22. More Than That
MORE THAN THAT
Ash knew the minute he read those words anything he or Tate said wouldn’t have mattered.
The police and fire departments were going to want Skye to stay in contact.
To help them catch who this was.
But there would be rules and it’d come down to if she could follow them or not.
So far, it didn’t seem she did the first one.
“Get it off your chest,” she said when they were driving back to her place.
“We can wait until we are out of the truck so you can pace.” He heard a sound. “Did you just snarl at me?”
“Yep. I might do more if you start in too hard. Being the guy in my bed doesn’t give you the right to lecture me that much.”
He wanted to dispute the “guy in bed” statement.
Fuck it. He was.
“It’s more than that.” This time his tone could be described as close to a snarl. They were even.
Childish on his part, but he was too worked up to give a damn.
“What is?” she asked.
“What we have. Don’t diminish it. Don’t make it out to be just sex. I thought we talked about that.”
“We did. And I’m not diminishing it. What kind of asshole do you think I am?”
“How many kinds do I get to choose from?”
He turned his head when there was only silence to that question.
“I want to laugh and be hurt at the same time. I’m not sure which one to do.”
“Laugh,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m worked up.”
“You think I’m not?” she asked, getting out of his truck and slamming the door.
He wanted to keep talking but kept his lips sealed as they climbed the stairs to her apartment.
But once they were behind the door, he asked, “What are you worked up about? I thought you’d like that you’re chasing this. Isn’t it giving you inspiration or something for your book?”
“Don’t get snotty with me.”
“That was hardly snotty. That was a legitimate question.”
“With enough snark attached that it’d even make my mother proud.”
Carrie Lancaster sure did love to battle wits with her kids.
“Fine,” he said. “Why are you worked up? Is it because you’ve got to follow rules and you don’t like that? Or having boundaries.”
“Wow, you’re tossing all sorts of things out there. If I wasn’t so hungry and ready to cook dinner, I’d kick your ass out. I might still do it and eat dinner alone.”
He ran his hands through his hair.
Yep, he was being a Class A asshole. He knew it.
One of the kinds he asked her about.
“I want to stay. I was coming here tonight to talk about other things and now this.”
“We’ll get to it all. First this.” She opened her fridge and yanked out the steak and dropped it on the counter with more force than necessary, then drained her potatoes that she hoped were still okay.
They were only gone about an hour. “I’ve got another job to do.
I have to prioritize things. Despite what you, my family, even this asshole sending me emails thinks, I don’t need the glory or the fame or a job change. ”
“Then why do you want to write a book?”
“Wanting to write a book isn’t a career change,” she said quietly. “Would I love it to be? Of course. It’s always been a dream. But I learned a long time ago that my dreams don’t come true.”
He hated that for her.
And he didn’t believe it for a second.
“Really?” he said. “Because from where I’m standing, you landed on your feet pretty damn well. The Lancasters, your work. You made something out of nothing in your eyes.”
“Thanks to you.”
That wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
Gratitude sat heavy and uncomfortable in his chest, with him wanting to shove it the fuck out. He wished he’d never let that truth slip out between them, but then again, he’d never been at his best where Skye was concerned.
There had always been something about her. Something that reached past logic and dug its fingers into him, holding tight and clouding his thoughts.
When he was younger, he hadn’t understood it. He’d written it off as lust. Attraction. A want that needed to be satisfied and then forgotten.
But it had never faded.
She would never be forgotten.
Now, older and painfully more aware, he knew better.
It wasn’t desire alone. It was need.
Skye filled a space in him he hadn’t even known was empty until she’d been gone. And the hole she’d left behind had never quite closed.
When she left right after high school, something in him had gone silent.
At first, he told himself it was nothing. Just the absence of someone who’d been around long enough to feel permanent. People left all the time. He stayed. That was how life worked.
Except the silence never faded. Neither did her memory.
He noticed it in stupid, everyday ways. A laugh that didn’t carry down the hall anymore when he was in Corbin’s room and she retreated to hers.
How there was one less plate set at the table when he stayed for dinner last minute.
He didn’t talk about her. Didn’t ask outright. Pride and fear of being caught still dreaming of her kept his lips sealed.
But he listened.
Every scrap of information that drifted out of Corbin, he latched onto like it mattered. Where she’d gone. Whether she’d sounded happy on the phone. If she’d come home for Christmas, even for a day. Whether she was working, writing, surviving.
He stored it all away. Quietly. Carefully. Like proof she still existed somewhere beyond his memory. That maybe she found happiness when he was still trying to figure out what happiness even meant for him.
He told himself it was concern. That he’d always felt responsible for her in some way. That it made sense, given everything she’d lost and how much he wanted to help.
But concern didn’t explain the hollow ache that settled in his chest when Corbin mentioned her name. Or the irrational flare of relief when he heard she was okay, followed immediately by disappointment that okay didn’t include here, where he could see her. Or talk to her himself.
Where he could try for something with her and hope for a future that she never saw.
But he stayed where he was. Built a life that made sense. Took the job that demanded everything from him so he wouldn’t have time to think about the one person who had left without meaning to take a piece of him with her.
Who didn’t even know that she had.
Hell, he didn’t realize the full extent of it until he saw her again and knew she was here.
And now that she was back, standing in front of him, talking about dreams she didn’t think would ever come true, he understood the truth he’d avoided for years.
He hadn’t just missed her. He’d been waiting.
But he couldn’t say that to her. And he sure the hell couldn’t say it now.
“You did it all on your own, Skye. Don’t let anyone think otherwise, least of all yourself. No matter where you landed, you still would have made something out of yourself.”
“I don’t know about that,” she mumbled. “And it’s beside the point. I shouldn’t have said it.”
Seemed they both had the same problem wishing they could take words back.
“So tell me then what is going through your mind.”
She turned and leaned on the counter, her hands braced behind her.
“I don’t like boundaries. You’re right there.
I had enough of them in my past life. But I know there isn’t much I can do about it.
I came back home not for a fresh start. Not really.
Just for a change. I don’t know if I was looking for something or not, but it seems it found me. ”
“I found you,” he said quietly.
“You did. I didn’t expect it and I’m not mad about that.”
“That’s something,” he grumbled.
“Oh, stop,” she said, the smile touching the corners of her mouth.
“But the thing is, I come back here and I’m getting in a routine, I’m finding a few things that are exciting like the freelance stuff, but I don’t want it to bind me.
I want the freedom of it because I know I’ve got other responsibilities.
And now, now I’m dragged into something I didn’t ask for and I can’t walk away. Not yet.”
“Don’t give me that, Skye,” he said. “You can walk away. You know it. You don’t have to do what they are asking. The police can monitor your email and pretend to be you. You can forward it all to them first and they can keep you out of it.”
“No. I’d never do that. I’m not. Right now, I’ll do what they say. I’m not going to respond to every fire. I haven’t been. You know that. I wouldn’t have gone to this one...”
“But I was working. That’s why. Do you think this person knew you were there?” he asked. “You’ve got a good eye. You look around. Did you notice anyone at all the scenes? I look, but it’s after most have left.”
“I do look.” She went back to dinner, putting the potatoes in the air fryer, then opening the steak to season it. “The only person I’ve seen at all of the ones I’ve been to, is the one guy I’ve seen you talking to. Alan? He said he’s a fireman because I’ve talked to him twice.”
He waited a second. “He’s been to them all?”
“All that I’ve been to. I didn’t go to the first car fire.
Let me ask you something, was he working for that first one?
Were you? I’ve been putting down as many details as I could from each fire and what I remember.
Like research. Just analyzing it, and my mind keeps going back to him. Can this stay between us?”
“Sure. But you don’t think it’s Alan, do you? He’s a fireman. He relieves me the next day. His shift starts after mine.”
“Then what is he doing out late watching fires?” she asked.
“He’s nosy. He’s always been that way. He’s got a wife and two kids at home and he told me one of them was cranky last night. He heard the fire and used it as an excuse to check it out.”
“And his wife doesn’t care that he does that?”
He shrugged. “It’s their marriage, not mine. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “No way. Sorry.”
“Were you working the day of the first car fire?”
“No,” he said.
“Do you know if Alan was? Can you find out?”
He let out a breath. “Skye.”
“I just asked a question.”
“Fine. I’ll look up the date and check the schedule. I can do it on my own time and no one will know. I don’t need anyone to think I’m throwing suspicion on a brother.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m being honest. You asked a question, I answered it. Is this always going to happen with us when we have a conversation?”
He moved toward her. “I don’t want to fight.”
“Neither do I.”
He pulled her close. “Then we won’t. We’ll put it behind us and you’ll tell me if you get another email, right? The same with Tate?”
“I was told to contact the police department, not you and Tate.”
That her lips were twitching said she wasn’t serious. “I mean it, Skye. It’d make me feel better about things. Just like you wanted to show up and watch me last night. Which, by the way, I don’t know that I like either.”
She snuggled in some. “I know. I won’t do it all the time. I can’t. I know you know what you’re doing. I’ll be fine. But you don’t have my past.”
Losing people she loved in a fire.
He wasn’t sure what made him think they could make this work when she had that memory.
“Is my job a problem for you?”
She shook her head. “You’d think it would be, but honestly it’s not. Not now. Not after last night. I think I just looked at you differently last night than I have before.” Her voice trailed off.
“Because you took my shirt off?”
She pinched his arm. “You get a pass there.”
“Good. I need it. Because now we are moving to the other part.”
She sighed. “I know. Tate already suspects it. I told you Brenna caught us. What are you saying? That you want to tell everyone?”
“I think it’s wise. I think maybe your family will feel better if they thought you had me on your side. My family too.”
She winced when she moved back. “You’re going to tell your family also?”
“Yes. I told you, this isn’t a passing thing for me. It’s never been that. And it sure the hell isn’t now.”
It was as close as he was going to get to admitting how he really felt about her.
“What are you telling your family?”
“Not that you’re wild in bed,” he said.
She swung for his arm again, but he stepped out of the way.
“Not funny. And I hope you don’t talk that way to other guys about women you’re with.”
“Never. I’m telling them we are dating exclusively.”
His family would know without him saying anything else what that meant.
“And they are going to want to see me, right? I want to say meet me, but I’ve met your parents before. I know some of your siblings.”
“They will, when you’re ready. We’ll just start with letting everyone know. It won’t be bad.”
“You keep telling yourself that.”