“Do you promise your dad will come?”
“Of course!” he said. “If I don’t get hold of him, I’ll come back out myself on the snowmobile and Maggie will have to find her own way to the airport. But he’ll come, and he’ll let me know when you’re back safe.”
“And if you don’t hear from him?”
“People’s lives are in my hands literally every single day,” he said. “Can you trust me?”
“Yes,” she said, and she did, but this was her life, and she rather liked it.
She almost told him then about her greatest fear, about getting lost as a little girl, and how this was her equivalent of someone terrified of heights being forced to go bungee jumping. She wanted to let loose the tears dammed up behind her eyes, to make him stay with her next to the crackling fire and wait for Scout. To put her above work and above his sister’s travel plans.
But that’s not the way you think, Josh. The thought was devastating. He was so independent, so confident, that it didn’t occur to him that she might not be. Despite their obvious connection, his mindset was still one hundred percent single.
There was nothing Hayley could do about that, and all of a sudden, she no longer wanted to.
22
After Josh left, it was only Hayley and Moose and silence, except for the pounding of Hayley’s terrified heart. She was suddenly hot inside her coat and was pretty sure she was sweating. She’d had a few crippling panic attacks in her life, not for years and years, but she was overcome by a fear of having one.
“I’m not going to have a panic attack,” she said out loud. “I’m not going to have a panic attack. I’m not going to have a panic attack.”
Moose looked at her as if to point out she was having one right then.
“No, I’m not,” she told him, refuting his unspoken accusation. “I’m going to call for Scout, and I’m going to make him food, and I’m not going to have a panic attack. You got it?”
Moose stood watching her doubtfully.
“Yes, I’m the idiot who got your doggie friend lost,” she acknowledged. “But I’m doing the right thing by waiting here for him, so give me some credit, would you? Plus, I’ll give you some food once I heat it up.”
In addition to the dog food she was to heat up, Josh had left her with the bag of frozen whitefish pieces. She got a few pieces out for Moose, who lunged when he saw them, but thankfully his tie-out prevented him from jumping on her.
“Here.” She tossed them at him. “You eat those and then call for your buddy. You howl for Scout, okay? Lord knows you can be loud when you want to.”
Turning to her task, she checked to make sure the snow was melting into water. It was, and as she waited for it to fully melt, she called for Scout over and over. Once the snow was melted, she poured it into the cooler over the meat and added in the dog food. She stirred it, set the lid on the cooler to trap the heat, and when it was ready, she ladled out two bowls, one for Moose and one for Scout.
She gave Moose his and set Scout’s in the middle of the path. It was now full dark. The lantern cast an eerie yellow-white light in a circle around them, and where the light ended the darkness seemed all that much thicker.
Then Hayley began to hear things in the forest.
The thump when a piece of snow slid off a tree.
The cracking of branches.
A soft crunch that might have been snow squeaking under a footfall.
All she could think was, Something happened to Josh. The sled overturned. No one knows we’re out here. His dad won’t hear from him and will think he’s gone to work and I’ll be stranded all night and they’ll find me, eventually, frozen to death, my eyes white and frosted over, and … STOP. She smacked herself in the face with her mitten and laughed at herself, although it came out slightly hysterical. Her rambling thoughts made no sense. If something had happened to Josh, Maggie would tell Bruce he hadn’t shown up to take her to the airport. And Bruce would see Josh’s truck and Hayley’s car still parked at the house.
She felt herself calming down as she reasoned through that potential course of events.
And while she was out here, she had a job to do.
“Scout!” she called, her voice disappearing into the dark forest. “Scout! Here, Scout!”
She called for him again and again, probably a hundred times, and when a wild, black-and-white canine clown face appeared in the shadows, big pink tongue happily lolling, bushy tail wagging, Hayley’s heart almost stopped.
Scout trotted out of the woods and over to his food as if nothing was wrong. If Moose hadn’t been yapping like crazy, affirming his return, she might have thought it was a hallucination.
But it wasn’t. She approached Scout and took him firmly by the harness, then moved his bowl near the spare tie-out Josh had left. Once he was secure, she let him eat, standing nearby and feeling pretty satisfied by the way things had turned out. She’d been responsible for losing him, yes, but she’d helped save him, too.
To top it off, snowmobile headlights appeared in the distance. Her spirits soared when she realized Bruce was coming. The snowmobile arrived in less than a minute, and Bruce couldn’t have been kinder as he jumped off and rushed over to make sure she was okay.
“I heard my son abandoned you,” he said.
You’ve got that right, she thought, but only said, “He had things to do.”
“Did you run into any trouble?”
“All’s good,” she said, but it came out flat, and he looked at her closely. “Are you okay?”
“Now I am.”
“What do you say we get you home?”
“That sounds great.”
And it did. It really, really did.
Bruce kept up a stream of chatter as he packed up the supplies and tethered the dogs to the snowmobile. The ride back took about thirty minutes, going at a slower pace for the dogs, and once they arrived back at Josh’s house, Bruce invited her in to warm up with some cocoa. Hayley thanked him but said she had to get going; she went inside only long enough to change back into her own coat and boots.
Bruce walked her out to her car and waited until she’d buckled herself in before leaning down with a fatherly expression on his face. “Drive safe, now,” he said. “The snow’s coming down hard.” He waited until she’d backed out of the driveway before heading home to the warmth of his house.
Hayley’s conflicting emotions were a whirlwind as she drove. The wild impressions of the day swam forward—the achingly great sex with Josh, the exhilaration of the sled ride, guilt and fear and abandonment when it all went wrong. And, curiously, a kind of sadness, a wistful yearning that she thought had something to do with Bruce Barnes and the solicitous, paternal concern he’d shown for her, and the fact that he’d been the one to find her and bring her back to safety.
But driving in the snow required all her concentration, and she would have to process everything later. She gripped the wheel the entire drive, expecting to hit an icy patch and skid out of control at any moment. Shoulders tense, arms rigid, back tight, she forced herself by sheer will to keep it together until she got home.
As soon as she was inside her warm apartment, she shed her outer things and went straight to the bathroom to get a bath going. For her bubble bath, she chose Breathe Tranquil by Lollia. For music, she selected coffeehouse acoustic, and for wine, she poured a generous glass of buttery chardonnay from a bottle stored in the refrigerator.
Her body began thawing out as soon as she climbed into the tub, which she’d filled with water as hot as she could stand. Minute by minute, the bone-deep chill resulting from her time alone in the woods lessened. She sipped her wine and tried to breathe in tranquility like her bubble bath suggested, and she listened to singer after singer muse about the wonders and heartache of love.
When Josh called, she let him go to voicemail.
That week, Singles Night was held on Wednesday night instead of Thursday to accommodate the Thanksgiving holiday. Josh had no desire to go and
pick up women, but he’d left several messages and sent several texts to Hayley since his dad reported he’d picked her up safe and sound, and since he had yet to hear back, he convinced a few of the guys to go, providing him with an excuse to run into her.
With him were a couple of the guys from his brother’s engine crew, Sean Kelly and Dylan Hart. They’d gone to happy hour at The Salmon Eye, a dive bar near the Alaska State campus, and then made a pit stop at the Golden Touch Barbershop to say hi to Andrew Blake, who talked them into sharing a whiskey while they caught up. They tried to get Andrew to join them at Singles Night, but he passed. Being in his mid-fifties, he said it had too much of a robbing-the-cradle feeling.
By the time they arrived, Josh was pleasantly buzzed and feeling cheerful. As he paid his cover charge to Rebecca Miller, he kept his eyes peeled for Hayley, finally spotting her near the back of the bar, chatting with a group of women. While Sean and Dylan went to the bar for drinks, Josh made his way over to Hayley, approaching her from behind and waiting for her to turn and see him. When she did, she nearly jumped from surprise.
“Oh! Josh. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
He latched onto her gold-flecked eyes, craving the connection he’d come to find in them, but they were cool and distant. “How are you?” he said. “You’re a hard woman to get a hold of these days.”
“Well, I’ve got the website launching right after Thanksgiving, so I’ve been busy making sure it’s ready to go.”
“Did you write your profile on me?”
“Not yet.” She glanced around the room, and he realized he was cutting into her working time.
“I know you’re busy, and I won’t keep you,” he said. “But I wanted to make sure you’ve been getting my messages. I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am,” she said, looking away.
Josh wasn’t used to a woman giving him the cold shoulder, it was true, but the fact that Hayley—kind, generous, open, warm, beautiful Hayley—was all of a sudden closed off to him made him feel more forlorn than he could ever remember. He couldn’t help noticing that she was wearing her sexy metallic high heels, which brought back very unwholesome memories of the night they’d spent together.
This wasn’t right.
He stepped closer and touched her arm, feeling the warmth of her beneath her snug sweater, wondering what luxurious lotion she’d rubbed all over herself after her morning bath.
“I need to thank you, Hayley,” he said, although what he really needed to do was wrap her in his arms. “I’m sure you saved Scout’s life out there.”
“It was nothing.” She pulled away from his touch and did so naturally enough that he couldn’t take any meaning from it. “I’m the one who got him lost, after all. It was the least I could do.”
“It’s not nothing,” he said. “Not many women would wait at night miles from the nearest shelter to help find a dog. It was a hell of a nice thing you did.”
A man approached and joined them. Hayley made room for him and slipped her hand into the crook of his arm, and Josh felt a flare of jealousy. This must be Mr. Theater Manager.
“Hayley was nice?” the man said jokingly, as if surprised. “What’d she do that was so nice?”
“She saved my dog.” Josh extended a hand. He’d do his damnedest to play it cool, although his mood had taken a sudden plunge. “Josh Barnes. Nice to meet you.”
“Evan Taylor.”
The guy had honest eyes, a calm demeanor, and didn’t seem like an asshole. Still, Josh wanted to growl at him. To tell him to back off, that Hayley was taken—which she wasn’t, of course. At least not by him.
When he shook Evan’s hand, he may have gripped it with a little more aggression than was necessary, and he couldn’t deny the bit of satisfaction he felt when Evan winced in surprise.
As Hayley watched, she shrank inside herself. Seeing her recent past and her hoped-for future together like this was too unsettling. Escape, she thought. Escape as soon as possible.
“Josh is a firefighter,” she told Evan. “And Evan is new to town,” she told Josh, although she knew he already knew it. “I think I told you about him—he’s the new manager at the Moondance.”
“Right, right.” Josh nodded.
“And my date for the night.” Hayley gave Evan a big smile.
“How did Hayley save your dog?” Evan asked Josh.
Although Hayley wanted to jump in and control the narrative, Evan had directed the question to Josh and so she stayed quiet and let Josh answer, trusting he’d be circumspect in how he responded. Sure enough, he gave the exact answer she would have, mentioning the profile for the website and the dogsled ride that followed as a way to capture some good pictures for the piece. He spoke about what a trooper Hayley had been to remain alone in the woods for nearly an hour waiting for both the dog’s return and his dad’s arrival.
“Wow.” Evan looked at Hayley as if seeing her for the first time. “She’s quite a woman.”
“She sure is,” Josh said, with a fondness that Hayley didn’t feel was justified, given how he’d left her in the middle of the woods. She didn’t enjoy taking credit for some brave heroism when, in fact, she’d suffered a crippling panic attack and spent most of the hour feeling desperate and helpless.
“Will you both excuse me?” Hayley said. “I need to get everyone settled so I can start on time. Josh, good luck scoring a date tonight.”
“I’m tagging along more than anything.”
“Yeah, right.” She smiled at Evan. “Josh was quite popular with the ladies last time he was here. All the firefighters were. Nice seeing you, Josh.” She squeezed Evan’s arm as she moved away. “And Evan, I’ll see you in a bit.”
She could feel them both watching her walk away, and she wished neither was there. Josh, especially, shouldn’t have come—Evan was at least invited as her guest, but Josh should have taken the hint and realized that when she didn’t answer his calls or respond to his messages, it meant she didn’t want to talk to him.
It had been unwise to sleep with Josh the first time, even more so to sleep with him a second time, and now his very presence reminded Hayley of the crux of her relationship problems. Falling for emotionally unavailable guys. Wanting what she couldn’t have. And sabotaging a potentially good relationship because of her Josh-preoccupation when he’d made very clear—not just in words, but in his actions the other day—that other things took priority over Hayley.
He put the dogs, work, and his sister’s travel plans above me, she reminded herself, and a fresh wave of anger overtook her.
She knew Josh didn’t see it that way. Even now he didn’t seem to think he’d done anything wrong, which Hayley attributed to both his desensitization to danger and his general fearlessness when it came to dogs and the wilderness and being lost. Adrenaline junkies don’t make good boyfriends, she told herself, although another part of her remembered that Josh wasn’t an adrenaline junkie, that he was racing to find peace, to be out in nature, to quiet the demons of combat.
But that was more a generous thought than she felt like heeding at the moment.
Resolutely blocking Josh from her mind, she got busy greeting her regulars and mixing up the seating arrangements so people largely sat with different people than they had the previous time.
She was pleased with the crowd. Even with the holiday week, the Sled Dog Brewing Company was packed with hopeful singles. The gender ratio was pathetic as usual, but it was clear the men had listened to her weekly encouragement about presenting themselves well.
“Look, Elizabeth,” she said, admiring the guys in the crowd from the bar, where she waited for her second Lynchburg Lemonade of the night. “Their shirts are mostly tucked in, and their jeans are clean. They’ve pulled in their guts and shaved their faces and gotten haircuts and some are even wearing something other than a flannel shirt. They’re actually looking kind of nice now, collectively, don’t you think?”
“I do see improvement,” Elizabeth
said as she mixed Hayley’s drink. “And, hey, I have a question for you. Are you dating the guy you came in with, or are you dating Josh Barnes? I saw some massive sparks flying between the two of you when you were talking before.”
“You did? Shit.”
“Well, I saw sparks from him and smoldering from you.”
“I made a dumb mistake,” Hayley told her. “I got caught up in a short-term fling with Josh that’s now very much over, but I don’t know if Evan would see it that way.”
What she’d said was technically true, since Evan hadn’t asked her to be his girlfriend. Despite the fact that she’d had more of the best sex of her life with Josh just two days earlier, she was trying to forget how good it had been and instead focus on growing her relationship with Evan. In addition to a few phone calls this past week, they’d had breakfast that morning at the North Star Café.
Elizabeth moved down the bar to pour shots for some of the firefighters, and as Hayley sipped her drink, she scanned the room. Her heart plummeted when she saw Josh talking to Shannon Steele of all people, her new confidante and his ex-girlfriend. Shannon looked great, too, wearing slinky red heels, tight jeans, and a fitted black ballet-style shirt. Hayley wondered if Shannon planned to make a move on him, in spite of telling Hayley she was finally over him.
Not your business, she thought. But the idea frazzled her, and she took a few fast gulps from her drink to calm her nerves. Evan was off talking to a small group of people, and he looked comfortable. Rebecca was busy at the door collecting the cover charge, aided this time by her bearded man, whom Hayley had learned was the Sled Dog’s own brewmaster. Everything was going right—the energy of the crowd was excited and anticipatory, she had her list of questions for the ice-breaker portion of the night, and the carefully chosen music was doing its job—but Hayley felt off somehow. The night had lost its luster the moment Josh showed up.
He shouldn’t have shown up.
He shouldn’t have abandoned her in the woods, either.
The more she drank of her strong drink, the more resentful she grew of Josh and the more appreciative she grew of Evan, and when Evan made his way over to her, she enjoyed the feeling of safety that came over her as he put his hand on her shoulder.
Bring Your Heart (Golden Falls Fire Book 2) Page 19
