“So, what made you become a doctor?” Amelia asked.
Megan took a few good seconds to reply, which Harper took as an opportunity to take a few photos of the sunlight bouncing off the water, the droplets clinging to Megan’s eyelashes like glitter, and Amelia’s toes kicking up miniature geysers of water.
“My sister nearly drowned when she was six,” she finally said.
Harper, who had her camera raised, suddenly froze. Well, that was unexpected. She stopped clicking the shutter and started listening.
“She could swim better than I could,” Megan said. “But our dog, Rondo, loved zooming around the pool. He was a Ridgeback, so he wasn’t small. One day we were all inside, but Gabi wasn’t. My parents had a camera by the pool, so we were able to see what happened. Rondo had barreled across the tiles like a missile. He’d clipped Gabi’s feet, and she slipped and hit her head on the side of the pool before she fell in.”
Amelia gave a small gasp. Harper did too.
“I was eight,” Megan said. “I ended up following the ambulance with my dad, who, as you can imagine, was losing it. When we got to the hospital, there were so many doctors. People were yelling. My parents were yelling.”
“What happened?” Amelia asked, her voice soft and broken. Harper didn’t blame her. Stories like that made everything feel heavier. Even the air in her lungs seemed thicker.
“She lived and had no long-term complications,” Megan said, smiling softly. “It was November, so the water was ice-cold, and the doctor said that was actually a good thing in her case. Not always, because cold water can also increase the riskof fatal drownings. But in Gabi’s case, the cold water slowed her metabolism, which gave her brain a tiny grace period.”
“So, you became a doctor because you nearly lost your sister?”
“I guess I did,” Megan said, shrugging, like it wasn’t a huge deal, though Harper could see her fingers flexing in the water. Apparently, it was a huge deal. “If it hadn’t been for the doctors that day, she wouldn’t be here. She wouldn’t have gotten married to the love of her life or had my nephew. I wanted to make an impact like that.”
“You’re amazing,” Amelia said.
Megan laughed loudly and splashed Amelia. “You really are a flirt, aren’t you?”
Amelia promptly splashed her back. “Only if it’s working.”
The sun had slid behind the cliff so that one side of the water sparkled like a handful of crushed glass had been scattered across it, and the other sulked under the shadow. Harper only noticed it when she checked the photos. They weren’t looking nearly as spectacular as she wanted. The reflections were all wrong. She needed height. She needed a vantage point that captured the boats resting on the sand shoreline, the stone-cut pathway, the pastel houses stacked on the cliffs, and the bridge arching overhead. Getting all of that in one frame would be impossible unless she moved farther from the water, and she had no intention of doing that, especially when she still needed the light exactly where she wanted it.
Suddenly, Harper’s legs itched to climb. She quickly scanned the cliffside bordering the water to the left. The rocks were jagged, but not impossible. If she could just follow the natural grooves and cracks, and press her feet into the tiny ledges, she could inch her way upward safely. In fact, Harper could probably even do it with her eyes closed.
It was decided. She was already running across the beach.
Her mind was so focused on what she wanted to do she didn’t even consider this might be slightly dangerous for anyone who hadn’t dangled off sandstone cliffs in Utah. But she had. With a rope that time. But still. If she fell, which she wouldn’t, she’d fall into the water. Which was fine. Except… well, for her camera. She hesitated as she reached the base of the cliff, but then decided there was no way she was going to fall.
A little ascent like this was easy. The rock had ridges and shallow ledges. She could easily make her way up. She jammed her hand into a jagged groove and felt coarse, gritty stone against her fingertips. She had to admit this was somewhat exhilarating. She was beginning to feel like her old self again. The Harper before the assignments stopped. The Harper before Harry had set her down in their sunroom with the potted geraniums, begonias and a Cape primrose. The Harper who took risks like they were vitamins.
She grinned to herself and shifted her camera so the strap wouldn’t swing into the rock. Then she pressed her feet into the tiny ledges and tested each one before committing her weight. After that, she shifted her weight forward and kept moving higher and higher until she got to a point where she paused to peek through the viewfinder.
The fjord practically exploded across the frame: Megan and Amelia in the water, the pastel houses, the stone pathway, and the boats parked on the sandy shore. The perfectionist side of Harper itched to catch it all.
But then her right foot skidded across a slick patch of stone, and her stomach suddenly lurched. Her right hand flew outward, fingers clawing against the rock until they latched onto a narrow ridge. The impact had dragged her knuckles across the stone and peeled skin in an instant, leaving a hot, stinging stripe that pulsed.
“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath. Her heartbeat gave the tiniest betrayal, a sharp little kick against her ribs. At least she managed to toe a small protruding rock and right her balance. She was fine. Totally fine, and this still counted as a success. She hadn’t fallen. She hadn’t lost her nerve. She could still get the perfect shot…
“HARPER!”
Harper whipped her head toward the beach just in time to see Elise rushing to the water’s edge. Her arms were flailing like broken windmills, and that face that was usually so smooth, so composed, was all scrunched up and panicked.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”
Chapter Twelve
“What the hell are you doing?!” Elise screamed again. Her lungs felt small and useless, like they’d been replaced with cotton balls, but she kept yelling anyway. “Get down from there! What are you thinking?”
Harper’s black linen pants flapped like flags in the breeze that was beginning to pick up. A moment ago, she’d lost her step and Elise, who had been reviewing footage from last night’s ceremony on her tablet and trying to decide whether a midday confessional should happen before the next group date had caught sight of something she’d first thought was just a dark blot on the cliffside.
But then the blot had moved. Or more like stumbled, and Elise had realized with a nauseating clarity that she was looking at Harper fucking Angel dangling off a slab of volcanic rock like she was shooting forNational Geographicand notThe Sapphic Match.