Chapter 5
Ryan’s jaw tightened as he watched Emily race to the water’s edge. She was hurting. She was hiding it well, but he saw the limp. The small grimace every time she put weight on her left leg.
Fuck, she was talented though. It was like she could flick a switch—one second she was Emily Prior, the next she was another person entirely.
He believed it. The fear. The utter terror. She looked like a woman who was being hunted.
She stopped at the river’s edge, and his feet ached to move.
To cross the distance between them and make damn sure she didn’t slip.
She shouldn’t be doing this scene. Not with her limp.
Not while she was hurt. He didn’t care that she wore a harness or that there were people downstream ready to help if things went wrong. It was dangerous, dammit.
She leaped onto one stone. On the second jump, there was a slight buckle in her left knee. He inched forward. That was as far as he got before a hand pressed to his shoulder, then Zac stepped closer, a warning in his eyes.
And yeah, Ryan was on thin fucking ice with the director already.
Another hop.
When she reached the fifth rock, his muscles began to relax. She was almost there. Almost…
Her foot slid on the sixth leap. She cried out, her arms flying as she swung wide. For a second, the harness caught her…then it snapped. She fell and disappeared into the water.
Ryan moved on instinct, training erasing the hesitation of everyone else, including the men downstream. He tore across the distance. His feet barely hit the bank before he dove into the water.
Cold blasted his system, the current trying to seize him and drag him down. He angled his body instead of fighting, cutting across the flow in powerful strokes.
Her head surfaced ten feet away, only for a second before it disappeared again. That was all he needed.
Three more strokes, then he dove down, finding her easily. He slipped an arm around her waist and drew her back to the surface.
Desperate coughs racked Emily’s body, the river trying to pull her back under.
He locked her to his chest and used his free arm to move through the current, years of training and missions propelling him through a river that fought him. Wanted to suck them both back down.
When he reached the bank, Zac was already there, reaching for her. He lifted her out, and Ryan climbed from the river before dropping beside her and placing her in recovery pose. One hand remained braced on her shoulder to keep her steady as she coughed up water.
Zac, the medic on their team, leaned over Emily. “Airways are good.”
“Is she hurt?” Ryan growled.
“I’m just going to run my hands over your head,” Zac told her, with far more calm than Ryan possessed.
The crew now surrounded them. Murmured whispers cut through the whoosh of the river.
Zac nodded, hands still on Emily’s head. “No obvious bleeding or cuts.”
“Emily!”
Her mother broke through the crowd and tried to drop beside her, but Zac was too fast, on his feet and in front of her. “She needs space.”
“I’m her mother.”
“I’m okay.” Emily’s whispered words only reached Ryan.
“You’re not. We need to get you warm.” Gently, he helped her sit, the voices of Zac and her mother and the director coming in from the right.
Everyone wanted a piece of her. Did they not see what had just happened? That she needed some space and time to breathe?
Assholes.
He started to lift her, but she shook her head. “No, I can walk.”
“You almost drowned.”
“Ryan.” She met his gaze. “I’m okay.”
“Darling.” Her mother was suddenly in front of her, throwing a blanket over Emily’s shoulders. “Oh God, you poor thing. We need to get you warm. Come on.” She turned to Larry, the safety coordinator. “And you can figure out what the hell just happened.”
Ryan helped Emily to her feet. “I’ll take you back.”
Melanie looked at him, and even though he was sure she tried to hide it, even though he’d just pulled the woman’s daughter from a damn river, there was hate in her eyes. “Thank you for your help, Ryan, but we’ve got it from here.”
His back teeth ground together. He wanted to fight her. He wanted to lift Emily into his arms and carry her out of this forest. Make sure she got the care she needed.
But then Emily looked at him and gave him the smallest, subtlest shake of her head. A silent plea to let her go.
It took a lot to do as she asked. But he did. He stepped back. He watched, like a helpless idiot, as Emily, her mother, and a couple other crew members moved through the woods.
Zac stood beside him. “You okay?”
“No.” Nothing about this, or the two of them, or what had just happened was fucking okay. He looked at his friend. “Find out why she slipped. And why the harness snapped.”
Then he was storming back to the parking lot. Even then, even while he moved in the opposite direction, he wanted to detour. Go to her trailer.
He barely stopped himself.
When he reached his truck, he pulled off his sweatshirt and jeans, changing into spare clothes he kept in the back, not caring who saw, before dropping behind the wheel.
His phone vibrated as he drove. Thankfully, he’d left it in the truck. Saved him replacing it.
For a single fucking second, he wondered if it was her.
He checked the screen.
Not her. The group chat he had with the guys.
Of course it wasn’t her. He’d sent her three messages since arriving in town. She hadn’t responded to a single one. Why would she write to him now?
When he reached his house, he took a quick shower to get rid of the river stench before changing into shorts and a T-shirt. Then he did what he always did when his head was a mess—he moved his body. Exhausted it. Ran so hard and so fast that he was too tired to think.
Still, she lived inside him. Her beautiful hazel eyes in his head, her soft skin beneath his fingertips.
And he felt it all again. The fear that had rocked his body when she’d slipped. The sheer fucking terror at seeing her disappear beneath the water.
Like he was losing her a second time.
He pushed his body faster, needing the tightness in his lungs. The burn in his muscles.
An hour later, his chest heaved as he stepped through his back door. He went straight upstairs, stripped off and stepped into his second shower of the afternoon. The water was hot enough to burn his skin.
Good. He wanted the bite of pain. Maybe that would take his mind off Emily. Off the night he’d ended things.
God, that night…that fucking night.
He hung his head.
How many times had he questioned his decision over the years? Whether it had been right or wrong? Whether he’d change anything if he had the chance to do it all again?
He often said he would. Because the loss of her had felt so profound.
But seeing her today, witnessing her talent…he remembered all over again why he’d done it. Because when she performed, the world fell quiet. And any lucky bastard who got to see the magic couldn’t help but watch. Hold their breath. Get transported to wherever she decided to take them.
And it wasn’t just that she was good. It was that she’d wanted this. How many times during their five months of dating had she talked about her dream of being a career actor?
Every day.
He turned off the water and had just dried himself and pulled on jeans when the doorbell rang.
It was one of the guys. It had to be. Word had no doubt spread about what had happened during filming, and because Ryan hadn’t gotten back to their texts, one of them was checking if he was okay.
Probably Ethan. He was kind of the dad of the team. Or was it Joel, the joker? Yeah, more likely Joel…sent to lighten the mood.
He pulled on a shirt and jogged downstairs. He didn’t even bother looking through the peephole before tugging it open. “I’m fine. There’s no need—”
He stopped. Not Ethan. Not Joel. Not any of the guys.
“Emi.”
She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be doing this. She definitely shouldn’t have snuck out of the inn after lying to her mother about going to bed early.
Every warning silenced, though, as she climbed from her car and walked up the path.
Because this wasn’t the house she’d been expecting.
Ryan liked dark, masculine tones. He liked timber and metal.
This house had a white wraparound porch.
It had a pale pink mailbox and a flower garden with lavender and fireweed.
Her steps faltered at the sight of the bright scarlet-red Indian paintbrushes. Her favorite. She’d had pots of them in her apartment in California, back when she’d met Ryan. She’d even told him that when she had a house, they were going to line her front yard.
For some reason, emotion clogged her throat. Because just for a second, she wondered if these were for her…
She shook her head. What a stupid thought. He hadn’t been in Deep River for long. He’d probably just bought the place without thinking twice about the flowers in the garden.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she headed up the steps, muscles tightening at the ache in her knee.
She should be in her room at the inn, icing it. Heck, she should be resting after almost drowning.
So why are you here, Emily?
On a deep inhale, she lifted her hand, and the second her finger hit the doorbell, she stepped back.
This was a bad idea. Nothing good could come from this.
She turned and got two steps down when the click of the door opening sounded. She glanced over her shoulder. And that spell, that same damn spell he always cast on her, wove through her body once again.
“Emi.”
The nickname slipped beneath her skin, stirring feelings she’d spent years burying. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”
Other than the intensity in his dark brown eyes, his expression was completely unreadable. “Come in.” He stepped back.
“I shouldn’t. I need—”
“Come in, Emi. Please.”
There was something about the please that tugged at her heart. A quiet desperation behind it. A longing that maybe matched her own.
Don’t do it, Emi. Don’t make leaving any harder than it has to be.
She listened to the warning. But she didn’t follow it. Like the fool she was, she stepped forward. Once. Twice. Each movement drawing her closer to him. Like he was a magnet and she’d never learned how to resist his pull.
Inside, she frowned at the floral wallpaper beside the staircase.
Unable to resist, she touched it. “This is almost identical to the wallpaper that was in my grandmother’s house.”
A grandmother she’d loved. A grandmother she’d lost during that short phase of dating Ryan. He’d met her. Only once, but that was all it took for the sweet elderly woman to fall in love with him.
Then her grandmother had died, and he’d held Emily while she cried. Listened to her stories. Her sobs.
She blinked and turned to see him frowning at the wallpaper, then at her.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly.
He blinked and tilted his head toward the living room. “Yeah. Come. Sit.”
Were the same memories flicking through his own head?
It didn’t matter. She still shouldn’t be here. “No, I—”
“Sit, Emily. It’s six o’clock. You had a full day at work. You fell into a river. And you’re still limping. Rest.”
She eyed the linen sofa. It looked so much more comfortable than the beige leather couch at the inn. She lowered to the couch, almost sighing as she sank into it.
Yep, it was exactly as comfortable as it looked, and she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to peel herself out of it. For the first time that day, her muscles relaxed.
Without a word, Ryan crossed to the kitchen. He’d always been like that. A man of action rather than words. It was just one of the things she’d liked about him. Another was that he always seemed to know what she needed before she did…until that night.
He took things out of the fridge. The peach tiles in the kitchen made a smile curve her lips. They were in such contrast to the big, masculine, former special operations soldier.
He was in the kitchen for ten minutes. Ten minutes of silence. Ten minutes of this comfortable quiet where they just existed in the same space as she watched him work.
When he finally returned, he handed her a bowl.
Her heart thumped. Macaroni and cheese. His macaroni and cheese. “This is my favorite.”
“I know.”
Leave, the voice of warning shouted in her head. Get out before your heart beats for him again.
“How did you know where I live?” he asked, oblivious to her internal battle as he sat beside her, his own bowl in hand.
She swirled the pasta around her bowl. “I told Mom I was going to bed, then snuck down the hall when she went to her room. Bloom was closed but the owner was still there. Polly. I asked her if she knew where you lived.”
“You could have just texted me.”
The fork paused mid-circle, so many words on her lips, but none of them falling out.
Because how did she tell him that she’d called and messaged him so many times after their breakup, and his lack of response had rewired her brain in ways she didn’t understand?
Now, she could barely look at his name on her phone without this subtle PTSD tweaking her nerves.
She set the bowl on the table, appetite vanishing. “I came to say thank you for today. Thank you for saving me.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Emily. I’ll always jump in after you when you need me.”
She almost flinched, the words like a slap in the face. Either that or the greatest lie he’d ever told. Because she had needed him. And he hadn’t jumped in after her. He’d left. Run. Without a backward glance.
“I should go.” She tried to stand but her damn knee buckled. She cried out and dropped back down.
Ryan growled. “Stop trying to run away.” Without a word, he lifted her feet, one at a time, and took off her shoes. Instead of setting her legs back down, he placed them on his lap. Before she realized what he was doing, he shoved up the material of her jeans to look at her left knee.
“No, Ryan—”
He was already looking, though. At the ugly, jagged scar that lived on her skin as a permanent reminder of that night.
“What happened?” he gasped.
She swallowed, the memory washing over her like a bucket of cold water. “It doesn’t matter.”
But it did to her. That night lived inside Emily, an internal wound that cut so much deeper than the one on her leg.
He started massaging her knee.
“Ryan, you don’t…” Words died on her tongue as he massaged out the ache. Oh, God. “How does that feel so good?” She closed her eyes and melted into the sofa.
When she opened them again, it was to see Ryan looking at her like he used to. Like she was his. Like he loved her. Like he’d never let her go.
“What happened, Emi?” he repeated.
One deep breath, and…
“I followed you.” The words just slipped out—and she immediately wanted to pull them back.
His hands froze, a deep frown cutting into his features. “When?”
“The night you left me. I got into my car and followed you. But it was raining, and a drunk truck driver swerved onto my side of the road. I jerked the wheel and drove off a bridge. That’s how I hurt my knee.”