“How did it happen? How did my brother fall?”
“I don’t know.” She slapped that back at him, defensive again, chin thrust out. “The rigging failed. That’s all I know. Believe me, if I—”
“I’m not blaming you for what happened,” Cory said quietly.
“Well, swell, that makes one of us!” Her eyes seemed to shimmer, but with anger, not tears. Then she lowered her lashes to hide them, and after a moment went on in a wooden voice, as if reciting something she’d committed to memory long ago.
“We were going to expand the business—offer combination adventures, rafting and rock climbing. We’d already checked out several climbs—this one wasn’t any more difficult than some of the others we’d done. We were almost to the top. I was ahead of Matt. I heard him shout—not a scream, like he was scared, just…a shout. There was some scraping, the sound of rocks falling. I looked back, and Matt was lying on a ledge about halfway down. I knew he was hurt. I thought, you know…I was afraid he was dead.
“When I got to him, he was conscious, and I was just so glad he was alive. I didn’t even think about anything else. But he had this scared look on his face. Like…he knew. He told me he couldn’t move, and I kept telling him not to move. I made sure he wasn’t bleeding anywhere—well, except for some cuts and scrapes—and I went for help. They got him out with a helicopter. They were good, those guys—they handled him like he was made of glass. They did everything they could—”
“I’m sure they—and you—did everything you could.”
Her freckles stood out almost in relief against her golden skin, and he wished he knew her well enough to go to her and offer more comfort than the words she’d probably already heard too many times before.
“So…” And he hesitated, the journalist in him struggling against the compassionate man he was and the brother he was only just learning to be, trying to put the question he had to ask in the least hurtful way he could. “After my brother got out of the hospital, and had been through rehab, whose decision was it for him to stay in Los Angeles?”
“His, of course.” Again, she swatted the words back at him, as the hurt she’d so far been able to hide spasmed across her face like summer lightning. “He…broke things off with me. Told me it was—quote—better for both of us. I wanted him to come back, stay and run the business with me. I tried to convince him. I told him it didn’t matter—” She broke off, looking appalled, probably because she’d said so much, and to a total stranger.
“I wonder why,” Cory said, keeping his voice dispassionate—the reporter’s voice. “You told me you take physically disabled people on the river. It doesn’t seem as though being in a wheelchair should have kept him from continuing on with you in the business, if he’d wanted to.”
“Yeah, well…that’s the point, isn’t it?” Her voice was quiet, and rigid with controlled anger. “Evidently, he didn’t.”
Cory studied her thoughtfully and didn’t reply. There were so many things he could have said…asked about. Things like his brother’s pride, and hers, and whether she’d ever told Matt how she felt about him. Whether she’d ever asked him to stay—actually said the words. It was obvious to Cory, who’d spent a good part of his life ferreting out the feelings behind the words people employed to hide them, that Alex Penny’s feelings for his brother ran deep. The kind of anger and pain he’d seen in those golden eyes of hers didn’t come from nothing. There’d been something more between those two than a business partnership—a lot more. In Alex’s case, at least, the feelings were still there.
And he’d be willing to bet she’d deny it with her last breath.
He looked at his watch and rose, smiling apologetically. “Wow, look at the time. I’ve taken up more of yours than I intended to. I’d figured on being halfway to L.A. by now.”
“You’d have hit rush hour traffic,” Alex said stiffly. “Probably better this way.”
“Yeah, maybe. Well—” He held out his hand. “I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”
“No problem,” she said as she took his hand and shook it—a quick, hard grip.
“It’s been a big help. I think I understand a little better what I’m dealing with now.”
“Glad one of us does.” She said it with a smile, but her voice had the funny little rasp to it that told him she was keeping a tight grip on emotions she didn’t intend to share.
They exchanged the usual goodbyes and thank-yous and Cory left the offices of Penny Tours feeling lighter of heart and of mind than when he’d arrived, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.
After Matt’s brother had gone, Alex made her way to her desk and lowered herself carefully into the chair he’d just vacated. She felt shaky and weak in the knees—a fact that both frustrated and infuriated her.
“Damn you, Matt,” she said aloud.
As if she’d heard the name, or—which was more likely, since she was practically deaf—sensed something, the dog Annie came padding across the room to thrust her white muzzle under Alex’s hand. After receiving her expected ear fondle and neck hug, the old Lab collapsed with a groan at Alex’s feet and went instantly back to sleep.
That was where they both were some time later when Eve returned from the Rafting Center.
She opened the back door a crack and peeked through it, then, seeing Alex was alone, came to claim the chair at the empty desk next to hers. She slouched into it and spun it around with a noisy creak to face Alex.
“Hey,” she said, with a poorly suppressed grin. “Your visitor take off?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, rousing herself. “So, how’d it go with the Las Colinas kids?”
“Great. Everybody had a ball, as usual.” The grin blossomed. “Bobby got dunked.”
“No way.”
“Oh yeah, way. Twice, actually—he’d just managed to climb back in the boat when he went over again. The kids loved it. Randy got some great footage.”
“Nice.” Alex produced a grin in return, though her heart wasn’t in it.
In the silence that followed, Eve rotated her chair back and forth with that annoying creaking sound, and finally said, “So, the dude with the glasses. You said he’s Matt’s brother? Sure didn’t look like a cop.”
“Cop? Oh, no, no, different brother.” Alex waved a hand dismissively, hoping Eve would take the hint from that and leave it alone. The last thing she felt like doing was explaining Matt Callahan’s family to Eve. The last person she wanted to talk about in any way was Matt Callahan.
He was the last person she wanted to think about, too, and she knew she was going to do that whether she wanted to or not, as well.
“So, what did he want with you? I thought you and that guy were finished.”
Alex scrubbed her burning eyes with the hand she’d used to try to fend off the question. “We were—we are. It’s not—it’s nothing to do with me, actually. He just…had some questions about Matt. About the accident, and…stuff like that.”
“That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Why ask you? Why not just ask his brother?”
“It’s not that simple. He doesn’t really know Matt. He hasn’t seen him since they were little kids. Look, it’s a long story, okay? And I don’t really feel like talking about it right now.”
And instantly she thought, Damn, why did you do that? You know Eve’s going to have her feelings hurt.
And