Chapter 7
GARRETT
Nine days.
Nine days since the county pickup pulled out of my drive and I've been a man living in a cabin that smells like a woman who doesn't live here anymore.
Ghost won't come inside. He lies on the porch with his head on his paws and stares down the fire road like she's going to appear if he watches long enough. I've stopped telling him to come in. He's a better man than I am. He at least has the decency to keep looking.
I split wood I don't need.
I clean a rifle that's already clean.
I walk the perimeter three times a night and twice at dawn. I don't sleep for shit because every time I close my eyes I see her in the passenger seat of that truck with her face turned away from the window and her shoulders square.
I told her she'd be embarrassed.
I told her I wasn't scared.
I told her a lot of things in my kitchen that morning, and I've thought about every one of them for nine days, and here's what I know.
I was a coward.
Not the kind of coward who runs from a fight.
I've never been that. The kind of coward who sees the best thing that's ever walked into his life and tells her she can't possibly know what she wants because knowing what she wants means knowing what I am, and I can't survive her looking at what I am and choosing something else.
So I chose it for her.
And I sent her down the mountain.
I'm a goddamn fool.
Parker comes up on day nine.
Pulls in at noon. Diesel engine. Old truck. Gets out with a folder and a look on his face that's half sheriff and half pissed-off uncle.
"You look like hell."
"Appreciate it."
"Got the paperwork on the raid. Thought you'd want copies. Also. Ms. Reyes gave her statement. Grand jury's moved up. She'll be clear to move in about two weeks."
"Good."
"She's staying in Reno."
"Why."
"AG office offered her a consulting position. Mining fraud unit. She took it."
My chest goes tight.
"Huh."
Parker watches me.
"She asked about you."
My head comes up.
"What did she ask."
"Asked if you were eating. Asked if Ghost was okay. Asked if you were taking your days off."
"What did you tell her."
"I told her the truth. That you look like a man who made a mistake and can't figure out how to unmake it."
I deserve that.
Parker sets the folder on my kitchen table. Takes his hat off. Scratches the back of his head like he's debating whether to keep going.
"Hawk."
"Yeah."
"I've known you six years. You're the best man I've got up in these hills.
You don't panic. You don't flinch. You don't make stupid calls under pressure.
You made a stupid call. You want to keep sitting here with a dog who won't come inside, that's your business.
You want to go get her, the AG office has a safe house on Kirman Avenue and a woman who's expecting the grand jury on the twenty-second. "
"She won't want to see me."
"Probably not. That's a separate problem."
He puts his hat back on.
"Your truck runs."
He leaves.
I stand at the kitchen table for about four minutes.
Then I go pack a bag.
Reno is three hours if you're a man who drives the speed limit and I'm not that man today.
I do it in two and a half.
I don't go to the safe house.
I'm not stupid. She doesn't want a man she told to back off showing up at the door of a building where she's trying to start a new life. I go to the federal building downtown because Parker told me she files her sworn statements on Tuesdays at one, and it's Tuesday, and it's twelve forty.
I park on the street. I sit in the truck in a button-down I found at the bottom of a drawer and a jacket I haven't worn since my discharge. Jeans. Boots. Beard trimmed. I look like a man trying. I am a man trying.
At twelve fifty-eight she walks out the side door with a messenger bag across her chest and her hair pulled back and a cane she's using for the ankle. Her limp is better. Her face is the face of a woman who's been working hard and sleeping badly.
I get out of the truck.
She sees me.
She stops on the sidewalk like I just reached into her chest and grabbed something.
Then her face hardens.
She keeps walking.
Past me.
Doesn't look.
I fall in behind her. Keep pace. Don't crowd her. Don't touch her. Don't say anything for half a block.
"Delilah."
"No."
"Just listen."
"No, Hawk. I listened once. In your kitchen. For about eleven minutes. You were very clear."
"I was wrong."
She stops so fast I almost walk into her.
Turns.
Her eyes are bright and furious and my chest cracks because I put that look on her face and I'm the only person in the world who can take it off.
"You drove to Reno to tell me you were wrong."
"Yes."
"That's it."
"No."
"Then get to the rest fast. I've got a meeting at two and I'd like to eat something first, and I'm not standing on a sidewalk for this."
"I love you."
She blinks.
One hand goes to the strap of her bag like she needs something to hold onto.
"You don't get to just say that."
"I'm saying it anyway."
"Hawk."
"I told you I wasn't scared. I was scared.
I was scared of a woman who looked at me like I was a man instead of a broken soldier and I was scared of what I'd do if you stayed and I was scared of what I'd do if you left, and the second one turned out to be worse because I can't sleep and Ghost won't come inside and I've been splitting wood I don't need for nine days. "
Her eyes fill.
She blinks hard.
"Ghost won't come in."
"He lies on the porch. Stares down the road. I told him she's not coming back. He doesn't believe me."
"Neither do I."
"Neither should you."
My throat closes.
I take one step closer. Not touching. Close enough that she'd have to tilt her head up to keep looking at me, and she does.
"I want you. I want you in that cabin. I want you in Reno.
I want you wherever you are and I want to drive to you when you're not with me.
You took that job. You should take that job.
You're good at it and you deserve it and it matters.
I'll meet you in the middle. I'll take the job in Carson City Parker mentioned six months ago.
Coordinator role. I'll still run search and rescue.
I'll be home two nights a week to split wood like a normal person.
I'll keep the cabin. I'll get a place down here.
I'll do whatever the hell you want me to do.
I am done deciding things for you, Delilah. "
She's crying now. Quiet. Hand pressed flat over her mouth.
"Hawk."
"I love you. I've loved you since you asked me if I was staring at you or just all people. I was staring at you. It was a you-specific policy. It still is."
A laugh breaks out of her. Half sob.
"You remember that."
"I remember everything."
She drops the hand from her mouth.
Drops the cane. I catch it before it hits the pavement, press it back into her grip, and she uses the other hand to grab the front of my jacket.
Pulls.
I bend.
Her mouth lands on mine in the middle of a Reno sidewalk at one oh three on a Tuesday and I don't care that there are people walking past us and I don't care that her messenger bag is crushed between us and I don't care about anything except that she's kissing me back.
When she lets go of my jacket she's still crying.
"You're an idiot."
"I know."
"You hurt me."
"I know."
"You're taking me to lunch and you're telling me the coordinator job pays better than the ranger station and you're going to tell Ghost I'm coming home this weekend."
"Yes ma'am."
"And next weekend."
"Yes ma'am."
"And every weekend that isn't a grand jury weekend for the next three weeks. After that we're figuring out what life looks like. Together. Like adults who aren't afraid."
"Yes ma'am."
Her forehead lands against my collarbone.
I wrap both arms around her. Careful of the ribs, even though the ribs are healed. Some habits don't leave.
"Hawk."
"Yeah."
"I love you."
"I know."
She laughs into my jacket.
Real laugh.
First real one I've heard in nine days and it lands in my chest like a homecoming, and I stand there on a sidewalk in Reno with a geologist in my arms and a cane at my feet and the mountains somewhere behind us, and I think.
I'm done living alone.