“Now tell me how you can be one of the smartest people I know and yet really believe you were responsible for your sister’s death,” he said, switching gears with far more ease than she could. “What am I missing?”

She stared at him for a long beat. “The day before, I’d come home with a scholarship to the University of Colorado at Boulder and an invite to be on their ski team.”

“Prestigious ski team,” he corrected.

“Yeah, well, it was the last straw for Ashley after the attention I’d received in the recruiting process. And Boulder was the only place she’d ever wanted to go ski, so it was her dream opportunity and I got it a whole year before she could even apply.”

Aidan didn’t point out that Ashley should’ve been proud of her sister, so damn proud.

Lily shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking, and she would’ve been happy for me. Later. It would’ve come to her, really it would have, but in the moment all she saw was that I had something she wanted. I shouldn’t have told her like I did, I shouldn’t have—” She let out a low sound of regret. “We were already in a fight because she’d been bugging me to take her up to Dead Man’s Cliff and I’d refused. It was way too dangerous for her. She was only an intermediate climber at best, but she was determined to beat me at something.”

“Listen to me,” Aidan said. “All siblings are like that, okay? Hell, Gray and I nearly killed each other a hundred times over when we were growing up. Never mind the bad example we set for Jacob and Hudson.”

“This was different,” she insisted. “I knew the Boulder admission letter would hurt her. She got straight A’s through every single semester of high school in preparation and I …” She shook her head. “Didn’t. I didn’t get A’s at all. I wasn’t into school. I wanted to be outside.”

“On the mountain,” he said quietly. “I know. You were out there exploring every single day that you could, which was just about every day in the summer.”

She looked surprised. “How … how did you know that? I saw you a few times but … every day?”

He hesitated to tell her. She was like a bird with a broken wing, nursing her past hurts, afraid to forgive herself and be happy. He wanted to soothe, to help ease the pain, but wasn’t sure how to do that without losing his heart and soul to her. Again.

“Aidan?”

“Gray and I took turns going up after you,” he said. “Making sure you were okay.”

She gaped at him. “Why?”

“Because no one should be out there by themselves, Lily.”