“Aaand…go!”
He climbed, keeping a quick pace that put a satisfying burn in his muscles while he mentally ticked off the seconds. Trouble hit about eight feet up at the orca, whose smooth curves offered fewer notches to hold onto. While Bridget knew every crevice and crag on the pole, he had to feel his way. His fingers slipped off the rounded nose of the marine mammal. He had to regroup and reach up a second time to get a grasp on a tail fin. That cost him precious seconds. By the time he tapped the eagle’s head, he calculated he had about eight seconds to make it down, and he figured he could just let go at the halfway point, drop the last six feet, and win. A few seconds later, however, Mad started the countdown with “five…four”…the rest of the crowd chimed in…“three…”
Fuck it. Still slightly above the halfway point, he called, “Look out below,” and let go.
Chapter Five
Bridget heard the warning, looked up from slipping her foot into her shoe, and watched Archer drop. Nice try, hotshot, but too little, too late. Triumph bubbled through her veins like champagne. She took a step back.
Unfortunately, the heel of her shoe caught in a gap between the stones at the base of the pole, throwing her off-balance. Arms flailing through thin air, she went over like a domino.
Her butt hit the pavers hard enough to rattle her teeth. Pain shot like an electric current from the point of impact to the top of her skull. Stars flashed in front of her eyes.
With a barely repressed groan, she lay back against the cold ground. When that sent another current of pain up her spine, she quickly rolled onto her side. Her dress hiked and twisted at the move, but she couldn’t even bring herself to care. Slippery panic washed over her. What if she was actually hurt? Stupid shoes. She kicked off the one she hadn’t already fallen out of.
Archer was at her side in an instant, warm, careful hands moving over her, checking for injuries. “Jesus, that was a hard fall. Where does it hurt?”
She shifted away from his touch, rolled onto her other side. Lilah knelt there, swimming in Ford’s suit jacket. “Oh, no. Bridget.” With efficient hands, she smoothed her dress over her legs. “Are you okay?”
She raised her head and tried to take stock. Archer looked down at her, his expression full of concern. Having all that handsome intensity focused on her caused a whole ’nother kind of panic. “No,” she managed. “I’m not okay.” She let her head thunk back against the ground, stared at the moon through watery eyes, and sighed. “Now I have two pains in my ass.”
The bystanders laughed. Even Archer smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Since I’m responsible for one of them, let me help. What can I do?”
She propped herself up on her elbow, planted the sole of her foot on the ground—which set off more icy-hot pain—and shook her head. “Nothing. I just need to walk this off.”
Over Dr. Devan’s sound of disapproval, she pushed to her feet through a dizzying haze of agony.
Maybe she swayed on her feet—or the world swayed around her—but suddenly Archer was there, holding her securely when she might have stumbled. She winced—couldn’t help it—but stifled her cry of pain. Sort of. To her horror, it came out as a pitchy whimper.
“Sorry,” he murmured and continued to hold her against him, making sure she was steady, and God help her, she let him. Just closed her eyes and leaned into him for one weak moment. It stirred unwanted memories, immediately, and more low-grade panic.
She planted her palms against his chest and took a step back. He hovered his hands at her shoulders, but she shook her head at him, turned, and took a few more halting steps. Pain raced up and down her lower spine with each step. She pressed a hand to the small of her back, then lower, to the bony part of her butt where the worst of it centered, and kept walking. After a few more steps, she circled back to where the group stood. Bending at the waist, bracing her hands just above her knees, she breathed cool air into her burning lungs and risked a glance up at them. “That’s…better.”
“Bridge, you’re gray as a ghost and dripping sweat on a forty-degree night,” Wing said. “That’s not ‘better.’”
“I’ll be fine. I fell on my ass. Nature’s shock absorber, right?” She aimed the question at Dr. Devan, who had worked her way to the front of the group.
The pretty, Scandinavian blonde nodded. “Yes, but even shock absorbers have their limits. You fell hard on stone. You could have anything from a bruised tailbone to a herniated disk to a fractured vertebra. Come to my office and let me take an X-ray, because until we know what we’re dealing with, you could be doing more damage with every move.”
Oh, great. Before she could insist that the X-ray wait until tomorrow, after Trace, Izzy, and both sets of parents left, Archer swept her up in his arms. “Where’s your office?”
Dr. Devan pointed past the totem poles. “I’m the next street up. There’s a path. If you can carry her, that might be faster and less punishing for her than going back for a vehicle.”
“Lead the way,” Archer replied, without even consulting her.
“Put me down.”
He didn’t. Someone tossed his coat over her like a blanket. Archer said, “Thanks,” and just kept right on walking up the path.
His body heat permeated her thin dress. The hand clasped at her thigh and the other along her ribs might as well have been pressed against her bare skin. The olive-green military-style jacket smelled like him. He smelled like him—like new leather, and ancient redwoods, and old memories. Entirely too evocative, considering it made her want to bury her face in the crook of his neck and cry. “Hey.” She thumped his shoulder. “I said put me down.”
His steps didn’t slow, but he looked at her with a gaze more assessing than impatient. That worried her. “Not yet,” he said and reinforced his hold.
Since she really didn’t have it in her at the moment to fight her way free, she turned her face away from him and concentrated on the path lights, the towering trees, the thin clouds floating across the huge, glowing moon. Her mind wanted to jump down a rabbit hole of what ifs. What if it actually was some kind of break? What if, because of an idiotic, alcohol-infused bet, she couldn’t shoulder responsibility for the airfield for the next four weeks? Anxiety rose up inside her like a tidal wave. The ramifications were too catastrophic to contemplate.
This was what she got for letting one of the biggest mistakes of her past back into her life—more mistakes. It had to stop. She set her teeth and squared her shoulders.
Archer must have felt her stiffen, because he murmured, “Try to relax, baby. We’re almost there.”
He only called her baby when he was feeling extra protective. The first time they’d had sex sprang to mind. It had been her first time ever, and he’d stroked and whispered and encouraged her through losing her virginity using all the care in the world. Four years later she could still hear his urgent voice panting, “That’s it, baby. That’s so…so…good,” while he’d gently rocked her straight past pain and into a heaven so glittering, she’d cried from the perfection of it. The memory left her feeling raw and mean. She elbowed his ribs hard enough to make him grunt. “Don’t baby me. You lost our bet. You know that, right?”