Chapter 8
Eight
“I know your secret.”
At the sing-song voice, Sarah froze, her mug of coffee halfway to her lips. Panic scorched through the lingering vestiges of sleep, and she fought not to react, not to look toward Beckett for support. With herculean effort, she arched one brow in vague interest and glanced at the speaker.
Diego grinned at her from across the breakfast table, looking like the cat that ate the canary.
Did he really think this was a joke? She—and Taryn—were going to get into so much trouble.
Damn it. Damn it! She’d known this was a terrible idea.
Known there was no way she’d really pull this off.
And how the hell did he find out? Had he overheard some conversation with Beckett? They’d been so careful.
On a yawn, as if she couldn’t possibly care less, she cocked her head. “Oh yeah?”
Diego’s smile spread wider. “Taryn and Beckett sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N—”
Diego’s song ended in a laugh as Beckett hurled a muffin at his head. “Can it, Acosta. What are you, ten?”
“I’m just sayin’, boss man, you two ain’t fooling anybody, making goo-goo eyes at each other when you think nobody’s looking. There’s no prohibition on staff relationships, so I don’t know what the point is of all the lousy attempts at discretion.”
Sarah released a slow, controlled breath.
He didn’t know. The secret was still safe.
But it brought up another question. If everybody knew she and Beckett were involved…
what was he going to do when the real Taryn showed up?
The idea that he’d just swap from one of them to the other had her hand clenching around the mug.
Stupid. Beckett wasn’t that kind of guy, and Taryn wouldn’t poach.
Not that they’d actually discussed what the hell they were doing.
They’d defined nothing. This week had been all about indulging attraction and flirtation in the moment.
She hadn’t wanted to discuss anything else because…
she hadn’t come up here for this. This was a break.
A moment out of normal time. A situationship.
But in forty-eight hours, Taryn would arrive, they’d swap places, and Sarah would go back to real life in Brooklyn.
Back to the noise, the traffic, the congestion, and the slow, suffocating horror of the city.
She’d shoved back from the table before she even knew what she was doing.
“Hey!” Diego protested. “I was just kidding around, Taryn. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Holding up a hand to stop whatever else he was going to say, she just shook her head.
“No. It’s not… I just… I need to go.” In a dozen long strides, she made it to the door, shoving through with more force than necessary to get out into the clean mountain air.
It wasn’t enough to alleviate the pressure in her chest. Turning toward the lake, she broke into a run, needing to put space between herself and this whole charade. To be… herself… for a little while.
Her feet thudded on the dock, echoing the thrumming of her heart as she loped down the length of it, past the boathouse, to the very end jutting far out into Lake Waawaatesi.
She stood there, breathing hard, still vibrating with a restless, panicked energy, wondering if she should just dive in and keep swimming.
Like she could somehow escape this… dissonance.
Everything had gotten out of hand. This hadn’t just been a job, something she could slip into and out of with no consequences. It wasn’t just a break—it was breaking her.
“Sarah.”
Beckett’s quiet voice murmuring her name—her name—had the ache and the panic coalescing into a knot in her throat.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the burn of tears.
She was fine. She just needed to get her head on straight, so she’d make it through the rest of this week.
If she kept repeating it, she’d start to believe it.
“Sarah, honey.” At Beckett’s hands on her shoulders, she broke, turning into him and pressing her face to his broad chest.
He pulled her close, brushing a kiss to the top of her head. “Hey, what’s all this? What’s wrong?”
“Everything. I was fine before. I knew what I was doing. I had a plan and a life. A good one, damn it. This whole trip was supposed to be just a blip. A chance to help my sister and get out of the city to clear my head so I could get back to work and get on with my life. Then I came here and there was you and this place, and I can breathe for the first time in I don’t know how long, and I don’t know how to go back to before.
I don’t know how I can just up and act like this time didn’t happen, and it’s all your fault.
” She thumped his shoulder with one balled fist, but there was no real heat behind it, just a boatload of frustrated misery as she continued to let it all spill out.
“How can I go back to Brooklyn and focus on my thesis, when a big part of me is going to be here, thinking about you? How can I go back to my normal when you’ve planted all these questions in my head?
I doubt myself. I never doubt myself. I always have a plan.
I always know what’s next because the alternative is falling into absolute, hot-mess chaos like my sister, and I will not be a hot mess, Beckett. I just won’t.”
She looked up at him then, shocked and not a little incensed to see one corner of his mouth twitching. “This is not funny!”
He sobered, shaking his head. “No it’s not.” One big hand came up to cup her cheek, a callused thumb wiping at her tears. “You don’t want to walk away from us?”
Sarah stared at him. “That was your take away from all that?”
“To my mind, it’s the most important part. Everything else is just details.”
“Just details? How the hell do you think this is going to work? Because I’ve been wracking my brain for days, and I can’t see a way. You’re here. I’m going to be there.”
“If you’re determined to go back, then we do long distance for the summer. I get days off. It’s not that far to New York from here. You’ll want to get out of the city again. We can make it work.” He stroked her cheek again. “This is worth finding a way.”
She wanted to lean into the touch, into his calm assurance that things would be fine. But how did he know? “But what about after? You don’t even know where you’ll be after this summer.”
“There are jobs in New York.”
Equal parts moved and horrified, she shook her head. “I can’t ask you to do that. You were a park ranger. You do search and rescue and rock climbing. You’d hate the city. Hell, I’ve been there for three years, and I hate it too. All the people and the noise—” She shuddered.
“You don’t have to go back.”
She dropped her gaze. “I do. I have a meeting with my thesis advisor next week.”
If he felt some kind of betrayal that she hadn’t told him before, he didn’t show it. But maybe he didn’t realize it hadn’t been set before the camp training.
“I get that you need to finish your Master’s degree.
At this close, I don’t blame you, even though it’s not the choice I made myself.
But are you really willing to endure another four or more years of living with the crowds and the noise to get a PhD?
Is that actually going to make you happy? Will it fulfill you?”
No. The answer trembled through her in a whisper she didn’t want to hear but couldn’t ignore.
“I can see the answer in your face. You don’t want the PhD. You don’t want the city. And that’s completely fine. What will make you happy and fulfill you?”
“How can I even answer that? That makes it sound like I have everything figured out, and it turns out I’ve got nothing at all figured out. School, academics—that’s what I know. What I’m good at.”
“But it’s not the only thing you’re good at. I’ve seen your pictures. You’re good.”
Jerking her shoulders, she stepped away to pace. “It’s not a job. It’s not stability and the ability to pay my bills. I won’t be burden to anyone.”
“First off, I don’t think you’d ever be a burden.
You’ve got too much work ethic for that.
Second, there’s a great big range between wildly successful and destitute.
You are a good photographer. And there are ways to build a following, gain exposure to do things other than shoot weddings.
I know a guy from my time in Yosemite who started a really nice little side hustle with stock photos.
It’s a passive income stream that you can continually build on. ”
“He had Yosemite to shoot.” Probably any idiot with a camera could take good shots of that kind of glory.
“He did. But his bread and butter wasn’t that.
It was the small stuff. Detail shots of all kinds of things in nature and whatnot.
Animals. Flowers. People. I’m sure there’s some kind of logic behind what really moves in stock photos, and I don’t claim to know it, but it’s certainly something worth looking into.
” Stepping into her path, he skimmed his hands down her arms and laced his fingers with hers.
“My point is, if you’ll take off those blinders that have kept you focused on academia all these years, you’ll find another way.
A way to financially support yourself doing something that isn’t going to kill your soul.
Maybe it’ll take a while to build and figure out, and maybe you’ll have to work some imperfect jobs in the meantime, but I promise you, it’s worth it. ”
She wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe there was a way. And yet…
“Do you have any idea how scary this is for me?”
He dropped his brow to hers. “As scary as the idea of letting you walk out of my life.”
Sarah’s heart squeezed hard, and there went that knot in her throat again. “Oh.”
“I believe in you, and I believe in us. Maybe that’s crazy after less than two weeks, but there you have it. Let’s give ourselves the chance to figure the rest out.”