“Belle,” he’d clipped. “That outcrop is dangerous. What were you thinking?”
She looked at the rock then at him and stated, “No it isn’t. I go there a lot. It’s where I do my best non-thinking.”
“So you’re telling me you won’t climb a ladder but you’ll scale a cliff?” he enquired with annoyed surprise.
She looked back at the rock then at him. “It’s not a cliff.”
He looked behind him and then back at her. “Belle, it’s a cliff. A rocky cliff. A dangerous rocky cliff.”
She turned to the cliff and studied it as if seeing it for the first time.
Then she muttered, “It is a cliff.”
He didn’t know whether to burst out laughing or shake some sense into her.
He did neither.
Instead he ordered, “I don’t want you to go out there again.” When her gaze moved to his face, he asked, “Do you understand?”
She regarded him a moment and said nonsensically, “No, it’s the bossy one.”
He ignored her again and repeated, “Am I understood?”
“You’re understood,” she replied quietly, turned back toward the house, patted her thigh to call the dogs and started forward.
Their walk, apparently, was over.
As they had moved away from the house, she had not only attempted conversation, she’d freely engaged in it.
As they moved back to the house, she remained thoughtfully and somewhat disturbingly quiet and her lightened mood had vanished.
Therefore when The Point was in view, Jack got close to her side, slid an arm around her shoulders and halted her. He curled her to face him and she tilted her head back to look at him.
“Don’t be cross, poppet,” he demanded softly when her eyes caught his, going on to explain. “I acted out of concern.”
To this she oddly announced, “I hiked the Inca Trail.”
Jack stared at her a moment before asking, “What?”
She put her hands to his waist and repeated, “I hiked the Inca Trail with my Mom. We hiked to Machu Picchu.” When he didn’t speak, she went on, “Which is amazing, by the way.”
He was surprised at this news but also uncertain why she was sharing it.
“That may be so but you weren’t pregnant nor were you alone when you did it. I’d rather you not climb out onto a cliff outcrop when you’re out walking alone.”
He’d also rather she not do it when she was with someone, for instance himself, but he didn’t say that.
She moved a hint closer to him, tilting her head back further. “No. That’s not what I mean. I’ve been trying to decide why I’m not scared of that cliff which I’m not. I never thought about it but it’s weird.” Again when he didn’t respond, she continued, informing him, “I think it’s the sea.”
Although this made no sense to Jack, he didn’t tell her that, he remained silent.
When he didn’t speak, Belle went on, “I feel safe around the sea. And I feel safe around my Mom which was why I wasn’t scared on the Inca Trail. So I tried to find times when I wasn’t afraid of something I’m normally afraid of to see if my theory is right. I remembered that, after a while, when we were up in the hayloft that first time, I leaned against the sliding doors that you opened which is something I wouldn’t normally do and…”
She stopped talking abruptly and her eyes grew wide as she realised what she was giving away. Her body went solid, she tore her gaze from his and looked at his ear.
Then belatedly she tried to pull away.
Jack’s arms slid around her, containing her retreat.