I walked faster, wanting to put civilization behind me for a few hours. As I walked deeper into the woods, the trees grew steadily taller. After a few minutes, I was surrounded by them. I smiled to myself and slowed my pace.
Now that I was away from the buildings, I could pretend like I wasn’t on campus. I could focus on the sounds and smells of nature without even remembering my classroom buildings were just a few miles away.
I breathed in the smell of the trees and ran my hands over the trunks. After about a mile of walking in peaceful silence, I pulled out my water bottle and took a long sip.
My pace was natural, not too slow or too fast. I had a few hours before I needed to be in class and I wanted to enjoy this rare moment of free time. I knew that the workload would only get crazier as time went on.
Soon, I wouldn’t have anytime to myself. I would be confined to libraries and laboratories. Then, when clinicals began I would be stuck in the hospital every day for months. I was beyond excited about it, but I wanted to breathe in the fresh air while I still could.
I didn’t know where the path led, but I was eager to find out. I walked a little quicker, noticing that the trees were beginning to thin again. The path curved upward and I felt my legs stiffen at the incline. I pushed forward and soon my muscles relaxed back into a comfortable pace. It wasn’t long before the slope evened out. I stepped around a huge oak tree and looked around.
I was standing in the middle of a clearing with trees on either side of me. In front of me, there wasn’t anything but open space. The grass was so green that it was almost blinding in the sunlight. I looked at the sky. It was a gorgeous blue without a cloud in sight. I grinned and walked further into the clearing.
God, I had missed the States.
As I moved, I noticed it wasn’t just a clearing. On the far edge was a steep drop. I walked up to the cliff and looked down. There was a rocky slope beneath me that was much too steep for climbing, but out further was an endless array of beauty.
There were trees and flowers to the left with a small lake directly below me. Off to the right, I could see tiny buildings. I wasn’t sure if they were office buildings or apartments, I was too high up to tell. Damn, the view was amazing. I could have stood there enjoying it all day, but I knew I didn’t have the time.
Pulling my water from my backpack, I took another drink before I turned back around and headed to the other side of the clearing. The sun was rising ever high in the sky and my first class was at noon. I couldn’t afford to miss it so I glanced at the clearing one last time before I set off back down the path.
A few feet past the clearing, I ran into a couple of hikers. I nodded politely and let them pass. It wasn’t long before I realized this was a popular spot. I got there early, so not many hikers had arrived yet. As I walked back down the hill, more and more people passed by me.
I wasn’t paying close attention to each face as I walked. I was focused on maneuvering down the path without tripping or running into someone.
When I heard a familiar voice in front of me, I was sure I had heard wrong.
I froze, body tense and ears perking up.
Disbelief was a living thing in my body.
There was no way it was her.
I looked up quickly and felt my eyes widen. Holy shit.
She was walking toward me.
She hadn’t yet noticed me. Her eyes were focused on the ground and she was talking animatedly to a man.
He walked beside her and I squinted in the sunlight. He looked oddly familiar as well, but I couldn’t place him. Her, on the other hand, I would have known anywhere.
“Hailey,” I said loudly, raising my hand over my head.
A few people turned their head at my loud call.
I didn’t think about my action. That in itself was unusual.
I had learned to be a very methodical and precise person in the last few years. The military did that to its officers. I learned to think every step through before doing acting on it unless a life or death situation activated my instincts.
Seeing Hailey, I just reacted. There was no rhyme or reason. There was just a burst of all-consuming emotion that let impulse rule.
I was back to my old self.
Seeing her made it impossible not to react.
I didn’t know what I was going to say to Hailey. I just knew I couldn’t let pass her without saying something. Without seeing those beautiful grey eyes look into mine.
She jumped at the sound of her name and looked over at me with wide eyes. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but I could tell it was longer than I remembered. She wore the same glasses on her face and her eyes looked exactly the same: grey with a hint of blue. I walked over to her slowly, letting her shock wear off.
When I approached her, her eyes roamed over my face like she couldn’t quite believe it was me.
“Hi,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
My voice sounded breathless, like I had just sprinted a mile. But it was the sight of her that had adrenaline flowing through my veins.
“I go to school here,” she said.
Her words were slow and reluctant.
“Really?” I asked. “Wow. I didn’t even know you were still in the area.”
“I could say the same about you,” Hailey said. Her voice was becoming more guarded with every passing second and her eyes watched me carefully.
I knew she was sizing me up. I could tell she was nervous. My heart was beating faster by the second, but I couldn’t let her know that.
“I just got back a few months ago,” I said. “My tour ended so I moved back home.”
“With your mom?” Hailey asked. “How’s she doing?”
When she asked about my mom, her voice softened.
“She’s okay,” I said. “Doing a lot better. It’s been five years now, so…”
I trailed off, not wanting to talk about my father. This wasn’t the way my conversation with Hailey was supposed to go. We were not supposed to talk about my dead dad or my depressed mom.
She was supposed to see me and be overwhelmed with how good I looked, or want to get together like we used to. My confidence was supposed to attract her like it did all those years ago.
All those nights in Iraq let me believe she would welcome me with that soft smile she reserved just for me back then. The one that told me I was the only man she saw in the world.
Damn, you’re still so whipped over this girl, a voice taunted from deep inside my head.
I couldn’t deny it.
“Yeah,” she said. “I remember.”
“So,” I said, quickly changing the subject. “Who’s this? New boyfriend?”
I directed my attention to the man beside her. I extended my hand for him to shake, rising up to seem taller than I was.
I hoped my tone didn’t convey the rising anger that made my blood boil at the thought she was taken by another man.
It would hardly make a good impression to her if I pummeled the guy into the ground not matter how much I wanted to.
Instead of giving into that impulse, I pasted a smile on my face. It was all teeth, I was sure, but it was the best I could manage.
“No,” Hailey laughed. “This is Joe. My brother.”
“Joe?” I blinked and stared at the man again.
He looked nothing like the scrawny kid I once knew. He had grown at least a foot and his face was covered in a thick, dark beard.
“Wyatt,” Joe said, shaking my hand.
Well, shaking hands may had been an exaggeration with the pressure he tried to apply to my fingers. I returned the pressure and the terse connection ended quickly when Hailey raised an eyebrow at the obvious show of testosterone between us.
Joe nodded once before he looked away.
“Man,” I said, my tone still friendly despite the awkward handshake. “You look completely different.”
“Five years will do that,” Joe said sharply.
He didn’t bother to meet my eyes.
He didn’t make it a secret he wasn’t happy to see me. I watched him for a second before I turned my attention back to Hailey.
I stood up even taller and smiled my best smile. Pushing my hair out of my eyes, I looked into her hers deeply and took a step forward.
“It’s really great to see you again,” I said softly.
Hailey cleared her throat and shifted awkwardly. She looked down at her feet.
“Do you think we could get together and catch up? Maybe talk over coffee or something?” I still asked even though her body language was screaming back off. I had to try.
Hailey looked up at me with an expression I didn’t recognize. She didn’t answer. I stepped closer to her again and watched her closely. I knew she wanted to see me again. I could tell by the way her eyes were roaming around nervously. I still made her nervous. Good.
Nervous was an emotion I could work with. It let me know she still felt something for me.
“Hailey, your class is about to start,” Joe said loudly. “You should probably get going.”
“Right,” Hailey said, shaking her head. The spell that began to build between us was broken abruptly.
She flashed Joe a grateful look. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. I can’t. I’m just really busy with classes right now.”
“Me too,” I said quickly. Hailey took a step away from me like she was going to leave, but I blocked her path. “Come on, you know you want to. Just coffee. We can meet somewhere on campus.”
I sounded pushy but I couldn’t help myself. I felt panicked that she was leaving already.
“No,” Hailey said firmly. I blinked in surprise. She had never used that tone with me before.
“It’s good to see you, Wyatt, but I don’t have time. Sorry.”
With that, she moved around me and headed down the path.
Joe shot me a glance before he followed her.
“Hailey,” I called again, impulse driving me again.
She stopped in her tracks and look back at me wearily.
“This is not the end of this,” I promised. “I’m not letting you get away from me that easy.” I tried to make it sound light and joking, but it wasn’t. She would be mine again.
Her mouth opened by nothing came out.
I had shocked and surprised her. Hailey’s wasn’t good at hiding her emotions, she had never been. Her face was an open book most of the time. I was glad to see that hadn’t changed.
I smiled, knowing I had rattled her.
It was only fair since she had definitely shaken my world.
She closed her mouth then just to look at me for a few seconds before turning and walking away without a word.
I stood still, watching them go until they disappeared. My class about to start as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. I stared after Hailey, hoping she would reappear and say she changed her mind.
I should have known she would turn down my offer though. It had been five years and we hardly parted way on amicable terms. She had always been prickly, the charm that worked on other women was not as easy to play on her. The history between us would understandably make her weary.
Her refusal was still a hard pill to swallow though and every one of my instincts was screaming at me to follow her and convince her to change her answer, no matter what.
I didn’t follow my gut though, my common sense rebooting its self.
My legs finally moved and I forced them to go in the opposite direction. As I slowly walked down the path, I could still hear her voice in my head as she said no.
She had been so firm. So final. No matter what I still felt Hailey, it didn’t matter. She obviously didn’t feel anything for me.
Hell, I had no idea what I really felt for her after so long.
Now that I had seen her again though, that fire I felt for her had reignited and I couldn’t accept that no for an answer.
I couldn’t let things rest as they were.
This wasn’t the last Hailey had seen of me.
Not by a long shot.
Chapter Six: Hailey
I was early for Bio labs this time.
I had taken a seat closer to the front of the room and was unpacking my notebook and laptop.
The laptop was bulky and outdated. I couldn’t afford the latest gadgets like some of the other students here but the device worked and served its function well enough. It would keep me from writing my fingers off at least.
I arranged everything on my part of the table then pulled up the recorder app on my phone – again not the latest on the market, but it did what it had to do.
All I had to do was press the start button when the lecture started.
With no more preparations to do, I looked up and around the space. Only a few other students were already inside the room. A group of girls were having a discussion around an open notebook while a guy lounged in the back with a pair of headphones hanging from his ears and effectively saying “leave me alone”.
Wyatt wasn’t here yet.
The thoughts had my stomach cramping and sweat suddenly breaking out all over my body.
I had been dreading seeing Wyatt again.
The week had passed quickly and it was Friday when I stepped into the biology lab. My head is still reeling from that chance meeting along the path.
I’m not letting you get away from me that easy.
His words haunted me. They made me hot and bothered one moment, then panicked and angry the next.
Wyatt was a bad boy to the bone.
He tried to hide it behind a friendly smile and a laidback attitude, but the ruthless light in his eyes showed what an alpha he was under the veneer.
He was the kind of man so set to go after anything he set his sights on and determined that he wanted.
Once upon a time he had wanted me with that single-minded intensity.
His persistence was one of the things that drew me to him even when I hadn’t wanted it to. I hated the thought of being one of the cliché girls who fell for the bad boy but when I let myself for Wyatt, I had fallen hard.
When he left, it had destroyed me and had me doubting everything I thought I knew about myself.
I could never allow myself to feel so deeply for a man again.
Never.
Especially not a man like Wyatt.
As if I had conjured him, he suddenly appeared in the entrance.
I gasped, then my breath stuck in my throat.
Wyatt Murphy was the most gorgeous man; even if I didn’t want to admit it.
He was the walking definition of tall, dark, and handsome. His tall frame filled out a plain tee shirt and a pair of jeans. His attire was simple but he looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine.
He was accompanied by three other guys. They were all obviously younger than he was, yet none of them carried even one tenth on the raw sex appeal that he did.
I had been so overcome with the panic and worry his presence brought that I had mostly overlooked how sexily he had aged.
The force of all that sexiness hit me right then. There was no ignoring or pushing it to the side.
I was sensible to a fault according to some but all my senses went right out the window then. Hormones that had been dormant for almost five years flared to life and I could remember his intimate touch so clearly is was like those five years hadn’t passed.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed Wyatt’s entrance or his attractiveness.
The female students all perked up, smiles at the ready and trying to subtly fix their hair and clothing before he looked their way.
I caught a growl in my throat, barely suppressing the sound.
Being Wyatt’s girlfriend had brought out an unexpected streak of jealousy in me and it seemed to have reawakened with his reemergence in my life.
I moved to turn away, angry with myself for reacting so strongly to him still when his eyes landed on me. There was no turning away from his gaze. The heat of it brushed my skin like a physical touch.
Electri
city raced up my back and made the hair at the nape stand on edge.
Wyatt’s grin was slow and knowing as if he knew exactly how my body was betraying me. My cheeks became hot and I knew they were red.
He said something to the guys he came in with.
Without waiting for an answer from them, he sauntered over to where I sat and took the seat next to me without invitation.
He never looked at those other women preening for his attention. I noticed one of them sending me a dirty look from the corner of my eye.
Go ahead girlfriend, been there done that. Not going down that road again.
At least that’s what I was telling myself. Or trying to.
More students suddenly rushed in and the professor came along with them. From then on, the atmosphere changed as everyone focused on the starting lecture.
I was able to tear my gaze away from Wyatt in the sudden bustle but he didn’t let me forget his presence like I wanted to.
The professor asked us to pair up in groups of two to work for the rest of the class.
Wyatt immediately scooted closer. He leaned toward me and his words feathered hotly against the skin of my neck when he said, “Told you, you aren’t going to get away that easy, partner.”
***
The class was a lesson in self-control and I was so very glad that I punched record on my phone because my concentration was shot.
The professor handed the groups each a sheet to complete as he lectured. We were to hand it back to him by the end of the class.
I tried to keep my focus on what the white-bearded man was saying. I really did. Just like I tried to take notes as the minutes went by as well as give my input on the answers to the handout.
However, the spicy scent of Wyatt’s cologne wrapped me in a fog of female want. I remembered that scent well. Late into the nights we used to spend together so long ago, I would put my nose against his neck and inhale a big whiff as we cuddled our way to sleep.
That same scent had clung to the huge shirts he gave me to sleep in and his hoodie when I borrowed it.
It had wrapped me in an invisible cloak of security and love.
I fought against the memories that scent invoked but it seemed like an uphill battle. I almost sighed in relief when the professor announced the end of the class.
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