Staff Feature: Alyssa Schwarz
Nobody told her when she’d agreed to the engagement shoot at the Grand Canyon Skywalk that it was a four-thousand-foot drop to the bottom. But this was Alice and Levi they were talking about. She’d do almost anything for her best friend.
Which apparently now included trusting her life to three inches of glass.
“Hey, you okay? You don’t look so good.” Geromy, Levi’s older brother and her co-conspirator in Mission Proposal, lowered the camera he’d been using to photograph the canyon walls.
“I’m fine,” Carrie said through gritted teeth as her knuckles whitened against the sunbaked railing. They were supposed to be laying low with the other tourists to take the perfect candid photos when Levi popped the question to Alice. A feat which would require her to be able to look anywhere beside the blue chest strap of Geromy’s REI backpack.
“Uh-huh. Then why don’t I believe you?” One side of his mouth twitched up into the very grin that she might have swooned a little over when they’d first met four years ago at Levi’s New Years party.
Knees shaking, stomach tightening, a sudden light-headedness…
However today, it was clearly the imposing vertical drop that was making her head spin. Not his green eyes, dark hair, and woodsy cologne.
His smirk dropped. “But really, you do look pretty pale. Maybe we should get you out of the sun.”
“And risk missing the big moment? Not a chance.” Shaking her head was the wrong move. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the fresh wave of nausea to pass.
“That’s it. I’m finding you some shade.” His hand closed around hers, and he pivoted back toward the sandstone-colored visitor center.
“But Alice and Levi…”
“He already texted me saying they’re still about ten minutes out, so we’ve got time. And you won’t do anyone any good, yourself included, if you keel over.”
She forgot to look down at her feet as he swiftly guided them like fish swimming upstream past backpackers and people with trekking poles. Her legs felt like under-set Jell-O by the time they reached solid ground and a small patch of shade near the building.
“Here, drink this.”
She didn’t argue when he handed her his Hydroflask. There was still ice in it, and the cold water almost instantly worked to slow her rapid heartbeat and breathing.
He didn’t protest when she guzzled nearly half of it. Simply sat beside her on the stone wall as her brain registered safety. The sound of birds chirping. The orange dirt on his hiking shoes. The soothing scents of pine, juniper, and sagebrush that filled her lungs with each elongated breath.
With the worst of the panic gone, the first bits of embarrassment could finally float to the surface. She wiped the excess moisture from her chin—had she really made such a mess in front of Geromy?—with the back of her hand and passed the water bottle back to him. “Thank you for that.”
“Don’t mention it.” He took a long sip himself, not bothering to clean the mouthpiece first. For a few moments, only the birds and distant conversation filled the silence between them as her limbs stopped humming. “Why didn’t you tell me or Levi that you were afraid of heights?”
“I’m not afraid of heights.” Her face warmed at her unnecessarily defensive tone and his raised eyebrows. Great. Just when she thought she couldn’t make things any worse. “Like any rational person, I’m afraid of falling from them. There’s a difference.”
“Were you planning on climbing up onto the railing and walking it like a tightrope?” A faint smirk tugged at his mouth, deepening the dimple at the corner, and something loosened in her stomach.
“How do you do that?”
“What?” He rummaged through his backpack again and pulled out two trail bars. The fancy kind with ground cashews and dates with just enough mini chocolate chips to make her forget she was eating health food.
“This. Making me feel better. Offering me your food. Like when Alice and I forgot the hamburger buns, so you left us and Levi at the lake to go and buy some.” He might save people’s lives for a living, but that had been no less heroic in her book.
He chuckled, warm and deep. “That was only one time. And what is a Fourth of July picnic without proper hamburgers? Mandarin orange?” What, was this the Mary Poppins of backpacks? He’d already started peeling one and handed her half, the graze of his fingers against hers making her pulse hum in an altogether different way.
Carrie chewed her citrus slices as her gaze drifted back toward the viewing platform. As nice as this was, her ten minutes of reprieve were almost over. Soon, Levi and Alice would be out there getting engaged. And as calming as Geromy’s presence was, her friend was counting on her to be there as well.
Drawing in a fortifying breath, she brushed the white peelings from her lap to stand when Geromy placed a cool hand on her forearm. She looked up, and her breath caught at the tenderness in his eyes.
“We can sit here as long as you like. I don’t mind.”
Did he feel it, too?
“But what about the photos?”
He smiled, that one dimple reappearing. “Good thing I brought my nice camera with me. We can stay here on solid ground and easily get all we need on film.”
He’d really thought about everything.
Almost as if he’d been looking forward to spending the afternoon with her just as much as she’d been.
His phone dinged. “That was Levi. Ready to make some memories?”
“Only if you promise to stay with me.” Her timid smile deepened, as did his, making her knees shake and stomach flutter all over again.
“Absolutely.”
Alyssa is the author of three novels and a novella in the Prescott Family Romance series. She has written four books for the Wild Rose Ridge series. Her most recent release, Find Me in the Blooms, is part of the Jonathan Island series from Sunrise Publishing. Releasing in October 2026 is The Sweetest Thing About You, part of the Maple Lake Collection, also from Sunrise Publishing.
Connect with Alyssa on Facebook, Instagram, BookBub, Goodreads, Pinterest, or her website.
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