by Nicole Helm
“And you never told anyone.”
His guilt. His shame. “Couldn’t be cut off now, could I?”
“I don’t believe that’s the whole of it, Will Evans, and you shouldn’t either.”
“What whole of it would there be? She threatened. I caved. And Hayley suffered the consequences.”
“I know I don’t know Hayley all that well, but I’d hardly say she suffered, and even if she did, those weren’t your consequences. They were your father’s. Your mother’s. How dare she. How dare she lay a hand on her child because of a truth she didn’t want to face.”
Will didn’t really have an argument for her vehemence, any more than he knew how to explain . . . It had started with his parents, sure, but he’d held on to that legacy, hadn’t he?
“You don’t blame your child. She had no right to lay the blame on you. Tell me you understand that.”
She seemed so vested in his understanding that, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was just another way their individual stories poked at something inside of themselves.
“Is that what your parents did when it came to you and your brother?”
“No, they never blamed me,” she said, and she didn’t look away, or get all defensive, so he had to believe she was telling the truth. Still.
“But they didn’t protect you.”
“I could protect myself,” she said quietly, looking away from him. But she lifted her chin. “Still can. Shit happens, Will, and you learn to move on.”
“And what’s the difference between moving on and running away?”
Everything in her stilled, and then she withdrew herself completely. Her hands off his person, her hip scooted away from his. He’d hit a nerve, which he’d hoped to hit.
Because hell if he knew the answer to that question, and if she didn’t, it meant they had to figure it out together.
* * *
Tori knew Will would read too much into her standing up and demanding they leave, but she didn’t know how to fight the urge.
The difference between moving on and running away? Who the hell knew. She didn’t want to know.
She had to get up, no matter what he might read into it. “What is this, group therapy? I think maybe it’s time to head back.”
“Tori.”
“I just don’t know what the point is,” she said, trying to sound calm and careless instead of what she actually was. Panicked as all get-out.
Because how did you keep yourself separate and not in too deep and not falling back in love with someone when you were doing things you’d never done back then? Back then she’d known who he was, even underneath all his easy fake charm, but she hadn’t known what shaped him.
She hadn’t wanted to know. Almost as much as she didn’t want him to know what shaped her.
“Okay. Okay, we’ll let it settle, huh?”
She almost sighed in relief, but after a second she realized those words sounded awfully familiar. Because they were the exact words he’d uttered last night after, well, everything.
“Is this your new tactic? You say we just let things settle and then you wait until I’ve let my guard down and—”
“Nothing is a tactic, Tori. I’m trying to figure my life out. It’s a life that I want you in, and that means learning when to push and when to back off.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a ski slope or a rock to climb. You can’t figure out when to zig and when to zag.”
“Figuring you out isn’t the same as mapping out a battle plan. Learning how to be someone who’s good for you isn’t the same as climbing a fucking rock, believe me, one’s a hell of a lot easier. I wanted Mile High, and I worked with Brandon and Sam to build it—making allowances, pushing when I needed to push, yeah, even me. That isn’t tactics, it’s relationships.”
Tori didn’t know what to say to that, because she didn’t know shit about relationships. She could be the fun-time girl. She could be the quiet, dutiful daughter or the runaway one. She could be a lot of superficial things.
But the connecting thing . . . Well, she’d learned a long time ago that wasn’t for her. Plenty of people lived their whole lives alone, didn’t it make sense that she was just one of them? Of course it did.
She jerked a little when Will rested his palms on her shoulders. She’d been so worked up, she hadn’t felt him approach. So tempting to lean into that touch, into him. He’d always seemed strong, but now he seemed certain with it. Even when he was blundering through.
But that is what he’s doing. Blundering through. Don’t be another man’s blunder.
“I spent a lot of time running away from what I wanted, Tori. Because I guess I didn’t think I deserved it, or that I’d only mess it up, or maybe some combination of that and other shit. But I’m done with that. I want Mile High. And you. That might be the extent of what I know, but I know that much, and I’m not backing off just because that’s hard. For me. Or for you.”
Yeah, not exactly a surprise. When had anyone ever worried if things were hard for her? “Right.” A good reminder, all in all, that this was all about him. For him, about him. She was some sort of prize at best.
And at worst . . . this ended up worse than it had before, because she could tell herself a million times she wouldn’t fall for him, but wasn’t she here doing just that?
“We ran away last time we had a chance.”
We? She wanted to scoff. He had run away, if she wanted to believe this revisionist history of his. She had protected herself. Leaving had been necessary.
Maybe it was always necessary.
It hurt, that realization, but it also calmed her. Because that was the answer. Wading through all this emotion, weighing what-ifs, taking chances . . . it was all too hard and too much work.
Leaving, leaving was always the answer. You didn’t have to work at leaving, or unwind all the complicated things, you just had to do it.
She looked at him, all certain in his change, in making a life with Mile High and her. Regardless of whom it hurt, because he’d decided. Well, that was fine and dandy. Maybe it was even necessary for him. He’d run away. He’d dealt with a kind of insecurity about his own worth. She could understand that. She could even empathize with it.
It didn’t mean she would stick around to be clobbered by it. Not this time.
And if she had to leave this thing she thought had been permanent and a new start, didn’t she deserve a parting gift? A memory instead of what-ifs. Because on this rocky beach in front of this beautiful lake, she knew she wasn’t meant for people.
Not people she didn’t love, and not the people she did. She’d stayed away from her family for over a decade, and between her staying away and the money she sent home, they kept Tim medicated and home like they wanted.
She just had to stay away. If she’d stayed away from Toby, well, maybe he would have found someone else to betray his wife with, but it wouldn’t have been her.
If she’d stayed away from Gracely, Colorado, none of this would hurt all over again. But here she was, not running away, but moving on. It was moving on when you knew you’d only end up hurting.
It was saving yourself. It was being strong.
She forced herself to meet his concerned gaze, and to focus on her certainty while she did it. Here was not for her, no matter how beautiful and good. He was not for her, no matter how much she’d probably always love him.
“What is going on in that head of yours?” he asked, as though he wanted to know.
Yeah, she was positive he didn’t. Because he wouldn’t like it. He’d fight it, and he’d think he was right, and she would be clobbered in the aftermath.
Not this time.
This time she was in charge, and she would take what she wanted, and then she would leave. She would find a place where there was none of this. Where it didn’t hurt.
But first . . . First. She pressed her hand to his chest, then slid it up to his shoulder and around his neck. She tugged his mouth to hers, pressed a su
n-drenched kiss to it.
“How much time do we have before one of our excursions?” she asked, not letting her gaze drift from his for a second.
Will glanced at his watch. “About an hour.”
“Take me home.”
He studied her for a few seconds, but she refused to let him see beyond what she wanted him to. Let him see the want, the need, the attraction, and the way they fit.
She would hide the good-bye behind it, but it would be there.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Will loaded up his Jeep, Tori by his side drying off Sarge. He felt weird. Not because she seemed to want sex, and he wanted sex, and they had an hour with which to have the sex.
No, that wasn’t weird at all, but something about the way she’d looked at him so seriously left him . . . He didn’t have the words for the feeling that tempered whatever excitement beat inside of him.
Like an eerie feeling of something bad about to happen, but that was dumb, so he pushed it away. He focused on the way his T-shirt barely covered her ass as she bent over to finish cleaning off Sarge’s paws. He focused on the curve of her shoulders, and the slope of her calves.
He focused on Tori.
Whatever wasn’t quite right, they’d fix. Together. They were going to have what he’d been too stupid to try for years ago, he was sure of it, because they were both old enough and mature enough to try. To fix.
He was almost sure of it.
They got in the Jeep themselves. He drove, the car silent except for Sarge’s panting, but he didn’t take her home. Gracely was too far away, and if he wasn’t going to get her for a whole night to himself—yet—he was damn well going to have some time to take his time.
So much between them was about second chances, but this was a first, and that deserved some kind of reverence.
So he turned off before Mile High, before the road down to Gracely, and took the path to the cabin he and Brandon had built into the mountains and woods. He pushed the Jeep into Park and looked over at Tori.
She sat with a certain tenseness he didn’t know how to read. She’d made clear she wanted this, but he supposed wanting it might not offset nerves and Tori would never willfully admit or show nerves.
She frowned at the cabin. “Isn’t this . . . Brandon and Lilly’s place?”
“This is Bran and my place, that I so graciously stay scarce from to give the lovebirds room.”
“Couldn’t Lilly or Brandon come by? My house is empty and mine.”
“Brandon’s got an excursion and Lilly’s in town for a meeting. On the off chance either of them would leave their strict schedules to stop in, I’ll lock the door. Besides. Condoms.”
She didn’t smile. She didn’t move. She stared at the cabin, some strange expression on her face—a mix of pain and surprise.
“It looks just like . . . That dumb drawing you and Bran did when we signed our drunken pact. It looks just like it.”
“And inside, you will find said drunken pact, framed.”
She whipped her head to face him. “What?”
“Brandon would have preferred putting it at Mile High, but I wasn’t too keen on the idea at the time. I think it’s an idea worth revisiting though.” He reached over, squeezed her arm, but she didn’t react in any way.
“Come on.” He pushed out of the Jeep, pushing down whatever weird feeling was still dogging him. Because Sarge hopped out and followed him, and Tori did too. She didn’t lose that very nearly shell-shocked look about her, but she followed him up to the porch.
The dark wood of the cabin mirrored the dark wood of Mile High offices. Green roof and trim, gabled windows, and, thanks to Lilly’s influence, some bright pots of colorful flowers.
Picture perfect and a place he’d mostly been avoiding, but it was still his. Still partially his.
And all its existence—from Mile High to this cabin outside of Gracely, Colorado, was theirs. A joint idea, and now Tori was back in the middle of it exactly where she belonged.
He took her hand, because for the woman who’d asked him to take her home—with the express intent of something—she was moving awfully slow.
“Are you . . . Do you think Sarge would be okay inside? I don’t know how particular Lilly is and . . .” She looked back at Sarge, who was sniffing around the bottom of the porch as Will tugged Tori up the stairs of it.
“He’ll be fine. He stays inside at your house, doesn’t he?”
“Well, yeah, but I’m not Lilly. I . . .” She blinked, looking from the dog to Will, and then back again. She sucked in a breath and then let it out, and it was like she was centering herself, shaking herself off from a blow.
“You’re right. He’ll behave.”
Will dropped Tori’s hand to unlock the door and pushed it open. He waved Tori inside. “Entre.”
She took another deep breath, as if stepping inside his cabin required some feat of strength. It was a little irritating, a little deflating, that he couldn’t figure her out, but he had to believe he would. If he kept working at it, prying her open, prying himself open to her, they’d get where they needed to be.
Right now, he needed Tori in his bed.
They both stepped inside. Will whistled for Sarge, who reluctantly left his sniffing post outside. “Lay down, boy,” Will murmured, patting the rug by the big stone fireplace that dominated the living room.
The dog sniffed, turned a few times, then complied. When Will looked back at Tori, she was already walking past the living room and the kitchen and into the little hallway that led to the bathroom and bedrooms.
Whatever slowdown she’d had in the car was ramped back up to a focus on one thing—and thank goodness for that.
“Let me guess, this one’s yours,” she said, pointing at the bedroom at the far end of the hall.
“How did you figure that out without looking inside?” Will asked, coming up behind her.
“This one smells flowery just walking by,” she returned, gesturing toward Bran’s room. “Unless you’ve changed cologne and I haven’t noticed.” She walked to the end of the hall and nudged Will’s bedroom door open. She laughed a little. “Yeah, this one’s all yours.”
Will stepped in and around her. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, give me a minute.” He scooped the random debris off his bed. He’d forbidden Lilly from touching anything in his room, for fear she’d clean it and he wouldn’t be able to find anything, but he was surprised to find she’d listened.
He dumped the random clothes, hiking gear, and magazines in a pile onto the floor in a corner.
Tori rolled her eyes. “Some things really do never change.”
“And some things do. Which I’d say is a very good thing.”
Something in her expression changed at that, her eyebrows drawing together, that overly pensive line creasing her forehead. She looked down at her hands, opening one palm to reveal one of the rocks from the beach.
She shook her head and looked around the room before placing it on his dresser. “Don’t let me forget that.”
“Getting sentimental in your old age?” he teased, but she pulled her shirt off and tossed it onto the floor. The underwear she’d used as a swimsuit had dried, but that didn’t make it any less see-through.
She’d probably kill him if he offered to buy her some new underwear, but it was tempting. Tempting to want to take care of her, no matter how well she could take care of herself.
“We going to get this show on the road or what?” She shimmied out of her panties, unclipped her bra, and dropped them both on the floor. With a swing in her hips, she walked over to his bed and lay out on it.
He watched her, enjoying a very naked Tori, in his life, and in his bed. His. Whether she was ready to quite capitulate to that or not, she would.
“Don’t move,” he muttered, leaving the bedroom and crossing to the bathroom. He fumbled around in the cabinet under the sink until he found a box of condoms and tore one off.
When he returned to his room, he closed the door behind
him and locked it for good measure. He placed the condom on the dresser, next to her rock, which she could avoid answering questions about, but was clearly sentimental.
“Lose the clothes, hotshot.”
“You always in this big of a hurry?” he asked, peeling his shirt off.
She looked up at the ceiling, her fingertips trailing over his sheets. Tori’s small, compact body, naked and perfect, on his sheets. In his bed.
His.
He lost the rest of his clothes and then slid onto the bed next to her. She smelled like sun and lake and he pressed his nose against her neck and inhaled. “Lucky for you, I think I’m in a hurry too.”
* * *
Sex had always been a purely physical act. A cute guy, the right mood, maybe a few well-placed compliments on their part, but it had never included much in the way of emotion.
Tori had never wanted it to. A girl let her emotions get in the way, and what happened? Nothing good.
But this was Will, and no amount of self-control could eradicate the fact her heart fluttered when his big, rough hands slid over her hip. It wasn’t just that little thrill of physical contact, of a person finding those centers of pleasure on her body.
It was Will, and it was more, and no matter how she tried to wall off her heart, it was deeply involved. Everywhere her body pressed to his, every delicate kiss he placed against her neck, jaw, cheek, every stroke of his hand over her body as if he could memorize each centimeter, her heart twined with it. Soaked it up. Grew too big in her chest.
His mouth whispered across her cheek, sank into her lips, and it was all too much. The physical, the emotional, both together was like a swamp—unbreathable, drowning, dangerous.
Because she couldn’t pretend in kissing him back that all those feelings weren’t still there. She loved him as deeply and desperately as she had when she’d confessed as much all those years ago.
She had to pull her mouth away from his to breathe, to think, to manage anything that wasn’t just soul-crushing pain.
Loved him. Still. Always. She’d convinced herself it had gone away, but of course it hadn’t. It had only ever been him.