Zane snorted and rubbed his hand over his face. “What?” he yelled back.
“A rope walks into a bar,” Ty announced. He paused dramatically as he struggled with finding a foothold. Then he went on, his voice strained with the physical effort. “Orders a beer. Bartender tells him, ‘We don’t serve ropes in here.’ So the rope leaves the bar and goes outside, asks a guy passing to fray him at both ends and tie him in a knot. The guy does what the rope asks, and then the rope goes back inside and orders a beer. The bartender looks at him and asks, ‘Aren’t you that rope that was just in here?’ And the rope says, ‘I’m a frayed knot!’”
Another ripple of nervous laughter and a smattering of clapping met his words. The crowd had grown considerably larger since news of possible death and dismemberment had spread.
Zane stared up at Ty, at a loss for a long moment. Then he called out, “How long have you been saving that one?” He knew his voice was bordering on strident, but Zane didn’t care. He was mad, upset, and scared, dammit! And all Ty could do was tell jokes!
“Been waiting until it was relevant,” Ty called down with a short laugh. He sounded winded from trying to talk and climb at the same time. He steadied himself where he had his feet on two solid holds and then pressed his forehead to the wall, flattened like a bug on a windshield. Zane growled in frustration. At least Ty had enough sense to know when he’d reached his limit.
Luckily the man climbing to him was only feet from him, and soon he reached him with the rope and began looping it through the carabiner rings on Ty’s harness. For a short moment, Zane was so light-headed with relief that he thought he might fall over. Instead he turned to Manny and asked, “Where are the stairs to get up there?”
“Stairs?” Manny echoed. He looked shellshocked.
“To the top of the wall. Where are they?” Zane said insistently, glancing up to see Ty moving again, now safety anchored and getting closer to the top. He would be determined to reach the top rather than just pushing away from the wall and letting them lower him down.
Manny pointed to the side of the fake rock façade, and with one more look to check on Ty’s progress, Zane took off at a run to get up there. He rushed the steps and made it to the top just in time to see two men helping Ty over the edge of the wall. Ty crawled away from the edge and immediately flattened to the floor, looking like he was trying to hug the solid ground. Zane dropped to his knees right next to him, reaching down to touch and reassure himself that Ty was okay.
“Baby?” Zane whispered, the panic echoing through him again now that it was over.
Ty looked up at him in surprise, and this close Zane could see that despite the jokes he’d been cracking, Ty’s entire body was shaking, and he was covered with a fine sheen of sweat. “Did you fly up here?” Ty asked incredulously as he pushed himself up.
Zane didn’t answer, didn’t even think; he just pulled Ty into his arms and held him close, letting the fear rush through him and slowly start to dissipate.
Ty hugged him back hard, one arm around Zane’s neck as he twisted awkwardly, still on his knees.
“Are you okay?” Zane asked shakily.
“I’m afraid not,” Ty whispered against Zane’s neck, his voice barely audible. He began to shake silently, his body trembling with nervous laughter. Zane huffed and hugged him closer, but he didn’t think it was too damn funny.
After a long minute of being unable to let go, Zane finally pulled back enough to fumble with the buckle of Ty’s helmet and yank it off. He tossed the thing to the side so he could kiss Ty gently and pull him close again. It was a struggle to hold himself together, and Zane really didn’t want to make a scene, but…. “Jesus, baby,” he said brokenly. That moment of watching Ty slipping and falling was burned into his mind, and he couldn’t wipe it away.
“It’s okay,” Ty murmured gently. He patted Zane’s face awkwardly. “Let’s unhook me so I can go throw up somewhere,” he joked weakly as he sat back on his haunches and began pulling at the harness. The two attendants helped him get loose, offering mumbled apologies and expressions of admiration for how he’d managed not to fall, but Ty merely nodded to them as he pushed at the harness. He probably wasn’t hearing them. His mouth was set in a hard line, and he was still trembling as the adrenaline burned off. He looked up at Zane and met his eyes, giving a shaky exhalation after he stepped out of the harness and kicked it away.
Zane held out his hand. “C’mon, baby. I think that’s enough for this morning.”
Ty took his hand and squeezed it hard, pulling himself toward Zane as if he were one of the ropes Ty had just been harnessed to. He wrapped an arm around Zane’s waist and hugged him close for a moment before sliding under Zane’s arm and letting it encircle his shoulders. It was the first time Zane could remember Ty initiating such a display of physical comfort after something traumatic. He wondered if it was for show or if it was real.
Zane hated that this case was forcing him to ask himself that over and over.
As they started walking, the slight difference in their heights made it easy to move without stumbling, even while descending the narrow stairs. By the time they got to the deck, Zane thought he might be calming down, but then a mob of staff surrounded them with bodies and babble.
“Mr. Porter!—Please let us apologize—Mr. Porter, are you okay?—Can we get you anything? Mr. Porter, we’ll do whatever—”
“Enough,” Zane snapped firmly above the noise, silencing them, anger finally rising over all the other welling emotions. “We just want to get back to our room. You can be sure I will let you know if we need anything and just exactly what I think about this accident.”
The cowed staff melted out of their way, and Zane got them moving again.
“Hold on,” Ty murmured as he patted at Zane’s belly to stop him from trampling anyone in their way. He began to pull away, still looking dazed. “I want to see the rope.”
Zane frowned at Ty briefly, thinking Ty might actually be in shock, but then his brain caught up to Ty’s. “It’s out on the platform.”
Ty moved toward where the rope lay in a messy pile of coils at the base of the wall. Manny stopped him, asking him if he needed a doctor and once again barraging him with offers of assistance and comps and everything else under the sun. Ty waved him off, shaking his head and giving the man an easygoing grin. Though he must have been shaken, Zane had to give him credit for maintaining the winning smile that seemed able to charm just about anyone.
“Could you cut the end off that rope for me?” Ty asked Manny grandly, his accent back in place. “I’d love to add it to my collection of things that have almost killed me.”
Ty laughed and patted Manny on the back as if he was making light, and the workers who could hear him seemed to attribute it to either the carefree attitude of a daredevil or a British stiff upper lip. Either way, they weren’t about to refuse anything Ty asked at that point. Soon Ty was moving back toward Zane with six inches of rope clutched in his hand and a forced, charismatic smile firmly in place.
Zane slid his arm around him again. “Let’s go,” he suggested. “I don’t know if you need a break, but I sure as hell do.” The staff members around them laughed in weak relief.
As they passed by the large crowd of milling passengers, many of whom called out to them in congratulations or sympathetic relief, Zane had a hard time simultaneously shaking a few hands and nodding at people while trying to keep Ty’s head down so no one got a very good look at him. They were trying to stay under the radar; this was not exactly the best way to do it.
Ty finally cleared his throat and glanced sideways at Zane. “I wouldn’t recommend the rock wall to you. Very high.”
“Get the insults in now while I’m still too thankful to have you here safe to mind,” Zane warned.
“I’ll pass,” Ty muttered. He held up the rope as soon as they were far enough from the crowd not to draw attention. Half of the thick rope was frayed horribly, almost fuzzy from the trauma inflicted by its separation from
the other end. But roughly a third of the failed end was clean and straight, with nary a ruined strand to be seen. Ty turned it around grimly. “It was cut.”
AS SOON as the door to their stateroom was closed and locked behind them, Ty felt his knees go weak. He reached out to the wall nearest him and closed his eyes as he let the weakness seep into him while he had the chance to let it. He hung his head and sank toward the carpet without further warning, just thankful to be on solid ground and in private.
“Whoa, baby, c’mon, not on the floor,” Zane murmured as he caught Ty partway down. The worry was clear in his voice, which wavered enough that Ty took note of it and tried to man up a little. He attempted to gather himself with a deep breath. “Much more comfortable on the bed,” Zane continued.
When Ty sat on the end of the bed—or what he assumed was the end of the bed, since the damn thing was round—he simply hung his head and leaned over. No matter how many times a person almost died, it never got to the point that it was easy to shrug off. After a moment of composing himself, he raised his head and dejectedly looked at Zane. “Even when I’m someone else, people try to kill me,” he joked.
Zane sighed and sat down next to him. “Must be your charming personality showing through all the bleach.” He reached out to run his fingers through Ty’s abused hair.
Ty closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. “I may have given us away out there,” he said ruefully. “Someone is apparently trying to kill or at least injure one of the Porters. If they were watching, they heard me cussing without my accent.”
“I really can’t bring myself to care about that right now,” Zane murmured, rubbing Ty’s back in slow, soothing motions.
Ty looked at him more closely, surprised by the statement. Zane didn’t meet his eyes, and his face was set with what looked like pain.
“Hey,” Ty said softly as he placed a hand on Zane’s knee. “Look on the bright side, right? At least it wasn’t you,” he tried with a laugh as he patted Zane’s thigh.
Zane shook his head slowly as his eyes tracked to meet Ty’s. “No. That would have been easier to handle,” he said baldly.
“All right then, next time you dangle over the ocean,” Ty offered as he unconsciously rubbed at his abused fingers. He understood what Zane meant, though. Ty knew from a previous, ill-advised discussion about their deepest fears that Zane’s was not being there to save the day when the proverbial shit hit the fan. Zane had been much more eloquent in his wording, of course. It was one fear Ty had no idea how to assuage. And it was a legitimate one, since it probably happened a lot and Zane just didn’t know it.
“No problem,” Zane whispered as he caressed Ty’s cheek with a slightly trembling finger. “I didn’t realize I’d be so—” His voice actually broke, and he looked away, out into the room, his hand falling away.
“Zane,” Ty prompted gently. He was beginning to worry. In all fairness, it really should still be him falling apart at the seams, not his partner. It almost made him angry that he had to be the one to narrowly escape death or injury and console his partner about it. For a brief second, he allowed himself the suspicion that Zane might be putting on just to give Ty something to focus on. He let that fancy pass when he saw the real emotion in Zane’s eyes.
Zane drew a sharp breath and cleared his throat. “Sorry,” he said. “I think it’s sort of hitting me now. What could have happened. I don’t know why. It’s not like I wasn’t standing there scared out of my mind.” He offered Ty a smile that didn’t make it to his eyes.
“You damn well better have been!” Ty blurted indignantly.
“I was,” Zane said fervently, taking Ty’s hand up again. “I couldn’t do anything.”
Ty exhaled sharply and stood. “Let’s not linger over it, Garrett,” he said with forced nonchalance. No matter what he said to Zane just now, he knew he’d be dreaming about falling tonight. Discussing it in detail might help ease Zane’s mind, but it wouldn’t do Ty a damn bit of good.
Zane’s hand tightened to keep Ty from moving away. “You scared me. You didn’t cut your own rope, but how could you literally be hanging by your fingertips and still be joking?”
Ty looked down at him in surprise and gave an insulted huff. “Cut my own rope?” he repeated.
“Ty. Please,” Zane said, his voice carrying a hint of that dismay. He shook his head a little as he tried to hold Ty’s gaze.
Ty tilted his head and petted Zane’s hand. “One thing I’ve learned is, if you’re too focused on the falling and how horribly it’s going to hurt, you don’t see what’s around you. You might miss the very thing you can hang onto, something that could stop the fall altogether. So if you stay calm….” He shrugged. It wasn’t a lesson he’d necessarily learned while literally hanging in the air, but it served for many of life’s difficulties. Including literally hanging in the air.
Zane still didn’t look happy. “Not one man in a thousand could have done what you did today. I couldn’t have.”
Ty didn’t disagree. He’d had extensive training in order to do exactly what he’d done today. Not to mention a healthy dose of pure dumb luck. Zane knew that, and Ty didn’t understand why he was so upset. He was silent, frowning in confusion as he watched the play of emotions over Zane’s face. But none of them stayed in place long enough for Ty to really interpret them.
“I told you what I think about free fall,” Zane finally said. “And staying calm isn’t enough. You up there joking? You weren’t doing it for yourself, were you?” It wasn’t so much a question as a conclusion.
“Well, you know how amusing I find myself.”
“Yeah, right. You were about to fall thirty feet, and you were more worried about me than you were about yourself.” Zane stood and reached to place a hand on each side of Ty’s face, holding him still. “Are you okay? I couldn’t do anything but stand and watch before, but I could do something to help now.”
“Yeah, you can,” Ty murmured somberly, his eyes darting back and forth as he looked over Zane’s sincere face. “You can get me some Tylenol. And ice. And a drink. And possibly a nice gentle massage, ’cause I’m not going to be able to move my arms in an hour.”
Zane leaned to kiss him, just a soft press of the lips, probably to halt Ty’s litany of demands. “You can have anything you want, baby.”
Ty almost gave in to the gentle sentiment, but he closed his eyes and shook his head obstinately. “Quit it!” he demanded, barely keeping himself from stomping his foot in a petulant fit. He wanted Zane back to being his normal indignant self, not this weird quixotic version of his lover and partner. “Snap out of it and… I don’t know… yell at me for almost dying or something!”
“All right, all right,” Zane said, smiling a little and straightening his shoulders, giving himself a slight shake. “Next time you do something like that, I’m going to smack the hell out of you, okay?” He stole one more kiss and sighed, then padded over to the phone. In the next moment, he was talking to the butler service. “What do you want to drink?” he directed at Ty, his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.
“A lot,” Ty answered grimly.
Zane ordered a six-pack of Guinness and large pitcher of iced tea, a shot of their best whiskey, a bucket of ice, some cold sandwiches and chips, and a cookie platter in quick succession before hanging up.
“Cookies?” Ty asked with a smile he didn’t try to restrain.
“Comfort food. You get beer; I get cookies,” Zane explained as he kicked off his cross trainers and walked back over to the bed.
Ty watched him move, seriously considering tackling him and relieving some stress in a more favorable manner than a shower or cookies. But he decided against such a tack, considering how distressed Zane seemed and how important the morning’s events might be to the grand scheme of things. “So,” he said quietly. “Do we think someone is trying to kill Del, or do we think someone’s figured out we’re not the Porters and they’re trying to kill me? Or us, I guess, since there was no way of
knowing which of us would go first.”
He watched as Zane studied him silently for a moment and then advanced on him. “There’s not been enough exposure for our cover to be blown unless there’s a wild card in play who actually knows the Porters. We have no reason to think that,” Zane said. He stopped right in front of Ty, looking down at him. “Take off those shoes.”
The firm tone of voice alone made Ty shiver slightly, and it took him a moment to realize he was still wearing the climbing shoes supplied by the staff at the rock wall. Ty looked down at them in surprise. He felt himself flush at the absentmindedness, and he yanked them off one at a time, tossing them toward the sofa. “So why try to hurt one of the Porters?” he posed as he did so. “A fall like that wouldn’t necessarily kill. Especially since cutting halfway through a rope isn’t exactly a precise method. Whoever did it had no idea when it would rip. And since I doubt Del or Corbin are better climbers than me, it’s likely they’d have been lower when it did go.”
Zane grunted in comment as he walked around the edge of the bed. He sat and pulled up his legs, leaning against the headboard and crossing his legs at the ankle. “It’s awfully imprecise. We could have skipped our appointment or been late and it could have been someone else up there.” His voice was steadier now, almost back to normal.
“Which proves two things,” Ty said with a frown. “Whoever did it isn’t in a hurry to kill us—them—whoever they’re trying to kill. And they’re not afraid to hurt innocent bystanders doing it. My bet’s on Armen. Anyone who likes to drink as much as the Italian can’t be sober often enough to plan ahead.”
“Not necessarily. If you’ve got tolerance, alcohol might sharpen your attention, not blunt it.”
The comment brought Ty up short. He’d been joking about Lorenzo Bianchi and his love of wine, an off-handed comment he probably shouldn’t have made. But Zane’s sincere belief in the words he’d just uttered disturbed Ty enough that he wasn’t able to keep the surprise and concern out of his expression. Zane just offered a shrug and a rueful smile.