Heartbroken Heights Read online

  "Well, she clearly likes to hike and be outdoors. She could come watch and hang out after for dinner," Julian reasoned.

  Now that Julian had dropped the idea of Chloe even touching a rock wall, David could breathe again and think about what Julian was suggesting. "I think it would seem a little out of the blue."

  "No way," Julian argued. "She lives close by and you two keep finding reasons to run into each other."

  David knew exactly what this was, even if Julian wouldn't come out and say it. After the accident in Red River Gorge, David had shut down. He had pushed away everyone he knew—Julian, his other friends and even his cousin, Kathleen, who had been very close to him. Five years later, he could admit that the two years following the accident had been the most devastating of his life, and that closing himself off had been his way of coping.

  Julian knew all of this, but he also knew of something else not many people did—David’s ongoing terror of climbing with friends. His attempt at “fixing” David was to push him into things like this trip, putting him in a position where he had to face his fears. Climbing meant so much to David and was such a big part of his life, and Julian wanted him to find someone to share it with again, even if that someone wasn’t Julian.

  David hadn't been able to do anything Julian wanted. He hadn’t faced his fears. He hadn’t been able to truly enjoy climbing with anyone. He hadn’t found a way to open the heart he had steeled against loss and pain.

  Julian wanted David to find so many things that he had lost. This, what Julian was doing right now, was an attempt to force David close to someone new—Chloe.

  David couldn't deny his attraction to Chloe, but this would never work for a multitude of reasons. Julian was grasping at straws.

  But still, David knew how much his friend cared about him. Julian saw the loneliness that David tried to hide. If inviting Chloe to spend the day with the climbers would erase the concern from Julian's face, then it would be worth it.

  "I guess I can ask," David said reluctantly.

  "That's the spirit." Julian clapped him on the back. "How about this Saturday?"

  *****

  Conveniently, David "forgot" to call Chloe on Friday. He hoped that would be the end of Julian's ridiculous attempts to hook him up with a woman who lived in a city he would never visit again, but no such luck.

  "So?" Julian asked, his voice expectant.

  "So what?" Suddenly, David became very engrossed in cracking enough eggs for six hungry climbers' breakfasts.

  "You know what. Chloe. Did you ask her to come out to the canyon?"

  "Oh," David said, widening his eyes like he had just comprehended the question and feeling his heart sink at the same time. "I forgot."

  "Well, luckily tomorrow works just as well as today. Go ahead and give her a call while I finish breakfast." Julian shouldered David out of the way and sat down immovably on the camp chair in front of the pot.

  "Okay, okay." David took his phone out of the chair's cup holder and marched away, determined to at least have privacy. He thumbed through his phone to find Chloe's number and dialed it before he could make any more excuses.

  "Hi!"

  Despite his doubt at doing this at all, David felt a smile inch its way onto his face. She sounded almost excited that he had called… unless he was imagining things to make this call less awkward for him. "Hey. Um… how are you?" Jumping straight into the reason he had called didn't feel right.

  "Pretty good. Glad it's the weekend. What about you?"

  "Also good. We're still at the canyon, which is actually why I called." David forged ahead, taking the convenient segue. "I, um… enjoyed talking with you the other evening, and you mentioned that you'd like to get out more. Would you like to come to Red Rock Canyon either today or tomorrow? Meet the others, watch us climb and stay for dinner?" His voice wavered as he realized how unusual it was for a man to invite a woman to his campsite for dinner. Usually people extended invitations to their houses or restaurants.

  Good thing Chloe wasn't a usual woman. "Sure!" she said enthusiastically. "I would come today if I could, but I’ve got this work thing to go to. Tomorrow would be perfect, though. When should I get there?”

  They hashed out the details, then chatted for a couple minutes about nothing in particular. David only broke off their conversation when Julian waved at him from their campsite and pointed down at the pot with the eggs. “Hey, I have to go,” David told Chloe, “but I’m glad you can come tomorrow.”

  “Me too. See you then!” The gentle background noise that had accompanied their conversation faded when Chloe hung up.

  David slipped his hands into his pockets, surprised to find that he had actually one-hundred percent meant his parting words.

  Maybe Julian was right. Maybe, even if this didn’t go anywhere, it would at least help David have a good time tomorrow. That would be a first.

  Chapter Five: Chloe

  Chloe started as someone beside her chuckled, rubbing her sore neck as she turned to find the source of the sound.

  “It’s hard to keep looking up to watch, isn’t it? We have special glasses for belaying so we can see without craning our necks all the time.” The speaker was Julian, if Chloe remembered correctly from the flurry of friendly introductions, and he held out a backpack. “I don’t have an extra pair, but if you want to lay back and watch that might be more comfortable.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she told him, willingly accepting the backpack. She laid it half against a rock that would hold her partially upright as she watched David ascend the cliffside with easy, swinging movements. It blew her mind that he started climbing over two minutes ago and he was still climbing as easily as though the pocked cliff was a set of stairs. She flexed her fingers, imagining them wrapped around the harsh, pointed rock dozens of feet above the ground. Could she even muster the courage to let go and reach for the next bit of stone? How would she know what to reach for? “You guys are crazy,” Chloe murmured wonderingly.

  “Maybe a little. David’s the really crazy one, though. In a good way, of course. We’re all pretty good, but most of us would agree that he’s the best here.” Julian sat on a rock beside her, running a rope through his hands—checking for knots, maybe? “You have to keep in mind that we aren’t representative of the general rock climbing population at all. Lots and lots of people of all shapes and sizes climb and there are tons of varying difficulties.”

  “How can you climb when it’s so cold?” Chloe asked, watching the tendons on the backs of David’s bare hands strain.

  “Actually, cold rock is better for climbing. When it’s cold, the rubber on our shoes can still conform to the rock, but our hands don’t sweat so we can hold on better. And today it’s what, forty-ish degrees? That’s warm enough that our hands don’t go numb during a climb and warm up quickly after.”

  Chloe gave an absentminded “hm”, already mulling over Julian’s words and wondering how to work this into a blog post. The story of how she met David would make a good start, and then she could go on to talk about all she had learned about rock climbing.

  Chloe watched as David reached a point just below the shrubbery at the top of the cliff and signalled Jess to lower him down. “That was incredible,” she told him excitedly, jumping up to meet him as the pointed toes of his curved shoes touched the ground. “I can’t imagine… I can’t imagine,” she ended, giving up on putting her thoughts into words.

  David grinned as he expertly undid the knot tied to his harness. “It’s just tons of practice like anything else.”

  “I could never do that,” she said a bit wistfully. Scary as it looked, climbing toward the blue sky held so much allure. Maybe that was the writer in her speaking.

  “Do you want to?” Jess asked, unclipping the device that the rope ran through when she belayed.

  “Oh, uh, I don’t know. It looks pretty scary, honestly.” She felt David’s eyes on her and doubled back verbally. “But I think I would try it sometime. Not today, though
.”

  David must have sensed the truth because he turned away to watch Julian tie the rope through the loop on his own harness, his smile fading away into neutrality. Her heart sank and she sat down again, a bit deflated. Chloe didn’t want David to think she just flat-out refused to try his sport, but she knew she wouldn’t and didn’t even want to be good at it.

  She liked to try new things. But what if to David, for whom climbing was so important, trying wasn’t good enough?

  After a long day—well, long for the climbers; Chloe didn’t do much except watch and hike to new cliffs with them—they all headed back to their campsite. The climbers had that same sense of outdoors time for which Chloe prided herself, managing to arrive at the campsite just long enough before dark to set up cooking supplies and get dinner started in the last of the fading light.

  Chloe sat on a folding camp chair near the fire, smiling occasionally at the antics of the climbers but not participating much. They talked a lot about the climbs of the day and the ones they would try tomorrow, which weren’t things she could relate to, but she liked to listen. To her, sitting quietly and listening never felt uncomfortable. She knew that she could jump in and say something at any time and someone would comment on what she had to say. These people were all polite, sensitive and inclusive, and Chloe felt at home amongst them.

  Strangely, she almost felt like she was more at home here than David. These were his friends, not hers, but he seldom grinned at their jokes or cracked one of his own. In fact, he hardly spoke at all unless someone asked him a direct question. Everyone seemed to accept this, letting David do his own thing. You would think they would try a little harder to pull him out of his shell, being his good friends and all that.

  “So, do you live around here?” Julian asked, sitting in the chair next to Chloe.

  “I live in Reno,” she told him readily. “What about you?” She gestured to everyone else to indicate the scale of her curiosity. “I mean, do any of you live around here?”

  “I live in Reno too, actually, but no one else here does. This is a trip we’ve been planning for a while.”

  “I bet.” Chloe thought about just how hard it had been to work a weekend-long visit from Stacey into her schedule. “It can be pretty hard to get a bunch of people together for a trip, especially one this long.”

  “A bit, but most of us are pretty flexible with our schedules. It helps that we can kind of use my place as a base of operations.” Julian used a stick to push his foil-packet meal closer to the coals.

  “It’s pretty much exactly the opposite with my job,” Chloe said wryly. “I have to be flexible with scheduling everything else because I might have to work.”

  Julian grinned as he stood. “Well, I’m glad it was flexible enough to let you come out today. You’re pretty cool to be around.”

  Surprised, Chloe started to reply with a standard thank you, but Julian was already out of earshot. Apparently, even though she had lost touch with the side of her that loved nature and wanted to spend all of her time exploring it, she could still connect with others who shared her sentiments.

  David slipped into the ring of firelight, holding a handful of freshly-washed camping dishes. Most others with those sentiments, she corrected herself. Most.

  Foil-packet meals, or silver turtles as some of the climbers called them, notoriously took a while to cook on a newly-started fire. As someone who had waited hungrily for a number of foil-packet meals in her day, Chloe knew that thirty minutes was a good place to start, although cooking anything over a fire depended on the heat of flames—or rather, the coals underneath. When she nudged her turtle carefully away from the fire, picked it up using a set of tongs and laid it on one of the picnic tables, she was gratified to find soft potatoes, properly cooked hamburger and tender veggies with just a hint of crunch. Again, still got it. Chloe gave herself a little mental pat on the back.

  In between delicious bites, Chloe chatted a bit with all the climbers… except David. He would smile at her comments and sometimes answer questions with a few words, but mostly he remained silent or puffed out his cheeks and made my-mouth-is-full motions.

  Chloe stared into the diminishing pile of food in her foil. That’s okay. Some people don’t like to talk while they eat. Except, David didn’t seem to like to talk much at all. No, she reminded herself suddenly. Not true. We had a great conversation at the Mexican restaurant. We were even eating then.

  Weird. Definitely weird. Chloe didn’t know what to think at all, even after a whole meal spent thinking about it.

  “S’mores?” Jess called out when the empty foils had all been thrown away, holding up two enormous chocolate bars. Her question met with eager affirmatives, and the age-old debate on whether to catch the marshmallows on fire briefly or not quickly began to rage.

  There were only a couple good sticks for roasting marshmallows, so Chloe stayed in her seat at the picnic table at the edge of the circle of light to give the climbers the first crack. After all, they had bought all this stuff, which reminded Chloe. She didn’t have any cash on her now, but she planned to make a quick run back to Red Rock Canyon after a trip to the bank to pay them back for dinner before they left. She knew they would argue and try not to accept the money; they were just that kind of people. But Chloe would insist, and besides… it would give her one more chance to see David before he left.

  Speaking of David, where was he? Chloe’s eyes had followed him more than she would ever admit tonight, but now they couldn’t find him at all. What could possibly be more important than a delicious, crunchy s’more?

  Nothing, that’s what, so when Chloe got her turn with the marshmallow sticks, she roasted two marshmallows and made two s’mores. Armed with the tasty treats, she marched away from the campfire to find David.

  She didn’t have to look long. Apart from the campsites was a pavilion with picnic tables that overlooked part of the canyon below. Illuminated by the moon, a single figure sat at one of these dark tables.

  “Hey,” Chloe said a bit awkwardly, trying to avoid jumpscaring him from behind. “I brought you a s’more.”

  “Oh, thanks.” He accepted the treat, but offered no explanation as to why he was over here instead of by the fire with his friends.

  Chloe hesitated for a moment, then sat down beside him with her own s’more, following his gaze across the dark reaches of the canyon. They ate in silence, then sat in more of the same. “They’re out late,” Chloe observed when the beam of a flashlight flicked across the landscape below for a split second before vanishing again.

  “Mhm.”

  More silence. “I had fun today,” she tried.

  “I’m glad.”

  The enshrouding darkness gave Chloe the courage to toss caution to the winds. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” Finally, though, his voice held something beyond toneless agreement.

  “Okay.” Chloe unfolded her arms, legs tensed in preparation to head back to the campsite. “You just seemed a bit quiet this evening. And I was, uh… I was hoping we would get to talk more,” she admitted, trusting the darkness to hide her blush.

  David’s head shifted just a tiny bit. Despite the lack of light, Chloe could feel his eyes on her. “I guess I haven’t felt like talking much today. Sorry.” The form beside her shifted as David crossed one leg over the other. “My late wife loved this place. Especially at sunset and sunrise.”

  That s’more suddenly felt like a pile of solid rock in her stomach. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. It was five years ago.”

  What happened? Chloe didn’t ask the question aloud. They didn’t know each other well enough for that. Instead, she just sat there, solemn and quiet. “My dad died when I was seventeen.” Chloe didn’t know how that was supposed to make David feel better or get his mind off his own loss. Maybe she just wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone.

  “I’m sorry.” David echoed the words she had just said to him. Others had said them to Chloe countle
ss times, and she knew David must have heard the same, but this time, they felt different. Instead of an apology, this was more like mutual commiseration. David knew how Chloe felt, Chloe knew how David felt, and they both know that loss still sucked even after years passed.

  “It’s fine. It was a long time ago. And, uh… remember that knife? The one you found for me after I dropped it?” Chloe had it with her now, in fact, in the center console of her car. “That was my last birthday present from my dad.”

  A strong breeze sprang up and brushed across the sky, parting the clouds to reveal the silvery moon. David’s face came into focus, painted with a mixture of loss, regret and something else. “I’m glad I found it, then. Really glad.”

  “Me too.” Now that the moon had shown its face, Chloe realized just how close to David she had sat. The lines of his jaw plunged his neck into shadow, but his eyes glinted blue even in the wan moonlight. They were already sitting so close, and when she blinked, she imagined that David had shifted even closer.

  “I should, uh…” Chloe licked her dry lips and tried again. “I should get going. Back to Reno.”

  David didn’t move or speak. Chloe shifted uncomfortably; she thought he would at least say goodbye. She must have really upset him by making him talk about his wife. Well, I shouldn’t make things worse, she decided guiltily as she started to stand up. “Thanks for inviting me out here. I—"

  David grabbed Chloe’s arm with the lightning speed and accuracy he had shown in his climbing and swung her neatly around into a kiss.

  It was everything Chloe had dreamed of, and oh, had she dreamed of this. David’s strong arms around her, his blue eyes obscured by fluttering lids, the hard curves of his muscles underneath his T-shirt and unzipped jacket and the scratchy feel of his short beard against her face… from the moment she saw him in the canyon, she had wanted this, and now that she had it, she never wanted to let go.

  Tentatively, as their lips closed together at the end of the kiss, Chloe went for a second one. Her skipping, skidding heart soared when he reciprocated, and her fingertips brushed rough calluses when their hands happened to touch. That hand lingered against hers, even closing a few fingers around her own.