Page 49 of Reckless
“Applying for this grant is a great idea,” he corrected. “Anyway, I told you. While I’m here, I’ve got your back. Hard work or not, I meant it.”
“Does anything rattle you?” The question slipped right past her brain-to-mouth filter, but if Alex minded her sudden burst of candor, his expression didn’t give him away.
“I’m a little upset about the curly fries thing. I don’t think you’re giving them a fair shake, honestly—oof!” He held up his hands, fielding off her nudge to his rib cage with a laugh. “Okay, okay. Of course I get rattled. I am human, you know.”
The image of him standing in her bathroom five hours ago wearing nothing but a towel and a good-morning-to-yousmile flashed through her brain, and oh, yeah. Zoe knew exactly how human he was.
“Right.” She slid a bunch of celery to the cutting board on the counter, praying like hell that her face didn’t betray the sexed-up slide show she’d just pushed from her mind’s eye. “But you dive into everything without so much as blinking. I get why you’re audacious.” The story of his parents’ horrible accident sent a quick jab at her breastbone, but it didn’t stop her from asking, “But how do you take all those risks without being scared?”
“Are you kidding? Half the time, I’m scared as hell.” He didn’t break stride with the peeler in his hand, even though his movements were slow and unpracticed. “But I can’t let fear cloud my judgment. You want to know what happens if I don’t take those risks, even the ones that shake me up?”
“What?” Zoe’s pulse sped up at the look of sheer honesty on Alex’s face, and it double-timed when he put down the peeler in favor of stepping in close to hook a finger under her chin.
“Nothing. And while sometimes that nothing isn’t a huge deal, other times, letting nothing happen is more dangerous than taking the risk.”
She closed her eyes, letting go of the breath holding tight to her lungs. “Hope House needs help, and I know my best chance of making a difference right now is to take a leap of faith. But throwing all my time and energy into trying to get the Collingsworth Grant is a huge risk, especially now that this place needs support and resources for stability more than ever. I’m just afraid to put so much on the line.”
“Do you know why I dared you to go rock climbing with me?”
Zoe blinked, and talk about a question with origins in left freaking field. “What?”
“I know it’s a weird question. Just go with me here.”
“Okay,” she said, her answer automatic. “Why did you dare me to go rock climbing with you?”
“For the same reason I brought up the Collingsworth Grant in the first place. I don’t want you to be reckless on principle, Zoe. Hell, I treat adrenaline like it’s a food group, but even I’m not impulsive for shits and grins alone. There’s a difference between recklessness and bravery. I’m just asking you to take a risk and show it to me.”
Possibility prickled through her, enticing and sweet. Still… “The people who live here depend on me to feed them, and to help keep them safe. What if I risk it and fail?”
Alex met her eyes for a split second, his gaze piercing all the way through her before he dropped a soft kiss over her mouth. “Isn’t the more important question what if you don’t?”
Her stunned silence filled the sliver of space between them, but Alex refused to pull up or scale back. “Look, I understand that the risk scares you, and that you’ve got your reasons for being cautious. But after spending the last two weeks in this kitchen, I also know that Hope House is a whole lot more than your job. You want this grant? Be bold and go get it. For the next few weeks, I’ve got you.”
Zoe pressed her kitchen clogs into the tile to stand up as tall as her frame would allow. Alex was right. The prospect of channeling the efforts she knew Hope House needed into a long shot that damn well might faildidscare the hell out of her.
But not doing all that she possibly could—even if it included a giant risk and some even bigger trust—scared her even more.
“Well. With backup like that, how can I refuse?”
Alex grinned, giving his blond brows a cocky waggle and brushing her lips with one last quick kiss before turning back toward the vegetables on the cutting board. “Speaking of backup, we’re going to need all the help we can get while you work on this proposal. As awesome as I am, I’m only one man.”
“So modest.” Zoe laughed, her muscles flexing and releasing in a familiar cadence as she started chopping the celery in front of her. “But, as it turns out, you’re also not wrong. I can barely get through meal service with the staff I’ve got in place right now, and that’s with me working a minimum of fifty hours a week in the kitchen. If I’m going to give this grant proposal enough attention for Hope House to be a contender, we absolutely need more hands in here. I can talk to Tina, see if we can’t shake a few more trees with the city.” Not that they didn’t already do that on a fairly regular basis, but at least it might garner something more than the next-to-nothing she currently had.
“You know,” Alex said slowly, his expression as unreadable as his voice. “There is a way you can get a lot of people in here to help on the fly, and I guarantee it’s something you’ve never done before.”
Zoe’s fingers went tight over the knife handle in her grasp. “What’s the catch?”
“The catch is, in order for the plan to work, you’re going to have to take this risk outside of the kitchen.”
* * *
Zoe satin the corner booth at Scarlett’s Diner, her eyes on the cup of coffee in front of her even though her mind was a million miles away and her heart was stuck somewhere in the vicinity of her windpipe. Caught in the sweet spot between Saturday’s long-gone lunch crowd and the not-yet-started dinner rush, she had the cozy diner all to herself.
Until her father walked through the door two minutes later.
“Hi, Dad. Thanks for coming out to meet me on such short notice.” Zoe stood to give him a hug, the cinnamon and cedarwood scent of Old Spice filling her with a nostalgic pang.
“You said it was important,” he said, pulling back to scan her carefully from head to toe before sliding into the booth across from her. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
