Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
EMMETT
Morning sunlight casts a golden hue over the mountains. It’s my first time seeing Timberline Peak without the haze of smoke, and even I have to admit it’s something. The town is tucked into the valley beneath a crescent of sharp, gray-blue ridges, making it feel hidden from the rest of the world.
Coyote Creek sits just beyond the ridge, but the calm here doesn’t exist over there.
I turn my back on the view, though, because no matter how long I procrastinate, the view isn’t what brought me out here.
My fist hovers an inch from Aspen’s pale blue door.
After the way I left things last night, I barely slept. I’m mad at myself and not eager to admit she was right—I need help.
A hundred reasons why I shouldn’t swirl in my head, but the gauze is peeling back from my burn so I knock anyway.
Aside from the birds chirping, all is quiet. It lasts long enough that I wonder if she’s still sleeping. Then the sound of feet on hardwood filters through the wood and the deadbolt clicks before the door swings open.
Aspen stands in the doorway, framed by the morning light, soft and bleary-eyed.
Her oversized T-shirt barely hits mid-thigh.
She’s painfully pretty like this—warm and open in fuzzy socks, her hair messy from sleep, one hand wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee as she lifts a hand to block the sun.
Completely unguarded.
For a moment, I forget why I’m here. I forget everything and just stare.
“Hey,” she says, her voice still raspy. Her free hand drops to the hem of her shirt, tugging to cover miles of bare skin.
All at once, the realization strikes me. She’s not wearing pants.
My body reacts, waking the fuck up and taking notice.
I’ve always been a leg guy—not that I date much. But on off nights when I can’t stand to be alone with myself anymore, legs are my weakness.
Wrapped around my waist when you pick her up.
Pushing a knee to her chest as you drive into warm, tight . . .
What the hell am I doing?
I blink, dragging my eyes back to where they belong, and finding Aspen’s teeth scraping over her lower lip, leaving two dents in their wake.
“I wasn’t expecting you this early . . . or at all, after last night.” The last half packs a punch.
Concentrating on anything but her lips, legs, or the tight points of her nipples pushing at the thin shirt is a challenge. No one is my type quite like Aspen.
It takes me a second to respond. “I didn’t sleep much.”
“Oh.” There’s a hint of sadness in that one syllable.
I pause, because that’s not what I need to say. Instead, I gesture toward my shoulder, feeling about as awkward as I sound. “Figured I should get my bandage changed before this burn turns into a science experiment.”
Her mouth curves. Not quite a smile, but close enough to crack the tension.
“Was that you asking for help? Someone alert the media.”
“Rub it in,” I deadpan.
This time, her smile breaks free. “I shouldn’t, but you make it so easy.”
“Don’t apologize. Smug looks good on you.”
She steps back, holding the door open. “I’m leaving soon to meet friends for coffee, but I’ve got time. Let’s get you fixed up.” She holds out her mug for me to take. “Sit. I’ll grab my kit.”
She says it so easily, giving me a pass I don’t deserve.
I lift her mug to my lips and take a sip.
Her mouth drops open. “That was for safekeeping.”
“What exactly feels safe about me, Angel?”
She does that thing where her lips roll together, holding back whatever she wants to say. Maybe that’s what breaks my resolve. Or maybe it’s the way she doesn’t move to take the coffee back.
“I should probably apologize,” I start.
She waits. “Well?”
“It’s been a while. I’m trying to remember how it works,” I say dryly.
“It usually starts something like, Sorry for being such a dick. Throwing in a you were right never hurts either. And eye contact,” she says.
I lift my gaze from the cup in my hand.
“I was an asshole, and you didn’t deserve that.” My throat tightens, but I muscle through it. “I’m not used to letting people see me like that.”
“You’re forgetting something.”
“I don’t think I am.”
She crosses her arms, her foot tapping. She’s got no right to be this difficult and disarming at the same time.
“I need your help. I don’t like to admit it, but I do.”
“You’re a real pain in my ass, but if that’s the best you’ve got—apology accepted.”
She deserves more. I know it, and I hope she does too.
I take a seat, setting her coffee down. It’s too sweet for me, but it was definitely worth the reaction.
She leaves me to get her kit.
Without her to distract me, an uncomfortable buzz starts under my skin, heat spreading from the base of my skull down my neck. My foot taps against the wood.
I last maybe ten seconds before I’m gritting my teeth and standing from the chair to pace the length of the kitchen a few times until I find myself in the attached living room.
Photos sit framed on every shelf. The smiling faces are a stark reminder of the things missing from my life.
Being inside someone else’s house like this is too personal.
I’m forced to do it once a year—each spring, when Carl hosts a cookout.
He calls it team building. I call it torture.
Forced socialization should be illegal—something I’ve told him many times.
Standing in Aspen’s living room feels a little like how things were with Carl at first, yet nothing at all like that.
She cares, without asking permission first, like him. I never knew what to do with that—someone giving a damn without demanding anything in return. Still don’t. But with her, it’s less suffocating. Part of me welcomes it, the smarter part fears it.
I scan the room, trying to figure out who Aspen is when she’s not wearing scrubs. There’s not much to go by, beyond pictures. I move toward the mantle to get a better look at the framed photo above the fireplace.
Aspen’s flanked by two guys who couldn’t seem more different if they tried. Both tower over her tall frame, but one wears a scowl that matches his all-black outfit, and the other smiles warmly, looking like he stepped out of a board meeting, with styled hair and an expensive watch.
Photo after photo showcases Aspen with family and friends.
I turn and look for more, but there’s no abandoned coffee mug on the end table to tell me if she gets caught up in the mornings relaxing. No blanket haphazardly thrown over the back, by the window, with her favorite view.
I expected something more lived-in for someone as warm as Aspen.
Only two things give me any hint of who she is when she’s not working:
A crisp paperback, the spine unbroken, with a bookmark obscuring the cover, and a pair of crisp white running shoes by the sliding door, like she meant to find time for herself but didn’t.
Based on the hours I’ve seen her keep at the hospital, that tracks.
For someone who gives so damn much, it feels too empty. And for a reason I can’t name, that sticks under my skin like a burr.
“Snooping?” Aspen asks from the hallway, interrupting my thoughts. Her steps slow and her head tilts, looking past the surface.
“Because that sounds like me,” I deadpan.
Yet, that’s exactly what I was doing.
Granting me a small mercy, Aspen only smirks before moving on.
“Ready for that bandage change before I head out?”
No.
Fleeing sounds better than letting her get her hands on me, but that’s not an option. Getting back to work is the ultimate goal. Doing it before I cause permanent damage here would be a miracle.
“Let’s get it over with,” I grouse.
Back in the kitchen, I stand back, arms crossed, as she peels open packets, laying out gauze and ointment, humming the whole time, like helping me is something she’s content to do—like she doesn’t know this horse kicks.
“I’ll need your shirt off.” She nods toward my shoulder.
I hook my fingers under the hem on instinct and start to pull.
Pain detonates across my ribs.
My arm drops and I suck in air through my teeth. “Fuck.”
“Arms down, Hotshot.” A frown tugs down her mouth. “I’ve got you.”
Warm eyes look up at me as she closes the space between us. It’s a relief after the way she looked at me when she left yesterday, and torture to be this close to her.
Aspen bites her lip, then breaks eye contact, swiveling her head to the table. “You’re too tall. I need you to sit.”
Aspen’s not short, but my six-foot-four frame provides a challenge for almost anyone.
With a restraint I don’t feel, I sit on the edge of the chair.
Looking down at me, she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Her puffed exhale skitters over my skin and I realize how close we are.
I can’t look away.
The lightest touch of her fingers grazes my skin, sending a shock through me. Her touch feels different than the other nurses and doctors.
I can’t remember the last time I was this unguarded.
My fingers wrap around her wrist, stopping her progress.
She stops, her wide eyes searching mine. I clear my throat.
“Is everything okay?”
Let me help, something inside me pleads. Do better by her.
“I just want to apologize again . . . for being an ass last night. It was out of line.”
“Thank you.” Her throat bobs. “I don’t want to make things harder for you, Emmett. I tend to help where I’m not always needed, but if you want me to back off, I will.” She huffs out a breath. “I won’t like it . . . but I’ll do it.”
“I don’t want that.” I give her wrist a light squeeze. “Maybe just be patient with me.”
The corner of her mouth tics. “I can do that.”
I drop my hand to my lap because there’s no reason to continue touching her.
She works slow and deliberate.
It’s absolute hell on my senses. Every touch keeps me balanced on a razor’s edge.
Her knuckles brush over my ribs as she lifts my shirt, making me jump.
I’m wound too fucking tight. Something is going to snap.
“Sorry,” she mumbles.
The house seems to shrink around us. She’s everywhere.
I can’t avoid her and can’t ignore that her help doesn’t feel invasive as she checks me over me, her eyes flicking from the bruising along my side to the stitches above my brow.
She checks them quickly before moving to the bandage at my shoulder.
I suck in a sharp breath when she peels it back, the air burning the raw nerves.
Aspen whispers another apology, working swiftly to make this as pain free as possible for both of us.
“It’s fine,” I mumble.
The look she gives me tells me she doesn’t believe it for a second. “You’re always fine, aren’t you?”
Ironic, coming from her. “We have that in common.”
The breath she huffs out is nearly a laugh. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Before I can say more, her phone vibrates on the table. Aspen leans over, smiling at whatever lights up the screen and taps out a reply. The responses fly in. I can’t read them, but her smirk tells me everything I need to know. These are her people.
“My friends.”
“I’m holding you up.”
“It’s fine. Someone’s always late.”
“You realize you proved my point?”
She sticks her tongue out before opening everything and pulling on a pair of gloves. And just like that, she eases the tension.
“I bet you’re a five-minutes-early-is-late kind of guy.”
She’s not wrong.
“I don’t like to be the reason people are waiting.”
There I go, sharing without thinking twice, again. If I’m not careful, her quiet persistence will get past every wall I’ve built. And once someone’s on the inside, they’re close enough to burn you.
“I’ll do my best to be gentle when I remove the old dress, but it’s going to hurt. After that, I have to apply the ointment and re-cover the area.”
Her gaze drops to the items in front of her, giving me a chance to really look at her.
The first time I saw her, in the helicopter, I was certain that I’d died and she was an angel.
Later, with the shitty hospital lighting and exhaustion weighing her down, she was real but just as impossible to look away from.
Now, she’s not just some pretty nurse; Aspen is breathtaking.
More beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen before.
It’s pure luck that I get to see Aspen as she is now—real, unguarded, and stripped to who she is at her core.
Her dark hair is pulled back in a messy braid, and her baggy shirt hangs off her shoulder, giving me an eyeful of smooth, sun-kissed skin. Frayed denim peaks out where the raw cut of her shirt curls at the bottom. From toned legs to bare feet tipped in neon lavender nail polish, she’s perfection.
Barefoot, in her home, she’s something else, and it hits me harder than I want to admit.
It’s a chore to pull my gaze from her as her fingers smooth over my skin with the utmost care.
“Is this a regular thing—coffee with your friends?” I ask.
“We try to meet you every other week. I missed our last girls’ night because I was too tired to function after coming off a double.”
“You work a lot.”
She laughs. “Says the man who sleeps on the ground a couple hours a night during fire season.”
“That’s different.”
“How so?”
Because I don’t have this.
I glance toward the other room, eyes skipping over the photos.
Because I don’t deserve a life like this.
All of this—her, this town, this place—scares the shit out of me. It feels too much like belonging. And that’s a feeling I’ve never gotten to keep for long.
“Just is.”
She hums, leaning in, wrapping me in her sweet scent. “Can I grab you anything while I’m out?”
My palm wraps around the back of my neck, and she brushes it away.
“You’re going to contaminate my field.”
“Actualy, I need some groceries, and I’d like some clothes of my own.”
Her eyes light with mischief. “My brother’s style not your cup of tea?”
“I appreciate the lack of color,” I admit. “But crop tops aren’t really my thing, though I applaud his self-confidence.”
She snorts.
The truth is, wearing his clothes makes me feel connected to Aspen and this place.
“Give me a list and I’ll grab some things.”
Yeah, I don’t think so. Wearing clothes she picked out is worse than borrowing from her brother.
“I’d prefer to grab my own things,” I say, too stiffly.
It’s a retreat from the friendly tone we’ve been sharing and it brings her glare back.
“You were released from the hospital yesterday.”
She doesn’t mention the state I ended up in last night, but she doesn’t need to, we both remember.
“Not your problem.”
Something thick stretches between us. Her hands are still on me, and mine are at my side. Somehow, I manage to push her away with my glare.
I see the second the sparkle leaves her eyes, and my stomach sours as the hope slips from her face.
It’s fine.
Disappointing her now is better than giving her a false sense of something that can never be. The things we’re feeling, the way she calls to me, the way she looks at me, will fade with time. But the scars and damage I could cause would be permanent.
“Whatever you want.” She can’t hide the sting behind kind words. “You can ride with me when we’re done here. It’ll only be a few more minutes.”