And she certainly didn’t do one full side of the floor opened to a neck breaking fall haylofts.
She turned and nearly collided with him, he was standing so close behind her.
“I can’t go up there,” she breathed.
He was looking down at her. “Why not?”
She blinked and looked over his shoulder. “I just can’t.”
“It’s safe, Belle. I wouldn’t take you up there if it wasn’t,” he replied.
Her eyes went to his ear. “I’m sure it is. I just don’t do ladders,” she admitted, paused then continued, “or heights.”
Or out of the way, scary haylofts with unbearably handsome men, she thought a thought that she would never, even if paid, speak aloud.
“You’ll be fine,” he assured her, his voice deeper and gentler and somewhere in her panic stricken brain it registered that he was genuinely trying to assure her rather than force her to do something against her will.
“I –” she started but before she could say more, his hands came to her waist, he got close and all panicked thoughts (indeed, all thoughts, panicked or not) flew from her head.
She looked up at him to see his face was close.
Very close.
Magnetically close.
She held her breath and barely controlled an impulse to lean toward him.
“I’ll take care of you,” he murmured and then his fingers tightened at her waist.
He turned her to face the ladder and before she knew what he was about, he actually lifted her clean off her feet. Reflexively her hands shot out to grab the sides of the ladder and her feet found the rungs. His hands slid down to her h*ps and he put pressure there, urging her to climb.
And she did.
Instantly, she felt him come up after her.
Not a few rungs after her but right after her, his arms around her body, hands moving along the ladder sides just under hers and his body warm against her back. She was sheltered from danger by his big, strong frame and her fear of heights (and ladders and haylofts, but not him) completely melted away.
She made it to the floor of the hayloft and stepped in, James coming right after.
Without hesitation, she moved to the safest area available, the centre of the loft, as he strode to its outer wall. She watched as he unlatched a pair of doors and slid one to the side then the other.
He turned to her and ordered quietly, “Come here.”
She didn’t want to. She really didn’t want to.
The doors were open to the night. She could easily fall out them and crack her head open. Or break her arm. Or sprain her ankle. None of which she wanted to do.
Even though she didn’t want to, she pulled his jacket closer about her and walked slowly to his side, stopping several feet from the edge.
“Belle,” he called again and she tilted her head back to look at him, her mind filled with thoughts of her broken body at the base of the stables, her knees feeling spongy, like they couldn’t hold her weight. “Look,” he urged and she watched him turn his head.
Her gaze went in the same direction and she caught her breath.
Spread out before her was his castle, huge and imposing on its cliff, many of its windows shown with bright lights, the sea and sky beyond it inky black. The white caps broke the waters and against the sprawling shoreline you could see the foamy surf pounding against the rocks.
It was magnificent.
It was way better than the view from the study.