Page 10 of Close to the Edge

“Let’s go,” Ash says, amused. He holds another branch out of my path, waving me forward like a gentleman. When I smile up at him, a flush creeps up his neck, and that jittery feeling inside me amps up even more.

Want to sprint all the way to the mountain peak, then tear off my clothes and scream up at the pink-tinged sky. Or wrestle a passing grizzly bear. Or jump down a waterfall. Or, you know, move a single inch closer to the man next to me.

All of those things are adrenaline sports.

“It’s beautiful here.” Ash is carrying the conversation like a champ, since I’m a) breathing too hard, and b) completely tongue-tied around him. “I can see why you never moved away.”

I hum, noncommittal, and step over a mossy log. Toadstools sprout from one end like weird hair.

“You don’t feel the same?” Ash nudges.

Again, I shrug, lost for words.

How can I tell this man, this stranger who I feel so bizarrely connected to, that I’m here because I had no plans of my own?

I grew up in Starlight Ridge, then I stuck around to be close to Rowan. End of story.

It’s not like I made any conscious decision to stay. Not like it ever really occurred to me to go, either. Do I like it here? I don’t even know.

I like swimming in the lake on warm summer mornings. I like the birds and butterflies that flit through the trees. Like working busy shifts at Flint’s with Jana behind the bar, and getting coffee on lazy Sunday afternoons before walking to the small town library to flip through the books.

I like clearing my head with long mountain walks. Like the crisp crunch of snow beneath my boots in the winter.

And I like Saturday morning breakfast with Rowan and Evie on their deck more than anything.

“Huh. I guess I do love it here,” I finally say out loud, and I sound surprised to my own ears. My shoulders loosen up a little as I walk, and my steps get lighter, sneakers scuffing over a dry carpet of pine needles. Even though I never considered leaving, it feels good to choose the place where I live. “I always told myself I was staying for Rowan, but there’s a lot of other nice stuff here too.”

Ash swipes his forehead with his arm, but he looks pleased as he squints up the trail ahead of us. “Good.”

My lips press together, and there’s a swooping feeling in my lower belly.

Holy hell. Why does this man’s approval feel like a drug?

“We’re nearly there,” I say, stumbling over my words. “The pool’s just around that rock face.”

The sky is stained pink when we reach the wishing pool, a small waterfall drumming into the surface and misting the air. It smells like wet rock and moss, and thousands of pennies glint from the bottom of the pool. All around us, trees reach toward the cloudless sky, rustling in the breeze.

“It’s not deep.” I kick my sneakers off, then peel off both socks. Before I walked out to meet everyone near the trail, I changed my outfit about a million times before settling back on exactly what I wore this morning. Baggy red t-shirt, denim shorts, and green bikini underneath. Ash didn’t seem to hate it earlier, did he? If anything, he struggled to look away. “But it is freaking freezing.”

“I’ve been warned.” He kicks off his heavy boots before tugging his gray t-shirt over his head. If he hears me suck in a sharp breath, Ash doesn’t react.

But I can’t help it. While my brother’s best friend undresses, while his military buddy strips, I stand there at the wishing pool’s edge and stare like a loon. My mouth is dry and my heart thumps hard, and oh god, oh god, oh god.

Ash is perfect.

Built thick and sturdy, with slabs of muscle and dark chest hair. You’d need ropes and a harness and one of those little chalk bags to climb this man.

“You’re not getting in?” Ash pauses with his hands on his belt. Jolted back to action, I whip my own t-shirt over my head, squeezing my eyes shut in the brief privacy of red fabric. Be cool, you weirdo.

“I am! No, I am. Sorry.”

Bared to the mountain air with nothing but a few triangles of fabric covering me, I shiver as I sit on the wishing pool’s edge and slide in. Pennies glitter from the rocky bottom, some of them blackened with age or furred with algae.

The cold is a shock to the system—like being zinged with electricity. I let out a tiny squeak, folding my arms over my suddenly hard nipples.

Ash slides into the pool beside me, his bulk sending water sloshing against the rocky edge, and okay, I’ll admit it: I peek.

He’s wearing black boxers, the shadow warping beneath the surface.

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