He’d seen enough injuries, unexpected hospitalizations, and random deaths on his medical and fire calls to know anything could have happened, so when she replied a short time later telling him that she’d worked out that morning, he exhaled in relief.
Then the reality of the situation hit him. She was avoiding him. But he wasn’t surprised. Not after the way he’d kissed her and then walked away.
Shaking his head at what he’d done the night before, he looked around the gym to see if anyone needed help. He couldn’t blame Arwen for wanting to stay away from him. Besides, wasn’t this what he ultimately wanted? Not to get involved with her? Then why was he so miserable?
When Arwen didn’t come the next night either, Tyler’s unhappiness deepened, so he was glad he would be working at the firehouse the next two days, glad to have something to keep his mind off of the woman who had been haunting his every thought.
Chapter Thirteen
When Friday morning came around and Arwen hadn’t heard from Tyler, she was torn. She’d worked out before coming to the office for the last two days, but though it had been somewhat freeing to not be distracted by Tyler, it had also felt wrong to be at the gym when he wasn’t.
She would go that night. She had to face him and get things straightened out.
Feeling better, she got ready and went to work.
Her second appointment that morning was with Ben, and when he walked into her office and sat in his usual place on the couch, he seemed sullen, his face droopy and his shoulders slumped.
“How are you today, Ben?”
“I’ve been better.”
Sitting on a chair near him, Arwen crossed one leg over the other. “What’s going on today?”
He straightened and looked at her, his forehead creased. “Why haven’t you been at the gym the last two nights?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve been going there after work every night, but the last two nights you weren’t there.”
Surprised that he would not only know this, but that he would bring it up, she swallowed over the concern that began to tighten her throat. Wanting to turn the conversation in another direction, she opened her mouth to speak, but before any words came out, Ben spoke.
“Is it because I was there?” He pressed a fist against his chest. “Is that why you didn’t come back?”
“Ben, you don’t really believe my absence has anything to do with you, do you?”
He stared at her. “If it’s not because of me, then there’s only one other reason.”
Arwen tilted her head, her eyebrows drawn together. Where was he going with this?
“It’s because of him, isn’t it?” Ben’s nostrils flared.
He meant Tyler. Clearly, he’d been watching her. For how long? What had he seen exactly? Why was he watching her?
Pushing aside her questions and the alarm that was ringing a bell in the back of her mind, she said, “Tell me what you’re concerned about, Ben.”
His lips flattened. “You told me you weren’t looking to date anyone.” His eyes narrowed. “You told me that. Flat out.”
Uneasiness settled over her. “You didn’t come here to talk about me. You’re here so I can help you learn to deal with the challenges you’re facing. Now—”
“You lied to me.” He gripped a fistful of his shirt at his chest, and after staring at her a moment, he looked at his lap as he dragged his hands through his hair. Then his hands fell to his lap and his head jerked up as he looked at her again. “Why would you do that?”
This was getting out of hand, but Arwen remained calm. “Ben, I’m sorry if you feel I misled you, but my personal life is irrelevant to our sessions. You do understand that, don’t you?”
It was as if he hadn’t heard her. “I saw you kissing him. Two days ago. In the parking lot at the gym.” He leaned towards her. “He’s not right for you.”
Desperate to redirect him, she scrambled to come up with another topic. “Ben, did you write that letter to your ex-wife like we talked about last time?”
“You’re not listening to me, Arwen. Why won’t you listen?”
His tone sent a frisson of fear skittering across Arwen’s neck. “I think we need to take a moment, Ben.”
“What do you mean?”
She stood. “I’m going to the ladies’ room, and while I’m gone I want you to take a moment to—”
He leapt to his feet and blocked her exit. “No. You’re not going anywhere.”
She had to get out of there. “Let me by, please.” The calmness of her voice belied the panic that sent adrenaline pumping through her veins. She should have excused herself sooner, she should have started working out sooner, she should have…
“You’ll leave when I tell you you can leave,” Ben said. “And not a moment sooner.”
“What is it you want, Ben?” The adrenaline coursing through her body made her tremble slightly, but to her amazement she kept her voice steady.
“Sit down, Arwen.” He pointed to the couch where he always sat during their sessions.
Wanting to project an image of authority, she shook her head. “No. I’m going to sit behind my desk.”
He laughed. “You’re not getting it, are you? You’re no longer in charge here and you’ll do what I say.” He grabbed her arm and yanked her over to the couch, forcing her to sit down.
She looked up at him as he stood only inches away. “Ben, you’re heading down a path that will soon be hard to turn away from.” She struggled to keep the panic out of her voice. “Let’s end this now.”
He pulled a knife out of the waistband of his jeans.
Arwen gasped. This was getting much too real now. “Put that away, Ben.”
He held it up, his gaze caressing it before he looked at her. “I don’t think so.”
Her mind raced with how to end this with no one getting hurt. Her cell phone was in the top drawer of her desk. If she could get to it she could call for help. But getting to it under Ben’s penetrating gaze would be difficult.
She could yell for help, but she didn’t want to agitate him any further, and when she looked at the long, shiny, and so very sharp knife, her throat seemed to close up.
Her only hope was when her next appointment arrived and she was still in her session with Ben, someone would come check on her. Only thirty minutes until that happened. Maybe she could de-escalate this in that time.
“What is it you want, Ben?”
“I need you to understand how much I care about you.” He sat in her chair, which was closer to the door than where she sat on the couch, but at least it had moved him a short distance away from her. He held the knife in his fist, his knuckles white.
“If you care about me,” she said, “you’ll put that knife away and you’ll let me go.”
He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can. The choice is completely yours, Ben.”
“No. It stopped being my choice when you lied to me.”
She had to turn this around. “I never lied to you. When I told you I wasn’t looking to date anyone, it was the truth.” She hated having to explain herself to someone who didn’t have any business knowing about her private life.
A flicker of doubt flashed in his eyes. “But I saw you kissing him. The man from the gym.” His lips twisted into a sneer. “Do you go around kissing anyone?”
Her relationship with Tyler was complicated and she really didn’t want to have to explain it to anyone, especially Ben. “Look, Ben. I know you’re disappointed that I told you I wouldn’t have coffee with you last week.” Her gaze went to the knife in his hand, but despite her worry about upsetting him further, she had to regain control of the situation. Then she heard voices coming from the hall. She took a deep breath and spoke as loudly as she could without actually yelling. “Ben, put that knife away. Now.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”
A knock sounded at the door. “Arwen?” a female voice called out.
“Is everything okay in there?”
“No,” she cried out. “Help.”
Ben was instantly on his feet, and as he rushed towards her, she screamed.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said as he pressed the knife to her throat. “As long as you follow my orders.”
The door to her office swung open, and Paisley stood on the other side. “Oh my gosh!”
“Get out,” Ben said, his voice sounding like he was barely holding himself together.
Paisley’s eyes went to Arwen.
“I’ll slit her throat,” Ben said, his teeth clamped together. “Close the door!”
With a barely perceptible nod, Arwen signaled to Paisley that she should do what Ben said. Paisley closed the door.
Tyler hit the ping pong ball over the net, but Jake immediately hit it back. Giving it a carefully positioned thwack, Tyler managed to angle the ball so that it hit the corner of the table before bouncing out of Jake’s reach.
“Ohhh,” the other firefighters yelled. “And Tyler wins again.”
Jake laughed. “Best two out of three.”
“You’re on.”
Seconds later the tones went off, sending them rushing toward the apparatus bay.
“Hostage situation,” Cap called out as Tyler and Jake stepped into the bay. They wouldn’t need to wear their turnouts on this call, so they boarded the ambulance, and with Tyler behind the wheel, they pulled out.
Chapter Fourteen
When they pulled up to the address they’d been given, Tyler saw multiple police cars already there.
“Looks like a counseling facility,” Jake said as his gaze swept the area. Then he looked at the computer screen mounted below the dashboard. “Says a patient is holding a therapist hostage.” He looked at Tyler. “At knife point. They don’t know if the suspect has any other weapons.”
It had been a while since they’d been called out to support the police in a hostage situation, and Tyler hoped they wouldn’t actually be needed, that the situation would end peacefully.
An unsettling thought jumped into his mind. “Arwen’s a therapist.”
“Who?” Jake asked, then he smiled. “That woman from the other night? At Pineapple’s?”
Tyler nodded. “Yeah.”
Jake shook his head. “It’s not her. There’s no way.”
But Tyler remained uneasy.
“The police are here,” Arwen said to Ben. She’d heard the sirens. Just knowing they were out there, willing to do whatever they could to end this, helped to calm her. There were no windows in her office so she couldn’t look outside, but she could picture the array of emergency vehicles spread across the parking lot and street.
The knife was no longer pressed to her throat, but Ben had pushed the couch in front of the door and then had sat right beside her. The knife was still clutched in his fist.
“I don’t care about the police,” Ben said, which worried Arwen. If he didn’t care that he would be arrested, or worse, shot and perhaps killed, then how much danger was she in?
“We can end this now. Peacefully.” Her voice shook as she looked into his eyes. She could no longer hide her terror.
He stared right back, and as he did, his gaze seemed to soften. “I don’t want to hurt you, Arwen.” His expression softened further. “I love you. Don’t you know that?”
Her mouth had gone dry. “Ben, I don’t want anything to happen to either of us. Please, put the knife down and let’s walk out of here together. Okay?”
The phone on her desk rang.
He looked at the phone, then at her. “You answer it. I don’t want to talk to them.”
Hope surged through her. She would be able to talk to the police. “All right.” She stood, and when she stood, Ben stood as well. He stayed right beside her as she picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“This is Officer Steven Barnes. Who am I speaking with?”
“Arwen Butler.” Ben stood so close that she could practically feel his heart pounding.
“Are you injured?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m okay.”
“What can you tell me?”
She looked at Ben out of the corner of her eye. “Ben has a knife.”
He snatched the phone out of her hand and slammed it onto the cradle, disconnecting the call, then he dragged her back to the couch.
“Sit down,” he said through clenched teeth.
Doing everything within her power to hold herself together, Arwen took several deep breaths.
“Were you going to betray me?” Deep lines covered his forehead. He sat in the chair Arwen normally used when she saw patients, then pulled it close enough so that his knees touched hers.
“No. Of course not.”
“Why’d you tell him I have a knife?”
“They already know that, Ben. Paisley saw it when she opened the door.”
He considered that and his forehead smoothed out. “I could have a gun,” he murmured.
Did he? Fresh panic battered her. “Do you?”
He grinned. “I’m not gonna say.”
She didn’t think he did. Otherwise he would want to show it off to her.
Tyler waited with Jake next to the ambulance, but as the minutes ticked by, he became more worried. What if it was Arwen? He knew the odds were small, but still, she was a therapist. It could happen. He decided he would text her. That would set his mind at ease. But just as he reached for his phone, he saw a woman he recognized. The same woman who’d been with Arwen at Pineapple’s last Saturday. Alarm jolted his nerve endings, and he hurried over to her.
“You’re a friend of Arwen’s, right?” he asked.
She looked at him and her eyes lit with recognition. “Tyler?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “I’m Paisley.” Worry bracketed her eyes. “I’m the one who called the police.”
Alarm turned to panic and the blood drained from his face. “It’s her, isn’t it? Arwen’s the hostage.”
Paisley’s face crumpled as she nodded. “Yeah. I saw him.” Her voice shook. “He was holding a knife to her throat.”
Tyler’s world began to collapse.
The phone rang again, and Arwen and Ben both stared at it. Arwen looked at Ben. Would he answer it? Would he let her answer it? If he did, what could she tell the police to help them resolve this?
Ben stood, picked up the phone, then set it back in the cradle. He turned and scowled at her. “I don’t want to talk to them.”
“They just want to resolve this, Ben.” She paused a beat. “What can we do to resolve this? What do you want?”
He stared at her a moment, then he pulled his chair back a few feet and sat down. Arwen was grateful he wasn’t sitting so close to her any longer, but what did he want? What would finish this with no one getting hurt?
“I want you to hear me,” he said as he stared at her. “To understand how I feel about you.” He sighed. “To love me back.”
Loving him back was not possible, but she could empathize with him. “I hear you, Ben. I really do. And I understand that you think you love me.” She leaned forward and rested her forearms on her knees. “But I want you to understand something, okay?”
He tilted his head slightly. “What?”
“You need to understand that you love the idea of me. You don’t know enough about me to love me.” He shook his head and opened his mouth, but she put her hand up. “Hear me out. Please.”
He frowned, but didn’t speak.
“You need to understand,” she said, “that you see an idealized version of me. Of who you want me to be. We talk each week and I listen to you. You need someone in your life who does that, someone who loves you the same way you love them. You’re seeing me as that person. But I’m not that person. I listen to you because I want to help you, but you have to understand that this is my job. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, but that caring is for a therapist to a patient.” She focused intently on him. “No
thing more.”
He pondered what she said, and after several moments his shoulders slumped and he audibly sighed. Then he straightened. “But you could love me, right? You could learn to love me. You just need some time, that’s all.”
This wasn’t working. He wasn’t getting what she was telling him. “You’ll find someone who loves you as much as you love them,” she said. “You can’t force someone to love you, but you need to learn how to deal with your feelings in a healthy way. That’s why you’re here. I can help you.” In all reality she would never be his therapist again, but she didn’t need to tell him that.
He jumped up and began pacing the room.
The phone rang.
“Let me answer that,” Arwen said.
Ben scowled at her a moment. “No. I’ll talk to them.”
Arwen wanted to release a huge sigh of relief. Her words must have had some sort of impact if he was willing to talk to the police.
He gestured for her to stand beside him. When she did, he held the knife in one hand and picked up the phone with the other.
“Hello,” he said, his tone hostile.
Chapter Fifteen
As the minutes passed with no news, Tyler’s nerves stretched to the breaking point. If the police would let him, he would go in there himself and get Arwen out. The idea of someone holding a knife to Arwen’s throat drove him wild. She was such a strong, competent woman. To think of her helpless, at the mercy of someone who would hurt her…
He’d treated a few patients with stab wounds, and when he imagined Arwen bleeding and hurt, it was all he could do to stop himself from rushing inside.
Memories of losing Madison sent painful jolts through his body, and he didn’t know what he would do if something happened to Arwen. Right now she was alive, and he had to make sure it stayed that way.
“The police are doing all they can,” Jake said as Tyler paced next to the ambulance.
Tyler stopped and nodded. “I know, but knowing she’s in there, in danger…” He threw his hands up. “It’s driving me insane.”
Hearts On Fire: Park City Firefighter Romance Page 9