Reckless (9 page)

“
You have reached . . . your destination . . . on the right.
”

Zoe pulled over to the curb, alternating her stare between the tidy, brick-faced brownstone outside her passenger window and the GPS display on her phone. The brass numbers on the plate next to the gleaming black door read 466, and she double-, then triple-checked the piece of paper Alex had given her last night at the soup kitchen before quieting the Prius's engine and exiting the car for a better look.

Why the hell did a young, single, impulsive-to-the-teeth firefighter want to meet her for Mission: Adrenaline in one of the most family-oriented neighborhoods in Fairview?

“Hey. I was starting to think you got lost.” The masculine rumble of Alex's voice shot through Zoe's blood with twin helpings of mischief and pure sex, and oh, God, she'd seriously miscalculated how much fortitude she was going to need to get through this day.

She unfolded her spine to its full height, turning toward the spot where he'd appeared in the open door frame of the ground-level garage. “Maybe I was thinking of standing you up,” she replied, and okay, yeah. Meeting his boldness with some of her own couldn't be that bad a plan.

Except of course, Alex called her bluff. “No you weren't.” He lifted a sturdy backpack from a nearby shelf in the garage, the hard contour of his shoulders flexing and pulling beneath the snug material of his compression gear T-shirt.

Zoe's throat worked over a tight swallow. “No?”

“No. You want the chance to get me to follow the rules too badly. Plus, you said you'd be here, and you don't ditch out on your word.”

Nothing she could argue there. Unfortunately. “Clearly, I need a better game face,” she said, but Alex just laughed.

“I believe in honesty, remember? A game face only covers up what's real. And you're going to need to be up-front with what you're feeling today if you want to get anything out of what we're going to do.”

“Speaking of which . . .” Zoe extended one arm in a sweeping gesture to encompass both the brownstone in front of her and the wide ribbon of concrete sidewalk leading up the sun-strewn avenue. “Something tells me you and I aren't going to take a scenic tour of the real estate and call it daring. What are we doing here?”

“We're joining forces.” Alex swung the backpack all the way up over one shoulder, and seriously, couldn't he at least have chosen a shirt that didn't showcase
all
of his damn muscles? “I figured if I told you where to meet me directly, it would ruin the surprise. Anyway, we need some equipment for what I've got planned, and it'll be easier to transport it in your car than on the back of my bike. That is, unless you want to go for a ride.”

He tipped his head at the single-bay garage behind him, his gaze cutting a path toward the same sleek red and black motorcycle Zoe had seen him ride into the sunset last night, and realization crashed into her like a brick on a one-way trip through plate glass.

“Wait . . . you live here? As in, this is your house?”

He had to be messing with her. There were daffodils and crocuses sprouting from the small rectangular plot by the front doorstep, for God's sake. No way did Alex Donovan, with his predisposition for air travel the hard way and the most lax impulse control in town
live
here. In suburbia.

Was that a lady with a jogging stroller he'd just waved to across the street?

Alex flipped a set of keys over in his palm, the metallic jingle bringing Zoe just far enough out of her shock to catch the nothing-doing expression that went with the gesture. “That's what the mailbox says. So do you want to drive, or should we take the bike for a spin?”

“Yes. No. I mean . . .” She blew out a breath, praying her idiocy would dissipate along with the carbon dioxide. “I don't mind driving. I'll pass on the motorcycle.”

His expression broadcast his complete lack of surprise, although all he said as he grinned and entered the key code to close the garage door was, “Maybe next time.”

Zoe bit back the temptation to tell him that today's outing would definitely be a one and done. She didn't doubt the conviction—in fact, with the nerves jangling through her belly right now, she was more certain than ever that today was likely to obliterate her comfort zone to the point that she'd never hit the Repeat button. But Alex was cocky enough all by himself. The last thing she needed was to toss out anything he could construe as a dare. Not unless Zoe wanted him to follow through on the challenge or die trying.

She popped the locks on the Prius, sliding into the driver's seat to refit her iPhone back to the dock on the dashboard. “Okay, so where to?”

“Do you ever go anywhere without a game plan?” Alex asked, placing the backpack firmly behind the driver's seat before situating himself next to her.

Although a smile tilted his mouth as he asked the question, his tone asked for an honest answer, so Zoe said, “Not really, no. I like to be prepared.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” He pressed himself forward, tapping an address into her GPS app with a few easy flicks of his wrists.

“Do you ever do anything
with
a plan?” She dropped a surreptitious glance at her phone's display before putting the car in gear and starting to drive. At least they were only a handful of minutes from whatever lay beneath the green End icon. Being in the dark was threatening to send her over the edge.

“Sure. I planned this.”

“But not the bet that got you into it.”

“No,” Alex said, although not before his hesitation told Zoe she'd hit home. “But some of the best things happen when you don't have a road map for them. And anyway, I didn't need much foresight for this bet, since I know I'm not going to lose.”

Zoe's laughter popped out despite her efforts to cage it. “You do remember the stipulations of this bet, right? I have to actually enjoy myself in order for you to win.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He stretched all the way out against the backrest of the passenger seat, the long frame of his body completely relaxed beneath his workout gear. “I remember.”

“You seem awfully sure of yourself.” God, his body language practically radiated self-assurance from every leanly sculpted, magazine-perfect muscle.

“You say that like there's another way to be.” He shifted against the passenger seat, angling both his body and his gaze toward her, and even though Zoe kept her eyes fixed firmly to the road, she felt the weight of his bright blue stare like an unmistakable touch.

She readjusted her grip on the steering wheel along with her mutinous libido. “I'm not saying there's anything wrong with confidence. After all, I never would've made it through five minutes of culinary school without at least a little ego. But when you cross the borders of arrogance, it tends to get you burned, both in the kitchen and out.”

Alex let out a huff of surprise. “I never thought of chefs as a ballsy bunch.”

“Oh, God. They're even worse than firefighters.” She clamped down on her bottom lip just a fraction too late as a wash of heat crept over her cheeks. “No offense.”

“Zoe, please,” Alex said, and if he took even the slightest insult from her blip in decorum, it sure didn't ring through in his voice. “You'll have to work up a hell of a lot more than that to offend me, and it's not as if you're wrong about most firefighters being pretty cocky. I just didn't realize chefs were that bad, too.”

She guided the Prius through a couple of back-to-back turns, bringing them closer to the portion of Fairview that boasted a lot of restaurants and commercial storefronts, before she answered. “They're not
bad,
per se. Most of the chefs I trained under were unbelievably talented. But they also had a metric ton of hubris, and none of them was afraid to sling it around. All that posturing and tenacity just made it a little tough to concentrate on what's important.”

“I don't know. I've seen how you run your kitchen. You seem pretty tenacious to me,” he said, and she caught his grin out of the corner of her eye as he added, “No offense.”

God, she supposed she'd earned that one. “None taken,” Zoe laughed. “But there's a big difference between being confident and taking cocky risks that make you reckless.”

“That may be true,” Alex said at the same moment her GPS signaled the final turnoff on the navigation screen. “But you might want to trade in a little of one for the other, at least for today. We're here.”

Confusion filtered through Zoe's brain. She leaned forward, her seat belt digging into her shoulder as she squinted through the windshield at the row of nondescript buildings beyond.

Quick-Clean Dry Cleaners . . . Milton's Auto Body . . . Miss Marie's Bakery and Sweet Shop . . .

“But there's nothing—”

Zoe's gaze hooked on the red and white sign over the door of the last building in the row, her breath jamming to a hard stop in her lungs.

No way. No. Way. He was out of his freaking
mind.

Alex pinned her with the full measure of his stop-traffic smile. “Maybe a little bit,” he said, and only then did Zoe realize she must've spoken the words out loud. “But a bet's a bet. Which means that if you want to win, you're gonna have to be crazy right along with me.”

Chapter Eight

Alex sat back against the passenger seat of Zoe's Prius, watching her expression morph from disbelief to discomfort in about two seconds flat.

“Rock climbing?” She sent a pointed stare at the sign reading F
AIRVIEW
V
ERTICAL
C
LIMB
before turning her liquid copper gaze back to his. “You promised my feet would stay on the ground.”

He should've figured Zoe would be tough enough to push back a little. After all, climbing certainly couldn't be anywhere near her straight and narrow repertoire. “I promised we wouldn't go skydiving,” he corrected, giving her a minute to replay their conversation from the other day in her memory before continuing. “I never said anything about your feet.”

She exhaled, crossing her arms over the front of her oversized dark gray hoodie. “Okay, but this isn't going to work. I've never been rock climbing before.”

“Lucky for you, I have.” Hooking his fingers beneath the car's interior door handle, he made quick work of getting out and retrieving his gear from the backseat. Although Zoe didn't rush to make her feet keep time with his on the pavement, she didn't leave his ass in the dust by running the other way either, so for right now, he'd call it a win.

“How am I supposed to be daring and risky if I don't even know how to get three feet off the ground?” she asked from a few paces away, and he scaled back on his stride until she fell into step next to him. Damn, getting her relaxed enough to enjoy their climb was going to be a tall order with how she was all buttoned up tight enough to bust a seam. But he'd worked with worse, and anyway, there wasn't a whole lot he loved more than a really good challenge.

Alex stopped just shy of Vertical Climb's front door, glancing up at the six-story building before shifting to look Zoe right in the eye. “Oh, you'll be taking plenty of risks. Because not only are you going to learn how to climb,” he said. “But you're going to trust me to teach you.”

Her lips parted into a pretty, pink
O
before pressing back into a flat line. “I suppose you're some kind of expert.”

“You could say that.” He pulled his employee badge from the side pocket of his backpack, palming the door handle to usher a shell-shocked Zoe inside the lobby. “Hey, Joss,” he said, tipping his chin at the tall, willowy blonde sorting rental equipment behind the counter. “This is Zoe. She and I have a one-on-one. I put it on the schedule a couple of days ago.”

Jocelyn pushed back from the counter, her eyes brightening with enough interest to tell him he'd get the full court press over this later. “Hi, Zoe. Kyle's waiting for you two by the north wall.” She aimed a catlike smile at Alex before tacking on, “He says to tell you that you owe him.”

Alex laughed, the anticipation of both the climb and winning this bet with Zoe starting to hum through his veins. “That might work if he didn't already owe me. That birthday party full of ten-year-olds last weekend was brutal.”

“Yeah, you looked like you just hated it, with all the cheering and high fives you were dishing out.” Jocelyn gave her eyes a playful roll before turning her smile back to Zoe. “You're in great hands. Have fun climbing.”

“Thanks,” Zoe said, waiting until Alex had led her down the hall and out of earshot before turning to look at him. “You're a rock-climbing instructor?”

“Lots of firefighters have second jobs. I spent so much of my downtime here that Jocelyn suggested I get certified as an instructor, so a couple of years ago I did. I fill in whenever I can when I'm not on shift at Eight.”

“Yeah, she certainly seemed happy to see you.” A wash of pink crept over Zoe's cheeks, and even though Alex knew he shouldn't mess with her, he stopped short to face her anyway.

“Let's just say I'm not Jocelyn's type. Although I'm pretty sure she was happy to see
you.
”

Zoe blinked a few times in quick succession, and then bingo. Her blush went for broke. “Oh.
Oh.
I'm sorry. I just assumed you two were . . . um . . .”

Ah, hell. If he didn't let her off the hook, she was liable to start a fire with the flush on her face. “Nah. Even if Joss wasn't gay, she's still my boss. I don't mix business with that kind of pleasure. And speaking of pleasure”—he reached out to open the door leading to the main climbing room, gesturing Zoe inside with a quick jerk of his head—“we should probably get started.”

Her cross-trainers shushed over the compact rubber sports matting that covered the subfloor beneath, and she stopped just past the threshold of the large, high-ceilinged space. The climbing room was empty of people, but that wasn't necessarily a huge shock or concern. Kyle was probably in the back, grabbing the gear they'd need to get this party started, and other than the classes they held over the summer and the occasional weekend warrior playing hooky from work a day early, Fridays at Vertical Climb were usually pretty quiet.

Fine by him. More room to spread out and enjoy the top of the boards that way.

Alex watched as Zoe examined the walls, with their black matte background and healthy explosion of rainbow-colored hand and footholds that made the place look like a challenge athlete's Jackson Pollock. The free-standing tower, and Alex's personal favorite as far as bad-ass climbing went, stood off to the south side, where it connected into the ceiling at sharper pitches and angles than the far less advanced northern wall. His pulse jumped in his veins, the familiar tingle of adrenaline heating him up from his blood to his balls at the thought of anchoring in and getting vertical.

“So I guess that's half the risk, isn't it?” Zoe asked, giving the tower one last hard look before turning toward him. “Not just being here with you and doing something risky, but having to rely on you to teach me the ropes.”

“Yup,” Alex said, and the way her pupils darkened her stare as he fired off his no-bullshit answer felt better than it should. “That's the deal. You get a little reckless and let me teach you how to rock climb. If you don't hate it, I win. But if you do . . .” He paused, watching her eyes glitter darker still as he added, “Then I'm yours in the kitchen, and I'll let you teach me how to cook.”

“Fine,” Zoe breathed, her voice at odds with the conviction of the word she'd just let out. “Let's get this over with.” She pivoted on one heel to head farther into the room, but something dark and forbidden and totally delicious made him snap up her hand just shy of movement.

“Uh-uh, Gorgeous.” Alex cupped her knuckles against his palm, shock working through him at the strength in her fingers as she reflexively wrapped them around his in return. “Fair's fair. You don't like it when I don't give your kitchen an honest shake. The least I can ask is that you head into this with an open mind.”

Her eyes traveled up the sixty-foot expanse of the main climbing area, fingers tensing even harder as her gaze neared the top of the south wall, with its jutting overhangs and expertly placed, hard to reach and harder to hold on to hand and footholds. “Sure,” she said, even though she looked anything but. “Because that's not going to be one hell of a trick.”

Alex paused, his brows pulling tight with confusion. Zoe was batting a thousand on both showing up and following through so far, and it wasn't as if she was short on determination. Clearly, she wanted to win this bet. So why would she get right up to the starting line only to balk? Unless . . .

His eyes traveled upward at the same time his gut took a nonstop trip in the opposite direction. Damn it.
Damn it.
He'd been so gung-ho to get to the forest that he hadn't seen the one tree that might hang him.

“You're afraid of heights, aren't you?”

“No.” Her mouth cranked shut too hard and too fast for it not to be a lie, and she exhaled in defeat. “Okay, maybe. A little. Or, you know, a lot.”

“Jesus, Zoe.” He let go of her hand in favor of stepping in toward her. “How come you didn't say anything?”

“Because I didn't think it would matter. You said no skydiving, and even though I knew you'd still pick something crazy, I figured we'd stay at ground level and I'd be able to manage. Even just now in the parking lot, rock climbing didn't sound so bad; plus, I didn't think I'd get far enough off the ground for it to really matter. But of course you're a raging expert, and I know better than to think you'll settle for anything less than teaching me to climb all the way to the top. Not that I had any clue the top would be—what, five stories up?”

Alex hesitated, but there was no point in scaling back from full disclosure now. “Six.”

“Right.” She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “So if you want to go ahead and call this a draw and pick some other risky thrill mission, I understand.”

“Is that what you want?”

She lifted her chin in surprise, the move loosening a handful of tendrils from the pair of loose, blond braids at her shoulders. “It's only fair. My fear of heights puts you at a total disadvantage for this bet if we rock climb.”

God, her affinity for going by the book was really something else. “But that's not what I asked you.”

“Why would you teach me how to rock climb even though you know it practically destroys your chances of winning?”

Alex bit down on the urge to laugh, rocking back on the heels of his Nikes instead. “What can I say? I'm a sucker for bad odds. Plus, if you're willing to give rock climbing a shot—” He paused, because as much as he wanted Zoe to make the move, it had to be
her
move. The idea was to appeal to her tough side, not bully the holy hell out of her. “I think you might be surprised.”

She made a noise that suggested he had quite a ways to go in the convincing-her department. “Or I might tumble to a slow and painful death.”

He closed the space between them to a mere sliver of daylight before his brain fully registered the
move
command pumping up from behind his sternum. “That's not going to happen.”

“Oh.” Zoe's murmur brushed past his ear on the hot shock of her exhale. “I just meant . . .”

“I know what you meant,” he said, the words surging up on a direct path from his chest. “Look, I respect that heights scare you, and if you really don't want to try rock climbing, I've got to respect that, too. But there's one thing you need to know. If we do this today, nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

The fear in her eyes softened for just a second, but it was enough. “How do you know?”

“Because I'm not going to let it, that's how.”

Zoe stood perfectly still, gold-colored lashes fanning up into a wide arc as she held on to his stare. The bold curiosity that had flashed through her gaze when she'd first asked him about skydiving resurfaced, and the end of one braid bounced off the gray fleece of her hoodie as she gave a tiny nod. “Okay,” she whispered. “I'll give it an honest try.”

“All right.” Alex's pulse slid faster through his veins, but he tempered it with the same brand of calm he dialed up whenever they rolled out of the fire station, sirens blazing. If he wanted Zoe to stay relaxed enough to enjoy the climb, he'd have to set the bar at practically pulseless to get her to meet him halfway. Although, damn, the flush still covering the apples of her cheeks was going to make keeping cool a job and a half.

“The first thing we need to do is get our gear all set, but we can do that over here where we're going to climb so you can start getting a feel for how everything works.” Alex shifted his backpack to keep it in place on his shoulder, kicking his feet into motion across the cavernous climbing room. Zoe stuck pretty close to his side, but she also didn't hesitate to follow him, and yeah. Now they were cooking with gas.

He stopped just shy of the north wall, angling himself toward her while still giving her a clear view of both the space they'd be climbing and the equipment around it. “In most situations, climbing takes two people. One person goes up, and the other person stays on the ground to operate what's called a belay line. That's the rope that gets hooked to the climber's harness, then run through a pulley system that's steel-bolted to the ceiling. The belay operator adjusts the tension on the line as the climber goes up and keeps him from falling if he loses his grip or his footing. Sort of like a backup plan.”

“Oh.” She examined the length of thick climbing rope clipped into the wall anchor, the impenetrable knot of her shoulders loosening slightly as she said, “So that's what you're going to do then? Be my belay guy so I won't fall?”

“Nope.”

Just like that, her shoulders sprang back into loop-the-loop status, and okay, maybe it wouldn't hurt him to think before speaking every once in a while. He said, “If I worked your belay, I'd have to stay on the ground, and I wouldn't be able to climb next to you. But don't worry. Kyle here is going to have your back.”

Alex nodded to the spot where his buddy Kyle had reappeared by the door to the equipment room, with a harness slung over one forearm and a smile and “hey” combo on his mouth.

“Wait.” Zoe's eyes went wide before tapering to slits. “Kyle, the crazy skydiving guy?”

Of course she'd be able to pull that little chestnut out of thin freaking air. Not that Kyle seemed to mind being called crazy. “That's me,” he said with a wave of one heavily tattooed arm.

“You guys rock climb together, too?” Zoe turned her brows-up stare in Alex's direction, but all he could do was shrug.

“We adrenaline hounds tend to stick together across multiple sports. At any rate, Kyle's an experienced climber. He's going to operate your belay line right here from the ground, and I'm going to climb the wall with you, step by step.”