Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
RHYS
Ilie awake until her breathing grows soft and steady. Can’t trust fading out myself.
Too many nights I wake screaming… in a cold sweat. Dreaming about this woman’s brother. Her twin brother.
Can’t lose control like that tonight.
But I can’t let her know how much she’s disrupting my patterns. So, I wait until I’m sure she’s out, then get up silently, gathering my things to check traps.
Still too early for that, though. I settle in the barn near the place where the boards split too wide. That way, the sun’ll wake me if I oversleep.
I won’t.
Never do.
An explosion. Dust in the air.
Salty and metallic in my mouth. Ears ringing.
Phoenix looks at me, screaming something. Blood covers half his face. I can’t make out the words.
Though I try, straining to keep my balance.
Never can get those words.
Bullets whiz past. Percussive popping against bone and flesh. Men dropping. Regrouping in the gore.
Something slams down hard against me, and I stagger back, vision blurring, blackening for a moment.
Then, the sting. Heat runs sticky down one side of my face and neck. And me, still screaming orders through the chaos. “Move, move, move.”
I startle awake. A thin sheen of sweat chills in the barn air. I don’t know if I cried out, but I’m glad I didn’t risk it with her.
I sit up, head still tilting, the vision too real. I feel for my face and neck in the dark. Closed up. Healed. That’s when I know for sure Sloane Hale’s real, and this isn’t.
I swallow hard, mouth dry. My body aches. I groan as I stretch, old injuries more like complaints, bearing witness as if I’m not allowed to forget.
“Sloane Hale,” I say into the dark.
I don’t know why.
She’s Phoenix’s age, thirty to my thirty-six. And I wonder what her middle name is, though I don’t have a right to ask. Her hair dried warm chestnut with golden streaks after the rain. It curled at her temples in these little wisps I can’t stop thinking about.
And mixed in all of that are s’mores. She made me three. My tongue can still taste the saccharine of the marshmallows, dripping with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and the crunch of the graham crackers.
It’s been so long. Too long for those.
One should’ve been enough.
Three was dangerous.
Funny how deprivation rewires a man. Give him one good thing after years without it, and suddenly restraint stops mattering.
She licked marshmallow and chocolate off her fingertips. There was a smudge near the dimple on her cheek.
I pointed it out, trying not to look when her tongue darted out to get it.
My hand presses hard against my chest.
Don’t do this, Rhys.
But the image stays there anyway—too close, too real.
Not allowed.
I press harder, forcing it down. Because I’m the last person who should think like this. Who’s allowed to.
Phoenix told me to leave him. I did it to save the others.
That’s where it ends.
She’s too smart to leave it alone. Eventually, she’ll pull the whole thing apart. I know because I wrote the reports.
Sloane’s spent years searching for answers. But answers don’t make things better. Sometimes they ruin them.
And that I can’t do to her… or to Phoenix. Can’t leave him as he ended. Not when he’s remembered for what he was before.
I rise alone, turning the collar of my Carhartt up against the Colorado spring frost before heading out with a lantern. At the top of the ridge, I look back once. For just a moment. To the dark spot on the landscape where she sleeps warm and cozy.
I can still hear her breathing, hypnotizing, lulling. Almost drifted off a few times over that sound.
But I couldn’t let her hear what nights are like for me. What they’ll always be, I imagine.
As I trudge through the dark, checking traps along the line, my mind wanders. She asked about the tattoo on my arm. The coordinates. Stared too long as if she were memorizing it.
I’m sure she did because that’s who she is.
My heart thuds hollow in my chest. It’ll bring her pain, though I don’t mean it to.
Traps are empty again tonight. No coyotes to keep me company. Just a hoot owl warning from a distant perch somewhere.
The night presses in, heavy and intimate. Like I’m the only person who still exists. I could almost convince myself of that out here. But not when my mind keeps wandering back to chestnut curls and pink-fingers covered in marshmallows.
That wakes up parts of me better left alone.
Because that woman deserves the world. That’s obvious. Not the man whose existence threatens the narrative she needs to believe.
I stay out longer than I should, well past sunrise. I have to pull myself together. Figure this out. Mind brainstorming how to make her go, heart deciding means to keep her. Neither leaves her a choice.
But sometimes, you have to convince yourself you’re in control of something… just to stay sane.
I know I’ve failed when I find myself at the creek, washing my hair and beard and then shaving in the still reflection of the water. There’s no excuse for it, bar of soap in hand—sandalwood and oiled leather—and a razor and scissors making me presentable.
Or at least close.
I enter the cabin with my head down. Brown sugar and maple hit, warm and inviting.
I can’t register the look I know is coming. The one that lets me know she’s noticed the change.
Her eyes are on me. I ignore her.
“Coffee’s already started,” she says, voice still groggy from sleep. “And I hope you like pancakes.”
My eyes meet hers. “That’s what that smell is? Yes. Good.”
“You shaved.”
I freeze. Then nod, trying to play it off.
“Sleep okay last night?” I ask, side-eyeing her.
“Not exactly,” she answers.
I frown. “Cabin didn’t stay warm enough?”
“It was fine.”
“Did I wake you?” I ask.
“Not that either, though I heard you go.”
I grimace.
She raises an eyebrow.
“PTSD,” I say before I can stop myself. “Don’t know how loud I get. But it used to be a problem. Didn’t want to do that to you.”
All the blood drains from her face. “What happened to you over there?”
It comes out soft, sympathetic.
My jaw tightens, teeth grinding. “Nothing,” I grunt. “Need anything else?”
She looks around the room. Then, shakes her head. “Just a status on my Jeep, I guess.”
She wants to go. Of course, she does. Not even curiosity about Phoenix can make her stay.
It’s what I want, too.
Somehow those words feel empty.
“We could try to pull it up with the winch. No telling how far it dropped, though. No telling if it’s drivable.”
“And your ATV?”
I nod once. “Want to leave now?” I instantly regret the question.
She steps closer, eyes narrowing. “I don’t want to leave until I know, Rhys.”
Not Sergeant Rhys Ward. Not Ward.
It’s too intimate. I want to hear it again.
“You have to tell me what you want,” I say, unsure of where this is headed now. “Leave or stay?”
“Truth.”
There’s the real problem.
I laugh, turning away and pacing. Then, I stop at the hearth, adding a few more logs.
“You say that’s what you want. But you don’t.”
I turn back around, staring at her long and hard. “Phoenix…” I pause, searching for words, “…died a hero. Like all my men that day. They were unbreakable despite everything. It was me. I was the problem.”
“What happened?” she asks, stepping even closer. Close enough to smell her perfume, something fruity, something sweet. Like cherry coke, only more expensive.
“I miscalculated something. I trusted what I shouldn’t have. Didn’t see the signs, followed my gut until it was too late. I’m sorry, Sloane.”
And then I wheel back around and head for the door to chop wood.
“Wait, where are you going? I’m making breakfast.”
I hesitate at the door but don’t look back.
“I’ll be back around.”