that the water temperature was sub zero—if that warm—so wading across was completely out of the question.
Mr. Farraday sidled up next to her. “Cash always seems to give us what looks like an insolvable problem. But every morning so far, we’ve managed to find some way to solve it in spite of ourselves.”
“And we’ll solve this one, too,” Lexie assured him. She’d made her first paper million before the age of twenty-two, hadn’t she? How hard could it be to cross a little creek? And Cash—the cad—was already out of sight. Some gentleman he turned out to be, pairing the two husky macho guys, and leaving an undersized Ms. Klutz with Mr. Frail.
“I know we can do it,” Mr. Farraday affirmed, and then scratched his chin. “But…how?”
“Hmm…” Again, she pushed up her sleeves. Her system was still offended at being deprived of caffeine, CNN and her ticker tape, yet somehow her pulse was picking up a charge. Challenges had always been one of her favorite things. Inexplicably it made her feel…safe…when she took on something that was supposed to be impossible for her to do.
Firing up on the problem, now, she motioned to the woods behind them. “God knows, I’ve been tripping over fallen branches since we started walking this morning…so how about this. Slim, you scout out the longest branches you can find. Don’t lift ’em. I’ll lift ’em. And we’ll just make ourselves a bridge out of the fallen branches, secured by those rocks in the middle of creek…and then we’ll just walk across. Piece of cake, right, partner?” She lifted her hand.
Slim gave her a gentle high-five. “Right, partner.”
When Cash heard the sound of a female shriek, he took off at a dead run—knowing, of course, who had to be doing the shrieking.
He charged around trees and brush, barreling to the creek edge…only to see Lexie—still caterwauling—sitting on her butt in the middle of the creek, soaked right up to her neck.
Even as he clomped in the water to fetch her, he was mentally shaking his head. There was a reason he’d paired Lexie with Slim this morning for this particular problem-solving exercise—and blast it, the reason was that she couldn’t fail. The only logical way to cross the creek was to make a bridge of branches—and the terrain had the whole winter’s worth of down pine branches to make that easy. And they’d done that. Made a darn secure little bridge across the water. And Slim Farraday, with no problem at all, even with his arthritic hip, had made it to the other side with no difficulty.
But then there was Ms. Klutz.
“Cash! Help me! I’m going to die of hypothermia! It’s so cold I can’t breathe and I can’t move and I can’t—”
“You’re not going to die and it’s not that cold.” He bent down and grabbed her. For a drowned rat—and a miniaturesized drowned rat at that—she weighed a ton. The branches and mud in her hair didn’t help. And when she hurled her arms around him in a monkey-hold, she almost tipped both of them back in the water—not to mention that her soaked, clinging body completely drenched his in two seconds flat.
God knew why he had the sudden, desperate urge to kiss her. There wasn’t a hormone alive that could conceivably wake up in these temperatures or conditions, and his mind wasn’t on sex but on frustration. The first exercise he gave clients was always intended to give them a feeling of success and confidence, and he’d wanted that even more for Lexie, because she’d been so damn clear that she already expected to fail. Only damnation, no one had trouble with this exercise. Ever. Before. Her.
“I’m freezing, I’m freezing—”
He knew. He could feel her tight, wrinkled nipples, through his drenched shirt and hers. He could feel her fanny under his hands as well, maybe even feel her goose bumps. God knew, she was clutching him tighter than glue. “I know you’re cold. But you’re going to be back at the lodge and climbing in warm, dry clothes in ten minutes, tops, I promise. And after that, you partner with me,” he said irritably. Hell, his teeth were starting to chatter now, too.
“With you?”
“Yeah. With me.”
She lifted her chin so she could look in his eyes. “Um, Cash? This was my fault. Not yours. I told you I wouldn’t do well with the program, didn’t I? I don’t do well with anything physical. It’s just reality—”
Maybe it was her reality, but it wasn’t his. Any other client who’d taken a tumble, he’d give them the morning off, let them soak up some sunshine with their feet up. But a principle was on the line here.
Cash wasn’t sure what the principle was, but there had to be one. He hadn’t built Silver Mountain into a first-class executive retreat by letting clients fail. That was part of it. His whole program was based on making sure every dad-blamed exhausted executive got something good out of it, and he sure wasn’t breaking that record for her. And somehow she’d done something to him so that he couldn’t get his mind off her. That had gotten tangled up in the principle, too.
Bottom line was, an hour later, Keegan had been sent out to handle the program for the others, and Cash was fresh-showered, dry-clothed and pacing the front lobby, waiting for her. Spare minutes after that, Lexie bounced down the stairs, wearing a new pastel pair of jeans and another cute little pair of tennies and what looked like a raw-silk shirt to him—even if the pattern was a country plaid. Her hair was dry already—how long could it take to dry a couple of inches of bouncy curl? And she was smiling up at him before he’d even had a chance to erase his scowl.
“Okay. I’m warmed up and ready for the next torture,” she said lightly.
“Good.” He didn’t fill her in on the next plan until they’d hiked a good distance up the mountain. She spotted the outside climbing gym, but obviously had no idea what it was.
He unlocked the storage shed and started gearing up, first choosing the right helmet and harness for Lexie, then sorting through the obvious hexes and cams and lobster claws for the exercise…but he kept a wary eye on Lex. He knew she wasn’t going to go for this easily. Temporarily, though, the view just seemed to both bewilder and confuse her. She’d perched her hands on her hips and kept spinning around.
“This is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. What on earth are all those ropes and poles and boards for? It looks like a playground in the sky,” she joked.
“That’s exactly what it is. A playground in the sky. It’s where we teach the ropes course, the basics of mountain climbing.” He motioned to various sites over their heads. “There are about thirty different exercises you can do up there. The climbing wall is just what it looks like. So is the rope ladder. But then there are other spots, where you can practice using anchors and belaying techniques—”
“Whoa.” Her smile died faster than a switched off faucet. “Double whoa. Cash, didn’t we talk about this yesterday? I’d never have come here if I wasn’t serious about giving your whole program a go. Just because I’m lousy at athletics doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try almost anything. But climbing is honestly different—”
“Yeah. So you said yesterday. Climbing was the only thing you didn’t want to do.” He tried fitting a white helmet on her head, only to discover that it was way too big. He clipped back to the shed for the children’s sized helmets.
“Yes. For real. Because I’m afraid of heights.”
“I understand.” The red helmet fit her perfectly, even if it did smoosh down the riot of dark curls. Those soft dark eyes staring up at him were bleak with dread. “That’s exactly why I want you to do this, Lexie. Because you’re scared. When you came here, you agreed that I’d be the boss, remember? And I’m not asking you to try climbing to make you miserable. I’m asking you because of what happened this morning.”
“You mean my falling in the creek?” she asked in confusion.
“Uh-huh. I gave you the easiest exercise we have. And you flunked it. So now we’re going to try the opposite—giving