8. Angie

Chapter 8

Angie

W hat had possessed me to stray from my safe, boring life? I clung to the splintering, wooden telephone poll, unwilling to go any further. The green grass wavered beneath me in my tunnel vision, so I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d gotten myself into this.

I never dreamed the day would lead me here. After I woke up from my nap and worked for a half day on the farm, Remi insisted we come here to the ropes course at the community college. My list of things to do this spring season perpetually grew even though I worked hard every day to make it shrink. I didn’t have enough hours in the day to accomplish what I needed to, and yet I’d let Remi convince me to leave the farm and come here, to my worst nightmare.

Heights.

Remi’s idea for helping was to get me to do everything I’d lied about doing in my conversations with Dan. In effect, he was making an honest woman of me. I hated him for it.

Find your happy place, Angie .

I was on Papa’s lap driving the tractor for the first time, riding Mae through the grassy pasture on an imaginary tropical island with the sound of the waves in my ears, not the Idaho wind buffeting them with me suspended more than fifty feet above the ground. I gulped in air and tightened my grip on the metal posts they’d stuck into the side of the pole to use as a ladder.

I’d managed to finish planting the corn field today, tomorrow I’d cut the north hay field, have Remi check the gated pipe while it’d been flooding the peas—

“Angie, the fastest way down is up,” Remi called from underneath me.

“I hate up.” I glared at him from under my borrowed helmet.

He’d reserved the ropes course at the college for the two of us to use this afternoon and evening. We had three hours here, and I’d frozen on my first attempt. All I was supposed to do was climb up this pole, jump, and catch the trapeze bar suspended in the air above me. Remi had made it look easy, climbing without hesitation and leaping to successfully catch the trapeze. This was a child’s playground to him and Mount Everest to me.

“Remember our conversation in the car?” He kept his hands on the rope that supported me. The college kids let him take charge once we’d gotten here. I had no idea why. “The best way to keep up your charade is through experience. But I guess if you want to give up and tell Smoot everything, you can climb back down.”

Steely determination shot through my spine as I straightened and opened my eyes. I knew what he was doing, goading me further into my stubbornness along my path of self-destruction. I glared down at him as I lifted my hand off one peg and moved it to the next one. I followed the motion with my foot, my harness shifting with me every move I made. And the next thing I knew, I was standing on the tip of the wooden post no bigger than a dinner plate.

Waves of paralyzing tingles pulsed from the tips of my toes to my forehead, and with each pass, my body was doused in cold sweat. The whole course, tight wires, and dangling ropes lay before me, looking much more intimidating than it had from the grass. Peaks of rooftops were visible beyond the treetops. A stiff breeze, carrying the scent of grilled meat from the restaurants across the street, caught the rope tethered to my harness and caused the pole to sway. A short scream shot out of me.

“You’re okay. Now, all you have to do is jump.” Remi’s voice carried to me, but I didn’t look at him. The red-headed college kid said something to him; I didn’t hear it with my ears ringing.

“The air is thinner up here.” I gasped. One tip in any direction, and I’d fall.

Would the rope catch me? I could be the exception to the thousands of people who’d done this course safely. How could I trust the college kid had tied the knot properly? Perhaps I had a defective harness. Crazier things had happened.

“Would it help if I counted to three and you jump?” Remi asked.

“You start counting, and I’ll punch you once I find my way down!” I shouted at him.

His laughter floated to me and calmed some of my fear. Shoving my doubts to the back of my mind, I bent my legs and shoved off the pole. For a moment, the thrilling sensation of being weightless caught hold of me. Nothing pulled me down. Nothing could hurt me. Nothing touched me but the gentle caress of the early spring air and the warm rays of the evening sun.

In this one moment, I could do anything, conquer anything, but then gravity found me. My outstretched fingers barely grazed the metal bar before I swung toward the ground. The rope snapped against my harness, jolting my body back into the anxiety which had encased me before the leap.

I clenched my eyelids together and screamed as I swung back and forth, only stopping when my tennis shoes brushed the ground.

“You can open your eyes.” Remi’s voice next to my ear made me throw my eyes open and jolt upright.

My head connected what I guessed was his chin and sent him stumbling backward. I flipped around to face him. Shivers flowed along one side of my body, spilling over me like a warm liquid where his whisper still lingered. I covered my mouth with my gloved hand. “I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t sneak up on me like that.”

“Ow.” He groaned and rubbed his chin. “Do I need to remind you of condition number one?”

“Stop. It was an accident.” I walked close to him. “Here, let me see.”

Removing my gloves and tossing them to the ground, I pulled his hand away to get a better look. The point of impact was already swollen and red. Instinctively, I ran my fingers along the injury, but it wasn’t until he locked his eyes on mine that I remembered he wasn’t Papa or a patient.

Laid bare for me in his deep-brown eyes was a yearning like I’d never seen before. His scalding gaze told me he wanted to kiss me … to do more than kiss me, which didn’t make sense. He made it clear he disliked me, and I found him repugnant.

Yet, more than anything, I wished for the courage to tilt my lips toward his and give him a taste of what he wanted. But just as gravity couldn’t be ignored, neither could reality. He did this to countless women. He probably trained in a collegiate school for womanizers. I wouldn’t be another hashmark on his list of conquests. Besides he couldn’t be interested in me with my ample love handles and the confidence issues that came with them. Yes, I loved my body and all that, but the love I had for myself wouldn’t change what others thought about me with barely concealed judgment. The taunts from my high school days still haunted me.

He cleared his throat. I took a couple of quick steps away from him, and the look in his eyes disappeared. “I’m thinking of terminating our agreement.”

Panic raced through me. I couldn’t do this without him. Not with Dan’s FaceTime call looming. Remi’s lips quirked into a half-smile, and I scowled, hating he saw exactly how much I needed him.

“Promise not to hurt me anymore?” His smile grew across his face.

“Promise not to sneak up on me anymore, you creeper?”

He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“And I don’t want to do that again.” I pointed to the tip of the telephone pole.

“The first leap is always the hardest.” He waved his gloved hands in a wide arc. “You can do anything now … and we have the whole course to get through before sundown.”

Mr. Redhead Testicles-have-barely-dropped came up behind us and pointed to the next obstacle where another college student looped a rope through her harness. “Let’s try the next one. Both of you have to do it.”

“I think I’ve had enough for one day.” I picked up my gloves and moved to hand them to the college kid.

“I thought you’d give up this easy. I made a bet with Myles.” Remi untied his rope and looked up at me through his too-damn-long lashes.

I ground my teeth. He had me in checkmate. Without a word, I tugged the knot free on my harness and stomped to the next high adventure course. Two wires stretched around seventy to one hundred feet in the air like a V while the college kid explained what we were supposed to do. Apparently, we had to interlock our hands and lean against each other from the narrow part of the V to the wide end. Like some extreme trust exercise.

With the comfort of the ground under my feet, my legs shook as I looked up. I didn’t want to climb a pole ever again, but Remi gestured to the obstacle as if he were saying, “After you.” I didn’t have any other option. I couldn’t let him win, so I started climbing.

Instead of me handing him a list of chores, he was shoving a whole gallon of impossible things at me. But I’d started this, and I wouldn’t back down.

Sooner than I knew it, I was on the top, standing on the platform facing Remi.

“Relax. Trust your harness. Trust in your safety net. Trust me,” Remi said.

Trust him, my ass. My face must have reflected the turmoil I’d tried to keep hidden. Remi’s gaze met my eyes, and I calmed a little—until I looked down again. I gripped the rope tethered to me and took short breaths.

“That’s easy for you to say, Mr. I-jump-off-bridges-for-fun. I’m afraid of heights. Like epically.” My legs wobbled as I teetered on the platform.

Remi maneuvered closer to me and took one of my hands in his, cupping them together as the instructor had demonstrated. Oddly, my world became more secure now that I was connected to Remi’s sturdy form. He wasn’t shaking or wobbling or showing any signs of fear. He was stalwart and confident, and I wanted to be more like him, at least when it came to sports.

“It helps if you breathe in your nose and out your mouth.” He smiled at me and squeezed my fingers.

I did as he instructed, almost feeling like the moms I helped coach through labor—even though I’d never been through childbirth. All the training videos had the hee-hee-hoo breathing pattern, but I’d probably pass out if I started breathing like that up here.

Remi took my other hand, easing my grip from the rope one finger at a time. Brief panic encased me as my pinky slid from the rope and into his solid grip, but then it was replaced by something else. His grip became more reliable than the rope and certainly warmer. Though we both had gloves on, the contact between our hands transferred heat from the tips of my fingers to blossom in my cheeks. I forgot about the ground and the smallness of the wire and focused on our connection—on Remi.

The guides yelled something from beneath us, but I didn’t hear it. They sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher on the phone— wah wah waw ah .

“You’re going to have to lean fully on me to get through this.” When Remi spoke, the timbre of his voice bound me to this world.

I nodded even as my chest shook with every breath I took. Carefully, slowly, I shuffled both of my feet onto the wire, letting go of Remi’s gaze to find my footing.

“Good job. Now focus on me, nothing else. One step at a time.”

Several retorts came to my mind—one step closer to a heart attack—one more step closer to death—time. I didn’t have much of it left because my heart was going to stop, but the sensations that made my toes curl had crawled their way up to my jaw and kept it clamped shut. So, I did as he said and burned him with my stare.

We took another two steps along the V together, our bodies growing slightly further apart.

“Nice. Now concentrate on your breathing and try to slow your heart rate.”

The wire swung back and forth under my weight. “Ah-ahh.” My heart did the opposite of what Remi wanted it to do: it beat even faster. Two more steps had us fully leaning on each other. “I can’t do this.”

“Then give up and let me win.” He squeezed my hand painfully, drawing my attention back to our grip.

I frowned at him. My mind couldn’t come up with a clear thought. “I can do anything you can do.” Sheesh. I sounded like a kindergartner.

I looked back at his eyes, knowing they had never left me. My abs tightened as I let go of my fear and leaned fully into him, forced to trust him to catch my weight and keep me in place.

Our bodies became almost completely flat. I kept my eyes locked on Remi even as I felt my feet slip and my body start to fall. I managed to contain my scream until I lost contact with him and the wire. I slammed against the harness as it caught me. Once again, I didn’t stop screaming until my feet touched the blessed grass.

The rope went completely slack, and I laid down face-first on the soft carpet of green. Remi stooped next to me and laughed.

“Maybe the reason I grow stuff is because I love plants and the ground. I think I should stay on it.” I rolled onto my back, flopping my arms open. The lowering sun heated my skin, and the wind calmed, but I still breathed hard.

“Does this mean you give up on Smoot?” he asked with a tilt of his eyebrow, challenging me to accept defeat.

“Not a chance.” I moved from my safe and comfortable position.

He laughed again, grabbing my hand. He pulled me up. “Come on. You’ve earned yourself a banana split.”

Oh! I hadn’t eaten a banana split in years. The thought of the decadent hot fudge, caramel, and strawberries topping the mounds of creamy goodness with fluffy clouds of whipped cream—a few cherries and a touch of peanuts—turned on the sprinklers in my mouth. How did he know my weakness?

“Your dad mentioned it was your favorite dessert.” He tilted his chin down and half-smiled.

Hot fudge and biscuits! He was as irresistible as my favorite dessert during my time of the month. “I can’t—I mean, I can’t eat a dessert like that. Do you know how many calories are in a banana split?” I continued without letting him answer, “About a thousand. That’s more than half my allotted caloric intake.”

His eyes widened, and they traveled down the length of my body. “With a body like yours, I’m surprised you’re so worried about calories.”

I took a couple of steps back from him, opened my mouth to say something, and then closed it. I repeated this action a couple of times. A body like mine? What did he mean by that?

The two college kids had finished winding the ropes and asked us for our harnesses. Remi unbuckled his and stepped out of it. I followed his actions with my mind still adjusting to a reality where he might think of me as attractive.

“You act like you don’t know you’re a beautiful woman.” He shook his head and took my harness, handing both to the smiling college student.

“I’m not a woman. I’m a farmer.”

My comment set Remi into a fit of giggles. “The most attractive farmer I’ve ever met.”

Heat crept into my face once again, and I covered my cheeks with both my hands.

He motioned to the parking lot with his head. “I’m taking you out for dessert because you are living a more adventurous life, remember? I’ll even take the hit and split those calories with you.” He winked.

“Fine,” I agreed, but not because his wink sent butterflies flittering all which ways in my abdomen. No. I’d conquered my fear of heights today, and I’d be FaceTiming Dan tomorrow. I deserved to intake each and every one of those calories.