“I’ve got to rest.” Dani stopped on the trail and bent over, resting her hands on her knees as she labored for more air. They had kept a steady pace in the hours since leaving the ridge, a pace he had only interrupted once when a helicopter flew over. If the stretch was particularly steep, he had let her stop and catch her breath, not easy to do in thin air. He never let her sit down. He said she would stiffen up if she sat down. What he didn’t seem to get was that she had never been loose. Stiff was her way, her reality. She wasn’t an sss woman. She was a romance writer. Sitting down was what she did best. Sometime during their hike the effects of the drug, with an ironic sense of timing, had worn away, leaving her in full possession of her senses and with all her nervous pain centers fun
