Redwood

by Janie Crouch

  “Yeah, that sounds really nice. Thanks.”

  And it did sound really nice. Lexi got out and waved as Anne drove away. She stood there, cold. It really was time to choose: invest in the coat or leave.

  26

  Lexi studied the empty streets of Oak Creek after Anne drove off. The holiday lights stretching from one side of Main Street to the other would turn on later this afternoon as the sun went down. Right now, the majestic Tetons made a beautiful backdrop to the rather plain buildings of the town itself.

  Oak Creek was a good place with good people. She never would’ve been interested in coming here in her old life, would’ve argued that a tiny town in the middle of Wyoming would have nothing useful to offer her. And honestly, maybe given who she’d been in her old life, that would’ve been true.

  But never coming here, never experiencing this town where the main street was actually named Main Street, the mayor was an older lady who personally directed the placement of the Christmas lights each year, and where people grew up and left, but then came back because this place had somehow gotten into their blood . . . that would’ve been her loss.

  Having never met these people would’ve been her loss.

  She walked inside her apartment and took off her dress, wanting to let it drop to the floor but knowing nobody would come and pick it up later, so she might as well clean it up herself now.

  She hung her dress and slipped on leggings and a sweatshirt. And then she saw it. That blank envelope that had been sitting in the Eagle’s Nest mailbox. It had spooked her this morning, doubled by Gavin walking up just as she’d seen it.

  I never believed you for a second, you know.

  He’d meant the words innocently, but she’d taken them as someone with a guilty conscience would—as an attack. Then he’d felt so bad about it, she’d forgotten the blank envelope that had started the panic in the first place.

  Looking at it now sitting there so innocently on the counter, she could feel her breathing shallow out.

  This was how it had started before when the stalker had found her. A blank envelope with a typed letter inside telling her she deserved to have a stalker for real. She deserved to be hurt for real. She deserved to understand how it really felt to have everything taken from her.

  Sweat trickled down her back as she stared at the envelope. She needed to open it, but her body refused to cooperate. Her hands shook down by her side, not willing to move toward the envelope no matter how much her brain demanded it.

  “Get yourself under control. It’s just an envelope. Open it.”

  She stared at it way too long before finally grabbing it and ripping it open.

  She opened the folded paper, her eyes falling to the first words.

  You deserve . . .

  She didn’t read any further. She didn’t have to. She deserved to be hurt. She deserved to lose everything.

  The worst part was that it was true. She did deserve those things. The paper fell from her numb fingers as she ran over to the sink and vomited.

  The stalker had found her. She’d been so careful, but he’d still found her. She needed to leave—had to get out of here. Right now. It might already be too late.

  She wanted to rip it up and throw it into the trash can, but she couldn’t stand the thought of it still being in her house.

  Her heart thundered in her chest as she looked around. She didn’t know where she would go, but she couldn’t stay here.

  She ran for her clothes and her suitcase, but stopped.

  Would Gavin believe her if she showed him the letter? If she drove back over to his house and waited for him and explained... everything, would he at least believe her about this?

  She walked back over and picked up the letter. If he read this, would he take the threat seriously?

  She forced herself to open the paper again and look at it. Steeled herself to get through it.

  You deserve...

  She swallowed and kept reading.

  ...the chance to ring in the New Year right. As a valued customer of Cowboy State Liquor, we’d liked to offer the Eagle’s Nest our priority delivery service . . .

  What?

  She sank down on the edge of her bed. Not a letter from the stalker at all. But she was still shaken. Still spooked.

  Still reminded that there was someone out there who wanted to hurt her, destroy her. It didn’t matter how innocent the letter was, she couldn’t keep it here. She didn’t even want it in her trash can.

  She would take it outside and throw it in the big trash. It wouldn’t be able to hurt her there.

  She was still shaky as she rushed toward her stairs, tripping and barely catching herself on the way down. She grabbed for the door handle, her breath sawing in and out of her chest as she ran outside.

  She was in her socks, didn’t have any shoes on, didn’t have on a jacket. The cold bit at her as she stared at the piece of paper in her hand.

  You deserve . . .

  You deserve . . .

  You deserve . . .

  She did deserve everything that stalker had promised to do to her. Throwing away this letter wasn’t going to change that.

  She couldn’t seem to force her body to go forward, and she couldn’t figure out how to go back inside. She was frozen in place.

  Couldn’t move forward. Couldn’t go back.

  She closed her eyes, trying to suck air back into her lungs.

  “Lexi.”

  Was that really Gavin’s voice, or had her mind actually cracked? She shook her head.

  “Lexi, tell me how I can help you.”

  The same words he’d said during panic attack number one today. She still wasn’t sure if he was really here or if she was hallucinating. At this moment, either seemed possible.

  She held up the fisted letter without opening her eyes. “It has to go in the big trash. It can’t be inside my house. I can’t have it in there.”

  The paper left her hand. She opened her eyes.

  Gavin was here. Strong, solid, steady.

  “You go inside. I’ll throw this in the big trash.”

  She nodded and turned back around. Gavin would take care of it.

  She sat on the stairs, waiting for him. But every second she got herself back under control was more time to realize how ridiculous this all had to seem to him. He’d found her outside in her stockinged feet, no coat, panicked over the need to throw away a letter from an alcohol vendor.

  She looked up at him as he came through the door. “You have to think I’m crazy.”

  She’d basically given him a checklist of reasons today: freaked out at his dad’s house, stolen his vehicle, now this. He could take his pick.

  He sat down on the stairs beside her. “I think you were having a panic attack outside, the way you were earlier today.”

  “Did you look at the letter?”

  He nodded. “It didn’t seem...problematic in any way. Was there something I missed?”

  “Only that I’m crazy.”

  “Having a panic attack doesn’t make you crazy.”

  “I left you and ran off with your car. You’re not mad about that?”

  He slid his hat off his head and dropped it on the stair beside him. “I’m not nearly as mad at that as I am that you left the damned SUV at my house rather than bringing it here. Did you walk from my house?”

  “I was going to. But Anne saw me and gave me a ride.”

  “Good.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment. “I suppose I owe you an explanation.” He had to have so many questions.

  “No.” He turned toward her. “I asked you to tell me what you needed so I could help you. Earlier today you needed to get out of that house so your picture wasn’t taken. I’m not going to pretend like I understand why, but I don’t have to understand. Like now. I don’t understand what’s happening with that letter, but I know it’s something that has you terrified, so I want to help if there’s any way that I can.”

  “Even if I
don’t tell you why?” Because she couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in his eyes if she told him the truth.

  “I do hope someday you’ll tell me. But yes, I want to help regardless of whether you tell me or not.” He looked away, pulling slightly at the collar of his jacket. “There’s really only one question that, for me, needs to be answered now. And before I ask it, I want you to know that your response doesn’t mean I can’t be with you if you say yes.”

  “Okay.” She would try to answer as honestly as she possibly could. She owed him that much.

  Those brown eyes pinned hers. “Are you married?”

  That was so far from what she’d expected him to say, it ate away the rest of her residual panic from the letter. “Married? What?”

  “My cousin Noah’s girlfriend was married, and her husband was abusive. She was trying to stay out of his clutches when she met Noah. And I was wondering if perhaps your situation was similar. If so, I’d like to help. It doesn’t matter if you’re still married to him, I want to help.”

  She closed her eyes briefly before opening them again. Gavin was such a good man. A protector. A hero. “No, I’m not married. I’ve never been married. But thank you.”

  “But there’s something going on. Something that makes you afraid. Earlier at Dad’s house. And right now with that letter.”

  She had to tell him something. “I got into a little trouble a couple of years ago. I’m away from it now, but sometimes it seems like the past is just waiting for me to screw up.”

  That was completely true without giving him any usable details at all.

  And he knew it.

  He let out a sigh. “I want to protect you, Lexi.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Let me. You don’t have to tell me anything else. Just let me be here with you.”

  Could she do that? Could she take the next few months, save up the money she needed while enjoying having someone like Gavin care so much about her.

  Buy the coat. Stay awhile.

  Yes. Maybe it made her weak and selfish—again—but she wanted this time with him looking at her like she was someone worthwhile.

  Maybe it would keep her warm in the future, in all the years when she would be alone.

  27

  She woke up in Gavin’s arms the next morning and every morning after that for the next month.

  She didn’t try to hold herself distant from him. Didn’t keep one foot out the door. Yeah, she had to rush into the bathroom to touch up her industrial-grade makeup each morning. And she might not have told him anything more about herself—and he was careful not to ask—but she gave herself over to just being with him.

  It was like nothing she’d ever felt before in her whole life.

  She was smiling all the time. Laughing all the time. Stealing kisses behind the Eagle’s Nest. Having breakfast with him at the Frontier Diner. He’d taken her for dinner more than once at New Brothers Pizza—and the taste was as good as the scents that wafted into her apartment all the time.

  And she slept.

  Nearly every single night for at least a few hours, she actually slept. Part of it was knowing he was there and would keep her safe. He might not feel the same way about protecting her once he found out who she really was, but she knew without a doubt that right now, her Redwood would stand firm against anything that threatened her.

  His deep voice lulled her to sleep every night. Her personal, nonmusical lullaby.

  She tried to stay awake, to listen to whatever story he was telling. It wasn’t that she didn’t find his tales interesting—she truly loved getting to know him. But something about lying against his chest in his bed, her body replete and relaxed from their lovemaking, listening to that voice . . . her brain gave up the fight of forcing her to stay awake.

  Of course, Gavin teased her about it constantly during the day, accused her of giving him an inferiority complex. But he always said it with a smile. And she knew he would give himself a complex a dozen times over if it meant she got the rest she needed.

  God, how she loved this new pattern they were in.

  She smiled over at him where he sat in his booth for lunch. Since Quinn had started teaching college again full-time, Lexi was back to being the only lunch waitstaff, but she didn’t mind. They’d hired a new cook, so Mac was helping at the front of the house. And winter meant things were generally slower.

  Gavin was there to talk to her nearly every day, to the point where Zac kept threatening to fire him from Linear Tactical. Or at least he had when she and Gavin had gone over to Zac and Anne’s for dinner last week.

  A date. A normal couple thing. The only one Lexi could ever remember being on that hadn’t involved the press in some way.

  Yet another way her aunt and uncle had pulled her puppet strings. The dates Lexi had gone on over the years that they’d carefully orchestrated. The nights she’d gone home with a man and wondered how the press had found her the next morning. Looking back at it now, it was probably because Cheryl and Nicholas had tipped them off.

  The more press Lexi got, the more popular she became, the more money she made. That they stole.

  But that wasn’t a factor anymore.

  The look of pleasant surprise on Gavin’s face when she’d agreed to have dinner with him at Zac and Anne’s had made the evening sweeter. He wanted to do this sort of stuff with her but was afraid to ask, she realized. Afraid to tip this delicate balance between them.

  But she wanted to do this stuff with him also.

  Her smile slipped a little. Wasn’t this the same selfish behavior that had gotten her in trouble in her old life? She carried her tray to the back.

  Two years ago, a sexy security expert had started working on the set of Day’s End. Lexi had found him attractive, but he’d only had eyes for the show’s producer, Chloe Jeffries.

  Instead of accepting that with any sort of dignity or grace, Lexi had sabotaged her own trailer, made it look like a stalker was after her, and insisted Shane guard her since she was the one in danger.

  And then Chloe and Chloe’s best friend, Nadine, had nearly been killed because of Lexi’s selfishness when the real stalker went after them. Poor Nadine had scars—physical and undoubtedly emotional ones too—because of the selfish choices Lexi had made.

  Lexi set her tray on the counter next to the dishwasher to be loaded, then leaned on it, shoulders hunched.

  At the time she’d thought she wanted Shane for herself, but she realized now that hadn’t been it at all. She’d just wanted someone of her own. Someone who looked at her with that protective gaze—the way Shane had with Chloe.

  The way Gavin did with her.

  Someone who showed up at the end of every shift to make sure she made it home safely. Someone who made sure her cupboards were full. Who held her while she slept. Who cleared out a drawer for her to keep her stuff in his bathroom.

  Someone who made her laugh, and made her sleep. Someone who had nothing to gain by knowing her, but showed up anyway.

  The irony of her whole existence was that she’d never truly been happy as an actress. It had come easily to her, and she’d made a lot of money doing it, but she would’ve given the fame and wealth up in a heartbeat to have what she had here in Oak Creek: a job she enjoyed, a community that cared so much about each other.

  Gavin.

  She curled around herself more. He wouldn’t recognize the person she’d been two years ago, and not just because of all the differences her makeup and broken nose made. He wouldn’t recognize the selfish shrew who’d nearly gotten two other people killed. He wouldn’t tolerate that person for an instant.

  But that was who Lexi was. Had been. And no amount of screaming I’ve changed! I’ve changed! actually changed anything in the past.

  She placed a stack of dishes in the dishwasher cart and grabbed the faucet hose to spray them off.

  She was so familiar with his touch that she didn’t startle when Gavin’s hands gripped her hips from behind and his l
ips nuzzled her neck. “What would it take for me to talk you into a quickie in Mac’s bathroom?”

  She closed her eyes and breathed in. Breathed him in. She’d given up all rights to happiness with her choices two years ago, but she would steal as many moments of it as she could anyway. Still selfish, but she couldn’t resist.

  “Mac will definitely fire me. But I guess if you get fired and I get fired, we can both be in the unemployment line together.” She shifted her hips back to feel his hardness against her. She was rewarded by the sound of him sucking in his breath, then nipping at her ear.

  “I promise I’ll be so fast Mac won’t notice you’re gone.”

  “You’re not supposed to be back here, you know. What would the good citizens of Oak Creek say if they could hear you now, Sheriff Redwood? Propositioning me.” She poked her ass back against him again.

  “It’s a cold Tuesday, and you’ve got barely any customers. The good citizens of Oak Creek are at home or at work where they belong.”

  She loved this playful side of him. It had been coming out more and more over the past month.

  “Lexi, you’ve got a two-top that just came in.”

  At Mac’s words from the swinging door leading out to the bar, Gavin let her go. He might talk a good dirty game, and would probably act on it, but he was a gentleman first and would never do anything that might harm her reputation.

  She was in love with this man.

  “Whoa, careful there!” Gavin laughed and grabbed the wild hose out of her hand, stopping the spray of water ricocheting off the wall in front of them. “Better stick with your day job and not apply for a firefighter position.”

  She loved him.

  Was she really that surprised? She’d been half in love with him since she’d seen him in that bar in Reddington City.

  He shut off the water and turned her in his arms. “Hey, you okay?”

  She wanted to say the words but swallowed them. Telling him that would be the height of selfishness on a level she couldn’t justify. So she kissed him. And was tempted to drag him back to Mac’s bathroom and make good on his dirty threat.