Could've Said Yes

by Tracy March

  Ellie’s heart clamored.

  She moved the picture on the screen, focusing on the backhoe that was headed toward the tunnel, yet still about thirty yards away, and definitely out of view of the tunnel entrance. Another couple clicks on the zoom, and she got a super-blurry profile of the backhoe operator. It was hard to make out specifics, but the guy clearly had a goatee.

  Gary.

  Ellie had the same challenge distinguishing the features of the man walking alongside the backhoe—but he was straight-spined with no apparent facial hair. It had to be Collin, since no one had disputed the story that the two of them were the only ones in the area of the plug when it was breached.

  She zoomed out a ways and studied the picture. There was no way to tell the speed and force of the water, but one thing was clear—mustard-yellow sludge had started running out before Gary and the backhoe reached the mine entrance. From his angle, he wouldn’t have been able to see it until he crested a rise and was right on top of it. The backhoe might’ve disturbed the soil by the tunnel, but the plug had already been compromised before Gary got anywhere near it.

  Ellie blinked several times. Neither Collin nor Gary had caused the breach. But they did have the worst timing ever. She scrolled through all the shots she’d taken that day up at the site, looking for anything that might make her reconsider—

  Her phone rang, and she jumped, as if someone had caught her doing something she shouldn’t. She glanced at the screen.

  Holly.

  Holly had texted her last night, congratulating her for winning a Jurors’ Award in the arts festival. But Ellie hadn’t told Holly yet what had happened with her and Collin. Did she really want to get all emotional telling the story again? She debated while the phone continued to ring, and decided to let it go to voicemail. Right now, she had to figure out what to do with the information she’d gotten from her pictures. Things had settled down since the spill. Should she go stirring them up again? She bunched her lips.

  Do you have a choice?

  She couldn’t let Gary go through his life thinking he caused the breach. And regardless of how things had ended with her and Collin, he deserved to know the truth, too.

  Ellie’s phone rang.

  Holly.

  Again? Ellie squeezed her eyes closed, and answered. “Hey, you okay?”

  “I’m fine, but I was wondering the same thing about you.”

  Ellie furrowed her brow. Had Holly heard about her and Collin from someone else? “I’m still kind of wiped out from the festival.”

  “Understandable,” Holly said. “But I’m talking about how you’re taking the news about Collin. Is he there tonight?”

  “What news?” Had he actually gotten fired, like Carl’s text to Matt had predicted?

  “Collin’s leaving town in the morning. Going back to Durham.”

  Ellie’s heart sank. “What? How do you know that?”

  “How do you not know that?”

  “You first.”

  “Bryce saw Collin at the gas station this afternoon,” Holly said. “Collin told him he was hitting the road tomorrow.”

  “Did he get fired?”

  “Bryce didn’t ask, and Collin didn’t say, exactly.”

  Ellie didn’t have the patience for riddles. “What did he say?”

  “That they’re sending him back to Durham,” Holly said. “Could mean they’re sending him back there to work, or he got fired and is going home.”

  Whatever it meant, if Ellie wanted to see him before he left, she had only a few hours to do it.

  Chapter 24

  Kicked back in jeans and a T-shirt, Collin sat on the couch in his rental house, staring at the Rockies game on TV. But none of it was registering. If someone would’ve asked him the score, he couldn’t have told them what it was. Fortunately, he’d had only three longneck beers in the fridge. He was in no mood to go get more, but if he’d had a case, he probably would’ve been halfway through it by now. As it was, he was on number three. No need to start a long road trip insanely hungover. He’d have plenty time for hangovers after he got back to Durham.

  Home sweet home.

  He winced. There was nothing waiting for him there besides his parents and his grandfather. And a prolonged investigation by the EPA.

  There’s likely to be disciplinary action. Possibly termination.

  Birch had practically guaranteed they’d be targeting Collin since he hadn’t caused the breach—as if that made any sense. But with the EPA, it didn’t have to.

  Collin had eight years invested at the EPA, and he’d planned to spend his entire career at the agency. Now he wasn’t so sure. No doubt the investigation would wear down his will to stay, and after the outcome, they might invite him to leave anyway. The idea of going through the motions of a job for months or years, just to be fired at the end, seemed like a colossal waste of time. How could he get on with his life sitting around and waiting for the EPA to decide his fate? He shook his head and took a swallow of beer, going easy on this third one, since it was the last.

  Sure, his dad could hook him up with a job in the tech sector, but Collin liked his work. Liked making his own way, independent of his family. And things had been looking good for him at the EPA—until he’d come to Thistle Bend.

  And made the mistake of trying to help a guy out.

  He thought he’d be earning a step up while he was there. Now, most likely, it would be a step off.

  As he took another slug of beer, gravel crunched in the driveway outside, and headlights swept across the windows and seeped through the closed curtains. Collin tensed. The EPA had his local address. But why the hell would they bother him at nine-thirty at night? Hadn’t they done enough damage for one day?

  Before he mustered the energy to get up and look outside, someone knocked sharply on the door. Collin stood, and stepped over to answer it, the wooden floors cool under his bare feet. He opened the door, braced for a confrontation.

  Ellie.

  His heart pitched. Man, she looked gorgeous.

  Tight faded jeans.

  A filmy white blouse.

  A camisole that matched her blue eyes.

  Her hair shimmered under the porch light. She looked a little tired, but he imagined he did, too.

  Collin had been so busy checking her out that, at first glance, he hadn’t even registered the laptop and file folder tucked beneath her arm.

  “Hey,” he said, his pulse ticking at high speed. He’d resigned himself to never seeing her again, and there she was at his door.

  She rubbed her lips together, a nervous habit he recognized from their time together. And that was all it took for everything that he’d tried to block out over the last few days to come rushing back. Everything he’d tried to deny.

  “Heard you’re leaving in the morning.” She sounded more disappointed than relieved.

  At least there was that.

  “Looks that way,” he said, guessing Bryce must’ve told Holly, who had told Ellie. “Don’t guess you drove this far to stand on the front porch.” He tipped his head toward the living area. “Want to come in?”

  She stepped inside and glanced around the open living area. “Nice.” She walked over to the nearby island that separated the kitchen from the rest of the space, and set her laptop and the file folder on top of it. “There’s something I thought you might like to know before you leave.”

  There were plenty of things he wanted to know—like would she ever be able to meet him halfway? But that didn’t take a PowerPoint presentation for her to tell him. He didn’t think he’d had a choice in the way he’d handled things with her. But he could see how she’d been blindsided when she found he hadn’t caused the breach, and why she felt misled.

  Collin joined her at the island, catching a whiff of her perfume—another trigger that had him knotted up with the urge to touch her. “I’d offer you a beer, but this is all I have left.” He held up the bottle, a third of the beer in the bottom of it. “Want something el
se to drink?”

  “No, thanks,” she said as she opened her laptop and booted it up. She pulled the page of a newspaper out of the folder and spread it on the countertop. “Milly and Merri gave me a gift earlier today. They used this piece of newspaper in the box, instead of tissue paper.”

  “Why’d they give you a gift?”

  “It was a congratulations thing.”

  “For what?” he asked lightly. He could tell she was holding something back, and he was determined to find out what it was.

  “Because I won a Jurors’ Award in the arts festival.” She avoided looking him in the eyes, and it tore him up inside. News that amazing should have her in his arms.

  “Wow.” Collin smiled, sincerely happy that things were going great for one of them. If it had to be him or her, he’d rather it be Ellie. He risked clutching her elbow. “You kicked ass.”

  She gave him a little smile, and finally set her gaze on his. “Now you’re going to.”

  Collin furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

  “This page of the newspaper Milly and Merri gave me almost ended up in the recycle bin,” she said. “But right when I got ready to toss it, something caught my eye.” She pointed to the picture below the headline The Calm Before the Spill.

  Collin’s chest tightened. There he was hoping he and Ellie would talk about them. Instead they were back to the sore subject of the spill.

  “I took this picture for the paper the day of the breach,” Ellie said. “Take a look and see if you notice anything curious about it.”

  He leaned in, studied the picture, and shook his head. “Everything’s miniature, but it looks like business as usual.”

  “I thought the same thing. But then I saw this.” She tapped her finger to a spot on the picture.

  Collin focused his gaze, unsure what he was looking at other than a bunch of tan dirt, gray rocks, and a tiny dark yellow dot. He looked at Ellie, eyes narrowed.

  “Turns out I took this picture literally minutes before the breach happened, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was down the trail on the other side of the mountain before the trouble really started.”

  Collin still wasn’t following her.

  “I hadn’t noticed that yellow in the picture before, but the speck got me thinking.” Ellie clicked on an icon on her desktop and brought up another picture of the Big Star site—this one taken from a different angle, at a higher elevation. “So I checked out the other shots I took that day, and came across this one.” She zoomed in on a section of it. “That’s Gary on the backhoe, headed toward the mine.” She zeroed in close enough that he could see the shadow of a goatee on Gary’s face. “And you. Looks like you’re walking beside the backhoe.”

  The last thing Collin needed was a replay. He’d been through this in his head a thousand times. Why would she come here and subject him to it again? He chugged the rest of his beer, and set the bottle on the counter with a loud clink.

  “That’s all important,” Ellie said. “But this is key.” She moved the pointer to the area near the tunnel opening and swept it over a swatch of dark yellow.

  Mustard yellow.

  Collin’s heart ricocheted against his ribs. He raised his arm and pressed his palm against the crown of his head. “The breach had already happened.” He glanced at the time stamp on the picture. “Before we got anywhere near the tunnel and the plug.”

  Ellie nodded, her eyes glinting with something that looked like hope. “We already knew you didn’t cause the breach. But it turns out Gary didn’t either.”

  Collin stood there, reeling. “You’re blowing my mind here.”

  She scrunched her freckled nose. “In a good way?”

  “Yes, in a good way.” Collin caught her gaze and held it for a beat. “The same way you’ve always blown my mind.” It wasn’t like him to say things like that out loud, but why not put it out there? He could hardly drive her away any further than he had already.

  Ellie blinked a couple times but stayed silent.

  So this was going to be all about the breach. “This won’t change how Gary and I handled the whole thing, but it will prove that neither of us breached that plug. The leak was clearly slow-going at first, and the backhoe might’ve disturbed the soil and got it gushing, but that plug was already history.” He swiped his hand across his forehead and dragged it down his cheek, rocked by what he’d seen. “Have you shown this stuff to anyone else?”

  She shook her head.

  “What made you decide to come over here and show it to me?” he asked, hoping they might get down to sorting some things out now.

  “You deserved to be the first to know,” she said softly, “after what you did for Gary. It really was a noble thing. And I understand why you didn’t tell me.” She lifted one shoulder. “I was just so caught up in the whirlwind of what we had going, I overestimated where we were—like, when it came to trusting me with something so huge. I mean, maybe, if we’d had time, we could’ve gotten there someday…I understand now.”

  Collin’s heart hammered. “The crazy thing was that our relationship was nothing about the mine or the breach, or even your art.” He reached out and ran his fingers down a lock of her satiny hair, combing them through to the end and skimming them along her forearm. “It was about us. The way you made me feel. Like I could be myself, and relax, but still be on fire to take you to bed every night. You seemed okay with the real me. No expectations or airs. A burrito or a game of corn hole together was enough to make you happy.”

  Ellie’s eyes glistened. “Because I had you. I didn’t need much else.” She blinked back tears.

  “Neither did I,” Collin said. “Looking forward to coming home to you is what kept me going every day.” He reached for her, gathered her in his arms, and pressed her head against his chest. Man, she felt so right there. “And I’ve missed you like hell ever since you told me to leave.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I wanted things to end so differently.”

  He pulled back and caught her gaze. “You wanted things to end?”

  “No. But I knew they had to. You were going back to Durham—your life is there. I’m just getting resettled in Thistle Bend. I have the gallery, and my brothers, and my friends. Turns out it’s harder than I thought when you only have limited time with someone—and then they’re gone.”

  She didn’t have to tell him—he’d lived it the last few days. And now that he had her in his arms, there was no way he was letting her go again.

  “I’m not gone.” He pulled her close and whispered in her ear, “And we’ve got tonight.”

  Chapter 25

  The sound of birds chirping woke Ellie. She opened her eyes, taking a second to realize that she was at Collin’s rental house, in his bed, with him.

  And he’s leaving today.

  She dared not move, for fear this would be the last time she’d wake up next to him, his arm draped across her waist. With each of his breaths, his chest rose and fell against her back. He had liked to sleep with her close, but this morning he seemed to be holding on as if he couldn’t stand to let her go.

  Ellie closed her eyes, etching this memory in her mind. It was the bittersweet ending she had imagined. They were back together, and Collin still wanted her. He’d proven that over and over all night long. A night that had gone by way too fast.

  Because, in the light of day, nothing else had changed. She was still staying, and he was still leaving. Sure, she could visit him in Durham, and he might agree to come back to Thistle Bend on occasion. But getting themselves emotionally stirred up only once in a while might prevent both of them from moving on and finding someone else.

  And make it hurt worse when it happens.

  With Collin’s arm around her, and him holding her close, she couldn’t imagine how that would ever happen for her. No one else was going to make her feel like he did.

  Ever.

  When you met that person, you just knew.

&nbs
p; Ellie thought she’d been in love with Noah, but what she felt for Collin was so much deeper.

  Soul deep. She swallowed against tears.

  Collin tightened his arm around her. “You all right, babe?” he murmured.

  Babe.

  Ellie loved the way that sounded, but it only made things worse. She knew what it would be like for him to come home to her every night. What real life together could be, with dinner on the patio and a movie on TV. She even knew what it would be like during the lows—and the highs. In their short time together, they’d experienced them both.

  And I was happy.

  Her heartbreak was complete. Different from what she’d felt when she lost Noah. Turns out Noah had been a lifestyle that she’d invested her emotions in. He’d never captured her heart like Collin had.

  But I’ve got to let go.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  Collin kissed the back of her neck, cupped one of her breasts, and pressed his hips forward, his hard-on evident. “You’re way better than that.” He trailed feathery kisses along her shoulders as he teased her nipple, quickly bringing it to a peak, leaving her wanting more as he reached over to the bedside table and grabbed a condom.

  Ellie remained still while he put it on, a sweet stream of desire coursing through her. Within seconds, he had his warm body anchored against hers—taut and muscular and all male. God, she wanted to remember that feeling. He smoothed his hand down over her hip, and between her legs, nudging them apart enough to give him access. Her breath caught as he swept his fingers across her center, still sensitive from just hours ago when he’d taken her over the edge with him, and had her crying out his name. He dipped two fingers inside her, plunging gently, easing her toward another climax.

  Ellie struggled to clear her mind, to let go, and to enjoy her last time with him. She squeezed her eyes closed and focused, giving in. Just as she neared the edge, he withdrew his fingers. “Please don’t stop.”