Chapter 28 Lara
Lara
I’d slept soundly. A victory that was short-lived when I opened my eyes to a loss. The bed was empty beside me and the bedroom door open. I could smell the hot coffee steaming from the kitchen counter and hear every thump of my heart in the silence of the empty Airstream.
Calder hadn’t just left the bed—he’d left the Airstream entirely.
I hated the way my heart plummeted, not even bothering to pull a parachute before crashing into my stomach.
There could be a million good reasons for why he wasn’t here. A million good reasons anchored not only by how he’d worshipped me in a deliciously brutal way last night, but how he’d tenderly cared for me afterward. But of course, none of those million were the first that came to mind.
The first thought that took root was that Calder regretted what had happened.
Why wouldn’t it be? For eighteen years, I’d watched a string of men leave my mom’s heart high and dry, and I followed that with another decade in the front row seat to my sister’s stack of heartbreak.
A stack including the man who’d just fucked my brains out last night.
Okay, maybe not my brains, but definitely my insides, I thought as instant soreness slowed my slide out from the covers.
I didn’t have examples of relationships, only cautionary tales.
Scooting to the end of the bed, I found a pile of clothes for me waiting there. Only Calder Stone could turn disappearing the morning after into a gentlemanly feat.
As I dressed, I cataloged the bites and bruises he’d left scattered on my skin. They were nothing compared to the invisible mark he’d left inside my chest.
Was it because of Rachel? Because of what I’d demanded he tell me? Or was it something else?
Was it the same thing that made him pull away from my sister?
While I’d learned a lot about their past last night, Calder hadn’t done more than gloss over why he’d broken up with Rachel. And he definitely hadn’t explained what he’d done to make her lie to me about it.
“Because she wasn’t the only guilty one in our relationship.”
I tensed. Those words had gone in and out last night, my head overflowing with too many other massive bombshells to latch on to them, but now, they sank their teeth into my mind.
Calder wasn’t the reason why my sister’s world had shattered. Dr. Julia’s notes, shaded in by Calder’s knowledge, made that clear. But just because he wasn’t the reason she’d broken didn’t mean he hadn’t contributed to her cracks.
And he’d admitted it to me.
“He was so distant, Lara. The harder I pulled, the more he pushed. The more I needed him, the less he cared.” Rachel’s sobs plagued my memory. Was she talking about Calder or Allen? And if she was talking about Calder, should I have known better? Should I have known this was coming?
A noise outside pulled me from my spiraling thoughts. The sound of Calder’s truck starting outside. If my heart hadn’t already fallen to my stomach, it would’ve buried itself there now. Right under a nice thick blanket of hot fury.
He was leaving. Without me. The very thing he promised not to do.
Like. Hell. He. Was.
I stormed out from the bedroom, grabbing my bag from where it was neatly placed on the table like I was just supposed to take my things, leave a tip for good dick, and see myself out. I dug inside for the folded check I’d brought with me and filled it in for $50,000.
Sure enough, I stepped outside to the very worst of my assumptions.
Calder, dressed in his tracking uniform of dark-green pants, a black jacket, and utility boots, packing camping gear into the bed of his truck. His running truck. And for a second, the only emotion that consumed me was regret.
Regret that he was only mine for a night.
Regret that I’d turned all the words he’d said to me while we were undercover into trophies.
Into marks of meaning on my heart. And regret that I could look at him now, watching him in the process of leaving me, and still wish I could have just a little more time with him.
It didn’t take him long to realize I was there. Survival instinct and all that.
“Lara.” His low greeting sent a traitorous hum through my veins as his eyes raked over me. Like he had X-ray vision to all those marks he’d left on me. And it made my heart angrier.
“You found her. You know where the cult is.” They weren’t questions.
“Yes.”
A cocktail of emotions too potent to describe injected into my veins.
“How dare you?” I handed him the tone I reserved for only the gravest of reprimands in the hospital, where a repeated mistake could risk a patient’s life.
“Excuse me?”
His calmness aggravated me. I strode close enough for my head to fog for a second when the scent of strong coffee and masculine musk hit my nostrils. I quickly shook it off and banded my arms over my chest, a barricade against breathing him in too deep.
“What was your plan? Fuck me into a coma so I wouldn’t notice when you left me behind to find Rachel?
” I barked out a laugh. “I mean, I heard you when you said you wouldn’t do anything to put me in danger.
I guess it’s my own fault for not realizing there would ever be a scenario where you could justify fucking someone to keep them safe. ”
His stillness made my skin prickle. The smooth flow of his breath. The unwavering hook of his gaze. But the flex of his jaw—that spelled out in Morse code that I’d struck a nerve. Or several.
Methodically, Calder turned and shut the tailgate on his truck, the latch sliding into place like a loaded gun. And then he was in front of me, his steadiness swallowing me up and holding me prisoner.
“Who said I was leaving without you?”
My heart tripped over a pebble of hope. “You didn’t have to say it.
What was your rule? Track the person, not their footprints?
You left me asleep in your bed. Clothes, coffee, and my bag waiting for me for whenever I woke up.
Meanwhile, you’re dressed and loading up your gear.
I have to assume you’ve heard from your brother.
That you know where Rachel is. So unless you were planning on hooking up the Airstream and literally hauling me along with you . . .”
He inched closer until his chest brushed my arms. “I was planning on letting you sleep for as long as I could while I got everything ready. You were exhausted after last night.”
My mouth dried, a new kind of regret starting to seep in.
“I grabbed a pair of Colby’s hiking boots for you and brought the rest of your things from the house because I knew you’d want to leave as soon as possible,” he said, his gaze unwavering. “And because if I stayed until you woke, we wouldn’t have left that bed today.”
Butterflies swept through my stomach like a fluttering hurricane. “So you weren’t leaving without me?” I said, not trying to hide the huskiness in my voice.
He cupped my cheek, the tender touch turning dominating as that hold slid to my neck. “I promised you I wouldn’t.”
There was something quite unbreakable about a promise made by Calder Stone.
Heat flooded my cheeks, and I felt like an ass. A vulnerable ass. My arms lowered to my sides, taking with them the last holds on my defenses.
“You also said you’d do anything to keep me safe.”
I didn’t know what to make of his soft laugh, and I didn’t have much time to think about it because he grabbed my arm and lifted my hand up—the one holding the check. Air sucked into my lungs as he peeled apart my fingers and pulled free the crushed paper.
His nostrils flared as soon as he saw what it was.
“Calder—” I stopped when a lighter appeared in his other hand, a flame sparking.
Wordlessly, he held the check to the fire and let it catch. “I was wrong.” The paper charred a quick trail to his fingers. “If I’d wanted to keep you safe, I never would’ve let you come to the diner with me.”
Calder didn’t even flinch when the fire chewed between his fingertips and he opened them to a stain of ash.
“So why did you?”
His gaze lifted and settled onto mine, a look sweeping over him that answered me with words he refused to say. Words I ached to hear. But before I could ask . . . or beg . . . he stepped back and jerked his chin in the direction of the Airstream.
“Go get your things, Tomb Raider, before I bend you over my tailgate and ruin another pair of your pants.”
And just like that, the ache I had for him ignited once more, careless of the desperation I had to find my sister.
“You can’t ruin these. They’re all I have.”
His mouth quirked on one side as it descended close to my ear, and he murmured, “You say that like I care.”
We were pulling out of the drive and heading north not even ten minutes later, the Tetons rising into a cloudless blue sky off to the right.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I offered. “I’m not good at this. I’m not good at letting people in.”
“I live in an Airstream that only parks for long stretches in the Wyoming wilderness. I don’t think that makes me great at it, either.” His sideways stare caught mine and I smiled.
My phone vibrated twice from inside my purse, the sensation surprising to me after so many days either without it or without service.
The screen was filled with a bunch of random alerts from the weather app and from my email, but it was the missed call and voicemail that launched my heart into my throat.
“Crap,” I murmured and swiped to open the message.
“Everything okay?”
“It’s the hospital.” I tapped on the message and put the phone up to my ear, Dr. Morgan’s low drawl coming in clear.
“Dr. Crane. I wanted to call and let you know that Sunrise’s internal review of the case has closed, and you’ve officially been cleared of all wrongdoing. I will be back in touch in a few days once we decide our next steps.”
The voicemail ended, and even though it should’ve been good news, my chest struggled to release my breath.
“Lara.” A large hand closed over mine, making me realize my fingers had balled into a fist in my lap.
“The hospital’s investigation into what happened in the ER is closed. They cleared me of any wrongdoing,” I repeated almost hollowly.
His hand squeezed mine. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“It . . . I don’t know.” I fought to swallow. “I guess. It just . . . I guess it just feels like if I’d done everything right, Ian would still be alive.”
Calder hummed. “Feelings aren’t always the best indicator of fact.”
“I know.” I stared blankly out the window, focusing too much on the comfort I derived from the simple gesture of his hand holding mine. When was the last time anyone had comforted me?
When was the last time I’d let someone in enough to know I needed comforting?
My mind went to that night at the retreat when I’d broken down in his arms and told him what had happened in the ER that day. Maybe I wasn’t that bad at letting people in after all. Or maybe it was just him.
God, I shouldn’t be thinking about him like that. Like he was . . . everything I’d wanted all these years?
Flushed at the thought, I sat up and reached for my coffee, effectively loosening his hand from mine. “Did Callum find the location from the solar panels?”
Calder cleared his throat and then let out a grunt of disbelief. “Yeah.”
He slowed as the road turned to gravel and shifted the truck into all-wheel drive; the amount of rain over the last couple of days had not only turned the road into mud, but as we climbed higher in elevation and deeper into the woods, scattered limbs of trees turned into obstacles.
“And they just gave him the information?”
“Well . . . yeah.” Calder winced. “The guy who owns the company is an amateur storm chaser and a huge fan of Callum’s, so when he explained why we needed the information, he sent over the delivery coordinates.
There were two. One matched the Wilderness Within building, and the other was about another mile ahead on this road, but the compound is deeper into those woods.
” He pointed out my window, catching my eyes on the swivel.
I sat up straighter. “How far?” I squinted like I’d be able to see it.
“Eight miles, so we have a bit of a hike.”
Thankfully, my coffee was only on the way to my mouth, not inside it, or I would’ve choked. “Eight miles?”
“This road is the last place the delivery truck could reach. I’m guessing the panels were off-loaded into Matthew’s Jeep or some kind of four-wheeler to get it to the compound buildings. Eden probably thought it isolated him, too. Controlling the final delivery.”
“Did one of Callum’s drones locate it?”
Calder gave a slow nod. “Last night.”
“I thought it was too risky with the lightning?”
The whiskers of his beard fluttered. “I made it worth his while to take the risk, so we could have answers,” he said, and then continued talking like I couldn’t read between the lines.
I knew how expensive and custom that type of equipment was, so whatever Calder had promised to pay or reimburse if the drone got struck by a bolt of lightning had to have been significant. And he’d done it for me.
“And it was able to see—get images in the storm?”
“It was a thermal drone. They’re smaller and faster, and nighttime is ideal to pick up heat signatures and go unnoticed.
” Calder paused when one of the tires spun in the mud, making us swerve for a split second before finding traction again.
“Now that we have the location, he sent out another drone this morning for imaging. By the time we hike close, I’ll have an idea of what we’re looking at. ”
“So, we go to the drop-off location and then hike to the compound?”
He frowned, his eyes narrowing. “Well, that was the plan.”
“Was . . .” Ahead of us, a huge tree had fallen from the storm, the trunk spanning the width of the road.
Calder slowed and then angled his truck off the shoulder. “Looks like we’re hiking from here.”