Rancher's High-Stakes Rescue. Beth Cornelison
I just...” Shoot. Why did she add the unfinished addendum?
“If something about this account is bothering you, if you feel we need to go a different direction on some aspect of the campaign, you should tell me.” Dawn strolled into the common area with her wine, obviously waiting for Kate’s explanation.
“No, no. It’s nothing about the account or our plans for the ad campaign. It’s me.”
Dawn raised her chin. “So there is something?”
Kate closed her eyes and let her shoulders droop. “Ugh. Okay, yes. I didn’t want to say anything because it’s my issue to work out. But...” She moistened her lips, then took Dawn’s hand and led her to the couch. They sat facing each other, and Kate rubbed her hands on the skirt of her dress. “I’m chicken. All these ‘adventures,’” she said, drawing air quotes with her fingers, “scare me.”
Dawn’s face split with a grin. “Seriously? That’s all?”
Kate straightened her back. “All? Dawn, day after tomorrow, we’re supposed to leave on a camping trip filled with all kinds of dangerous and death-defying stunts. I can’t do it! Just the thought of all those high places and steep drop-offs leaves me in a cold sweat.” She raised her damp, trembling palms to show Dawn. “Look!”
Dawn laughed and grabbed Kate’s hands, then clutched them against her chest. “Oh, Katie! You’re supposed to be a little scared. That’s part of the thrill, the adrenaline rush. Facing down that instinctive fear and conquering it is what makes these kinds of adventures so exciting!” She squeezed both of Kate’s hands, smiling her enthusiasm.
Kate shook her head. “You don’t get it. I used to be adventurous. As a kid, I did all kinds of stupid, daring, dangerous stuff.”
“Well, there you go! You’ve got the adventurous spirit in you. Just dig it out and wear it pr—”
“No.” Kate jerked her hands back and ran her fingers through her hair. Her gut quivered as memories of her days spent in the bottom of the silo, injured, scared, alone, reverberated through her mind’s eye. “I lost that spirit a long time ago. I almost died once. I fell—” She swallowed hard. “I shouldn’t have been climbing on that roof, but...” She paused and took a deep breath to calm the jangle of nerves.
Dawn’s forehead was wrinkled with curiosity. “You almost died? When? What happened?”
Kate balled her hands into fists and told her coworker the whole story in digest version. She finished by saying, “That’s why this whole adventure trip scares me so much. I don’t think I can do it. I still have nightmares about being in that silo, about falling, about being lost.”
Dawn leaned back against the cushions of the couch and shook her head slowly. “Wow. That had to have sucked.”
“To put it mildly.”
“But...” Her friend arched one eyebrow, and her gaze glinted with challenge. “What better time to get past those fears, huh? Face ’em down. Conquer them!”
Kate was shaking her head before Dawn even finished.
“Come on, Kate! Zane and Josh know what they are doing. You heard them out there tonight.” Dawn waved a hand toward the door. “They’ve been doing this stuff for years. They’ve taken every safety precaution, had the equipment inspected. It’s all perfectly safe. Josh and Zane are pros at this, and they will not let you get hurt.”
Kate worried her bottom lip with her teeth. She’d told herself all of the same things a dozen times, but nothing could calm the drumbeat of dread deep in her soul. Instead of arguing points that she had no good defense for, she aimed a finger at Dawn and said, “That’s another thing.”
Dawn blinked. “What is?”
“Stop pushing me at Josh and vice versa. I don’t need a matchmaker.”
Her friend’s grin turned smug. “But he’s so good-looking and so into you.”
“I know he’s good-looking. I’d have to be blind not to notice that. But I’m not in the market for a vacation romance.”
“Oh, girl...why not? If I weren’t with Dean—”
“Because I’m...not! I have my reasons!” she said in a tone sharper than she intended.
Dawn drew back slightly, and her face reflected a degree of hurt and remorse.
Lowering her voice, Kate continued, “I’ve been down that path before and it was a disaster I don’t care to repeat. So...please drop it. No matchmaking.”
The front door of the guesthouse opened, and two of the other guests strolled in, holding hands and smiling warmly at each other. Both couples joining them on the adventure trip, Paige and Jake McCall and Brianna and Hunter Mansfield, hailed from Louisiana. They’d been invited because Brianna was a friend of Piper’s from college, and Jake McCall, a former navy SEAL, was Zane, Josh and Piper’s cousin.
“Beautiful evening for a walk,” Paige said. “The moon is almost full.”
“Oh, how romantic,” Dawn said.
“Exactly,” Jake replied with a wanton wink. “Well, good night.” He headed down the hall to their bedroom, towing his chuckling wife in his wake.
“That’s what I want,” Kate said, waving a hand toward the hall after the couple had closed their door.
“Sorry, he’s taken. Quite happily from the looks of it.” Dawn gave her a lopsided grin.
“I mean I want the happily-ever-after. I want to be taking romantic walks in the moonlight after years of marriage.”
Dawn lifted a shoulder. “Nothing says you can’t have that. But to find it, you have to be open to opportunities when they present themselves.”
“But it doesn’t mean I have to chase every wild goose that crosses my path.” She scooted to the edge of the couch, ready to head off to bed. “Especially if I know that a particular goose doesn’t offer any possibilities beyond a short vacation.”
“Gander.”
Kate gave Dawn a puzzled glance. “What?”
“A gander is a male goose. Josh would be a gander.”
Kate grunted, then rose to her feet. “My point is the same. Good night.”
“So...” Dawn said, following Kate down the hall, “no adventures and no fun on the path to Mr. Right?”
Kate stopped, bracing her hands on her hips as she faced Dawn. “That’s painting it in rather bleak tones. Just because I’ve learned to be cautious doesn’t mean I’m some kind of cowardly nun.”
Dawn wrapped her arms around Kate in a hug. “I know you’re not. That’s why this trip is the perfect chance to seize some of that passion you have just under the surface and let it out. Carpe diem, my friend. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to help you face those fears and grab life by the horns.” She kissed Kate’s cheek and gave her a finger wave as she disappeared into her bedroom.
Kate stood in the hall, staring at Dawn’s closed door for several seconds, speechless. She’d always known Dawn was pushy and direct. Assertiveness was helpful in business. But Kate didn’t so much like being on the receiving end of her coworker’s brass. Still... Dawn’s characterization of her, and the suggestion she could be letting opportunity pass her by, rankled. Maybe the root of the disquiet in her gut was the restlessness she’d thrived on as a child battling to be expressed again. Could she do it? Could she embrace that side of her nature once again and finally silence the doubt demons that had plagued her for twenty years?
As she headed off to bed, her pulse scampering at the thought of facing her fears, the image that fixed itself in her mind’s eye was not of the old silo, nor was it of a high bluff to be rappelled on a Colorado mountain. No, what she saw as