by Megan Crane
He didn’t want to think about the ways he might have hurt his own mother’s feelings, or how resolute he’d been about keeping his distance ever since.
He didn’t want to face any of this crap, which was why he hadn’t.
But here he was, taking the same exit he remembered from way back when. He thought there were more trees now, higher and greener in the summer night. And as he wound his way through streets that felt both familiar and strange to him at once, he couldn’t deny that Everly hadn’t been so far off after all.
Blue knew too many men who pretended they were never afraid of anything, but he wasn’t one of them. Fear was a motivating factor. Fear of death, fear of capture, fear of drowning, fear of the enemy—it all worked. It fused into action and made a man unstoppable.
But that didn’t change the fact that fear came first.
And it was more complicated than that. Because he wasn’t afraid of enemy combatants tonight.
It was his own flesh and blood he didn’t want to face—or maybe, if he was more honest than he’d ever wanted to be before, it was himself.
You think you have to take responsibility for every bad thing that’s ever happened, anywhere, Everly had said. From my apartment tonight to—I don’t know—your entire childhood.
But what she didn’t know was all the crap he’d not taken responsibility for. It was yet one more reason he wasn’t the hero she seemed to keep wanting to believe he was.
Blue knew the truth. He always had.
He turned down the street where he’d grown up. The houses were enough the same to make him wonder what year it was, though some of them sported different coats of paint. There were additions here, some new landscaping there. Trees he remembered climbing were gone, while new fences took their place. The world moved on, he supposed. Even in a place that had stayed forever preserved in his memory.
But his stepfather’s house looked exactly the same. He pulled into the driveway, then pulled the SUV around the back, where it couldn’t be seen from the street. He switched the engine off, looking at the woman who still slept there beside him. As pretty as she was when she was awake, there was something about her sleeping that caught in him.
The way it had that afternoon in Alaska when he’d carried her to the empty cabin and waited for her to wake up.
It was much worse now.
He’d barely had his fill of her. He hadn’t even had time to bask in the afterglow before those bastards blew the place up.
And much as he wanted to do it all over again, what he really wanted was something he refused to acknowledge.
He refused.
So he did the next best thing. He climbed out of the car, easing his door shut so as not to wake her. The sun was just starting to peek up over the edge of the world. It was that odd, in-between time just before dawn, hushed and soft.
And Blue was standing in his old backyard, breathing in that peculiar combination of scents that would always be this exact place to him. Newly cut grass. Those sweet flowers that grew in the neighbor’s backyard and sent petals soaring over the fence at this time of year. The thicker smell that reminded him of car engines, like the ones his stepfather had tinkered with but never fixed. His mother’s geraniums in the window boxes that were her pride and joy. The rich, green fragrance from the vegetable garden near the back porch.
It was crazy the things a man forgot. And then remembered too well.
Blue shook himself, then went around to the passenger side and pulled Everly out without waking her up. He lifted her in his arms and held her there when she murmured something unintelligible against his neck. When she settled, he turned, shutting the car door behind him with his foot and starting for the house.
And when the back porch light went on, flooding the yard and hitting him square in the face, Blue simply stood still.
He watched with a certain sense of foreboding, or inevitability, as the back door swung open.
He recognized the people standing there before him, both much older now. Both more frail than he wanted to accept. Something clenched inside him, and he wondered how he’d forgotten that part. That they would age. That everybody aged.
He knew he had. He remembered every year and every painful indication that he was no longer the sleek warrior he’d been at eighteen. Twenty. Even thirty.
But they’d gotten even older than he had.
“Dear God,” the man muttered.
Blue’s attention was on the woman. On a face he knew better than his own. Even lined with time and blurred with sleep, it was far more like his than he’d ever allowed himself to recall.
He knew her eyes. He knew that nose, though the one on his face was bigger and had been broken a few times. He knew her hands—how they felt against his forehead when she’d checked him for fever and how they looked when she fidgeted with her rings the way she was doing now, as if she couldn’t help herself. And he knew that if he got closer, she would smell the way she always did, of lavender and fresh air.
A week ago he would have insisted he couldn’t remember any of this. And, more, didn’t want to.
Blue held Everly closer and reminded himself that he’d survived wars and some things that were far worse. He could handle a couple of nights back in this house, with these people. It might be uncomfortable. It was certain to be, in fact.
But he didn’t think it would kill him.
He realized they were still all staring at one another, so he made himself smile.
At her. He wasn’t ready to deal with anything but her.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, as if he’d been away for a few days. Not his entire adult life. And as if nothing had ever separated them but that time. “Do you mind if we come in?”
Seventeen
The previous night was something of a blur. She’d fallen asleep hard and deep in the car at some point, so hard and so deep she wondered if, really, she’d passed out. The way she remembered doing only once before, three thousand miles to the west. It made something deep inside of her shake a bit to think it was Blue who had taken care of her in both instances.
And all the other times in between.
Last night—or early this morning—she’d had small, jumbled flashes. She’d had the impression of Blue’s parents’ backyard, so much like the one she’d played in as a child, across the street. Two faces in the doorway, staring out at them. But nothing more.
If there had been a conversation between Blue and the family he’d been avoiding all these years, she’d missed it.
Blue had carried Everly upstairs, all the way to the third floor without so much as a heavy breath. She’d noticed that part. She’d vaguely noticed sloping ceilings all along the top floor of the house, divided up like a railroad apartment. One room led into the next, and Blue deposited her on the old twin bed in the bedroom at the farthest end.
“I’ll be in the sitting room,” he’d told her, which hadn’t made a whole lot of sense at the time. “It’s right down the hall. So is the bathroom, if you need it.”
And then he’d disappeared, leaving her in yet another guest room that felt entirely unused. Everly couldn’t tell if she was simply seeing patterns and circles everywhere she looked because she was tired or because they were there. She’d curled up on the bed, her mind racing as she decided what to do next. She’d start with a shower. Or maybe she’d go find Blue and have the necessary post-whatever-that-was conversation. . . .
And then she got caught on the whatever-it-was for what felt like a long while. Until she’d fallen asleep—and then everything in her head had been fire. Glass shattering. Running, except this time, there was no getting away from the dark shadows that had followed her. All the alleys had led to higher flames and fewer chances to escape. All the fences had towered too high and, more, had been wreathed in barbed wire.
And it had stopped only when a big, rangy male form had c
limbed onto the narrow bed next to her.
“It’s okay,” Blue had said, his mouth against her ear.
And Everly had known it was him. Instantly. Even in the dark, even in a strange house, even torn apart by terrible dreams, she’d known him. She’d been surprised to find that her face was wet. With tears, she thought, though she didn’t remember crying. She didn’t care. She’d simply curled up into Blue on that crowded but comfortable bed, let his heavy arms keep her safe, and drifted back to sleep.
And this time, she didn’t wake up until light streamed into the room from the curtainless windows and the air was stuffy and thick, reminding her it was still summer outside.
Everly sat up on the bed, then blinked around at her surroundings. She’d expected to see Blue, even though she’d known he wasn’t in the bed with her anymore before she’d opened her eyes. But he wasn’t in the room. There was nothing here with her but dust motes.
She was still fully dressed in the jeans and T-shirt she’d worn to flee her apartment, and she could smell the smoke on herself. Which had to mean anyone else would think she smelled like a mountain range’s worth of wildfires. She had no other clothes. No phone. Not one single thing from her life except the clothes on her back.
She sat there and let that sink in.
But it felt a lot like drowning, and Everly hated it when her throat started to feel thick. She padded over to the dormer windows to look out at the street she thought she knew so well. But she’d never seen it from this angle before.
It was one more way to drown, maybe. Sinking into a different perspective on a place she’d thought couldn’t possibly surprise her after all these years. The cherry tree in her parents’ front yard looked different from this angle. Smaller, when she remembered lying beneath it in those long-ago springtimes and marveling at how it took over the whole of the sky.
And there was something about the fact that she was in Blue’s bedroom that got to her, right there in the place where she’d last seen him, all those years ago, when she’d been a little girl who hadn’t known the world could be scary. Not like this. It scratched at her. It made something deep in her belly turn over.
But she told herself she was just hungry.
She pushed open the bedroom door, and then stood there a moment. The next room in the railroad stack was really more of a hallway. There were clothes on portable racks, wrapped in heavy plastic and storage bags. Padded boxes that looked as if they contained wineglasses or china. A collection of old fans. The usual things people stored in their attics.
But she could hear Blue’s voice. She followed the sound, vaguely remembering what he’d said about sitting rooms and bathrooms. She found the bathroom through the next door, splashed cold water on her face, and then had to wipe her hands on her jeans when she realized there were no towels.
Somehow, she found that grounding.
Then she pushed through the door on the far wall into the last room. The stairs leading to the rest of the house were there, so she must have come up this way, but she hadn’t seen the daybed shoved against one wall, with an armchair across from it. There were bookshelves everywhere else, filled with old paperback science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as some of her favorite comic books.
And Blue was over by the windows, on the phone.
He turned as she came in. His dark gaze met hers.
And suddenly everything was electric. Bright and hot, skimming over her skin and settling deep inside her. Where she began to throb with longing.
For a moment she was back on that couch in her apartment and Blue was above her, inside her, surging in so deep she’d shaken apart from the inside out. She’d forgotten who she was and why she shouldn’t cling to him the way she had, as if he were the only solid thing in the universe. She’d been lost, so deliciously lost, and he’d brought them both home.
Thrusting deep inside her, changing everything—
Everly blinked, afraid she was swaying on her feet right there on the top floor of his childhood home. And felt herself flush hot and red in response, because of course she did.
Because she always did, especially around him.
But she wasn’t sure she minded in the next moment. Blue muttered a few monosyllables, ended his call, and then looked at her.
Just looked at her. And sure, his hard mouth curved while he did it, but it wasn’t anything special, she cautioned herself. It was just a look.
But her cheeks were so hot it hurt, and she could feel him. Everywhere.
“Did you finally get some sleep?” he asked.
And maybe it was just because they were in this place that had once been his. Whatever it was, everything felt intimate. As if it wasn’t random small talk to ask her how she’d slept but something more. Something different, something—
You’re an idiot, she told herself harshly.
There was zero doubt about that. She was tired, covered in smoke and God knew what else, and probably still scared for her life, if she allowed herself a minute to think about it. She certainly wasn’t herself, anyway. This wasn’t living her best life—this was hiding out in Blue’s parents’ attic from bad guys they still hadn’t identified.
Maybe she could forgive herself for reading all kinds of things into this situation. Blue wasn’t trying to kill her. That was pretty much all it took for her to develop softer feelings at this point.
She decided to do both of them a favor and not mention anything that was happening inside her—
But Blue didn’t get that directive, clearly. Because he reached over and ran the backs of his fingers over one hot cheek.
Everly managed to keep from jolting by actually biting down on her tongue.
“You look a little red, baby,” he said, as if the whole thing amused him.
As if any of this was amusing.
Maybe, she thought dimly, it was all actually hitting her. The fact that someone had broken into her apartment. The fact that someone—maybe the same someone—had thrown a bomb through her window. The fact that between those two events she’d had sex with Blue Hendricks. And now was standing in the only possessions she had left, in an attic in her hometown—
“Breathe,” he ordered her. He dropped his hand.
She didn’t know which part of that bothered her more.
“What if I don’t feel like breathing on command?”
“Then you’ll make yourself pass out.” Blue shrugged. “I’d probably catch you. But I might not.”
Everly understood that if she did even one of the things stampeding around inside her head just then, it would not end well. He was the one who’d taught her those moves, after all. He’d know exactly how to counter them.
She smiled to make the bloodlust dim. “Do we have a plan?”
“Find the bad guys. Make them stop. The usual.”
“So nothing concrete. More baiting traps and waiting to be blown up.”
Blue’s eyes narrowed. “You okay?”
“I’m great. Just perfect. Everything I own blew up in a fire last night, and I’m thinking it might be time to actively try to catch the people who did it. Before they come up with something worse. You know, like something that might actually kill me.”
Blue only eyed her, much too calm. Much too patient.
Everly felt herself flush again, deeper and redder.
Damn it.
“I better get you some coffee,” was all he said.
Everly didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about that. Chastened? Or pleased that he was going to handle her caffeine requirements without her having to ask?
Blue didn’t give her the opportunity for debate on the topic. He just sauntered past her as if he didn’t have a care in the world and headed for the stairs, and she followed him, because that was what she did now. She didn’t even question it.
Because whether she wa
s cranky today or not, this was the man who’d saved her, just as she’d hoped he would.
The other things he’d done didn’t—couldn’t—matter.
She had to find a way to forget that anything had changed between them.
Because, dummy, nothing has, she snapped at herself.
She assumed that a man who looked like Blue had sex all the time. It likely meant as much to him as getting her latte every day meant to her. Delicious and perfect while it lasted, but no need to elevate one latte over another when there was always, always another on the way.
Everly was frowning as they walked into the kitchen— definitely not at the idea of Blue with his next interchangeable latte, because that would be crazy—but she had to sort out her expression almost instantly, because Blue’s mother was there.
Everly only vaguely remembered seeing her earlier. Here in the bright glare of a summer afternoon, she much more closely resembled the woman that Everly had always known growing up. Regina Margate was trim and athletic, her dark hair glossy and straight and cut into a tidy bob. She was sitting at the table with the newspaper spread before her, but her smile looked strained when she aimed it their way.
“Hello, Mrs. Margate,” Everly said, because she might be grown up now, but she was incapable of addressing adults she’d known as a child by their first names.
“I see you’re both up,” Blue’s mother said brightly. “You must be starving.”
“I can’t imagine what a shock this is,” Everly began, apologetically.
“She’s fine,” Blue said, as if that was the end of it.
He went over to the kitchen counter with the ease of long practice, which told Everly that the coffee machine was in the same place it had been years ago. She didn’t know why it pierced her heart to think of teenage Blue getting himself coffee in this same kitchen, but it did. He poured two mugs and brought them both over. He plunked one down on the table beside her, but then looked surprised when Everly took a seat.
“I’ve been collecting your parents’ newspapers,” Mrs. Margate said to Everly, with a smile that seemed more natural when she looked away from her son. “Their trip sounds like so much fun. I told your mother she’s going to have to show me all her pictures when she gets back.”