the gap.

“No—stay there!” Julia climbed to the top of the stack and balanced with her arms out to her sides, biting her lip with determination. Suddenly it was very important that she get up on the roof. “I’m coming up.”

But not nearly high enough. She’d made up four feet, at best. Until Adam swung around again, going prone with his entire upper body hanging from the gap. They were able to clasp hands. “This doesn’t help,” she gasped, except that it did. His sure grip steadied her footing. She stretched higher, wrapping her hands around his forearms like a trapeze artist, and suddenly felt herself rising toward the ceiling.

The strain must have been incredible on Adam’s shoulders. For one instant, right before he pulled her the last bit and her elbows landed on solid wood, she wondered if his muscles would give out. He was using his legs as much as his arms; they were hooked around one of the cupola’s support posts, anchoring both their weights.

“Oof.” The lip of the staircase opening bit into her midsection as he grabbed her by the waist and the rear end and hauled her bodily onto the platform. They collapsed, breathing hard. The smell of fresh sawn wood was strong in the air. “What was that?” she gasped, her pulse hammering. “The Flying Wallendas?” She lifted a limp hand, let it fall. “You’re strong. I didn’t know you were so strong.”

He blew out a big breath. “I’m deceptively wiry.”

They propped themselves on their elbows. She looked warily around the framed but not enclosed cupola. It was like being in an open-air cage perched high among the treetops. Although the roof was on, she could see the stars between the studs of the open walls. “How will we get down?”

“Going down is always easier than getting up.”

“Not when you’re a trapeze artist.” She peered over the edge, then past the slope of the roof to the hard bare ground. It was a long drop. “No safety net, either.”

With a concentrated look on his face, Adam got slowly to his feet. “Risks don’t come with safety nets, Goldie. Quit worrying and get up to admire the view.” His hand went around her elbow as he helped her stand. She swore she felt each one of his fingertips press hotly into her flesh right through her thick sweater, as if the half-inch of wool was no more than a wisp of silk. Then his arm wound around her, setting her waist afire. Her hairline began to perspire. The stars danced in the sky. For a few wonderful moments, she remembered what it had been like to have his hands on her—everywhere.

Casually, he took his arm away. But she saw how he gripped the raw wood sash, his eyes aimed at the view of Mirror Lake.

The wind caught her hair. She smoothed it, licking her parched lips. “Well. This is pretty nice.”

“Worth risking your life?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“Then why the hell do you want to scale a mountain or jump out of a plane?”

Julia felt as though all her acceptable notions were in upheaval, crashing and colliding inside her head like tectonic plates, made even more tumultuous by Adam’s presence. She’d said she wanted change. But change equaled Adam, and Adam equaled heartache, because she knew, she just knew that he would leave. It was what had always stopped her before, the idea of being left in Quimby with a whole lot of pleasant nothingness stretched before her. Nothing but memories.

“Because I…” She filled her lungs with the sweet night air, her gaze glued to the far shore, where the glistening blue-black of the lake met the dense green-black of the trees. It was a conundrum. Did she want nothing but memories, or memories of nothing?

Just jump, she thought, and so she did.

“Because, aside from the physical challenge, I want you—” A metaphorical wind whistled past her ears. “I want to be with you and see if we—if we—” Here comes the thud. “If we might still have feelings for each other.”

A deep silence encased her, hollow as a well, stifling as a bell jar.

Julia’s instincts for self-preservation screamed inside her head. Adam had probably dared her up to the cupola to show her that she was not capable of feats of derring-do. But he’d miscalculated. She’d done it, and now she was taking another flying leap, risking more than a hard landing.

Broken bones heal, you goose. Hearts don’t—not as easily.

She remembered Cathy saying that the Brody spell lasted a long time. It was true. Julia had been wanting to try again with Adam ever since her eighteenth birthday—the night they didn’t talk about because to do so would be to acknowledge a major betrayal of trust.

It had been ten years. Long years. Other than the aberration of his involvement with Laurel, Adam’s asceticism had been known to reach monklike proportions. Julia had tried to be as disciplined, but she wasn’t. She was human and frail and filled with yearnings for what she couldn’t forget.