Chapter 10
TEN
Skeet had simply run out into the night.
Run.
From her.
Chloe had seen him take off, her heart pounding against his words. Clearly we both are.
Fools.
She sat on the end of her bed in the downstairs room, the door open, hoping he’d come back.
Please, come back.
Except he’d said they were done.
Done.
And even as his anger radiated out from him, his story about Narin and even his father rang through her.
She’d chosen her story over him. That had felt like the only option.
But standing in the middle of the kitchen earlier, she’d watched it break his heart.
Just stay out of my way. Yeah, see, she knew this was a disaster.
You got me into this mess.
She had. Her throat tightened. She’d done it again. And this time . . . Aw, she should have listened to her head, kept her distance.
Maybe she needed to run too.
She got up and headed out into the main room.
North, jaw tight, kept glancing toward the door where Skeet had disappeared. West maintained his usual calm, but he glanced at her as if assessing the emotional damage.
Nothing could fix the wreckage of her heart, thanks.
Still, awkward much?
“I need to make some calls,” Hamilton said and headed upstairs.
North immediately moved toward her. “Chloe—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “Just . . . don’t.”
North’s face softened with understanding that made her chest ache. He’d been where she was—torn between love and duty, trying to figure out how to protect someone without abandoning his job, his responsibilities.
“He’ll come around,” North said quietly.
“Will he?” The question came out sharper than she’d intended. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like he made his position pretty clear.”
West cleared his throat. “For what it’s worth, he’s beating himself up out there just as much as you are in here.”
She looked at West, then shook her head. “He was right. This is too complicated.”
She headed back to her room and grabbed her pack. Pulled out clothes from where she’d hung them in the closet. Not many—the coral dress, the journalist outfit, her swimsuit.
She shoved them inside the bag with more force than necessary.
“What are you doing?” North had come to her open door.
“Packing.”
“I can see that. Why?”
She didn’t look at him. “Because my part in this story is over.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m a journalist, not a spy or spec ops.”
North arched a brow.
She stood, hands on her hips. “It means I almost got Skeet killed because I . . . well, I do that. I run into trouble and I drag people with me. And I know that—knew that. And still . . .” She shook her head. “This was a bad idea.”
“You didn’t almost get him killed.”
“Didn’t I?” She finally turned to face him. “He said it himself—I make reckless choices that hurt people who care about me. Well, congratulations. He was right.”
North’s expression tightened. “He shouldn’t have said that.”
“But he did. And he meant it. And you know it’s true.” She zipped her bag shut with enough force to jam the zipper. “Which means it’s time for me to take myself out of the equation.”
“Chloe—”
“No.” Her tone was harder than she’d planned, but she couldn’t take it back now. “Tell him goodbye.” She cut her voice down, shouldering her bag. “And tell him . . . tell him I’m sorry.”
She pushed past North and out into the room.
West had risen too. “I’m not sure it’s safe—”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t get to pick up where Skeet left off and start bossing me around. I’ll be fine. I’m going . . . home.” Whatever.
She headed to the door.
The heat of the night slid over her, and within seconds, sweat beaded on her forehead and collected at the base of her neck.
She marched out of the compound, toward the market. She’d find a GrabTaxi there, get to the airport—
Don’t cry.
She hit the sidewalk, her throat thick. Motorcycle engines revved at traffic lights—high-pitched whines cutting through the cacophony of car horns. As she drew closer to the market, the scent of grilled meat and spices drifted on heavy air.
Her stomach growled.
The market pulsed with life—vendors calling out prices in rapid Thai, the aggressive sizzle of oil in woks sending up clouds of aromatic steam.
Overhead, strings of bare bulbs and colored lanterns created a canopy that turned narrow walkways into something almost magical despite the underlying aroma of fish sauce.
Aw, the place only reminded her of Skeet.
Apparently all of Thailand was wrecked for her.
She pulled out her phone and scrolled to Selah’s number. Her sister would be up and making breakfast in Minnesota.
The phone rang twice before Selah answered. “Morning.”
“I wake you?”
“It’s nine in the morning. I’ve been up for hours. And I just got a text from North. Are you okay?”
Perfect. “I’m fine.”
“He said you and Skeet had a fight. Is that a thing? Did you . . . What’s going on?”
Chloe closed her eyes. She could tell Selah about what had happened on the wharf—the warehouse, the fight, the way Skeet had looked at her as if she was a liability he couldn’t afford.
But that would mean explaining the whole story, and Selah would worry, and there was nothing her sister could do from Minnesota anyway.
“I think I messed up.” She moved away from a vendor whose wok sent up clouds of steam that carried the scent of garlic and chili oil.
“With Skeet? Or the story?”
“With everything.” She tucked herself away from the main flow of foot traffic, finding a relatively quiet spot near a stall selling handwoven scarves. “The story’s bigger than I thought. Dangerous in ways I didn’t understand. And I . . .”
Aw . . . She just . . . well, she didn’t know how to say it.
She’d betrayed him. Left without even a note.
“And you fell in love with Skeet Blackwood,” Selah said gently.
Chloe sighed. “How did you—”
“Because I know you. The man is a keeper—and not just because he’s hot and sweet and funny—your words, not mine—but because he’s loyal. And you need loyal.”
“He told me that I make reckless choices that hurt people who care about me.”
“I wouldn’t call them reckless. And give the people who care about you a little credit for thinking for themselves.” Selah paused. “But yeah, Skeet has a rather large protective gene. My guess is that he might think he has no choice but to keep you safe.”
“He hasn’t been keeping me safe.”
“Really?”
Chloe sighed. “Okay, yes, I do feel safer with him around. But we’ve been . . . working together.”
Together. For a while there, yes, they’d been very together.
“It doesn’t matter anyway because I screwed it up.”
“How?”
“By, you know, being me.” She laughed, but it came out bitter. “By thinking I could handle things I shouldn’t have tried to handle. By putting him in danger because I was too stubborn to admit I was in over my head.” She sighed. “By breaking a promise.”
Selah was quiet for a moment.
A couple walked past Chloe hand in hand. She looked away.
Finally Selah said, “Remember when you were twelve and you decided you were going to cure Mom’s depression by cooking all her favorite meals?”
“Yeah.”
“You spent two weeks making elaborate dinners from her old cookbooks—beef stroganoff, chicken cordon bleu, that impossible chocolate soufflé that kept falling. You burned yourself twice and nearly set the kitchen on fire trying to make everything perfect.” Selah’s voice softened with memory.
“When I found you crying over a ruined baked Alaska, you weren’t upset because you’d failed.
You were upset because you thought you were making Mom’s depression worse. ”
“Your point?”
“My point is that you didn’t fail because you couldn’t cook.
You failed because what Mom needed wasn’t perfect dinners—she needed professional help and time to heal.
” Selah’s voice gentled. “You weren’t incompetent.
You just needed to let go and love her enough to let someone with the right tools handle it. ”
Chloe wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Hoped no one in the market was paying attention to the foreign woman having an emotional breakdown near the scarf stall.
“I love him.” Her words emerged, barely audible.
“I know.”
“No, Seels, I think I really love him.”
“Yep.”
“And I have no idea what to do about it.”
Her sister laughed. “Maybe you don’t have to do anything about it. Maybe you don’t have to fix it or handle it or figure it out. Maybe you just have to be still and let it be what it is.”
Be still.
And just like that, she heard Skeet’s words. Psalm 46. Something about God being our help and refuge when the mountains fall into the sea and the oceans roar . . . and it ended with “Be still, and know that I am God.”
When was the last time she’d been still? When had she ever just accepted a situation without trying to control it or fix it or make it better through sheer force of will?
And as usual, her twin read her mind.
“You don’t have to fix everything, Chloe. You don’t have to save everyone. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is trust someone else to know what they’re doing. Be. Still.”
Around her, the market continued its nighttime rhythm.
Sensory overload that somehow felt comforting in its chaos.
A vendor called out the price of fresh pineapple, voice mixing with the pop and hiss of frying oil.
Somewhere nearby, someone was cooking curry—a rich, complex aroma of coconut milk and lemongrass and chilies that made her mouth water despite her emotional turmoil.
The scent was so strong she could almost taste it on her tongue.
Could feel the heat and spice warming her sinuses even from a distance.
Curry.
Wait.
Mrs. Pensri’s curry—made using a spice packet from the aid shipments—not her usual mix.
Dr. Tobias, who’d been sweating even in the air-conditioned hospital break room.
Who’d started showing symptoms—including excessive sweating—while he was still eating, perspiration beading on his forehead despite cool air.