Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Two weeks later, on Wednesday night, Dane crossed Main Street and entered Blackweather Green, heading to where the temporary, but still impressive, stage had been erected earlier in the week, to the left of the bandstand. Friday night was Lammas Eve, and the culmination of the Summerween festival.
Things were getting real in H-Town.
Deciding that he and Wren both needed coffee, Dane left Wren sitting on the stands in front of the stage and picked up two cups full of caffeine-y goodness from Spirited Grounds—temporarily open until late to take advantage of the hordes of tourists in town—to get them through watching the kids run through their routine.
This was their dress rehearsal, and they needed to get it right.
Surprisingly, of all of them, Wren was the least stressed.
Or maybe she was just better at hiding her nerves.
After waiting in a too-long queue, Dane returned with two iced coffees.
As he crossed Main Street, his phone buzzed with an incoming message.
He stopped beside an empty bench, set the coffees down on a wooden slat, and pulled his phone from his back pocket.
An email from the General. And a text from his boss at Humanatus.
He always read bad news first, so he opened his father’s message.
I had someone ask about you the other day, and I was embarrassed to tell them that you are still on vacation. You continue to disappoint me. WHEN ARE YOU GOING BACK TO WORK?
Dane closed his eyes and exhaled, his stomach clenching.
He’d been feeling a lot better lately, and it was ridiculous that a few words on a screen could still affect him.
He was grown and independent. Educated and successful.
His life was his own and out of his father’s control.
And yet an old, familiar weight crushed the air from his lungs.
He’d fallen short, yet again, of his father’s expectations.
He’d been measured and, as always, found wanting.
His entire childhood consisted of his father moving the goalposts whenever he came close to scoring.
Every achievement just set the standard for the next hurdle.
Praise, affection, attention—they’d been as ethereal as a belt of morning mist on the surface of the lake in summer.
There one minute, gone the next. He fully understood why safety felt foreign to him, and why he couldn’t find it in people or relationships.
But Wren made him feel … accepted. Secure. Settled. Like he didn’t have to try too hard. Yet, ironically, feeling like that unsettled him more than any disaster zone ever had.
Not wanting to go deeper down that rabbit hole, he pivoted to the message he’d received from his boss.
Dane, I need to fill the position in Ukraine as soon as possible. Are you interested? Otherwise, there’s a temporary position open in LA for a trauma physician, another in Hong Kong. What’s your preference so that I can get the ball rolling?
Fuck… He didn’t know and couldn’t answer.
He started to type a response, saying that he still wasn’t ready, but hit the backspace and killed his draft.
The truth was, he didn’t feel as restless, like he had live electrical wires buzzing under his skin.
The nightmares were mostly gone, and he was sleeping so much better with Wren next to him.
His anxiety had eased. The world felt … quieter.
And that had everything to do with Wren.
Leaving H-Town meant leaving her. And he wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. But this wasn’t just about him leaving. Wren had her own plans and future to pursue. He wasn’t the only person driving this on-fire and out-of-control bus.
It wasn’t just the sex—though what they did to, and for, each other in bed was, yeah, mind-blowing.
But it was the ordinary moments that kept ambushing him.
Movies on the couch. Easy dinners that turned into hours of conversation.
Sitting on the steel jetty with a bottle of wine between them, the dark lake stretching out in front of them, content to be quiet.
Watching her dance. Waking up with her, seeing her tangled in his sheets while he laced up his running shoes.
Laughing at the ridiculous memes they sent each other when they were apart.
He simply enjoyed her. Her mind. Her laugh. The way she saw the world.
But H-Town wasn’t real life. Soon—next week, if Wren took her London offer, maybe the week after—this would end.
They would say goodbye and would go back to the lives they knew.
Maybe they’d try to stay in touch. Maybe they’d meet again somewhere.
But he couldn’t see how this would work when they both ran around the world.
And there was still her ex-whatever, Alex. Still unresolved. Still there, whether she spoke about him or not.
Because, for all Dane knew, he could simply be a distraction for Wren—a great H-Town option.
But thoughts and attitudes changed when you exited holiday-mode.
He might be a temporary refuge before she returned to the man who knew her history, shared the world of dance, and offered her the stability she’d always craved. As Wren had said, Alex understood her.
Dane quickly typed a message back to his boss, saying he’d think about future projects and would let him know.
Putting his phone away, he sipped his coffee and stared at the lake glittering in the summer moonlight.
He had worked through aftershocks and chaos, operated while people bled out, tuned out grief and panic and loss, the screams of the injured and the dying.
He had always thought himself brave. Yet, he was struggling with their dynamic.
He ached to know how she felt about him. And how she felt about her ex. But he couldn’t ask about the future, about where this was going. Couldn’t ask what would happen when either of them left. Couldn’t ask if she would see Alex again, if she would try to rebuild what they’d had.
Because a) he didn’t know how they could be together and what was the point? And b) he didn’t know if he’d like her answer.
The coffee churned in his stomach, sharp and bitter, and for the first time in a long while, Dane felt something dangerously close to fear.
His introspection was interrupted by someone calling his name. When he looked around, he saw the bulky man who’d joined him for early-morning exercises. “Hey, Dane, when are you going to start working out here again?”
Dude … given a choice between lying in bed with Wren and doing strength training in the park, he opted to spend his time with Wren.
“Uh, not sure, man”—he kept it vague—“life’s kinda got in the way.” He gave the guy an apologetic smile and picked up both coffees.
Walking on, Dane approached the grandstand where Wren sat watching the kids run through their routine on the stage. Even he, as dismal a dancer as he was, could see they were definitely better and a lot more confident than they’d been a month, even a week, ago.
He looked at Wren’s profile; she was leaning forward, her fingers resting on her lips, her eyes darting from one side of the stage to the other.
He caught her small, pleased smile and knew she was happy.
He placed a hand on her slim back and waited for her to look at him.
When she did, he handed her a coffee. “You did a good job with them, Wren. They are amazing.”
She flushed, pleasure in her eyes and on her cheeks. “Aren’t they? They’ve worked so hard.”
He took the seat beside her, and was about to kiss her when Luna climbed up the bleacher and sat down next to him, her eyes on him rather than the stage in front of them. Dane leaned back, folded his arms, and braced himself for whatever was incoming.
Because, when it came to Luna, something sure as hell was.
“Dr. Morris has had an offer to buy his practice from someone else,” she told him, jumping straight in without a hello.
He doubted that; Luna didn’t have a problem with lying to get her way. Dane didn’t react. “Excellent,” he said. “I wish him, or her, the best of luck.”
He glanced at Wren and saw that her complete focus was on what was happening on the stage and wasn’t listening to their conversation. He could sense Luna staring at him and turned to look at her, his eyebrow lifting.
“Okay, I lied. There hasn’t been an offer,” she admitted.
Nailed it.
“Are you really not going to stay?” she asked, sounding both irritated and plaintive.
The penny was, finally, starting to drop. It had only taken the best part of two months.
“I’m really not staying,” he told her.
“Why would you want to go back to chaos when you could stay here with us?” Luna wailed. When he didn’t answer her, she nudged him with a sharp elbow. “You are the most reticent, stubborn man I’ve ever come across,” she moaned. “And the first to say no to me.”
Dane knew she was more pissed about being thwarted than about him not becoming H-Town’s newest doctor.
“I’m a pretty stubborn guy,” he agreed, then frowned as his attention was caught by the kids dancing.
They were too close to the edge of the stage, and with one misstep, someone would go tumbling off the edge.
He’d barely finished the thought when Tad, who’d moved in place to stand in front of Hadley, overstepped and plummeted to the ground, six feet below.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Tad’s scream, followed by a thud, pierced the still summer air, and Dane’s body moved before his mind caught up.
Years of training, of responding to bodies being broken and battered, forced him into action, and his limbs simply took over.
He bounded down the bleacher and hit the ground at a flat-out sprint.
A few seconds later, he pushed through the crowd of teenagers who’d dropped to the ground, thinking they could help.
“He fell! He fell off the stage!”