"Tanya Huff - Victoria Nelson - 03 - Blood Lines" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

A number of charitable organizations used the one thousand, seven hundred and ninety steps of the CN
Tower as a means of raising money, climbers collecting pledges per step from friends and business
associates. The Heart Fund was sponsoring the current climb; as well as a starting time, both Vicki and
Celluci had starting pulses measured.

"You'll find the run pretty clear," the volunteer told them as he wrote Vicki's heart rate down on a slip of
paper. "You're like the six and seventh up and the others have been serious racers."

"What makes you think we aren't?" Celluci asked belligerently. With his last birthday, he'd started on the
downhill run to forty and was finding himself a little sensitive about it.

"Well…" The younger man swallowed nervously-very few people do belligerent as well as the police.
"… you're like both wearing sweats and normal running shoes. Climbers one to five were seriously
aerodynamic."

Vicki snickered, knowing full well what had prompted Celluci's question. He glared but, recognizing
he'd probably come out the worse for any comment, kept his mouth shut. With their time stamped, they
ran for the stairs.

The volunteer had been both right and wrong. Neither of them cared about racing the other climbers or

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the tower itself, but they couldn't have been more serious about racing each other. Competition had been
the basis of their relationship from the day they first met, two very intense young police constables both
certain that they were the answer regardless of the question. Michael Celluci, with four years' seniority,
an accelerated promotion, and a citation, had some reason for believing that. Vicki Nelson, just out of
the academy, took it on faith. Four years later, Vicki had become known as "Victory" around the force,
they'd discovered a number of mutual interests, and the competition had become so much a part of the
way they operated that their superiors used it to the force's advantage. Four years after that, when Vicki's
deteriorating eyesight compelled her to choose between a desk or leaving, the system broke down. She
couldn't stay and become less than what she was, so she left. He couldn't just let her go. Words were
said. It took months for the wounds left by those words to heal and more months where pride on both
sides refused to make the first move. Then a threat to the city they'd both sworn to serve threw them
together and a new relationship had to be forged out of the ruins of the old.

"Blocking me is cheating, you long-armed bastard!"

It turned out not to be significantly different.

The yellow metal steps switchbacking up the side of the CN Tower were no more than three and a half
feet wide-easy enough for a tall man to keep one hand on each banister and use his arms to take some of
the strain on the muscles of his upper body. And, incidentally, make it impossible for anyone behind to
pass.

Six landings up, Vicki put on a burst of speed and slid between Celluci and the inner wall, the damp
concrete scraping against her shoulder blades. She pulled out ahead, two stairs at a time, feeling Celluci
climbing right on her heels. At five ten it was almost easier for her to climb taking double strides.
Unfortunately, it was definitely easier for Celluci at six four.