Chapter 27
Tristan
Lark is passed out, arm draped over my chest, hair covering most of her face, lips parted as she snores softly.
We leave today, and all I can think is how much I wish we could stay.
Not just because the sex has truly been remarkable. I’ve had her in ways I didn’t even think about, but she did.
After we had sex again about two hours ago, I scooped her up from the hot tub and carried her to bed.
She immediately fell asleep, and I’ve been staring at the ceiling.
My thoughts go in circles. Usually it starts with me justifying why this trip was a good idea and then looping around to all the damn reasons it was stupid.
And there are hundreds of those.
The one thing I keep coming back to, though, is that I like her. A lot.
She makes me happy. I’ve had a hell of a lot of shit times, and it’s nice to finally have something to smile about.
My life isn’t bad. I have an amazing daughter, I love my family, and I’ve known true love. But since losing my wife, I’ve been alone.
Now I have Lark. She’s what I look forward to. What I crave. What I find myself smiling about randomly when I have no real reason to even think about her.
So this trip may have been stupid, but I don’t regret a second of it.
To have her like this, freely, without worry that we’ll be found, has been exactly what I hoped for.
“Hey,” her sleepy voice croaks. I look down to find she’s staring up at me.
I smile. “Hey.”
“Why are you awake?”
I rub my fingers up and down her spine. “Just thinking…”
“About?”
You.
I hesitate, and she catches it.
She lifts herself up on her elbows. “About us?”
I nod. “Us. You. Me. Leaving. All of it.”
A wash of sadness fills her eyes, and I hate it. “Okay…”
Fuck, I said the wrong thing. “Not like that, sweetheart. I just mean…I don’t know. I guess I just wish it could be different. That I was a different man.”
“I don’t want that.”
“You should,” I say quickly.
She huffs. “I had the best day and night of my life, Tristan. Don’t ruin it by telling me or yourself all the reasons we shouldn’t have done it.
We’re adults. We know the rules. We came here to escape bug bites and nosy people.
I loved what we did. I loved our dinner, the talk, the sex, the cuddling.
Every minute of it, so please don’t dull it. ”
I lift up, taking her face in my hands. “That’s not what I mean. I loved it too. Having you here, like this, has been even better than I imagined. That’s the issue. How the fuck do we go back now?”
There. I said it. My biggest worry. How the hell do I go back?
She shakes her head, wrapping her fingers around my wrists.
“We don’t. We just go forward. We go back to Infinity Ridge.
We go back to meeting at night. We had this trip, which is what we knew it would be.
So we go forward, and we can remember the one time we spent the night at the Grand Canyon and then I couldn’t walk after. ”
I laugh, pulling her to me. “We go forward.”
“It’s the only way.”
Yeah, it is. I just wish our forward had a better path than a dead end, and I hate myself for it.
“Ah! Can we please stop there?” Lark asks as we’re coming up on a town that looks deserted.
“What?”
“Stop! Stop the car!”
“Why? What’s wrong?” I ask, looking around for whatever issue she sees. Like the truck is on fire or the horse trailer detached.
But none of that is happening. She reaches toward me. “Tristan! We have to stop. Please!”
I pull over because…I don’t know why. Because she asked, I guess.
“Why are we stopping?”
“Because this is the town from the podcast I listen to!” Lark looks as though she’s going to pee herself with excitement as she gets out of the car.
I exit as well, not sure what the hell we’re doing in a vacant town, and go around to where she’s standing.
She jumps to my side, wrapping her fingers around my arm. “Oh my God! You don’t even understand. So, legend has it that this town was inhabited by a band of thieves who robbed a gold smuggler.”
I raise one brow. Did she say a band of thieves? “Was this in 1935?”
“No! Just like fifteen years ago.”
“There were gold smugglers fifteen years ago? Here? In this town?”
She huffs. “Yes! It was a fact, and it was proven on this podcast.”
“All right.”
Lark ignores the sarcasm and pulls me down what looks like was a main road.
I can’t tell what it is, because the entire place is a ghost town.
There’s not a single store open or person to be seen.
The only thing here is a Welcome to Utah sign that is hanging on by a thread. “Here is where the shoot-out happened.”
“Okay, now I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the eighteen hundreds.”
“Shh, you’re ruining the story,” she complains.
Yes, I’m ruining it. Not her inaccurate details.
“Anyway, they explained that this group of guys robbed a gold smuggler in California. He was a pretty bad dude, you know?”
I nod slowly. “Yeah, I mean, most smugglers are on the up-and-up, so I’m sure this one was just misunderstood.”
Lark rolls her eyes. “He threatened to kill the guys when he found them, so they did the smart thing and found a town where they could lie low and wait to sell the gold. When they arrived here, the town wasn’t in great shape.
Schools were falling down, residents were starting to leave, and it was a mess.
The robbers wanted to help because they found the people here were great, not to mention they were sitting on a literal gold mine, get it? ”
I force a laugh. “Ha. Ha. Good one.”
That earns me a middle finger as she walks farther down the road. “Just try to enjoy the story, would you?”
“I’ll try.”
Honestly, I’m enjoying it a hell of a lot more than I should, considering it’s complete bullshit, but she seems to love it.
“Thank you. Where was I? Oh, the gold. They couldn’t sell it because I guess the gold was marked?
I don’t know, that part of the story is a little fuzzy.
They get here, they’re able to find work with one of the local businesses, and they live in an apartment above the car repair shop…
oh! It’s right there.” She points to the abandoned building and jumps up and down.
“Then they wait it out for months, building a life, and one of the guys falls in love with a local.”
“I knew it was going to be a girl who did them in,” I note.
Lark huffs at that, hands going to her hips.
“Yes, we women are the downfall of men. Not that you all have these stupid ideals of what we should be like. Rules from society, other women, our parents, the damn world. We’re told to be quiet, but to yell when we’re not being heard.
We’re told we should be protected, and on the other hand told to fight for what we want.
Which is it? You poor, poor men, always taken down by women. ”
Well, that was a speech worthy of a camera. I also feel about two feet tall. “I apologize. As a girl dad and brother, I know better.”
The fire leaves her beautiful eyes, and she smiles. “Thank you for your apology. I will continue my story.”
“Please do.”
She nods once. “The guys are here for about two years at this point with no signs of the smuggler. No one knows where they are or who they are. The one who is madly in love knows that the girl he loves is about to lose her land. It’s going to break her if it happens, so he decides…
” She pauses dramatically. “To sell the first bar.”
“Stupid.”
“Right? Totally stupid. They think it’s fine, though, because they’re states away from California, no one knows who they are, and they drove a hundred miles west to sell the gold.”
“Always go east,” I joke.
“Are you going to be annoying through the whole story?” Lark asks.
I raise both hands. “Sorry, sweetheart. I’ll behave.”
“I doubt that, but I’ll finish because I hate a cliffhanger.
” Lark pulls me farther down the road. “Legend has it that the girl he met here betrayed them. Apparently, she also worked for the smuggler, but no one knew that. He fell for the wrong girl, in the wrong place, and it cost him his life and the gold.”
“So why did the town collapse?” I ask, genuinely wanting to know.
“It’s said that when the thieves were killed, the heroine of the story lost her mind over his death.
She was so angry that they took the love of her life that she shot the smuggler, her father, because he was apparently who forced her into it, and then took the gold and has never been seen again.
The town collapsed because no one wanted to live here after the murders.
It’s a sad story of things gone wrong in a small town. ”
The way her smile widens as she looks around the town has me wondering whether she’s maybe a bit of a sociopath.
Then I remember it’s Lark and there’s not a mean or harmful bone in her body.
“That story is…terrifying.”
She turns back to me, rushing forward and wrapping her arms around my neck. “It’s a cautionary tale about loving a thief.”
I laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Lark lifts up on her toes. “Good thing we never have to worry about that.”
No, because she’s already stolen the heart right from my very chest.