“Good morning,” the checkout clerk said when Jane was up. “You find everything you need?”
“Actually, I just realized I need to check on something. Do you know where I can find Levi Cutler?”
The girl pointed up.
Jane looked up. And up. And up . . . The entire back wall was a climber’s paradise. The wall itself was divided into three different climbing heights, the tallest being the entire three stories of the building, and there was Levi near the top and, close as she could tell, the only thing holding him up there was a very thin-looking rope.
The man was clearly insane.
She walked up to the wall and stood next to a tall, lanky guy in cargo shorts and a store employee shirt. His pale blond hair was a wild mane around his face. His name tag said Dusty.
“Can he hear me if I yell up to him?” she asked.
“Dude hears everything. We think he might have bat hearing.”
“It’s true,” Levi said calmly, like he wasn’t hanging high above them.
“Hey, Tarzan,” she called up. “Have you lost your marbles?”
He smiled. “Nope. They’re all in play.”
“Really? Because you’ve had a concussion, which comes with blurry vision and dizziness. So being a hundred feet up is a bad idea.”
“It’s thirty feet and I’ve been cleared by my doc.”
She crossed her arms, and his smile went to a full-out grin. “You’re worried about me. Cute.”
Cute? She was a lot of things. Sarcastic. Irritated. Stubborn . . . not cute. “We need to talk,” she said.
He grinned down at her. “Sure. Come on up.”
“Funny.”
His laugh floated down to her. “Thought you weren’t afraid of anything.”
Turned out, she was afraid of plenty, including how just looking at him could change the rhythm of her heart.
Kicking off from a rock, Levi suddenly arced into the air, making her gasp as she looked over at Dusty, who stood there hands on hips, just watching. “Wait, aren’t you belaying him?”
“He’s on an auto belay system.”
Levi dropped to the ground, landing lightly on his feet like a cat. A sleek, powerful wildcat. Eyes bright with the thrill of adventure, Levi flashed Jane a smile and killed a bunch more of her brain cells.
“You do that on purpose,” she murmured.
“Do what?” he asked innocently.
Dusty snorted and moved off.
Jane went hands on hips. “There’s no way you’re cleared for rock climbing. Who’s your doctor?”
“Mateo Moreno.”
She blinked. “Dr. Mateo Moreno?”
“Yep, and he’s an old friend. Best friend, actually, from middle school. So trust me, he knows me well and realizes climbing in here is tame in comparison to half the shit the two of us did growing up.”
“Huh.” How had she not known this?
Levi cocked his head. “You know him?”
“He lives next door to the house I’m staying in. He’s a good guy.”
“The best,” Levi agreed. “And he cleared me for whatever I felt up to doing.” He grinned and she was momentarily stunned by all the sexy testosterone and pheromones.
“You are a menace,” she decided.
“And you’re here at the store. Either you missed me or you need something.”