“Nope. Nope… Changed my mind.”

I had a feeling Kit would chicken out. She did that a lot. The woman was full of great intentions but not much on the follow-through. I knew her limits. I knew when to push and when to back away. You couldn’t be friends with someone, work with them as closely as we had for the past five years, and not know how to read them or figure out when their limits were met.

Her running away from the suspension bridge, that stupid hard hat and the goggles on top of it jostling as she walked back toward the gate, told me Kit’s limit wasn’t quite in the rearview, but it was inching closer.

“Hang on a second, you crazy woman.” Three long strides and I caught up to her, touching her arm to get her to stop. Her eyes were wide, a little frantic, and for a second I wondered if she’d bother to blink before the tears started to form. “You told me this was okay, remember? You told me you wanted to get this one over with.”

There was a small crowd and a few stragglers who must have recognized us. But the thing about Ashford was that even local celebrities, for the most part, got left alone. One, maybe two double takes, then Kit and I were on our own, secluded a bit by a large Douglas fir tree with browning leaves and heavy limbs. Overhead, though, there were high-pitched screams releasing, muffling, and turning into shit that sounded like something from a horror flick as the zip-liners took off from the deck at the top of the suspension bridge and shot away going at least thirty-five miles per hour.

Kit took her wide, scared gaze from my face, finally blinking, lashes moving like a hummingbird’s wings as one particularly loud zip-liner screamed at the top of her lungs, “Holy shit, someone stop!”

“Oh, hell no!” Kit yelled, stepping back and away from me as she kept her gaze on the screaming woman overhead. “Fuck that!”

“Calm down,” I told her, blocking her when she tried hightailing it away from the bridge. “Would you listen for a second?” She skirted around me, like a damn ball player readying a lay-up, but I kept up with her, managing to spread my arms to keep her from hitting the narrow trail that led to the parking lot. “Shit, woman, you’re acting ridiculous.”

“Move, Kane. I changed my mind. I can’t do this. It’s…” She threw another glance up toward the zip line, then took to shaking her head, repeating “Nope, nope, no” under her breath. “No way. I just… I can’t…”

“Stop right there,” I told her, not moving. I made my features tighten, shot her the frown I knew she hated. That disappointed tension on my face usually showed up when the PAs or interns got on my nerves or when Bill wanted the impossible and my crew couldn’t deliver. Kit had always mentioned how that expression made me look vicious and mean. I didn’t want her to see it, but I’d made her a promise. We shook on it, and I kept my word when I gave it. “You wanted my help. You wanted me to push you, remember?”

She swallowed, and the smallest line moved between her eyebrows, like she was only just remembering the deal we’d made. “But, Kane…”

“Your cousin knew you could do it, Kit. She wanted you to.” I stepped closer, not liking the shake in her fingers or how every time a loud shriek sounded overhead, Kit scrunched up her face, wincing like the sound hurt her. “It was her last wish, right?”

The blink was slow, and when she moved her lids up, I caught the gold flecks that glinted against the sunlight in her big eyes. “Low blow, Kane.”

I shrugged, not remotely sorry for playing the dead cousin card. “Come on.” I turned her around, resting a hand against the small of her back in case she thought of taking off again. “I promise, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The nerves must have kept her silent, because Kit didn’t speak as we navigated the hike toward the bridge, then the thin, swinging rope itself. She made white-knuckle grips against the twisted railing, footsteps heavy and sure as she walked in front of me.

“Few more feet,” I told her, holding back a laugh when she nodded her head, a quick affirmative motion that made her long hair slap against her face. “You’re okay.”

Around us, the tall trees seemed to stretch on forever. There were huge clusters of limbs and branches that reminded me of the tree house Kiel and I built when we were fifteen so our little cousin Shawna could have camp-out sleepovers with the other eight-year-olds in the neighborhood. It had taken us a solid month to finish it, and I did most of the work myself, but when it was done, Shawna spent every night that summer sleeping under the stars. Her smile alone was worth the work we put into it.

Kit, though, was making me doubt the wisdom of agreeing to the bargain. She really was a chickenshit about heights and hadn’t managed to look over the bridge to the forest around us the entire time we navigated it. I leaned forward, peeking around her shoulder, and shook my head. She had her eyes closed and felt her way over the bridge.

“You gotta check out the view, Kit.”

“No thank you!”

I sighed, stepping closer, and I touched her elbow as we walked two more feet, then met the landing. “Step up, drama queen.”

She went quiet then, and each instruction we received, she obeyed. But she did that with nothing more than head nods and low grunts right until the point that she was strapped to the line with a harness surrounding her. That’s when the waterworks started.

“No, no! No, I can’t…” She turned, grabbing for the latch to unfasten herself from the harness. I stepped forward, waving off the kid who went to help her out of the contraption that kept her fastened to the line.

“Hold on. Wait a second. You want to…” She wouldn’t listen and kept a death grip on the railing, putting her forehead against the metal as she took quick, uneven breaths. “Kit…”

“I know I’m a coward. I know it. Jess was right. I’m a chicken. I know, Kane, you don’t have to… But…God!” She straightened, turning her back on the landing and the stretch of forest around us as she glared at me. “This was an intensely bad idea.”

“If you don’t do this, you’re gonna regret it.”

Kit knew I was right. She understood that I was pushing, that I was only trying to help do the thing she wanted. It was written on her features—the disappointment mixed up with the fear. So, I kept pushing, hating the way her fear, her wild, manic worry, twisted up something inside my chest. I’d do any damn thing she wanted, and I knew, no matter what she said, this was the thing she wanted. This was an item she had to tick off her bucket list.

“Kane, I’m scared.”

Those three words did me in. Something shifted inside my head and pushed aside the worry I had over letting Kit see anything in me that would make her think our friendship wasn’t enough for me. I’d admit to myself and no one else that I felt something old and primitive for her, something I hadn’t been able to shake for five years. But damn if I’d let even that get in the way of keeping her safe. More than anything, I wanted to take that fear out of her eyes.

“I got you,” I told her, motioning to the kid running the zip line. “We’ll go tandem.”

“That’ll cost extra,” he tried, but I stopped his explanation with a quick glare. “Your choice, man.”

And it was. I knew it. Even if there was a loud, bitchy voice in my head telling me not to get too close, telling me strapping myself to her was an epic level of dumb, I tuned it out. Kit needed me to take the worry from her, and I’d damn well do that.

But I hadn’t expected her to be behind me. I hadn’t expected her to wrap her legs around my waist and her arms over my chest. I damn sure didn’t expect the heat from her panting mouth to move between my shoulder blades as she buried her face against my back.

“Go on three,” the kid said, tapping my shoulder. He nodded at my thumbs-up and then started the countdown.

“One…”

“Kit, you gotta give me a little room to breathe here.” But Kit didn’t budge.

In fact, when the kid shouted, “Two,” her grip got tighter and her nails sank into my chest.

“Come on, don’t be a chicken…”

“Three!”

There was a small tug, and then we pushed off the landing. Kit pressed tighter against me, ankles locked, pussy warm against my back.

“Fuck,” I muttered and, of course, she managed to hear that.

“What? What’s wrong? What is it?” Her voice was loud, panicked, and she was breathing like she’d just run a marathon. “Kane, what’s wrong?”

I couldn’t admit a damn thing to her. What the hell was I supposed to say? Oh, nothing, Kit Kat. I just like the way you feel wrapped around me, that hot little pussy of yours warming my skin? She’d claw my eyes out.

“Nothing,” I finally said. “Except you’re missing all this.” I slipped my hand over hers, smoothing my thumb against her skin, hoping it would calm her a little because she was missing something remarkable. The trees sped by, shooting out a rainbow of greens and browns, like some sort of Technicolor cascade right out of a painting. The only thing that made that mad riot of colors look pale and simple was the arch of Mount Rainier straight ahead of us. We careened toward it; those peaks and streaks of white from the snowcaps were brilliant against the midday sun. All the beauty mingled with the sweet sensation of Kit wrapped around me, and I felt a little punch-drunk.

“Fuck’s sake, Kit, open your damn eyes and trust that I won’t let anything happen to you!”

My shouting got her attention, and I felt the slide of her cheek, then her chin against my back. The warmth from her open mouth moved up my back to my shoulder, and the vise grip on my chest went a little slack.

“Oh,” she said, though I could barely make out the word. I glanced over my shoulder, squinting as I watched her profile. She looked around us, to the landscape and forest below, then to the mountain as she turned her head. She was beautiful. So fucking beautiful, and in that instant, I realized there was no way in hell I could push down what I felt for her. There’d be no gullet deep enough, no part of my brain dark enough to keep the light and color of Kit dim.

“Oh God,” she said, sounding amazed. “Kane…”

The ride took minutes, maybe, but I prayed it would last forever. Being there with Kit, having her body pressed against mine, watching that awed expression over her face, how the fear left in segments, from fright to worry to dread that shifted and blinked out of her eyes. Then came the calm, the swell of wonder and a bunch of other things I wasn’t poetic enough to describe. I only knew that she’d never looked more beautiful to me. Not with a shit-ton of makeup on her face or her sporting some designer gown the studio made her squeeze into that one time she’d agreed to make an appearance at the Emmys.

Right then, with Kit watching the majesty around us, I knew I loved her. And I knew, as we slowed to a stop, as she jumped and squealed when the workers released her from the harness, when she went straight at me when I got the harness off, I just knew there wasn’t anyone else I wanted but Kit Carlyle.

“Kane, thank you,” she said, hugging me tightly, tugging my face down between her fingers before she kissed my cheek. “Thank you so much.”

Yep. I was well and truly fucked.

* * *

Lucky’s was packed by the time we left the mountain. Kit hadn’t taken a breath the entire time we drove back in my truck, jabbering away about the adrenaline rush and the mountain and how she thought the world “went by in a fucking whirl,” as she put it.

We’d spent an hour at the bar, drinking our way through three beers each, and now Kit was on to some fruity pink drink she swore was the best thing she’d put in her mouth. It took fucking effort not to make a comment on that one.

“To the bucket list,” she said, offering that pink drink toward my half-empty Guinness for yet another toast. This made the fourth one in the past two hours. “And to Jess.” Kit went a little quiet then, and those hummingbird eyelashes of hers went to work. “My cousin. For pushing me to do this shit.” She sipped, then seemed to think of something and pulled the glass away from her mouth. “And to you, Kane. For making me do it!”

I laughed, eyes wide as she downed the drink in one swallow. “Shit, you’re drunk,” I said, laughing.

Kit shrugged, dancing in her spot on her stool. “Oh, I love this song.” She lifted her arms, and the hem of her shirt tugged up. I had to force my gaze around the bar, then back into my glass. “Kane, dance with me. Come on.” She had one foot on the floor and the other still resting on the stool. “I love Prince. This is so much better than the Sinead O’Connor version. Come on.”

I was about to say no. I didn’t fucking dance, no matter who asked, but Kit stumbled, and I caught her. That low plead in her voice made me swallow back the moan that threatened to leave my mouth. And then, the asshole on the stool next to us stood, stepping to Kit’s side.

“Come on, darlin’. I’ll dance with you.” I knew this guy. At least, I’d seen him around. The jackass had gotten drunk three weeks ago, and Crystal had thrown him out on his ass. I’d also seen him working around the bar this entire night, getting turned down by nearly every woman in the place before he settled on the stool near our side of the bar.

“The lady asked me,” I told him, standing up. He didn’t put up much of a fight, stepping back to look up at me before he shrugged and walked away. I took Kit’s hand, ignoring how good it felt in mine, before I slammed down the rest of my beer and led her to the dance floor.

“Mmm,” Kit said, the vibration of her voice moving against my chest as she rested against me. She was a good foot shorter than me and I had to lean down, but the awkward position didn’t bother me.

“It’s a good song,” I told her, not caring if anyone except Kit could see how close I held her or how I tried to subtly inhale the scent of her hair as we danced.

“It’s the best.” She straightened, stretching her arms over my shoulders, eyelids heavy, smile lazy and a little ridiculous. “Prince…he was the best.”

“Agreed,” I said, watching her lashes as she blinked, amazed how they were so long that they fell to the curve of her cheeks. Her face was smooth, lineless, but there was the smallest scar along her bottom lip. I’d never been this close to her, had never once noticed that scar, but didn’t want to mention it. Not when she curled closer to me, my name slurring a little when she spoke it.

“Kane.” She said my name like it was something that felt good on her tongue, each syllable a tease I couldn’t help loving. “Thank you, Kane.” Then Kit blinked, her movements slowing, and I followed her, barely moving my feet as the song went on. I was too caught up in the way she let her tongue slide against her bottom lip, how she opened her eyes, and there was no drunken tease in the smile that shook as she watched me. “Thank you,” she purred, and I stopped moving altogether, struck dumb by how slowly Kit’s thumb moved against my bottom lip, how she pressed close, eyelids shutting as she whispered “Thank you” again.

And then, with the entire bar laughing and drinking around us, with my heart pounding like a drumline on play-off night, my friend Kit stretched up to her toes and pulled my face down, my mouth to hers, as she stole my breath with one long, slow, perfectly wet kiss.