Chapter 2
The pain in Emily’s eyes twisted something sharp in Ryan’s chest.
He was the reason she was in pain. Him. What he’d done.
“Em—” He stopped. Corrected himself. “Emily.” The name felt wrong on his tongue. She wasn’t Emily to him. She’d never been Emily. For the entire five months they’d dated, she’d always been Emi. “We’re going to have to live in the same town while you film this movie. I’m going to be on set—”
“You can keep your distance.”
Could she? He wasn’t sure he could. Even now he felt like his entire body was leaning toward her, with no permission from him.
“Please.” He stepped closer. “We can’t just talk?”
Her palm suddenly pressed to his chest, rooting him to the spot. And that familiar warmth, that touch…fuck, it made his heart stutter like it suddenly remembered her.
“Everything okay?”
Ryan looked up to see a guy stepping out of a nearby trailer. He was tall. Not as tall as Ryan, maybe six one. There was a faint sheen to his blond hair, like it was full of hairspray or gel, and his cheeks were too pink. Blush, maybe.
Ryan knew this guy. Not because they’d met. He’d seen him in movies and in the media.
The guy looked at Emily’s hand on his chest, then at Ryan. “There a problem here?”
“No, Preston, there isn’t.” Emily’s hand dropped.
But shit, he still felt it there. The imprint. The warmth.
She ran her hand down her thigh, like she was trying to relieve pain in her leg. “I’m going to my trailer.” She shot him one more glare. A silent do not follow me.
Ryan watched her walk away, noticing the familiar sway of her hips. The way her waist-length blonde hair flowed down her back like honey.
It wasn’t until she’d reached the top of the trailer steps and opened the door that she cast a glance over her shoulder at him.
Her lips parted, her hazel eyes darkening.
Yeah, Emi, I’m still looking.
Then she was gone. Inside the trailer and out of view.
“I think you forgot to tell me who the fuck you are.”
Ryan looked back at the guy. Damn, even the wind didn’t move his hair. Not a thread. “Didn’t forget. You didn’t ask.”
The guy’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I’m asking now. Who are you?”
“Ryan. Who are you?”
The guy’s nose wrinkled. “That tells me nothing. And there’s no way you don’t know who I am.”
“Afraid I don’t.” A damn lie. The actor’s name was plastered everywhere.
“I’m Preston Painter.” He straightened. Maybe even puffed out his chest a bit. “I’m the lead in this movie and a three-time Golden Globe nominee.”
And according to media, boyfriend to Emily Prior.
But the longer he was in the guy’s presence, the less he believed it. There was no way she’d date this self-absorbed airhead. Yeah, Ryan was making a snap judgment after two minutes in his presence. He was good at reading people.
“It’s nice to meet you.” Ryan cast one last glance at Emily’s trailer before turning and heading through the trees toward the parking lot.
“Hey! I wasn’t done talking to you,” Preston called. “Why are you on set?”
Ryan ignored him. Every step away from Emily felt heavy and wrong.
One look. One glance. One sound of her voice…changed everything. Made him remember her laugh. Her smile.
The fact that she was the only woman he’d ever loved.
He should have known. He should have fucking expected it. But knowing something and experiencing it were two different things.
Emily was the woman he’d thought he’d marry.
Yeah, they’d only dated for five months.
But he’d only needed a day to know she was the one for him.
She was the kind of woman you fell in love with at first glance and just assumed there was no hope of resisting.
Because look at her. Fucking look. She was everything.
Warm. Kind. Beautiful. And talented…so damn talented.
Footsteps sounded to his right. Light footsteps. Barely distinguishable.
Ryan heard them.
His hand hovered over his concealed weapon. Most wouldn’t expect trouble in a small town like Deep River. But if the last six months had taught him anything, it was that trouble could show up anywhere, anytime, and it didn’t need an invitation.
Zac appeared at his side. “Hey.”
Ryan dropped his hand.
Zac matched him step for step. “Did you speak to her?”
“I tried.” A pulse throbbed at his temple.
“She didn’t want to talk to you?”
“No.” He rounded a tree. “She didn’t even want to look at me.”
“She was surprised to see you. Give her time.”
“That director say anything else?” Yeah, he was changing the subject. He didn’t feel like talking about Emily. Even thinking about the way she’d basically run from him hurt like a bastard.
“Other than repeating that he didn’t actually want us anywhere near his film?”
“Yeah.”
“Nope. That was about it. We have to stay out of their way, and if he suspects we’re disturbing cast or crew, he’s allowed to tell us to leave.”
He scoffed. “Tell that to the studio.”
The studio had contacted Mayor Joe Ferris about hiring the local SAR team to protect the film production from people wandering onto set.
That was the moment Ryan realized he’d be seeing a lot more of Emily than he’d anticipated. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
“He can do his job and we’ll do ours.” Ryan stepped into the parking lot.
He’d just reached his truck when Zac grabbed his arm. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” The word was a reflex. Said to protect himself. To move on from this conversation. And to get the hell out of here.
“It’s okay to not be okay.”
No, it wasn’t. Because then the weight of everything might set in. Everything he’d lost the day he’d broken up with her. The life he’d thought they’d create together but hadn’t. “I’ll see you later, Zac.”
Zac sighed, releasing his arm, and Ryan climbed into his truck.
Some of the guys would stay on set for the day. There was a schedule so that at least two of them would always be there.
Ryan wasn’t on for the rest of the day. Good. He needed a second to himself.
The drive back to his house was short. A part of him wanted to go to the old firehouse that they used as their SAR base. Do a workout. Run or hit a bag.
But some of the guys might drop in, and he didn’t feel like talking.
He’d go for a run through the woods behind his house. Exhaust his body that way.
He pulled up in front of the old bungalow-style home. An elderly woman had owned it before him, and he’d spent most of his time fixing the functional things, like rotting wood on the front porch and repainting the weathered exterior siding.
His gaze caught on the flowers in the front yard. Flowers he looked at every time he got home because he knew exactly who would appreciate them.
Inside the house, he ignored the floral wallpaper beside the staircase and walked through the living room to the right, to the kitchen where peach-colored tiles acted as a backsplash.
He grabbed a bottle of water, and when his phone rang, he knew who it was before looking at the screen.
He hit answer as he moved toward the staircase. “Hey, Nora.”
“Oh, you are alive.”
“If you’re referring to me not answering your last text, I do have a job, you know.” He took the stairs two at a time before passing a spare bedroom and stepping into his room.
“You mean the last five texts, right?”
He put the call on speaker before setting it on his drawers and drinking some water. “Those texts all came in the span of an hour.” He changed into shorts.
“Your point? Was there something more important than me, my burnt lunch, and a smoke alarm that refused to turn off? You know, I got a visit from my super. He spoke to me like I was two.”
“Nothing’s more important than you, Nora.” The damn truth. His sister was the only family he kept in contact with. They had a mother, but neither of them had seen her in years.
“Then what…”
Fuck. Ryan knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Emi,” Nora breathed. “Is she—”
“She’s here.” He grabbed his earbuds from the drawer and headed back downstairs. “It was the first day of filming.”
His sister had been the one to send him the article all those weeks ago. The one that confirmed Emily was replacing the lead actress in the film. That she’d be here, in his town, for a prolonged period of time.
“Have you spoken to her?” she asked quietly.
“Briefly.” If you could even call that speaking.
“How… I mean, how was it?”
His gaze locked on the peach tiles in the kitchen, muscles frozen as he remembered. Her eyes. Her voice. “She was Emi. She was everything I remember her being.”
“Oh, Ryan. Are you okay?”
Zac had asked him the same question. And he’d lied, not because he enjoyed lying to a man he considered a brother. Because he hadn’t had the emotional bandwidth to be honest in that moment.
But with Nora…he couldn’t lie. The two of them had been through hell together growing up. They were honest, always.
“No. It hurt.” It hurt so fucking much he felt it through every bit of his body. It had all hit him at once. The love he’d walked away from. The future that should have been theirs.
And he had no one to blame but himself.
“Ryan…I don’t know if this is the right thing to say, but there are a million places she could be right now. And out of all those places, she’s in Montana. In Deep River, with you. That has to be for a reason.”
“To torture me.”
“No. We wouldn’t have survived our childhood only to be tortured by past loves. This might be your time for a second chance.”
“Nora, she’s one of the biggest actresses in the world. Her home, her life, is not here in a small town in the middle of nowhere.”
“Maybe you should let her make that decision. You already—”
“I’m sorry, Nora. I have to go.”
She sighed. “Okay. Talk again soon. And by soon, I mean you’ll receive another five texts within the hour, and I expect a response for every one of them.”
A half smile curved his lips. “Okay.”
“I love you, big brother.”
“Love you too, Nora.”
He hung up and downed more of the water, Nora’s words playing over in his mind.
Second chance.
She could be anywhere, but she was here.
He shook his head. He couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t let himself believe, even for a second, that there might be a chance. Because hope was a dangerous thing. Hope could bring a man to his knees. Even a man who’d lived through hell and walked out of it alive.
He stepped out the back door, but before starting his run, he lifted his phone and searched for her name in his contacts. A name he hadn’t sought out in so many years.
Emi.
There was a red heart emoji next to it, and a crown. Two emojis she’d selected the first night they’d met, when she’d typed her name and number into his phone.
He clicked into the messages, the last one dating over five years ago. Even after he’d broken them, destroyed everything they’d had, he’d still texted her. Checked in.
She never responded. To any of them.
He shouldn’t message her now. What good would come from it?
He did anyway.
Ryan: Hey. It was good to see you today, Emi. You look well. Really well. Hopefully, spending time together here in the same town can heal some old wounds.
He hit send and immediately wanted to undo it. To delete the message because what the fuck would she even say in response?
But he couldn’t undo it. So he stood there and stared at the screen like an idiot for an entire minute. A full sixty fucking seconds.
She didn’t respond. The three dots didn’t even pop up.
Of course she didn’t. She hated him. He kind of hated himself too.
The muscles in his arms twitched as he shoved the cell into his pocket and started running. He moved fast, like he was being chased. And maybe he was. By his past. By his decisions. By the day he’d ruined everything.