Worth Every Step by Kg MacGregor

Author:Kg MacGregor [MacGregor, Kg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B008SDDG6G
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2009-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Mary Kate was glad to see she wasn’t the only one having butterflies over the Barranco Wall. Addison’s assurances the night before had helped her sleep, but seeing the wall up close for herself this morning reignited her anxiety. For the most part, the trail zigzagged just as Addison had said, but there were several places where the only way to ascend was to climb the rocks. If she stayed focused on just getting to the next rock, she was fine. It was looking over her shoulder at the sheer drop-offs her mother had warned her about that unnerved her.

“Take my hand,” Addison said as she leaned down. Her other hand gripped a sturdy shrub.

Mary Kate was glad for the help, and occasionally returned the favor by giving Addison’s backside a push. The first time she had done that had prompted a wide-eyed grin.

“Here comes another big rock,” Addison said, low enough so no one else would hear. “Will you put your hand on my butt again?”

“No problem.” Mary Kate slapped her rear firmly.

“Careful. I might like that.”

She laughed, amused not only by Addison’s playful inferences, but by the openness of her teasing. It was flirtatious, but not in a threatening way. “You need to keep your mind on what you’re doing. Do I have to remind you about my mother’s nightmare?”

The trail of hikers spanned over a hundred vertical feet, with Luke at the top and Nikki and Ann close on his heels. He turned often to help them to the next level, much as Addison was doing for Mary Kate, and Neal for Mei. Jim was navigating the trail on his own, and Brad walked with Drew at the back of the line.

For Mary Kate, the trickiest part—besides the looming cliff—was the effect of her backpack. It would have been relatively simple if she only had to judge how much energy was needed to leap from one rock to another and how much give was required in the recovery. But all of her mental calculations were thrown off-kilter by the twenty-pound pack riding above her center of gravity. Simple hops from one rock to the next required the utmost concentration.

Interspersed in their precarious efforts was the constant stream of porters, who scrambled ahead without pause, even as they carried roughly eighty pounds each. When the hikers bunched up in a bottleneck, the porters forged their own path on the adjacent, steeper rocks.

One hour into the climb, they reached the halfway point. Addison tugged Mary Kate onto a wide ledge, where they collapsed with the others, sweating and sucking wind.

“This isn’t a six-hundred-foot wall,” Jim said breathlessly. “It’s a hundred six-foot walls, and we’ve only done fifty of them.”

“Remind me of that tonight. I’m going to write that in my book,” Nikki wheezed.

Luke let them rest for twenty minutes, which passed too soon for Ann. “Go on without me. Send a helicopter,” she said.

Addison was the first one forward. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just whining. I’ll get there.”

“We’ll move up behind you, Brad and me,” Drew said.

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