Imaginary Lines (New York Leopards 3)
He reached out to caress my cheek, but in a fit of pique, I turned my head away. Still, there was no avoiding the warmth and conviction in his voice. “You are the most courageous person I know. What can possibly scare you?”
I frowned. “I don’t think I’m brave.”
“You published an article that exposed the truth even though you knew what it would put you through.”
“That wasn’t courage through bravery, but through necessity.”
“They’re the same thing.”
“Well, there’s nothing necessary about this. What’s the point?”
“To prove you can.”
“And if I don’t feel the need to prove anything?”
His gaze softened, and his fingers laced through mine. My heart thumped loudly. “Do you remember our vacation to Seattle when we were fifteen?”
Of course. Camping, with one day in the city. “Yeah.”
“Do you remember how all of us went up the Space Needle, and you waited at the bottom?”
Just the memory made me feel like a pathetic failure. “Yes.”
His eyes seared mine. “I remember your face when we came back down. You were so wistful. You wanted to come up there with us. Why didn’t you?”
“I just don’t, okay? And it’s not something that can be magically fixed. I don’t even see what the big deal is. It doesn’t constrain my life.”
He leaned closer to me. “Who cares about organizations and battles and money and pride? That is all so little. It’s not the world.”
“And you think I can only know that by flying up away from all safety?”
He smiled his slow smile, the one that seduced me to his will. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Ha!” I pointed a finger at him rudely. “I’m on to you. You can’t turn this into a living metaphor about trust. I do trust you. However, you’re not the engineer. Or nature. So my trust will not keep that machine of death aloft.”
“Tell me you’re not interested. Tell me you don’t want to soar through the skies. Tell me you’re not tired of being afraid, and we’ll go to Christopher’s, ten minutes away. I got us reservations.”
It was the reservations that got to me. “You didn’t think I’d be able to do it?”
He met my gaze. “I don’t ever want you to do anything you’re not comfortable doing.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You know I’m not comfortable doing this.”
He shrugged. “I also know that when we had to do reports on quotes by famous people, you did the Eleanor Roosevelt one.”
And of course I instantly knew exactly which one he meant. Do one thing every day that scares you. It was right up there with my favorite quotes, along with If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. That used to hang in my history teacher’s classroom in eleventh grade, and I hated it because it made me feel guilty.
Which was why I remembered both those quotes, I supposed. They made me uncomfortable. They motivated. They made me want to be a better person—both for other people, and for myself.
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
* * *
Lake George was actually known as a ballooning destination, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. Clearly plenty of people came here to ride through the sky; even today, in the midst of winter, crowds crossed over the fields, conversing and laughing in puffy coats. But Abe had hired us our own private balloon.
It was enormous, and just viewing the size made my feet flood with fear like the land had already fallen away. But the colors made me laugh, the vivid crimson that darkened Abe’s helmet, the lines of black and streaks of gold. “I hope you didn’t commission an entire balloon on the off chance I would say yes.”
“I didn’t think it was an off chance.”