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hand.
    “You okay?”
    “It’s a cramp,” she said.
    “Drop if you have to.”
    No way was she letting go. “I get this when I’m sculpting. It’ll pass.” She reached for a pinch hold and pushed with her left foot. It might be about balance and creativity, but it was also hard work. She pressed the toe of one shoe into a crack and propelled herself to a grip just below the top, then bellied up and over, relief and wonder rushing in. She made it! Who’d have thought?
    Looking down, she caught Trevor squarely looking up. A jolt passed through that had nothing to do with rock climbing. His jaw slackened.
    Heart rushing, she swallowed. “Please tell me I don’t have to climb down.”
    Whit pointed. “There’s a walk-off in the back.”
    Natalie turned, shaky as she descended the crevice where the rock met the land behind it. Reaching them, she said, “Wow. That was hard.”
    Trevor bent to fold up the mat.
    “It’s a good training rock,” Sara said. “Lots of choices.”
    “Yeah.” Whit removed the chalk bag. “But flashing your first free ascent without bailing is good stuff.”
    “If I flashed anything, it wasn’t intentional.”
    He laughed. “It means you made your climb the first time without falling.”
    “I was too scared to fall.”
    Trevor put his hands together. “You guys hungry?”
    The others seemed surprised by his lack of enthusiasm. She wasn’t. That shock of connection required a response. His was obviously to withdraw. He might not know why, but she did. In her exuberance, she’d shown herself. It was one thing to memorize a rock, another altogether to capture him as she had, yet again. His face filled her vision and wouldn’t go away until she exorcized the image.
    She thanked Sara for the boxed lunch. The roast beef on rye with horseradish tasted good with potato salad and strawberries, but she ate only half and wrapped the rest. Braden cried, and Sara nursed him while the guys talked schedules and business. She maneuvered the baby upright and coaxed a burp, then praised him. That would change right about the time he turned ten.
    A noisy squirrel ran the length of a nearby branch, leaping into the next tree where a big black crow protested. Natalie took in the jagged rocky promontories forming the aged faces of Native American chiefs, proud horses, and even a dragon—all blocked straight on by Trevor’s stunned expression. The need to release it throbbed in her temples.
    The splendor and beauty of nature had eased the condition when she was small. If her parents had let the overload continue before she developed coping skills, she might have permanently shut out the world. Now she protected herself by rarely looking directly and constantly changing focus. It made her seem shifty to people who didn’t know, but when she did look, they called it spooky.
    “Don’t look at me like that.”
    “What’s wrong with your eyes? They’re putting holes in me.”
    She understood Trevor’s recoil, even as disappointment stung. Her attraction would pass. It wasn’t for the flesh-and-bone man anyway, buther idealized version. Not fair to expect him to live up to that. His shadow announced his approach. She glanced up to the hands hanging casually on his hips and said, “Are we done?”
    “If you are.”
    “Sure.” The others must have come only to spot her. That beginning rock she’d conquered would be child’s play to them. Sara could probably do it blindfolded, clutching Braden in one hand. She silently laughed at the thought as they got back into the car. So she wouldn’t be ice climbing Mount Everest. Or seeing Trevor MacDaniel. She could live with that.
    Back at the gallery, she thanked them all again, then went inside and mapped the boulder in clay, every crack and bulge, the ones she had used, the ones rejected, the problem she had solved, too easily maybe, not with her body, but with her eyes. From the landscape of the boulder emerged Trevor’s face. Her hands remembered