Page 30 of Nothing But Air

“Concern. The word you’re looking for is concern.”

“—but I don’t need to prove myself to you.”

“Good. Because I’m not asking you to.” His smile faded. “The places Marcus and I have narrowed it to aren’t an easy day at the gym. I’m talking technical climbing. Multipitch. Exposed routes with no margin for error.” He held her gaze. “Pull-up-bar drills won’t cut it out there.”

“I know what technical climbing involves.”

“I know you know. I also know you haven’t done it in two years.”

Something flickered in her expression. Gone before he could name it.

Teague straightened. “Here’s the deal. Your friends arrive later today. We’re doing a practice climb first thing tomorrow.”

“I’m aware of the situation.”

He met her eyes. “I’m not asking you to prove anything. I’m asking you to climb with me not only so you feel more comfortable, but also so I know what to expect when we’re a couple hundred feet up with lives on the line. That’s not me doubting you. That’s smart.”

Eden stared at him for a long moment. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “And if I freeze?”

The question came out quieter than he expected. Vulnerable in a way that didn’t match the sharp edges she usually wore.

“Then we deal with it.” He kept his voice steady. “Better to find out now than when we’re deep in the canyon, away from help. And unless you want your first time back on the rock to be with about a dozen eyes on you, the time is now.”

She held his gaze. Something shifted behind her eyes—maybe fear wrestling with determination.

Then she grabbed her gear bag from inside the cabin and brushed past him. The floral scent of her shampoo and freshly applied sunscreen trailed in her wake.

Eden climbed into the passenger seat without a word.

They drove in silence, the dirt road not much more than a double path through the tall pines.

Teague kept his eyes on the road, acutely aware of Eden’s rigid posture. The way her hands gripped her knees. The quick rise and fall of her breathing.

She was nervous. Trying hard to hide it.

“So,” he said. “Want to hear how we narrowed the search area for that final cache?”

“Not particularly.”

“Great. So Marcus said his grandfather was really into math. He was a geometry teacher, actually.”

“I said not particularly.”

“I heard you. I’m choosing to interpret ‘not particularly’ as ‘Please, Teague, distract me from my death grip on my kneecaps.’”

Eden’s hand relaxed a little. “I don’t have a death grip.”

“Your knuckles are no longer white, so I’ll take it as a win. Anyway, since he was a geometry teacher, we think that his three chosen locations might form a…” He glanced at her and waited.

She offered a slight shrug. “Triangle?”

“Exactly.” He turned his truck off the main road down a dirt side road. Just two rows of dirt, grass growing between.

“The first chest that Nimue found was at the bottom of the canyon, not too far from the Colorado. The second in the Tapeats Cave. So if we plot the third location, it should make a triangle.”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news but any three points make a triangle.”

“True. But to be significant, it would need to be an isosceles triangle or an orthogonal triangle.”