Rule Breaker

by Joanne Rock

  “I’m sure she is.” Weston suspected she must have been very special to Gage at one time for the almighty Striker patriarch to see her as a threat to the family’s image. “She just happens to have a job that can ruin us, and she’s also got an ax to grind with Gage.”

  “She’s so lovely, I just assumed she was one of the celebrity guests when she said she was attending the party tonight.” Relinquishing the fabric bloom, she met his gaze, and he saw regret shimmering in her clear blue eyes. “We shared a dress fitting this afternoon and started talking. I’d never met her before today.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Weston knew better than to concern himself with the drama Elena would stir. Gage would take over on that front. “What I care about is why you didn’t tell me your case was closed. Why would you make plans to leave Mesa Falls without telling me?”

  He turned to study her, already feeling the weight of her departure strangling all the plans he’d had for tonight.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, her whole posture radiating a closed-off vibe. “I wanted to just enjoy what time we had.”

  “Enjoy it? You looked forward to counting down the minutes until you left.” He was rattled and off his game from how fast the playing field was shifting under his feet. But it felt like she was purposely shredding all his hopes for creating something more. “No wonder you didn’t take me up on an offer of climbing a foreign mountain range in time to see the sunrise. You knew you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I should have told you sooner,” she admitted, accepting the blame and meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry, Weston. But I’ve found it difficult to trust what I’m feeling when this is all happening so fast.”

  Damn right it was happening fast. He remained rooted to the spot, one shoulder against the window frame, even thought he’d rather be holding her.

  “You’re the one rushing to leave,” he pointed out. “If you stayed, we could take our time. Explore what’s happening—”

  “I can’t do that.” She spread her hands wide in a gesture of hopelessness, her pink fingernails making him wish she had her hands on him. Touching him. “I have a life in Denver. I’ve never been away from home as long as I have for this case, and my mother’s anxiety gets worse when I’m not around.”

  “So leave and come back.” It seemed easy enough from where he was standing. Or at least it was if April really cared about him. If she was truly as moved as he was by their explosive connection. “I get being committed to family, April, but that doesn’t help me understand why you won’t consider continuing our relationship. It doesn’t have to end just because you’re leaving Mesa Falls.”

  He studied her expression, trying to understand her. But when she bit her lip, her gaze shifting, he had a flash of insight.

  “Unless that’s what you’ve been banking on all along,” he continued, as he connected the dots. “Is the end of your work just an excuse to end things?”

  Bitterness crept into his words. He heard it, and he guessed she did too.

  “I can’t afford to dig myself in any deeper.” She moved closer to him, resting a tentative hand on his arm.

  He noticed she didn’t deny it. The sense of betrayal stung. “How long have you known you had no intention of seeing me once your investigation was finished?”

  “I didn’t think about it in those terms,” she insisted. “I just knew if we spent any more time together this week...” She swallowed hard and looked away before meeting his gaze again, tears hovering on the edges of her eyelids. “I knew it would only make leaving more impossible than it already is.”

  “So don’t do it.” Frustration simmered as the touch of her hand stirred him, tempted him, reminded him of all he would lose when she left. It was a feeling more intense than he’d felt for any other woman. “When was the last time you took a risk, April?”

  Snatching her hand back, her lips went tight. He recognized that flicker of pain in her pretty blue eyes. He remembered the pain she’d described when she’d done something she’d regretted as a teen.

  “As an adult,” he clarified. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her. “I know figuring things out with me might seem messy and complicated, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be worth it.”

  “I don’t understand.” She shook her head, pacing away from him, her dress swishing against her calves. “What are you suggesting?”

  He hesitated, her question catching him off guard.

  “I’m not sure,” he told her carefully, weighing his words, wanting to be truthful, which was tough to do when his gut was roiling with emotion. “Because I haven’t had time to work that out. But I know there’s something between us that deserves more time—”

  She cut him off. “I can’t pin my hopes on fragile possibilities that will only break my heart, Weston.” Her chin trembled for a moment before she continued. “I’ve avoided falling for you because I know how painful it would be to lose something special like that.”

  “So you don’t even try?” He couldn’t believe his ears. Straightening from the window, he followed her to where she stood by the grandfather clock.

  The damned ticking reminded him of everything that wasn’t working between them, and that he was just counting down the seconds until he lost her.

  “I’m not like you, Weston.” She held herself very straight, as if touching him again might shatter her. “I’ve never been the one who jumped in with both feet. I need to weigh my decisions. To think through the outcomes—”

  “All of which requires time. And you’ve already said you won’t give that to me.”

  He knew then that he was fighting a losing battle. Tilting at windmills. That she didn’t see him the way he saw her. And she’d been plotting her exit strategy all week long.

  The grandfather clock chimed the half hour, startling her when she’d been standing so close. It didn’t surprise him, though. He’d known this was coming from the moment they’d walked into the room. Dragging in a long breath, he said, “Clearly nothing I have to say is going to change your mind.”

  How had he tangled himself up with a woman who would never take a chance? He’d spent too long being the wildcard in his family to enter into a relationship with a woman who viewed him that way too.

  Not that she was giving him a chance.

  “You’ll be happier without me in the long run.” She held her magnolia flower in a death grip, one of the petals floating to the floor.

  “Do me a favor, and don’t pretend to know what’s best for me.” He didn’t bother to hide the resentment in his voice, the thought of walking away from her stirring an ache unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

  April’s blue gaze remained steady. “Goodbye, Weston.”

  Bitterness and betrayal warred inside him.

  When she slipped out the door, he knew his life wasn’t ever going to be the same again without her.

  * * *

  Weston had no idea what time it was when the door to the den opened again. At first, he pried his eyes open, disoriented as he realized he must have fallen asleep since he hadn’t wanted to rejoin the party.

  When the door slammed hard enough to rattle the windows, he bolted straight up from his spot on the sofa.

  His brother stopped in the middle of the room.

  “Wes?” Miles flicked on a reading lamp near the wingback. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  Blinking from the sudden brightness, Weston scraped a hand through his hair, his eyes gritty, his insides still raw from April’s rejection.

  “Sulking.” He’d laid his tux jacket over the arm of the sofa and had been using it for a pillow. A half-empty glass of scotch sat on the cocktail table nearby.

  He hadn’t felt like drinking after April left, but he didn’t know what else to do. Half a glass had been enough to help him sleep for a few minutes. Or maybe it had been a few hours. H
e didn’t know.

  Miles reached for the glass and sniffed it. “This any good?”

  “Judge for yourself,” he muttered.

  “Does the sulking have anything to do with the pretty blonde you came with?” He downed the drink in one gulp, then dropped onto the opposite end of the sofa and put his feet on the cocktail table. “I saw her leave alone a couple of hours ago.”

  Damn it. He’d slept longer than he thought, and he still didn’t have any answers for what to say to April to smooth things over. Having Miles here made him remember how much he missed having friends—bonds that went beyond keeping secrets. He and Miles had had that, once.

  So he found himself confiding.

  “I messed things up, and I don’t even know how.” He regretted that he hadn’t measured his words more carefully, but he didn’t think that would have made the end result any different.

  “Want me to help you figure it out?” Miles offered, loosening his tie and then pitching it on the floor.

  Something was definitely wrong with his brother if he of all people was offering relationship advice. They’d always been so different. Miles had never understood Weston’s restlessness, his need to do more than just work a ranch. Their paths had made them both successful, just in very different ways.

  “What gives?” Weston narrowed his gaze, trying to see what he’d missed. “Since when do you do the hard work for me? Haven’t you always been the one pushing for me to buckle down and focus, to figure it out for myself?”

  “According to you, I’m the model son, right? I can do no wrong. Maybe I just need five minutes of feeling like I have all the answers you think I do.” The dark scowl on Miles’s brow was familiar enough from Weston’s own glimpses in the mirror, but he couldn’t recall ever seeing the expression on his older sibling’s face.

  He had zero experience helping his brother, but he had to at least offer. To try.

  “Miles—”

  “Give me this, okay?” he asked more quietly. Less aggressively. “Being with all the guys again...it’s like I hear Zach in my ear. I need to do something else, okay? So tell me, why did she leave you?”

  Weston understood all too well. He spilled out the story about April as well as he could, understanding now why she hadn’t given him any time or preparation, that she’d kept him in the dark about her departure right up until tonight. She’d never had any intention of giving them a fighting chance to work things out between them. She’d always planned on using her work as an excuse to shut things down.

  “Do you love her?” Miles asked when Weston was finished, picking at the button cover on his shirt.

  “Love?” The word stopped him short. Weston hadn’t thought in those terms. “I haven’t known her that long.”

  “Bullshit.” Miles never even looked up from flicking the button cover. “You know you love April, or at the very least are well on your way to falling for her. I can hear it in your voice when you talk about her.”

  He loved April? The feeling flooded him. Filled him. Hell yes, he loved her. He’d never thought about any woman day and night before, never spent days figuring out how to woo someone. He’d had a plane on standby tonight just in case she took him up on that offer to go to Paris or anywhere else she chose. More than anything, he wanted her to be happy. And if that wasn’t love, he didn’t know the first thing about it.

  Then he remembered she was leaving. And all of this might be a moot point. His chest got tight again.

  “But if I tell her that—”

  Miles sat up and focused his gaze on him for the first time since he’d entered the room. “With all due respect, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that April sounds like she has more in common with someone like me. Sounds like she has the kind of character you think I have—logical, cautious, thoughtful.”

  “I’d hardly compare her to you,” he said drily, thinking of her soft hair. Her scent. Curves he wanted to touch all the time. But it was true that April had a more reserved nature than Weston did.

  They balanced each other.

  “Okay. But she’s not like you. You save people. You take chances. And everyone loves you for that.” There was a wealth of bitterness in those words. “People like you can fall in love fast, and that’s fine. But someone like April might not feel as...free...to do the same. Maybe she has too much responsibility weighing her down to do something so...romantic.” He spat out the word with particular distaste. “My guess is she needs you to take the leap. To do what you do best.”

  Weston felt like a hole had opened up under his feet. He’d fallen into an upside-down world where Miles made sense and understood him. Where Miles seemed to almost envy him.

  On the one hand, he wanted to figure out what was going on with his brother, because even someone as illogical as Weston apparently was wise to the fact that Miles was hurting like hell. But on the other hand, he also knew that you didn’t poke a hurt animal with a stick, so he’d have to figure out an approach another time.

  Besides, the need to talk to April, to possibly stop her before she caught her flight back home, was propelling him to his feet even now. He didn’t know if he could persuade her, but he had to try or he would regret it for the rest of his life. And he knew firsthand from losing his best friend how deeply regrets could cripple a person.

  “I don’t know how you knew that. Any of that,” he confessed as he punched his arms through the sleeves of his tux jacket. “But you’re right. I do love her.”

  A wry smile curved his brother’s lips. “Go get her, Wes.”

  Weston hesitated by the door. “You need anything?”

  The grandfather clock said it was 2:00 a.m. How the hell had he fallen asleep for that long?

  “Nah,” he said quietly, falling back on the sofa as if he was going to take over the spot to sleep. “Thanks for letting me do one good thing today.”

  “Thank you, brother. I owe you.” Switching off the lamp, Weston closed the door behind him. Now he needed to find April. And pray like hell that Miles was, indeed, as smart as Weston thought he was. Because if he could fix this, Weston owed him everything.

  * * *

  The only good news in the last twenty-four hours was that her bag was still packed with her climbing gear.

  April had checked and double-checked the weather report for Trapper Peak before starting her predawn trek, confident that this time no storms were blowing in. Conditions were good on the mountain, even for someone without much winter climbing experience. She wasn’t going to summit. She was just headed for Gem Lake, the same place she’d hiked the first time she’d come to Montana before Christmas.

  The destination wouldn’t have as many memories for her as the other path—the one that had led her to spend that first night in Weston’s arms. The thought of that night—and the devastating ending to her time with him at the party the evening before—threatened to bring her to her knees. The hurt was an actual physical pain in her body that made it harder, slower to climb. She’d been the one who’d set the terms. The one to insist their time together had a limit. So why did it hurt so much now?

  She kept climbing despite the hurt in her chest, not knowing any other way to pass the rest of the hours in Montana before her afternoon flight. She needed to do something or she would go crazy from the hurt and loss that had come with all of her poor choices. She couldn’t believe she’d never feel Weston’s arms around her again.

  Or sleep in his bed.

  Now, as the first hint of sunrise stole over the mountain, she paused to savor the pink tinge to the snow. She curled her toes inside her boots and breathed in the mountain air, wishing it could heal the hurt inside her, that it would clear her mind as it had in the past. But even with the delicate dance of pink light turning to tangerine, the surprise spotting of a rabbit hopping just off her path, she couldn’t ease the ache inside her.

  Was sh
e wrong to close her heart to hope?

  The bird wheeling over her head right now, calling and cawing, seemed to think so. With all of the mountainside waking up now, it felt like a crime against nature to not celebrate the start to a new day. A new start. A tender beginning.

  When had she become so cowardly?

  She set her backpack down on the ground, unzipping it to find a water bottle and take a drink. She needed to fuel up and replenish, to go back down the mountain and tell Weston she’d made a mistake.

  Drinking so fast that some sloshed on her cheek, April righted the water bottle and blinked at what she saw in her peripheral vision.

  A broad-shouldered hiker trekking up the mountain right toward her.

  Squinting into the orangey-yellow glow behind the figure, she felt her heart swell with happiness as she recognized the figure.

  Weston. He’d come after her. Come for her. Even after she’d pushed him away, he hadn’t given up on her. And that spoke volumes.

  Shoving her water bottle back in her bag, she charged toward him.

  “Weston?” she called to him even though she knew him almost right away.

  She recognized his dark winter parka. His climbing gear. His long hair curling up under the sides of his cap.

  He lifted his snow goggles to stare up at her with his hazel eyes.

  She shuffled to a stop, her heart overcome with emotions she didn’t know how to put into words. For all that she wanted to tell him she was sorry, that she’d made a mistake, she was still feeling overwhelmed that he had found her at dawn in the most unlikely of places.

  “How did you know I was here?” she asked when he slowed to a stop a foot in front of her. Close enough to touch, their cloudy breaths mingling in the space between them.

  She tried to read his expression, hoping that he would give her a chance to explain the things she’d been too tongue-tied and uncertain about the night before. She’d missed him so much this week. Not just last night, but every night before that when she’d tried to put up walls between them. To keep herself from falling for him. Which was so foolish of her, when she already had.