“I used to be the smart girl.”
Brynn pouted, not feeling anything along the lines of smart. Put her in front of a computer and tell her to make sure accounts payable and accounts receivable added up correctly, and she could do that. Do your taxes? Sure! No problem! Leave her alone too long on the second floor of Two Stories, and she’d create a display that highlighted her favorite period romances or the best young adult trilogies. Give Brynn Chandler something visual to organize, whether it was books or numbers, and she was the smartest girl around. But ask her to organize her life, to know the difference between false bravado and honest-to-goodness paralyzing fear, and she was not to be trusted.
But Jamie—there was a guy she could trust. A friend who’d never let her fall.
Brynn’s eyes widened again, but this time it wasn’t the frenzied look of fear. It was something else—something like realization.
“I’m not going to fall,” she said, her words directed at Jamie. What if she did have someone there to catch her when she needed catching? Was that so bad?
“Not while I’m around.” His smile broadened. He knew he’d broken through, and as much as she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right—of winning, essentially—she smiled back at him.
“I trust you,” she told him, and he let out a breath, his shoulders relaxing.
Geez, he had been as tense as she was, but he hadn’t let her see it. He hid that for her, and she trusted him even more now because of it.
“It’s about freaking time,” he said, and Brynn realized her palm wasn’t the only one sweating. He’d been this nervous for her. God, she had to loosen up or he was going to give himself an ulcer getting her across the country.
“Always,” she said. “I will always trust you, Jamie.”
The capsule shook and then stopped. The blond little girl giggled and looked over her shoulder at her mother. Brynn, on the other hand, slammed her foot down onto the floor as if she were stepping on some emergency break.
“What was that?” She started to transform into the Brynn of ten minutes ago, the one ready to throw in the towel as long as it meant she didn’t have to experience this.
“You did it, SJ. You made it to the top.”
The capsule door slid open, and the woman and her little girl shuffled out first.
“Don’t be afwaid,” the girl said to Brynn. “I’m not so big, but I did a big girl fing, and now I’m not so scared to do more big girl fings.”
Brynn was afraid. It’s not like years of programming could be deprogrammed within minutes. But she wasn’t doing this alone.
“I made it to the top.”
Jamie nodded. “And we can wait right here for it to start up again. Ten minutes, and we’re on our way back down.”
She shook her head. “It would be a really crappy leap if I stopped in the middle of it. Wouldn’t it?”
“You still made it to the top,” he said. “That’s a big step, if not a leap.”
“Let’s go take a look,” she said, and Jamie waited as she pushed past him and out of the capsule. She offered him a hand, and he grabbed it, letting her pull him on to solid ground—solid ground that was six hundred thirty feet up in the air.
“You sure?” he asked when he was standing next to her.
She shook her head. She wasn’t sure at all. But she wasn’t stopping, either, not when she had come this far.
“Do you feel safe up here?” she asked.
“Yes.” Jamie didn’t hesitate with the word, not for a second.
“Then I trust you,” she said. “In the grand scheme of things, this is a baby step. The giant leap will be L.A.”
She put one foot in front of the other, knees threatening to buckle with each step, but she kept moving.
If she made it through this, it would be a sign, something foretelling of the rest of the trip, just like the flat tire. If she could do this, she could justify traveling across the country for a guy who might be the one. Because if she could follow through with conquering one fear, she could do the same with the rest.
Solid ground awaited, and so did Spencer Matthews. She hoped.
Chapter Ten
“Truth or dare?” Brynn asked, and Jamie chuckled softly.
“What kind of a dare can I do when I’m driving? You do want to make it to our next destination, don’t you?”
His smile didn’t falter, though. Jamie liked this, the ease of being with Brynn and playing silly games. When he wasn’t fixating on her giant leap in L.A. or how he felt, along with how he would tell her, the two fell into a rhythm that was effortless, like nothing had changed. That’s because maybe for Brynn, it hadn’t. Jamie was the one with a realization the night of the reunion. Not her.