Chapter 8 #2
“Maybe she’ll never be whole again.” His voice was gravel as he spoke and the haunted expression in his eyes touched her deeper than the physical ever could.
They definitely weren’t talking about Annika now, so she shoved aside the stirrings of plot to focus on him.
“She won’t know until she tries.” Ivy wanted to reach out and touch him, as a show of support, of human connection.
But she didn’t know how he’d respond if she broke out of the metaphor of the book.
This was his truth, his burden, and it was intensely personal.
His long, dark lashes swept down, shutting away his thoughts. When he opened his eyes again, he’d locked down whatever emotion their discussion had stirred up. “Well, then, seems like you’ve got to give her a mission that will get her over her initial resistance.”
Sensing Harrison had reached some kind of limit, Ivy turned her mind back to the book and to the scrap of notes she’d dictated, where Annika had been the one to go after Michael for recruitment.
Maybe there’d been something buried in her subconscious about this in the first place.
Her brain turned over the new pieces, using Annika as the lens instead of Michael himself—and her brain finally began to fire.
She felt like writing for the first time in forever.
“I think you just might be onto something.”
The corners of Harrison’s mouth tipped up in the barest of smiles as he pushed back from the table. “Go write while it’s cooking. I’m gonna go try to sort out the generator.”
This time, when he retreated, it didn’t feel like he wanted to shut her out. It seemed like a natural pause to breathe for them both. Maybe they would be okay. And maybe, before their time together was through, she’d help him find his way to the answers he needed.
With that in mind, she opened her laptop and began to type.
Harrison made his way through the snow to the lean-to, still reeling.
He’d intended that conversation to just be brainstorming.
A way for them to get back to some kind of even keel before they talked about what came next—which he’d still expected to be When can you get me out of here?
But the whole thing had turned intensely personal.
He had no one to blame for that but himself.
He was the one pushing Annika as a character.
He’d done it because he knew what that volatile state was like.
He’d lived it for his first two years out of the Army.
Was, apparently, still living it. As a reader, he wanted to see Annika get to the other side because he needed the same answers she did.
“The secret Annika’s been guarding so fiercely is about how her last squad died. She’s carrying all this survivor’s guilt, and it’s slowly killing her. What she’ll have to learn is that shit happens. Especially in war. There was nothing she could have done, and it wasn’t her fault.”
As he worked his way through troubleshooting the generator, he wondered if that really was Annika’s secret.
Or was Ivy the profiler reading him like one of her books?
Survivor’s guilt was a reality in the military.
People died in war. Those who were left behind were doomed to struggle with it.
People like Ty. Like himself. The weight of those memories, that one decision, had been what drove him up here.
Setting him on Ivy’s path. He didn’t believe in fate.
He’d seen too damned much that defied any kind of preordination.
And yet here she was, reaching out to offer that connection, that advice that cutting himself off wasn’t helping.
Well, it had been advice for Annika, but he didn’t think either of them had been talking about her at the end.
Harrison wasn’t sure what to do with that.
Realizing the generator wasn’t getting fuel, he trudged back to his Jeep to retrieve some tools.
The morning sky was overcast, and he was willing to bet there was more snow in those clouds.
Which meant they probably weren’t going anywhere.
Not easily. Either way, it would probably be a while before normal power was restored, so he needed to get the generator working for himself, if nothing else.
He’d take the fuel pump apart and see if it was just trash in the lines or if the thing had actually gone bad.
If it was busted, maybe he could pick up another one in town when he took Ivy in.
He should have mentioned getting her back to town, made some kind of offer to try, or at least apologized that he couldn’t.
He just didn’t want to bring it up. And how selfish was that?
One way or another, he was the one who’d screwed up this morning.
Not only did he let her share the blame, but when she all but said, “Let’s try that again,” he’d just left her hanging there.
He had good reason to keep his hands off her.
He was a bad bet. But he could have said that, instead of… nothing.
I can’t do any damned thing right.
Small wonder. He was broken. He’d known that for a long time now.
“Some hurts can be packed away and forgotten about, and they’ll fade with time.
And some become caged animals that do more damage, become more feral, the longer they’re ignored.
She’ll have to eventually bring it out into the light and work with it to work through it to have any chance at being whole again. ”
He thought he’d done that. Pouring out all those memories into fiction, where he explored the million and one what-if scenarios that had plagued him the past three years.
And what would Ivy say if he told her he was a writer, too?
He wasn’t anywhere near the level she was, but his self-published military science fiction had found a niche following and earned some minor acclaim.
Maybe more surprising, it had given him an unexpected living and the freedom to borrow a friend’s cabin just to sulk for a week.
But it wasn’t exorcising those demons. He’d just been reliving them over and over—with lasers and cool, space tech.
He’d thought he’d worked through more of it, but Garrett’s funeral and seeing Ty ripping himself to shreds with guilt just brought everything back to the surface.
So what was the answer?
Clearing the debris out of the fuel line, he began to reassemble the fuel pump.
“The alternative is that she looks at the opportunities she’s presented with and actively chooses life, chooses to engage, chooses to feel.”
What the hell did that even look like? Did it really mean choosing to forge some real connection with Ivy? Taking her up on her offer?
God, his hands itched to touch her again, to fill his palms with her breasts and feel the heat of her pressed against him. The blood drained into his lap as he imagined finishing what they’d started, stripping her bare so he could taste every inch of her before burying himself in all that wet heat.
The screws slipped out of his hand. Swearing, he bent over to dig through the snow for them.
He needed to slow his roll. Not that he didn’t believe she wanted him.
She’d made that clear enough. But was choosing her, choosing intimacy—he wasn’t under any delusion after that talk that being with her would be just sex—actually a step in the right direction?
Or was it more distraction from the essential pain of living?
Did it matter? He wanted her. She wanted him. That should be simple math. But he suspected nothing with Ivy would be simple.
He reinstalled the fuel pump without further mishap. One, two, three cranks and the motor roared to life. Well, at least he knew how to fix some things.
Putting away his tools, Harrison went back inside, dreading the inevitable question of when he could take her back into town so she could get back to the getaway she’d actually planned.
Ivy sat in the chair by the fire, fingers flying over the laptop balanced on her legs.
Immersed in whatever she was working on, she didn’t even seem to notice him.
She was in the zone. Absurdly relieved he didn’t have to face the issue of town—yet, anyway— he left her to it, using the time to clean up so he didn’t smell like gas.
She was still head down when he came back out.
A few locks of hair had escaped the messy bun to brush at her cheek, but she didn’t seem to notice as her fingers flew over the keys.
He had a feeling a bomb could go off nearby and she wouldn’t register a thing.
Feeling a sense of kinship, his lips tugged into a smile.
He understood what that level of immersion meant for her, for her career—maybe more for her mental health.
The dam had been broken and now she needed to ride the wave of creativity as far as it would take her.
Fly, little bird, fly.
He wanted to keep her here. To protect this little oasis for her where she couldn’t or wouldn’t do it for herself.
Right. Because it’s entirely about her and not because the moment she walks out of your life, everything’s going back to being gray.
Uncomfortable with the thought and realizing he was just kind of staring at her, he moved quietly to the kitchen. He’d just make a pot of coffee and settle in with a book.
Ivy didn’t stir until he set a mug on the little table by her chair. Her nose twitched, her head popping up. “Coffee?”
Her hopeful tone made him smile. “I thought you might want another cup.”
Losing some of that glazed expression, she came fully back to the present. “We have power!”
“We do. I take it the book or outline or whatever is going well?”
She set the laptop on the coffee table and rose, wincing a little as she unfolded her legs. “It is! I have a plot, Harrison. An actual, honest-to-goodness, not-total-piece-of-steaming-crap plot. Or most of one anyway. I’ve got all my major plot points, and a helluva start on both character arcs.”
“Both?”
Her words spilled out in a frantic, enthusiastic rush.
“I have to tell Annika’s story alongside Michael’s.
Because they’re inextricably intertwined.
I didn’t see it before. I had him out there on his own and I wasn’t getting anywhere, but now I am.
She needs him. And he’ll change for her.
She’s the only one it could be, and I finally see it because of you, you brilliant man.
” Eyes gleaming with excitement, she bounced up, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing a smacking kiss to his mouth.
It was fast, friendly, and she pulled back almost at once. But it was enough for the taste of her to hit him like a drug. Color heated her cheeks and distress dimmed those silver-green eyes.
He hated it. Hated that she felt a moment of discomfort over sharing her excitement. Hated that he’d done anything to bring her down from that creative high.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” She trailed off as he slid a hand into her hair.
“No, I’m sorry.” He skimmed a thumb over her bottom lip and watched the distress melt into confused arousal. “I screwed this up. But I can do better. Will do better, if you’ll let me.” Stepping into her, he lowered his mouth until it was a breath away from hers. “Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.”
“Don’t.” Her whispered reply feathered over his lips and he was lost to do anything but close that last finite distance.