Breaking Her No-Dating Rule

by Amalie Berlin

  “That was before we were together.”

  “It was when you needed someone to talk to and refused to talk to anyone.”

  Anson sighed and leaned off her, pulling her with him as he rolled onto his back. He liked this position. His arms could go around her and her hair was loose, not lain on or pinned down in any fashion—he could touch it without accidental pulling and he found that soothing.

  She did warm him, and he finally noticed the tremor he’d been feeling in his guts had stopped.

  Being with her—fed by her, held by her, loved by her—were all comforts, but being challenged by her, being worried about her, was what turned up his internal furnace and finally warmed him.

  Telling her the whole truth would make her feel differently about him. Maybe not negative—not telling her was doing that already—but would she take his guilt on? She’d said as much before she’d started inexplicably crying.

  “Me not telling you that stuff, how I got stranded on the mountain, it’s not that I think you wouldn’t understand. I know you would understand, you’re probably the most empathic person I’ve ever met...”

  “Then why? It hurts me that you won’t tell me. And, more importantly, it hurts you.”

  “That’s not more important.” He bit the words out, then stopped and took a breath. He didn’t want to yell at her, upset her more. It was his frustration talking. And the fact that he needed to know why she’d started crying, what dark thing she’d thought about herself. She couldn’t carry that darkness, it would hurt her. Change her. “What makes you think I don’t deserve the burden I carry?”

  “You’re a good man.”

  He shook his head, and she must have felt it because she lifted her head from his chest and looked up. He kept his eyes on the ceiling, though, not looking her in the eye might be the only way he could get through this.

  “You’re a freaking hero!”

  “I killed my mother.”

  She went utterly still in his arms, even to the point she stopped breathing. He felt her heartbeat increasing beneath where his palm flattened against her back, keeping her close.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  But her behavior said she did believe him. He gave her a little shake and she started breathing again, though more shallowly and faster than normal.

  He had to tell her now. And he couldn’t look at her when he told her. Rolling again, he managed to get her on her side and lie behind her, where he could once more bury his face in her hair. It was soft, and her scent comforting.

  “We were on our yearly ski trip. I was ten.”

  “Where?”

  “Here.” He answered the question then continued. “A storm was coming. We, my mom and I, had stayed out until the snow started coming down too hard. She said it was time to go down, go back inside. I said one more run... And before she could grab me I took off down the back side of the pass. If I was going to get in trouble for disobeying, then I was going to get the most mileage out of that punishment I could. That side of the pass, the steep side...no one had let me go down every time I’d tried. They all said it was too advanced for me.”

  “Did you fall?”

  “Of course I did. It was too advanced for me. I gave it a good run, made it about two-thirds of the way down before I wiped out on a rock while going too fast. Fell. Slid the rest of the way down the slope. Broke my leg. Thigh. Femur.”

  “Where your scar is?”

  He’d seen her examining it before, she’d touched him everywhere, but he’d been pretty good about distracting her when she’d been working up to the question. “Yes.”

  He waited for her to absorb that. She thought through things out loud usually, and no way was he going to do this again. Do it once, do it right, put it out of his mind. That meant letting her have questions as they went.

  “Did she find you?”

  “She caught up to me when I was on my back, facing downhill, screaming. We were completely alone—if someone had been around they would’ve heard the screaming.”

  She started squirming, trying to turn herself around. He didn’t want to look her in the eye right now. “Be still.” He squeezed then pressed a kiss into the crook of her neck. And then another. And then behind the ear. Sex between them was explosive enough that he could put an end to this conversation for now, continue kissing her, work her up... She’d give up talking but then he’d just have to deal with it again another day, and he wanted answers right now too.

  “So what happened? A broken femur can’t bear any weight. Was it a straight break? You must have hit... It was here at the pass? I don’t remember hearing about this.”

  “I’m a few years older than you. I was ten. So you were...”

  “Six.”

  “Most six-year-olds don’t keep up with the news.”

  She nodded and sighed. “So it was that big boulder toward the bottom of the insane slope...the one that juts out and is all sharp? I used to think it was a tooth that the mountain had. Mountain tooth.”

  “That’s the one,” he confirmed. “Tooth works. And, yes, I couldn’t put any weight on it. She wasn’t a large woman, so the best we could do was me pushing with one leg while she pulled me. The storm was really picking up, the sky got so dark it could’ve been night, but she managed to find a tight overhang, a ledge close to the ground. She crawled in then dragged me in after her.”

  Her fingers twined with his, showing the support he’d known she’d show him. It was easier to accept the support from her hands than to see it in her eyes.

  “The first night was the worst. So cold. We couldn’t even really huddle together for warmth because of how shallow the space was. My leg hurt so bad. She fished a toy from my backpack and used it like a puppet, told me stories...

  “We thought the storm would break in the morning. I was losing consciousness in spells that day, so it was a better day for me. I try not to think about what it was like for her.”

  She managed to roll over when his arms relaxed, taking advantage of that small window before he could stop her. Her hand pulled free of his and she used it to brush his hair back from his face, her palm soft, and in that moment he knew she loved him. Which meant he had to tell her what he’d caused so she could know what she was getting into. If he told her he loved her before telling that, it’d color and corrupt her thoughts.

  “From there, the story is what I’ve managed to cobble together from what other people have told me and what I remember. When the storm stopped on the third day I was completely out. I don’t remember that night or morning at all. I imagine she tried to wake me. I didn’t actually wake up until several days later in the hospital, which was a couple of days after my final surgery. There was one to repair my thigh, the pins needed to set the bone and remove some tissue that had died. And the second one was to remove toes that had succumbed to frostbite. Only one on the healthy leg, but the broken one got it worse. Probably because of restricted blood flow to the area.”

  “I didn’t put that together. I saw the scars...”

  “I know.” Part of being loved by Ellory meant she touched him everywhere. She hadn’t simply stroked her fingers over that scar, she’d kissed it on multiple occasions. She just hadn’t known it was all connected.

  “How did they find you?”

  “She’d tucked her outer jacket over my legs to try and keep them warm...”

  “Femur breaks are terrible...”

  “Yes. And lots of blood pooled. She was a doctor too, an ER doctor, so she would’ve known how dire my situation was becoming. After doing what she could to keep me warm, she crawled out and tried to make it up and over the mountain.”

  “Did they find her?”

  “Yes. She’d frozen before she reached the top. Being three days without food and water...she just wasn’t strong enough to make it. They followed her trail back to find me.”

  She combed his hair again and pulled him down until his head was on her chest and she could continue the petting. He
should argue with her about it. He didn’t deserve her comfort. If he had to relive it while finding Jude...who had left his friends to try and get help, just like his mother had done...he deserved to feel miserable.

  “What you’re feeling now? Everyone goes through it. It’s the bottom.”

  “Rock bottom?”

  “When you’re on a quest, you have to purge all the bad stuff before you can start to heal.”

  Healing. She was so sweet. He wouldn’t heal, and he didn’t want to. He deserved whatever punishment his mind, or the universe, as she liked to say, deigned to dish out. There could never be redemption for what he’d done. There just was no way to make up for it. His mother was gone. She’d always be gone. His father had lost the woman he loved, and it was his fault.

  It was his weakness that kept him from pulling away from her. Just another sin, a mark of his cowardice. The search was pulling him back into the void he’d suffered in his darkest days during recovery, and Ellory was his lifeline. If she was pulling away from him, he had to keep her with him. At least until he found Jude and could afford the time it would take to lose his damned mind properly.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That I need this,” Anson muttered. He shouldn’t, but if she knew...maybe she’d stick with him a little longer.

  “This? Do you mean to feel bad?”

  “No. I mean this.” He slid his hand over her skin until it settled over her breast, and the soft firmness that instantly changed, the nipple growing hard to poke the hollow of his palm.

  Before she could ask anything else, he pulled her under him, slid an arm under her neck and kissed her. He could lose himself in her—his only way to keep from thinking. Burying himself in her was his only form of meditation, her soft body, her tender heart, and the brief, blessed oblivions she could give him.

  “You owe me words, Ellory Star.”

  “I know,” she whispered, still touching his face. “Can we save it for tomorrow? I’d really like it if you would just kiss me right now.”

  *

  Day fourteen of searching since the storm had passed.

  Nothing had been the same since that night—except in every physical way.

  Another long hot shower, though she didn’t join him wasting the water any more. Their showers got longer and longer—more and more wasteful—when she was with him. And she wanted to ignore that little voice that insisted she was making herself into whatever she needed to be to fit into his lifestyle. But she didn’t really know what his lifestyle was—in her mind it was the worst it could be for her. Becoming the antithesis of all the things she’d believed in her whole life...even if it would make life easier and keep her from being this obsessive crazy person, it felt like exchanging one set of bad habits for another.

  At least if she listened to that annoying little voice right now, she could feel confident that she wouldn’t be manufacturing more guilt for herself later when she finally did figure out what she was supposed to do with herself, how she was supposed to find a way out from beneath the crushing guilt, and find contentment. It was all hard enough without having to think about the things she’d been conditioned to do. Habits, even while tiring and tiresome, were easier than the uncertainty.

  Another hot and hearty meal to cut the chill and fortify him. He ate too fast, so did she—it was simply nutrition, tasteless no matter how she tried to make it good, and they both needed to get back to that mattress, their only comfort.

  She’d tried to explain to him that her father’s distance and disapproval had driven her to live the best life she could, and that while she could see why it upset him, she thought she’d turned it into something positive. Or she’d always thought that until now. She’d tried to explain it until they both were so frustrated with one another they stopped talking altogether.

  She didn’t know what to say or how to help him. She wanted to help, and she’d made early attempts to try and tell him he couldn’t live his life with that kind of blackness in his heart without it consuming him. He’d nodded, repeated it back to her, and disregarded her advice.

  As soon as they found Jude, Ellory was going to break it off. It would be an acceptable time then. She wouldn’t be abandoning him when he needed the support she absolutely knew he did need. But afterwards...breaking up was just what had to happen.

  It already hurt so bad to be with him that she was trying to soothe herself when they went to bed as much as she was trying to soothe him.

  Those all-too-brief moments of bliss when they were together carried her through the next day. Well, almost through. Like a drug, the more she had of him, the quicker the effect wore off until she needed more. She’d had friends who had gone down dark paths—had watched them spiral down, and when lucky, their recovery.

  It was the only mental comparison she could make. Withdrawal. How bad would it be to recover from his touch? Would she have any chance of staying on the wagon if she stayed in town where she had access to her drug of choice?

  She should start looking now for a new mission. Some exotic new location, people she could actually help and feel good about herself again. Somewhere she didn’t have to work so hard to figure out how to live... If she were in some remote village away from all modern conveniences—where they struggled to provide running water— she’d live simply and have no way to be a planetary burden.

  They were just finishing dinner when someone knocked at the door.

  Mira?

  “Graves?” A low man’s voice called.

  “It’s Frank.” Anson stood up and answered the door. “Are we going back out?”

  Frank Powell was his supervisor, and he had taken over managing the search operation once roads up to the lodge had been cleared enough to get additional search teams in.

  Wishful thinking. Ellory saw it on his face the moment she joined them. They weren’t going back out.

  Frank stepped inside and closed the door. “No, not tonight,” he answered first, and then dipped his head to her. “Evenin’, Ellory.” They’d met many times in the past two weeks as she’d made it part of her job description to bring food to the base of operations they’d set up in one of the conference rooms.

  Her visits had never been wholly selfless. With all the tooling they did about the mountains on the snowmobiles, she was in a constant state of anxiety that a slide would happen and bury them all. Showing up with food or drinks gave her an excuse to be there and hear any information, and sometimes to just hear Anson’s voice come through on the radio and know that he was okay. Or as okay as he could be.

  She was about to offer food when the older gentleman turned to Anson. “I wanted to come tell you in person—word’s officially come down that the search for Wyndham is being reclassified as a recovery mission.”

  They’d been waiting for this moment, but her heart still sank. She may have only been a few feet away from Anson but hurried over to him and slipped her hand into his.

  “There’s still a chance,” he said, for once not accepting her comforting touch. His hand pulled free and he scrubbed it over his face, trying to wipe off the lie he’d just uttered. They all knew better. Jude could’ve never survived two weeks in the cold without food or water. He couldn’t have survived one week, and probably not even a few days. He was gone, and had been for probably the whole time they’d been searching.

  Frank knew his words for what they were—grief. Grief for a man he had never met. Grief for a man he felt like he’d let down. Grief for himself... His normally booming voice was gentle, gentler than Ellory would’ve ever thought he could make it. “You know that’s not true, son.”

  Anson stepped away from both of them, and Max, sensing the discord in the air, stood up where he was in front of the fire and went straight to Anson’s side, ducking his nose and pushing forward until Anson’s hand cupped his head.

  Anson took the request and petted his trusty companion. Which was good. At least he was touching and taking comfort from someone who loved him.<
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  “Most of the outside teams are leaving and we’re reworking our plan,” Frank continued. “You and Max should be on duty where you can help the living. I want you to take a couple of days to rest and then report for regular duty.”

  Anson folded his arms and shook his head. “No. We need to see this through, Max and I. We’re not off the search team.” The dog moved in front of Anson and sat, a silent and calm sentinel doing what sentinels did. Protective instinct. Ellory couldn’t blame him. Hers were running on high too. She just couldn’t pull off the calm sentinel routine like Max did. She’d have said something if she knew what to say.

  Was she supposed to back him up? The search was killing him, but not searching? She had no idea how that would affect him.

  *

  The next day, while Anson was disobeying orders, Ellory did what any sensible kind of almost-girlfriend would do when confronted with a man in pain: she dug around for information about him on the internet. Found his father’s name and that he was a doctor still practicing in San Francisco. Found his mother in an article talking about the rescue, and a memoriam set up to remember her by her old hospital.

  None of it was particularly insightful, though she did find one gem: an old photo attached to the rescue article showing exactly where Anson had been found, the place they’d hidden and where his mother’s trail had led the rescuers back to. And she found something else: a young Frank to one side, caught in mid-gesture as he’d crouched and pointed into the dark space.

  God bless Frank and whoever had taken the picture. They might as well have left a road map for her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SINCE HER DISCOVERIES had come early in the morning, by noon Ellory had rented a snowmobile and set off on one of the lesser-used trails of Silver Pass. Thanks to the article and the photo she’d found, she was pretty sure she knew right where Anson and his mother had weathered the storm. Maybe there was some trace of the time they’d spent there. His toy? Marks on the stone...something. Even just a simple understanding of what it was like to be in there would be a start.