The One That I Want (Scorned Women Society Book 3) Piper Sheldon (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📖

insisted that experiencing the adventure firsthand would help me understand the process and a little trust never hurt anyone. Sanders was an idiot. And I was just as bad for going along with it.

Now that there was thirty feet between me and the earth, I decided that somebody could most definitely get hurt. Somebody being me. I double-checked the clips—he called them carabiners—that attached me to the rope in two spots.

“Thought it might be best to show you the ropes.” He raised an expectant eyebrow at me. “Little zip-lining pun? Never fails to get a chuckle.”

“Har. Har.”

My palms wouldn’t stop sweating. How was I supposed to hold on for dear life when my palms couldn’t grip anything? This seemed like a major design flaw in humans. Like putting our only air pipe next to the place where we swallow food.

“Are you okay? You’ve gone quiet.” He nudged my arm lightly until I looked at him.

“This is safe, right? Board certified? The government approved this? What sort of safety requirements did this pass? Where can I read up on the regulations? I should have checked all this before we left.”

He studied me closely enough that I started to wonder if there was something on my face. A smile tugged at the side of his mouth.

“It’s totally safe. No accidents to date,” he said, then added, “The worst thing that has ever happened was the guy who drank too much the night before and lost his lunch.”

“You deal with a lot of vomit in your job?”

He shrugged. “I weirdly do. Preparing me for fatherhood I guess.”

My brain instantly imagined him gently bouncing a baby on his shoulder with one of his giant grins on his face. It did weird things to me. I shoved those thoughts way down. I’m on to you, Mother Nature. Calm yourselves, ovaries, we ain’t the breeding type.

Sanders gestured to the zip line that stretched from the platform we stood on to one about twenty meters away. “This is just a small example of what Outside the Box has in Denver,” he explained. “We have basic zip lines like this, longer and shorter distances and different heights off the ground. But we also have obstacle course-type experiences, like rope bridges and free falls.”

“Good Lord,” I muttered. I smoothed my ponytail, my damp palms pulling on the loose strands. I took a quiet deep breath in.

“Hey, trust me. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He held my gaze and I found there complete and open honesty. I believed him. He’d already explained how everything worked, how to hold on and place my hands. I knew, in theory, what to do, but that was very different than in practice.

“Okay.” I nodded.

Unfortunately, even though I believed him, my body didn’t move. I gripped the rope as though my life depended on it. Oh, that’s right, because my life did depend on it. My feet remained planted, turned toward the inside of the platform, away from the taunting distance below.

“Are you afraid of heights?” he asked.

“No,” I said instantly. “No sane person puts themselves in this position willingly.”

He looked at me again. Too closely. Why did he keep doing that? He hadn’t talked about our kiss and so I hadn’t either. It was pretty clear that both of us enjoyed it but that didn’t make the aftermath any less awkward. I thought maybe we would continue what we started last night when he picked me up today. So when he suggested this suicide mission, I was a little thrown off.

Also how did one bring that sort of thing up? “Hi, how are you? Nice to see you again. Can I suck your face now that we’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way?”

“You don’t let go of control easily. Neither does Skip.”

“Really?” I asked momentarily distracted.

“Yeah. He only started OTB with me because I needed a partner.” He frowned a little as he focused on the horizon. “He’s much better at the business side of things. I just like taking people out of their comfort zone.”

“Clearly,” I said. Then added, “So he doesn’t like—”

“You’re stalling.”

This time it was my turn to snap. “No. I’m not. I’m up here, literally so outside of my comfort zone I don’t remember what it looks like. You push and push me.” I couldn’t believe I was able to articulate precisely what I was feeling at exactly the moment it needed to be said. Sanders made me braver, but he needed to return the favor. “You want me to trust you. I’m asking you to do the same for me.”

I held his stare looking as pissed off as I possibly could, wearing this goofy-ass helmet.

He swallowed, the tendons of his cheeks flexing as he clenched his jaw.

“I don’t like to talk about this stuff. It makes me sound shitty.”

I wanted to reach for his hand but I wasn’t about to let go of this rope. Instead, I shuffled my foot slowly to nudge his. “I shared my dark past with you last night. You can trust me.”

He scratched at his chin. “I don’t think Skip in particular likes this business, no. I think he became my partner to help me. And then it took off and I’m not really good at managing the details all the time. And now it’s too hard to imagine doing this without him.”

I nodded like I understood. But I didn’t really. I couldn’t imagine counting on people in such a big way. It was just asking for failure.

“He typically has to handle the stuff I just plain don’t want to. That’s the reason I missed the conference in Denver. Recently a lot of companies like ours have crept up. We were losing business because I kept making these stupid mistakes. I was really distracted toward the end of my time with my dad. And when he passed, I well, I couldn’t function for a few days.”

“I’m sorry,” I said and quickly managed to squeeze his shoulder.

He sucked in air through his