Kennedy’s face has gone pale, and I glance at the boulders again to see if there’s something I’m missing about them. It’s not a very challenging climb—Kennedy has a look about her that tells me she spends time working out—so there should be no reason for her to panic that she won’t be able to handle it. I’ve gone over this boulder a hundred times before, and the ropes aren’t one hundred percent necessary if you have any leg strength at all. She can handle this. I’m sure of it.

“There is a way,” I tell her. After this morning—that wild fear, a sudden worry that everything was going to collapse around her after we’d already been through the difficult part, which was getting on the plane in the first place—there must be something I can do to show her that taking a chance on a little risk in life is perfectly acceptable. 

I’d prefer more risk than this offers, but I’m willing to take my time with Kennedy. This was by far the tamest thing I could think of, and the payoff at the end, at Devil’s Bay, is more than worth the climb.

“I can’t do it.” I hold my hand out to her, but Kennedy shakes her head, a small nervous motion. “It’s way too dangerous. Look at those boulders.” She’s breathing fast and unsteadily. I’m worried she may start hyperventilating.

I turn around to face the rocks again, looking for the looming monster she sees. But there are only the ropes, only the trail. That’s all. “What about them?”

“They’re soaking wet.”

This is the exaggeration of the millennium. Some sea spray has definitely caught on the top of the granite, but there’s no cascade of water running down.

“Your feet are already wet, if that’s the problem—”

“That’s not the problem,” she fires back. “The rocks are wet. One of us could slip, and then—”

“And then what?” It’s starting to dawn on me that it’s not the boulders themselves, not even really the climb, that has Kennedy white as a sheet. It’s the looming possibility that something is going to happen to one of us if we go over the rocks. Something is going to happen to us. We’re going to come to a white sand beach that’s the most stunning sight many people will see in a lifetime. “It’s not a long fall, and it’s into the water. If you fell from those rocks, you would land on your feet.”

“Can you guarantee that?” Her eyes dart from my face to the boulders and back again. 

A flash of her in the restaurant, tears glinting in her eyes, avoiding talking about her sister Abby, bursts forth in my mind. I must be seeing an echo of that, but it’s more than an echo—it’s right in front of me again, right now. I close the distance between us and take both of her hands in mine. 

“Look at me, Kennedy.” She raises her eyes from my shoes to my face, and in those blues I see a battle raging between wanting to sink into this place—this gorgeous place, the sun warm on our shoulders—and wanting to turn around and flee back to the cottage. “Don’t let this get to you.”

“I’m not letting anything—”

“You are, and at some point, I’d like to know why. But do you know what?”

“What?”

“I saw you dancing in the club that night. I saw the way you moved, like you were totally at home in the world, in your skin. I danced with you.” I straighten up, tracing one of my hands along her cheek. “You were captivating. You made me want to follow you to the ends of the earth.”

“You were the one who convinced me to dance.”

“And I’m the one convincing you to climb over this trail with me. I’ll be with you the entire time, and I promise you, the end is worth it.”

The hard line of her jaw is softening. “Sometimes it’s not worth it.” Her voice is small.

“This time it is.” I bring the other hand up and draw her face close to mine, looking into her eyes right up until she closes them and our lips meet. She tastes like sweetness and sunshine, and when she pulls back, she’s laughing.

“This is crazy, right?”

I nod, teasing her. “It’s a little crazy, yes. But if you’re really that opposed, we can always—”

Kennedy steels herself. “I flew all the way here with you.”

“You did.”

“I danced with you.”

“That, too.”

“I—” She breaks off, grinning. “It’s all turning out, don’t you think?”

I lean into her ear. “The faster I get to show you this amazing sight, the faster we can get back to the cottage…”

She groans a little, tossing her head back. Her hair is pulled back in a coppery red ponytail, and it sways in the breeze. I want to take the hair tie out of her hair and run my fingers through it while she moans my name, then screams it.

“I’ve been waiting all day for you to say that.”

“We only left an hour ago.”

Kennedy shifts a little to the side, looking past me. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the past,” she says softly, and it seems so personal that I don’t reply. When she looks at me again, there’s fire in her eyes. “I want to know what’s at the end of this rainbow,” she says, her steely glare refocusing on the ropes. “And then I want to get back to that cottage and…”

“And what?”

A teasing, wicked grin spreads across her face, and the breeze plays at her sundress, whipping it up to expose more of her creamy, toned thighs. Then Kennedy’s eyes jump down to the front of my swimsuit. “It’s a surprise. But it looks like you have a few things in mind, too.”

I step toward her, curl both of my hands around her waist, and kiss the side of her neck, letting my breath linger there. “A few things?”

“Maybe more than a few.” She wraps her arms around my neck, presses her sweet lips against mine, and then playfully pushes me away, both hands on my chest. She faces the boulders with both hands on her hips and straightens her back, and it’s like a new woman standing in front of me, all the timidity gone.

Hell, if offering to have sex in a luxury cottage in the British Virgin Islands is all it takes to get her to loosen up, to break free of the nervous energy that rears up within her whenever she thinks something might go wrong, even a little bit, then I’m glad to do it.

I get so lost in the thoughts of where to start when we get back to the cottage that it takes the lilt in Kennedy’s voice to break me out of them.

“Are you coming?”

She’s already halfway up the boulders, reaching for the next rope.

“Hell yes.”