“You think I’m not thinking clearly, Tyler, but I am. Probably for the first time since we’ve met. You want someone you can take care of, someone you can rescue, someone who’ll take away your guilt about Scott. But I’m not that person. I’ve got my life here, a job I care about, a town I’ll do anything to protect. That’s why I’m not going to go bulldozing just so you can have an extra gold sticker on your resume. I take back what I said earlier. I do know what I’m talking about. And I’m putting the report through.”
She closed her eyes. She wouldn’t let herself cry, no matter how much everything hurt. She was done with men who only saw her as someone to take care of. Who were, at the end of the day, only thinking of themselves.
“You’re just saying that,” Tyler started, trying to sound gentle even as that edge to him was clear. But Abbi shook her head.
“I’m grateful you saved my life. But you can’t replace Scott with me and think now everything works out perfectly. And you can’t turn me into someone who just lies here while you make all the decisions. You come in here sure you know what’s best, no matter what I tell you about my actual life or the town that I live in. Do you get how fucked up that is?”
“You’re making excuses,” he started. “You’re just looking for any reason to—”
“I don’t need this, Tyler,” she said, before she lost her nerve. “And I don’t—” She swallowed, choking on the words, and then forced herself to say it. “I don’t need you.”
She thought he was going to reach for her hand, try to talk her out of this. She almost wanted him to, so she’d have an excuse to change her mind.
But instead he pulled away.
“You don’t even know what that means,” he said, running both hands through his hair.
“See? All you know how to do is say that I’m wrong. If it doesn’t fit in your neat little world where everything is fixable and always makes sense, then it must be because I don’t know what I’m talking about. And if it’s something that directly affects me, like, I don’t know, say how this fire got started? You make the unilateral decision that I don’t need to know what’s going on. All you care about is your agenda. Your perspective. I may as well not even be here.”
She’d never wanted to be so wrong in her life. For him to prove that she didn’t have his number completely. That he wasn’t trying to control the uncontrollable. Fix the unfixable. Ease his guilt the only way he knew how.
But she wasn’t wrong. That was the problem. Because no matter that she was crying and in pain, in a hospital room surrounded by balloons and flowers and get well cards but still, fundamentally, alone.
No matter that she needed him now more than ever. Tyler McCall looked at her lying in that bed, wrapped in bandages, and rather than tell her yet again how wrong she was, he went ahead and proved her right. He became that man she’d met at Mackenzie’s, the one who barely said more than a few words in a row and gave her nothing of himself to work with.
That night, it had been enough. But it wasn’t anymore. She didn’t just want a good time and a way to forget. She wanted to matter. She wanted to be loved.
Not for a night, not as a joke, not as part of some big lie they’d told themselves they needed to concoct in order to look good on the job. But it wasn’t going to happen, because Tyler, that bastard, took one, slow look at her and walked away.
At the doorway, he stopped.
“You don’t think you need anyone. You’re so fucking sure you’ve got this on your own. But all that means is that you’re missing something. Something big.” He tapped his finger on the doorframe, as though thinking. “I feel sorry for you, Blue. You don’t believe someone can care about you without having some kind of ulterior motive. You can’t even recognize what love is when it’s holding you in its arms.”
“At least I know what love isn’t,” Abbi hissed. But it didn’t come out very strong.
“Yeah, I know. You’ve got it all figured out.” He waved his hand, dismissing her just like that. But then he looked at her as if for the last time. “Just tell me one more thing. What’s this stuff about cash?”
Abbi jerked so hard she felt the bandages scrape her skin. She tried to keep the trembling from her voice when she asked what he meant.
“You were repeating it as I carried you out. You kept saying no, and I thought it was about me. But then you started saying cash.”
In the woods, as she’d run for her life, she’d thought that maybe, if Tyler loved her, he’d find her and tell her everything was okay. That she was okay. Neither of their past mistakes had to define who they were now, or who they wanted to be in their futures.
Just another way she’d been wrong.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
He shook his head. “You were never going to let me in, were you?”
But Abbi didn’t have an answer to that. She turned her head to the wall and closed her eyes until she heard the click of the door, and he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tyler left the hospital with his head spinning. He’d watched over her day and night. Brought her water. Held the oxygen mask. Stroked her hand as she slept. And now that she was better, what she’d had to say to him wasn’t gratitude, or relief—but anger?
How had he managed to do everything wrong?
To fight a fire, there were rules. Think clearly. Act decisively. Maintain prompt communication. Stay in control at all times.
He’d just wanted Abbi to know how terrified he’d been, how all he’d been able to think about was her.
Who cared how the fire got started? The point was that they needed a firebreak. Yet Abbi couldn’t see anything but a chance to push him away. His chest burned as though he were still in the fire, inhaling the smoke. His limbs felt heavy, as though she were still in his arms.
Abbi thought no one should help her. She kept acting like if he did anything for her—whether it was small like fixing her screen door or huge like saving her life—she’d owe him. And whatever she thought she owed, she must have believed she’d never be able to repay.
Part of him wanted to run back in there and tell her he wasn’t going anywhere. What kind of man walked out on a woman in a hospital bed?
Then he thought about the look she’d given him as he stood in the doorway, and he knew there was nothing for him to do but walk away. She had friends constantly checking in on her. She had family nearby—even if all they’d done was send flowers and a card.
If she’d wanted him there, she’d have acted like it. He was just trying to help. Trying to be there for her. But she wouldn’t give him a thing.
He’d let her hold him as he cried about Scotty. He’d trusted her and thought she felt the same. But when he asked about the words he’d heard her mumble, she’d straight up lied to him.
Her eyes had gone wide, jaw clenched, everything about her frozen. When she’d turned her head as though pretending to be asleep, he’d known for certain she was hiding something. The kind of truth that only came out when she was desperate, scared, practically unconscious…and all her barriers were down.
If she couldn’t open up, if she couldn’t tell him anything, if all she did when she was vulnerable was get angry and lash out at him—
Then it didn’t matter what he wanted. It didn’t matter what he said. Love wasn’t enough.
He’d make this firebreak happen.
And then he’d move on with the rest of his life.
Tyler sat in an uncomfortable metal seat, sipping lukewarm coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Yellow lights beat down on him. The room was sterile, empty except for the table and two chairs. Across from him, the sheriff, a no-nonsense woman named Allyson Broadwater, hit record and pulled out a spiral-bound notepad and pen.
Tyler was the first one to talk to Russ the morning of the fire. He’d been there when Abbi heard about someone lurking around in the hills. Abbi wouldn’t let him help her? Fine. He could still make sure what had happened to her w
ouldn’t happen to anyone else.
He told the sheriff everything. The phone calls, the truck up on the hill, Russ’s reaction the morning of the fire.
Well, almost everything. He tried to leave out why he knew Abbi had gone into the woods that day, but Allyson kept pressing, confused as to how the pieces fit together, until he finally confessed.
“She was coming from my place,” he said, heat creeping up his face. He was aware of the recording device turning, and he’d seen enough Law & Order to assume there were plenty of people behind the one-way window, listening in. He and Abbi had tried to be so public about their relationship when they weren’t even together. It was different to talk about something he cared about—even if it was already gone.
“So you were sleeping together?” Allyson asked.
“Is that relevant?”
“Just getting the facts, honey. You’re not on trial here.”
“Okay. Yes.”
A yes that meant: we’d been having insane sex all over the house and all I could think about was counting down the hours until the end of the day so I could get her in bed again.
“But we’d had something of an argument that morning.” Which meant: I spilled my guts to her and she basically said that was nice but she had to go to work to stop me from ever being hirable again.
“About?” Allyson’s pen hovered over the page.
Everything. Nothing. I don’t even know.
“She didn’t want the firebreak. Remember? She’d already stopped construction from starting and was in the process of submitting an endangered species petition to thwart the project for good. I didn’t want her to. I thought she was…overreacting.” He winced as he heard the word coming out of his mouth. Had he actually said that to her?
He wanted to correct himself, to explain that it wasn’t really the way he made it sound. But of course Allyson didn’t care about the details of his love life. She’d caught something else to fixate on.
“You said construction?” she said, circling something on her page.
“They were supposed to begin bulldozing the path for the firebreak, but Abbi had put a stop to it.”
“And by they, you mean Russell’s Construction Company?”
As soon as Tyler said yes, she stopped the recording. Russ was in the next room over. She had more than a few questions for him.
Tyler had a feeling their chat wasn’t going to be quite so friendly. He stepped into the hallway and watched as Allyson entered the room next door. He looked through the one-way mirror as their interview began.
Russ usually walked around with a hard look in his eyes, but today he looked bad, like he hadn’t slept in days. His hands, clutching a puny Styrofoam cup identical to the one Tyler had given up on, were trembling. Tyler didn’t think Russ could keep steady enough to take a sip.
Hoarsely he described his version of what happened the morning of the fire. He claimed someone had called him for a roof inspection, which was why he was out on Ridge Line Road. Allyson gave a nod toward the one-way mirror and one of the officers listening in scurried away, no doubt to confirm Russ’s story.
It didn’t take long for him to come back, shaking his head.
“No one placed a call to Russell’s Construction Company during the hours he claims,” he told Allyson when she stepped outside and asked what he’d found.
The woman who walked back into the interrogation room had a whole new purpose. And damn if she didn’t know how to make that six-foot-six bear of a man break down in the interrogation room and cry.
“I honestly didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” Russ said after Allyson had gotten him to admit he’d been out in the woods—and then lied to the police about his whereabouts. “I didn’t even mean to set the fire. I swear to God, you have to believe me!”
Tyler’s fists balled up so tightly he thought he was going to punch through the window. Russ was violent, abusive, a complete and total shit. But an arsonist?
He couldn’t believe Allyson could be so levelheaded as she asked Russ to tell her what happened—again. “And this time, let’s skip straight to the truth.”
“I just went up there a few times to look around,” Russ said. “Abbi had blocked the firebreak from going through and I was fucking pissed. That doesn’t mean I wanted to hurt her. I was just mad about what she was doing, and I needed to cool the fuck down before I showed up at the nature center shooting my mouth off.”
“Why go to the firebreak site?” Allyson asked. “It seems like a hard place to get to if you’re just looking to work off some steam.”
“Have you read Abbi’s report about these fucking spotted owls? Old growth forest? Like, who the fuck cares.” Russ banged on the table for emphasis and all of them in the hallway flinched. Not Allyson, though. Goddamn.
“The first night I went up there, it was after the project had stalled and I just wanted to see what the area really was like, what made it so fucking special. Like, maybe it really was this spectacular wilderness and I’d feel like a shithead for bulldozing even a tiny part of it down. But have you been there? It’s just like everywhere else around here. Who gives a shit?”
Tyler had to turn away and take a few deep breaths when he heard that. How dare Russ talk about something Abbi cared about that way?
The officer next to him put a hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. But the officer hadn’t seen Abbi lying in that hospital bed, her face blank, closed down to Tyler completely. He had no idea how so not okay everything was.
“So you’d been to that site before the day of the fire,” Allyson confirmed, ignoring his outburst. “And you decided to return.”
“It just seemed like the place to go,” he said. “I wanted some reassurance that Abbi wasn’t going to get her way. Abbi always gets her way, you know? And I’m like—I have a fucking company to run. This contract was huge for me. I overstretched, okay? And then this deal comes along and I’m thinking, hell yeah. I’ve got this in the bag. So when Abbi finds a way to get it cancelled, she’s not just protecting some fucking owl or whatever. She’s telling me to piss off, sending my business down the drain.”
“So you decided to light the fire to—what? Prove to Abbi you’re—?” Even Allyson couldn’t figure out what the end of the sentence should be.
“I was smoking,” Russ grumbled. “A stupid fucking cigarette. It’s such a little thing. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”
“Did you leave the butt at the site where the fire broke out?”
“Yeah,” Russ said. “I left a bunch of them there.”
“And—?”
“And I saw the fire starting.” His voice was so low Tyler had to step closer to hear it. “I knew it was from the cigarette I’d dropped. I thought it was out but, I mean, we only got that little bit of rain a few weeks ago. It was hot enough and the brush dry enough that it lit.
“I went to put it out with my heel. But then I thought, hey, if there was a fire, everyone would see how much we need the firebreak. They wouldn’t care about spotted owls or old growth forests or whatever the fuck else. No one would listen to Abbi anymore.”
Tyler’s jaw was clenched so tightly, he thought it might snap. Russ saw the brush catch fire, and he walked away. No call to 911—he wanted the fire to burn. He only reported it to the nature center to make sure it didn’t get too out of hand.
“You’re lucky this isn’t a manslaughter case,” Allyson said, and Russ launched into a whine about how he’d never meant to hurt anyone—he’d just assumed Abbi was at the office and the woods were empty as usual.
That was when Tyler turned and stormed out of the building. He couldn’t listen to another word. If the police needed anything from him, they could call. But he couldn’t face this anymore.
His heart was aching. And the one person he wanted to talk to, the one person he wanted to hold, didn’t want to see him again.
He was supposed to leave Gold Mountain different than he was when he arri
ved—better, harder, not so hurt by the world.
Only he felt like he’d never be able to hold his head up again.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Abbi had to take her bandages off. They were getting in the way as she typed her report. She was propped up on her couch with her laptop on her lap. She’d barely moved from this position since she’d been released from the hospital with the promise that she’d change her bandages regularly and wouldn’t overexert herself.
Stupid promises.
Staying home would make her lose her mind any day. Staying home nursing her wounds was even worse.
Staying home, nursing her wounds, and thinking about the look in Tyler’s eyes as she lied to him about what “cash” meant and he closed the door on her?
That was enough to make her want to tear out of there, grab her boots, and run up the peak of Gold Mountain until she collapsed, so she didn’t have to think anymore.
Instead, she brewed enough coffee for an entire office and got to work.
She’d heard the news about Russ’s arrest from her friends. But as far as she knew, Tyler was still working to use the fire as the excuse he needed to push the firebreak through in the final two weeks before he left. Just thinking about him made her want to curl up into a ball and use her time at home as an excuse not to deal with a single fucking thing.
But she’d almost died because of this firebreak. And she’d lost the only chance at love she’d had in a long, long time. There was no way she was going to have made those sacrifices for nothing. She had to kill the project completely. It was the only way to know the ache in her arms and the burn in her heart hadn’t been for nothing.
The doorbell rang.
“It’s open,” she yelled without taking her eyes off the screen.
Her friends had been coming in and out so often, she’d stopped locking the door when she was still too weak to get up every time someone came by with another casserole or pitcher of lemonade.
Make Me Want (Men of Gold Mountain) Page 15
