Chapter 18
Bridgewater, Massachusetts
He definitely fucked up this time, Garrett thought, rubbing his hands roughly down his face as the small woman currently dragging herself across the bedroom floor released another groan.
He honestly had no fucking clue how he fucked up this badly, Garrett thought, dropping his hands away so that he could lean over and grab hold of the back of what was left of her pants and pick her up.
“I don’t need your help,” came the weakly mumbled response from the woman who was looking a lot better since they released her from the emergency room.
“I can see that,” Garrett said, moving to throw her over his shoulder only to rethink that decision when she started groaning again.
“I hate camping,” came the weakly muttered announcement as he carried her towards her bed, the move causing Kristen’s bandaged hands and feet to drag across her bedroom floor in the process.
“Understandable,” Garrett said as he placed her on her bed only to sigh heavily and pick her up when she started to slump over.
“Why does everything hurt so much?” came the groggy demand, letting him know the painkillers that he’d tricked her into taking were finally kicking in.
“Probably because you fell out of two trees, tripped over a dead log, and ran into the side of a building,” Garrett drawled, still amazed that she’d managed to walk away without breaking any bones.
“I told you that chipmunk was out to get me,” Kristen mumbled sadly.
“Yes, you did,” Garrett said as he laid her down in the middle of her bed.
She released the saddest fucking sniffle he’d ever heard as she curled onto her side, released a shuddering sigh, and-
“Stupid, adorable chipmunk.”
-made his lips twitch as he reached for her shoes only to remember that they were currently at the bottom of a lake along with his cellphone.
“Promise me,” Kristen said, making him frown as he watched her try to yank the comforter over herself only to realize that she was lying on top of it. That was followed by settling for throwing herself onto her stomach, and for some reason, rolling towards him.
“Promise you what?” Garrett asked, catching her before she managed to roll off the bed and placed her back in the middle.
“No more camping,” came the sleepily mumbled words as he grabbed the blanket thrown over the bottom of the bed and placed it over her.
“No more camping,” Garrett promised, deciding that it would probably be for the best if he never brought her back there, mostly because of the ban the park ranger slapped on them after he’d finally managed to pull Kristen off that boulder.
He still wasn’t sure where he went wrong.
One minute, they were hiking through the woods, and the next…
Christ, he’d never seen a chipmunk that pissed before.
He realized that he’d fucked up when the chipmunk chased her through the woods, determined to make her pay.
They’d probably still be there if that chipmunk hadn’t shoved her off that branch and there was honestly no other way to describe it.
He thought after the first mile, the chipmunk would give up and let her go, but if anything, he only became more determined to make her pay for not giving him the rest of her trail mix.
He probably should have listened to her when she said that something was following them, but at the time, he thought that she was just trying to get out of hiking.
If he’d known what was waiting in that tree for her…
“I want it in writing,” Kristen mumbled drowsily, closing her eyes as she snuggled beneath the blanket.
“I’m pretty sure the park ranger is taking care of that for us,” Garrett said, reaching over to brush a strand of black hair out of her face and-
God, she was so fucking beautiful, Garrett thought, unable to take his eyes off her as he pushed her hair out of her face, the move causing his fingertips to brush against her skin.
If his brothers ever found out that he’d gone camping from the comfort of a hotel room, they’d never let him live it down, but even knowing that couldn’t make him regret his decision to give in to the little pain in the ass’s demands.
He would do anything, absolutely-fucking anything, to go back to the way things were, even if that meant accepting the fact that she would never be his.
While Kristen had been imagining a hundred different stories running through her head, he’d only thought about one.
Theirs. He’d listened to all the tales his father and uncles shared about how the men in their family were brought to their knees by the women they loved and wondered what it would be like when Kristen finally brought him to his knees.
There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that he would have loved every second of it, Garrett thought as he traced her delicate jawline with his fingertips. The only thing he ever wanted was her, but she didn’t want him.
When he thought that he was Greg…
It destroyed him.
With a few simple words, she’d shattered his entire world, leaving him reeling and in so much fucking pain that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life.
Finding out that the woman he loved more than anything hated everything about him had been fucking devastating, but finding out that she knew just how much he loved her and wrote a book to make sure that he knew that she would never feel the same…
There were honestly no words to describe that kind of pain.
Finding out later that he was really Tristan told him everything that he needed to know.
She cared about him, more than anything, but she would never see him as anything more than her best friend and she had absolutely no idea how much he loved her.
They would never have their own happily ever after, but he could have her back in his life as long as he was willing to pretend that it wasn’t killing him inside knowing that she would never love him.
That would have to be enough, Garrett told himself as he pulled his hand away and, after one last look at Kristen, forced himself to walk away and headed for the door. He made his way downstairs, where he found the dog that he’d quickly learned loved blankets waiting for him by the front door and-
“We should probably have that talk,” came the absently murmured announcement that drew his attention to the woman sitting on the couch with what appeared to be Kristen’s laptop on her lap.
“And what talk would that be?” Garrett asked as he watched her close the laptop and placed it on the coffee table.
“The one where we come to an understanding,” Amber said, grabbing her bag off the floor.
Nodding absently, Garrett leaned back against the wall while he ran his eyes over her, taking in the long blonde hair pulled into a messy bun at the back of her head, thick, black framed glasses and the sweater and dress shirt combo that screamed writer, before meeting her curious gaze again. “About?”
“What will happen if you hurt Kristen again,” Amber said, shrugging it off as she grabbed a planner off the coffee table and shoved it into her bag.
“She told you about that?” Garrett asked, curious about the small woman that Kristen entrusted with her laptop.
“About how you broke her heart?” Amber asked, grabbing her phone off the coffee table. “She might have mentioned it once or twice.”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” Garrett said, watching as Amber scrolled through her phone.
“You did before,” she pointed out, her eyes flickering in his direction before focusing back on her phone.
“Yes, I did,” Garrett murmured, wondering just how much Kristen told her. Kristen wasn’t big on talking about her feelings or confiding in people. She didn’t trust easily, which given what her mother put her through, wasn’t exactly surprising.
“Just so you know, I don’t think this is a good idea, but she doesn’t really have a lot of options right now,” Amber said, quickly typing something before she swiped her thumb across the screen as she stood up.
“If it helps, I plan on doing everything that I can to make this right,” Garrett said, watching as she shoved her phone back in the backpack.
“It really doesn’t,” Amber said, throwing the backpack over her shoulder before she leaned over and grabbed a fast-food cup off the coffee table. “But it really doesn’t matter what I think.”
“And what’s that?” Garrett asked, watching as she made her way to the stairs.
“You don’t want to know what I think,” Amber said, shaking her head as she moved to step past him only to stop and-
“Look,” she said, sighing as she glanced towards the stairs before she looked back at him, “it isn’t my place to say anything, but I’m going to do it anyway.
She didn’t deserve what you did to her and if it was up to me, I’d tell you to go to hell, but it’s not up to me.
So, instead, I’m just going to say this, don’t break her heart this time or let her think that this means something more than it does.
From what I’ve been told, it almost destroyed her the last time and I just… ”
She looked away as she slowly exhaled before she looked back at him and said, “If this is just a game to you or you’re just doing this to appease your conscience, then walk away.
Don’t put her through that again. She doesn’t deserve to have her heart broken again, especially since she’s still not over you. She-”
“What did you just say?” Garrett asked, cutting her off as everything inside him went still.
She opened her mouth only to frown as she asked, “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“She’s still in love with you.”