Chapter 34
I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling of the bunkhouse, the darkness broken only by thin strips of moonlight slipping through the blinds. The air has cooled since evening, the scent of dry grass and dust drifting faintly through the cracked window.
Sleep refuses to come. While my body is exhausted, my mind is not.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her in the doorway. Teagan. Frozen in place, like she’d stepped into something she hadn’t meant to witness. Or maybe something she had. Her stare was hungry in a way she probably didn’t even realize. And God help me, I hadn’t wanted her to turn away.
That’s the part that settles deepest in my soul.
The part that leaves behind the most shame.
Not that she saw me, but that I wanted her to stay.
I wanted her to keep looking. I wanted it almost as badly as I wanted to cross the room.
If I closed the distance, I could find out whether her skin felt as warm as it looked, and if her body would soften beneath mine, just like it did in my dream.
Rosie had filled every corner of me. There had been no space left for anything else. Loving her was like breathing—constant, effortless, and necessary. And now there is nothing but emptiness where she used to live. Empty space that Teagan is beginning to step into without permission.
I drag a hand over my face, exhaling slowly into the dark.
This is exactly the kind of weakness I came here to outrun.
The phone rings, the sound cutting through the silence like a gunshot.
I bolt upright, disoriented for half a second before the ringing comes again, my heart already racing.
No one calls this late without a reason.
Actually, no one calls this phone. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, the floor cold beneath my bare feet.
The phone buzzes against the counter by the refrigerator.
It rings again as I wrap my hand around it and lift it to my ear.
“Hello?” My voice is rough, cautious, a whisper that doesn’t sound like me when I answer. The other side of the line is silent. “Hello?”
“Easton?” Her voice is soft and slurred. My stomach drops instantly.
“Teagan?”
A laugh spills through the receiver, uneven, breathless. “You answered.”
Relief and dread hit me at the same time.
“Yeah,” I say carefully. “I answered.”
She breathes into the phone, and the sound is unsteady. “I didn’t think you would.”
The worst day of my life flashes before my eyes, and I lean against the table, gripping the edge harder than I realize. “Where are you?”
Instead of answering my question, words tumble through the receiver in a rush, almost incoherent as they spill over each other. “You’ve been avoiding me,” she mumbles, and I hear the frustration threading through her voice. “Like I don’t notice. Like I’m stupid.”
My throat tightens at the pain beneath the alcohol. “Teagan—”
“You look at me like”—she pauses, umming as she tries to find the right words—“like you want something. And then you act like you don’t. Like I imagined it.” Her voice cracks slightly. “I didn’t imagine it.”
I close my eyes and exhale heavily. No, you didn’t.
“I wanted you to come tonight,” she continues, quieter now. “Just to talk. Somewhere that isn’t…” She trails off. “The ranch.”
Music fills the void behind her and a man’s voice grows louder and more clear. “Hey. I need a few minutes, and then we’ll head out.”
Panic shoots through me instantly. “Teagan,” I huff, sharply. “Where are you?” I grab my keys and shove my feet into my boots, not bothering with socks. After yanking my shirt off the back of the chair, I pull it on, already heading for the door.
“The Dew Drop.” She laughs.
My hand tightens around the phone as the night air hits me, cold and sharp, when I step outside. The Bronco roars to life, headlights cutting through the dark as I back out fast enough to kick gravel across the yard.
“Are you alone?”
“I’m fine,” she insists, but the lie is in the sharpness of her tone. She’s absolutely not fine. She’s not nearly sober enough to make that decision on her own.
“Teagan,” I say, forcing calm into my voice. “Listen to me. Stay there.”
She doesn’t argue, but she doesn’t agree either before the line goes dead. I press harder on the gas, my heart slamming against my ribcage.
The Dew Drop comes into view, too slowly. I spot Teagan immediately. She’s wrapped around some guy on the sidewalk, his arm loosely around her waist as he tries—and fails—to keep them both upright. He’s drunk. That much is obvious in the way he stumbles, in the careless angle of his body.
Rage hits, fast and hot, boiling blood creeping up my neck and flaring over my face. I slam on the brakes, the Bronco screeching to a stop beside them and sprint from the truck before it fully settles into park.
“Get in,” I demand. His hand tightens instinctively when I grab her arm, pulling her away from him.
She blinks up at me, her eyes unfocused. “Easton?”
“Hey, man—” The guy walking with her straightens, still swaying slightly.
“Get. In,” I repeat myself when she hesitates.
“She’s not going with you.” The sloppy drunk reaches for her again. I step between them, putting every inch of me in his space. “She’s fine.”
“The hell she is,” I scoff, tearing the keys from his hand before giving him a shove, hard enough to knock his unsteady ass to the concrete. I pitch them across the street, and they land silently in the grass on the other side. “Walk home.”
“Easton…” Teagan murmurs, her hand lightly squeezing my upper arm.
I don’t look at her, keeping my attention on the man at my feet. “Teagan.” I speak evenly through my tightly clenched jaw, my tone leaving no room for argument. “Get. In. The. Fucking. Truck.”
This time, she listens. Walking backward, I shut the door behind her harder than I mean to before circling the Bronco and sliding behind the wheel. She sways toward me as I pull her seatbelt across her body, her shoulder brushing mine, her warmth burning straight through me.
“What were you thinking?” I bark, the anger in my voice a lot sharper than I intend, as I pull away from the curb before The Dew Drop. “Getting in the car with him?”
She frowns, her head tipping toward me.
“I wasn’t—”
“He’s drunk,” I snap. She blinks back at me. “You’re drunk. That’s stupid, Teagan. Fucking reckless.”
She flinches slightly, and guilt flickers beneath my anger, but it doesn’t stop the words.
“People die like that.”
Rosie died like that.
She doesn’t argue or defend herself. She sits in silence as I berate her foolish decision, not stopping until we are past the outskirts of town.
“Are you even listening?” I huff, turning to face her and finding she has fallen asleep.
I let out a heavy sigh and ease the Bronco around a bend in the road. Her back slides across the seat, and her head settles against my shoulder, the contact stealing the breath from my lungs.
Rosie used to sleep on me like this.
My hands tighten around the wheel as I stare ahead, my vision blurring at the edges.
By the time we reach the ranch, my fury has faded. It has been replaced by something much softer. I park, killing the engine.
“Teagan,” I whisper, but she doesn’t stir.
I step out and walk around to her side, opening the door.
She rouses enough to try to stand, her body not cooperating, though.
“Easy.” I catch her reflexively, and her weight settles comfortably in my arms and against my chest. She mumbles something unintelligible as I carry her to the main house.
Once inside, I carry her up the stairs. “Which room is yours?” I ask quietly, desperately hoping not to wake James or Knox. She gestures vaguely down the hall, and I’m relieved when I guess the right door.
Her bed is unmade, the sheets still tangled from how she left them this morning.
I lower her onto the mattress slowly, before kneeling to pull off her boots.
After covering her with blankets, I stare down at her.
Before I even realize what I’m doing, I bend over, dust my lips against her forehead, and whisper, “Good night, wildfire.”
Her fingers curl in my shirt, holding me inches above her when I try to stand. “If you don’t like me,” she mumbles, barely able to hold her eyes open, “why do you look at me like that?”
My chest tightens because she’s right. I do look at her like that.
“I do like you,” I confess, certain she won’t remember it come morning.
“And I don’t know how not to look at you.
You’re beautiful in the way a wildfire is—dangerous, mesmerizing, and impossible to ignore.
When you walk into a room, I’m drawn to you, like oxygen being consumed by a fire.
You ignite things in me I thought had long since sputtered out. ”
I shake my head before continuing, “You burn wild with no regard for the wreckage you might leave behind, because you refuse to live small or to curb your light. You’re destruction, clearing away the parts of me that are dead and brittle, forcing me to make room for something new to take root.”
Her eyes open wide, and there’s a moment of clarity in them. I swallow hard as she stares up at me.
“I know that once I’ve stood in your glow—and felt the heat of your singe across my skin—I won’t be able to go back being numb and empty.”
She pulls me down to her, and my lips hover a hair from hers, close enough to feel her breath wafting across my face when she exhales.
“Loving you would not be gentle.” I close my eyes, and my lips dust against hers. But the electric spark I’m expecting feels a lot more like guilt and betrayal. “I’m sorry… I can’t.”
I force myself to leave before I forget why I have to, grateful this will be nothing but a blur for her come morning.