Hot & Heavy (Lightning 2)

It’s mid-afternoon and I need to head back down, especially since the wind has started to pick back up. But I’m not yet ready to go, not yet ready to give up the feeling that comes from standing on the highest peak, above the trees and a variety of other mountains and even some of the clouds that just started to roll in.

So instead of hightailing it back down one of the easier climbs, I sit for a while and just think. About the fact that the first mountain I ever climbed was with my mom, when I was eight years old. About the fact that my mom was the one who took me on my first snowboarding trip. My first free dive. My first glider ride.

Being up here, looking out at a world that both awes and inspires me the way it awed and inspired her, makes me remember those times. It makes me remember her, and Sarah, and all the little things that were ours and no one else’s.

Hunter thinks I’m some crazy adrenaline junkie, and maybe I am. I’m honest enough to admit that I like testing myself—and the adrenaline rush that comes with it.

But it’s more than that, too. My mom’s been dead for twenty years, but when I’m up here on top of the fucking world, it makes me remember. Not that she’s dead, but who and what she was when she was alive. It makes me remember that she taught me to be a fighter, to never give up. To live every day of my life like it’s my last because we never know when the end is coming.

It was what she did. Being up here, breathing in this air, seeing the world as she liked to see it, reminds me of that.

It’s why I do what I do. Cliff diving, mountain climbing, skydiving—all the activities that get me in trouble with the team. When I’m doing them I forget to feel guilty for what happened. I forget what she and Sarah looked like all bloody and broken. I forget everything but who my mom was and what she tried so hard to teach me.

It’s not enough to alleviate the guilt completely, but it’s enough to keep me sane. And most days that’s all I can ask for.

I take a few more minutes to just sit and look and breathe, a few more minutes to think about Sarah and my mom…and Sage.

Sage, with her sassy haircut and sassier mouth. With her long, lean, bendable body and her utterly practical approach to life.

No-nonsense and sexy as hell all rolled into one fascinating, contradictory package—is it any wonder I’m on top of the world and I still can’t stop thinking about her?

It’s that thought that circles my brain when I finally push myself up. That thought that stays with me as I climb down the rock and make my way back along the hiking trail.

That thought that follows me home.

Chapter 13

Sage

I enter the last numbers into the payee section of my accounting software and hit send. Then watch in satisfaction as this month’s paychecks wing their way through the internet to all of Soul Studio’s employees—courtesy of Shawn Wilson’s insane generosity.

Or his desire to get me back into bed.

I’m not sure which is responsible for the hundred and fifty thousand dollars he paid me two days ago, and right now I don’t even care. Not when I’ve managed to stave off disaster for Soul Studio and, more importantly, pay our employees for their work. And still have enough money in the new account that I just opened without my mother’s name on it to cover our expenses for a few more months, even without our students’ monthly fees.

It’s a good feeling.

I know I should feel guilty about taking all that money from him, and maybe in another world I would. But desperate times call for desperate measures. And I’m pretty sure he considers it hush money anyway. He can pay me for therapeutic yoga or he can pay some insane fine to the team for breaking the agreement he had with them. For all I know, the money he paid me is actually the lesser of two evils.

I make a mental note to ask him just how much money he’s paid in fines over the last couple of years—if for no other reason than to ease my conscience.

A quick glance at the clock tells me I’ve got an hour before my last class of the day—and three hours before I have to report to Shawn’s house on Coronado. I have to admit I’m looking forward to seeing it. Not just because Emerson helped him find it a few months ago, but because I’m a big believer that a person’s house tells you everything you need to know about them. I can’t help wondering what Shawn’s house is going to tell me about him.

Probably that he’s a slick ladies’ man with a million moves, I tell myself as I close the studio’s books and open those for LuX Lashes, the eyelash studio that was the first client I landed when I graduated from college.

That alone is enough to make me love them, but the fact that their books are so easy to do is certainly another factor. The owner, Marta, is almost as anal as I am, and she keeps impeccable records…unlike a few of my other clients.

Tom Markinson of Markinson’s Local Pets, for example, always seems to guess at what comes in and what goes out. I know part of that is because he’s a soft touch for a pet (or an owner) in need and is always giving inventory away, but it’s still a nightmare to sort through. I do it, though, because I love what a good person he is and consider wading through his disastrous books my own contribution to local pets in need.

I’m knee-deep in reconciling monthly orders for eyelash glue when a text comes through.

I think about ignoring it so I can finish LuX’s accounts payable for the month, but a quick glance tells me it’s Emerson. And since experience has taught me she’s more than capable of blowing up my phone if she thinks I’m ignoring her, I take the path of least resistance and swipe open the text.

Emerson: So?

Me: So what?

Emerson: It’s been two days!!!!!