“‘If you think you can’t, you’re right.’ Henry Ford.”
She flipped him the bird. “I hate you.”
He pulled a serious face and put a hand over his heart. “‘Believe you can and you’re halfway there.’ Theodore Roosevelt.”
She put her hands over her ears. “La-la-la, not listening.”
He laughed, his chest filling with affection for her. She looked so damn cute sending him petulant looks and singing la-la-la in perfect pitch.
He cupped his hands around his mouth to call out, “‘You must do the thing you think you cannot do.’ Eleanor Roosevelt.”
“Doe, a deer,” Taryn sang, getting louder and moving into Sound of Music territory.
He smiled and watched her as she continued the song, looking both determined and playful at the same time. He had the bizarre urge to go down there, grab her hands, and join in. Another quote came to him unbidden, one that had been on the wall in his college English class but had nothing to do with motivation. “‘Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.’ Rumi.”
A wrinkle appeared in Taryn’s brow, and she lowered her hands, her song cutting off. “What was that?”
Shaw swallowed hard, a feeling he didn’t want to think about pushing at the edges of his mind. “Nothing. Just that I think you could sing the phone book and I’d want to listen.”
She smiled.
“Speaking of which, how’s your song coming?” he asked. “Am I going to get to hear it?”
Her smile instantly fell. “It’s not. I’m not doing it.”
He frowned. “Why?”
She looked up at him. “Because that’s a much bigger wall than this. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
The words weren’t angry, but they were like a gavel falling. Conversation closed. He could tell by her shift in stance that she wasn’t going to open up to him about whatever was stopping her. That stung a little, reminding him what this was. A brief affair. An intense one but still one with a time limit for her because he couldn’t give her what she needed. He had no doubt she meant more to him than he did to her, and he had to stay aware of that. He wasn’t someone she was going to open up to fully. That was their unspoken agreement. They didn’t talk about the past. They lived only in the present moment. They were living in an imaginary bubble that would eventually pop.
“All right. Enough talking. Get your ass up here, professor,” he said, trying to shake the unwelcome sensations moving through him and focus on just this moment, trying to enjoy it for what it was. “I promise I’ll greatly reward you later if you can reach me.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Baiting me with sexual favors is just dirty pool, man.”
“I never said I’d play fair.”
She gave him a perturbed look, but he could tell by the way she wet her lips that he’d gotten to her. That was what they had. Chemistry. He needed to focus on that. He loved that she found him so tempting. The feeling was more than mutual. It had to be enough.
He tapped the top of the wall, beckoning her. “Come on, gorgeous. You’re tough. This is just a dumb wall. You’ve got this.”
A determined look crossed her face, and she pulled up her kneepads. “All right. Let’s do this.”
She backed up, keeping her eyes focused on the spot in front of her, and then got into her runner’s stance. After a silent count, she shot forward.
Shaw called out words of encouragement, and then her feet hit the curve. He knew from watching so many people attempt the wall that her momentum was good. She made it four steps up and her gaze collided with his, shock there. She’d made it farther than ever. But the power behind her was fading. Without thinking, he reached down and caught her hands. She grabbed on tight, and he helped her on the last stride, pulling her up and falling back with the momentum. She landed on top of him, straddling him and panting.
He grinned up at her wide eyes. “You did it!”
She smacked his chest. “I did not. You helped. You—”
“Stop.” He brought her hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “You made it farther than any other woman I’ve seen attempt it yet. You were perfect.”
“You helped,” she complained. “Doesn’t count.”
He pushed up on his elbows, examining her frustrated expression. “Something only counts if you do it absolutely alone?”
“Yes.”