by Nicole Helm
“She said it was a dare.”
“To knock you down the mountain?” Tori returned, taking a hesitant step toward him, his large body sprawled in that chair, his eyes drooping half closed, looking tired and soft. Everything in her softened at that, no matter how she tried to harden it.
“A dare to flirt with me. I told her she was very bad at it.”
Tori’s mouth twitched. “Did you really tell her that?”
“No. I told her next time she wanted to flirt with a guy to try not knocking him off a mountain.”
“You know, it was only a few feet down a mountain. You’re being very overdramatic about it.”
His eyes met hers, and where she’d thought he’d looked tired and soft not more than a minute or so ago, the look was sharp. Assessing.
She feared it saw way too much. Feeling unaccountably nervous and weird, she stepped toward him again. It didn’t make any sense to be nervous when not that long ago she’d been shoving her fingers through his hair searching his scalp for a cut.
But there’d been a weird feeling then too, it was just that shock and fear had hidden it. She didn’t have those things anymore to hide behind. She just had . . .
“Here,” she said, clearing her throat when her voice came out scratchy. “Put that one on your hip. I’ll hold this one on your shoulder.”
His eyes had never left hers and her nerves intensified. She didn’t even know why or what this was. It was just . . . silence. Or something.
After a few humming moments of she didn’t know what, he took the outstretched ice pack and shifted in the chair to slide it against his hip.
Trying to stand as far away as possible and still be able to reach his shoulder, she plopped the other ice pack on his shoulder.
His hand closed over hers on top of the ice pack, and she sucked in a loud breath against her will.
Tonight, when she was lying in her bed berating herself for this moment, she would have a good reason for why she felt all shivery and affected. She’d find the best excuse for why she couldn’t breathe properly, or why her heart beat too hard, but for right now she couldn’t come up with excuses or reasons because his warm, calloused hand was on top of hers. She felt that warmth more than she felt the cold of the ice pack.
He curled his fingers around her hand and she all but squeaked, but he just shifted her hand and the ice pack to the side of his shoulder rather than the top.
“There,” he said, his voice too low and husky. “And since the chair is keeping the ice pack on my hip, I can probably hold this one myself.”
“Right.” So she should probably tug her hand away. Or something. “I can hold it if you need me to. I mean, if your other arm’s sore.” Was that her voice coming out sounding so breathless and far too close to the giggling women on the trail?
There was a beat of silence, heavy and meaningful, but she tried to ignore the meaningful part of it. The way he studied her. All the jittering feelings inside of her. If she ignored them . . .
But wasn’t that the problem? Ignoring didn’t work. She needed to find a way to face it. To acknowledge it and eradicate it. A surgeon couldn’t cut out a tumor if he didn’t know what and where the tumor was. He had to identify it first, map it out, have a plan and know what the hell he was dealing with.
She opened her mouth to say something—God knew what—something inevitably stupid, but the front door opened and in came laughter and other people.
Hayley, Sam, and someone Tori didn’t know filed into the room. Tori jerked away from Will, which was stupid because of course everyone noticed. If she’d just stood there like a normal person, no one would have questioned it.
Luckily, Hayley was immediately distracted, Tori assumed by the ice packs on Will’s head.
“Oh no, what happened?”
Hayley rushed over to inspect Will, but Sam stood where he was, impenetrable blue gaze still on Tori.
“He fell,” Tori said lamely, trying to break Sam’s all-too-assessing gaze and failing.
“Did he have help?” Sam asked, quirking a brow at Tori.
“Just a dope of a hiker knocking me down by accident,” Will offered. “But I’m fine.”
Tori wished she was.
Chapter Nine
Will was irritated by Hayley’s appearance for a lot of reasons. First and foremost because he’d been certain Tori had been about to say something. Maybe even something conciliatory. But it was nothing more than wishful thinking to imagine they could be friends again.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Will forced himself to smile at Hayley, forced himself to be gratified by her concern. This half sister he barely knew.
“I’ll live. Though I’ll be a grumpy son of a bitch for a few days.”
She patted his good shoulder sympathetically. “I think you deserve it.”
Will glanced over at Sam and then realized there was someone he didn’t know in the room.
“Will,” Hayley said, walking over to the tall, dark-skinned man. “This is my stepbrother. James, this is Will and Tori. I’m showing James around and then we’re going to go to dinner. I was hoping you guys could join us, but if you’re hurt . . .”
Will was about to agree. Too hurt to go out to her awkward dinner, but James stepped toward Tori with a wide smile and offered a hand.
When Tori smiled back, shaking the man’s hand, Will clenched his teeth, glancing at Hayley. She was grinning over at Tori and her stepbrother, self-satisf ied, as if . . .
Oh, hell no.
He shoved to his feet, ice packs be damned. “Dinner sounds great.”
Hayley blinked at him. “But if you’re sore and grumpy, you should probably stay home and relax.”
And let Hayley try to set up some guy Will knew jack shit about with one of his best friends? No way in hell. Maybe he and Tori had . . . issues, but that didn’t mean he was going to let Hayley indiscriminately throw guys at Tori. It was a well-documented fact Tori had shit taste in men.
He being a prime example.
James lived hours away, and as far as Will knew had a somewhat tenuous relationship with Hayley. That was not enough to give a guy the green light to be thrown at your friend.
Besides, Hayley didn’t even know Tori. She had no idea the kind of guy she would need. Tori had just gotten to town and . . .
“You okay, buddy?” Sam asked, an all-too-knowing look in his eye.
Will realized he was walking a very fine and weird line here. Something between friendly concern, which was all this was, and Sam reading far too much into it, or Hayley getting bent out of shape that he thought she was wrong about clearly trying to shove her stepbrother at Tori.
But that was fine. He could handle all this.
“I feel great. I could use a really good dinner fixed by someone else.” He grinned broadly, which only served to earn him odd looks from everyone.
“O-okay. I asked Brandon and Lilly, but Lilly’s checkup is tomorrow and she wanted to make sure she’d stayed off her feet all day. Um . . .” Hayley looked sort of helplessly at Sam, and whatever passed between them, Will couldn’t read.
He was a little too busy trying to read the looks James sent Tori’s way.
“We can’t get everybody in either of your Jeeps, so why don’t you and Tori meet us at Steak House in Benson. Say, around six?”
Will looked at Tori, who was clearly trying to find an excuse not to go. But if he was going, she was damn well going. Which he knew didn’t make any sense, but maybe he did have a concussion. Either way, they were both going to dinner, and he was going to make sure Hayley didn’t try shoving her brother in Tori’s direction.
Because somehow that made sense.
“Sounds great,” Will said, smiling, though he realized a little belatedly it must not have appeared like a smile since Sam and Hayley were looking at him very confused.
“Ookay, um, well, I’m going to show James around. We’ll see you guys at dinner.” Hayley smiled, though her eyebrow
s drew together as she gave Will a once-over. “And if you’re not feeling up to it, I won’t be upset if you cancel.”
“I’ll be there,” Will replied resolutely. He gave the trio a little wave as they filed out the back, making sure to stand without a grimace until they were completely gone and on the back porch.
He collapsed back into the chair with a groan.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tori demanded, coming to stand in front of him, hands on her hips, irritation in the line dug across her forehead.
“Planning to have dinner with one of my best friends, my half sister, and her stepbrother, plus you. That’s something like the new American normal, I think.”
“You’re hurt, and what’s more, why are you dragging me into it?”
“You seemed rather dragged of your own accord.”
“What?”
“All that smiling at Hayley’s stepbrother.”
She scoffed. “Your brain’s jumbled.”
“I saw the look on Hayley’s face. She’s trying to set you up.”
Tori huffed out a breath. “That’s ridic—” Her features softened as she seemed to mull it over, and then her mouth curved. “You really think so?”
“Yes,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “So I’m saving you.”
“Saving me? From the hot guy Hayley’s trying to set me up with? At a dinner you all but forced my hand into going to?”
It was a wonder his teeth didn’t break due to the pressure they were under from the way his jaw clenched. He took a deep breath in through his nose, then forced himself to unclench, to relax.
Tori crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “I can, have, and will handle anyone trying to set me up with anyone, as I’m in charge of my own life and who I spend time with.”
“Because you have such great taste in guys.”
She stilled, and he realized far too late he’d gone about this all wrong. Tori would only take this as a challenge, not what it was—which was friendly concern. So to speak.
“I’ll pick you up at five-thirty,” he said with the best smile he could muster. His mustering skills were sorely lacking.
“Oh, I’ll be ready at five-thirty, Will.” She stormed out, grumbling something that sounded a hell of a lot like “but I don’t think you’ll be.”
Whatever that meant.
* * *
Tori knew it was mean, but after everything that had happened today, she felt mean. He’d gotten her all soft then . . .
She didn’t know what that little display with Hayley was, but she knew she did not like it. Had she interfered with women drooling all over him on the trail? No, she hadn’t.
How dare he say she had bad taste in men, no matter how true it was. Him at the top of the list.
Which even in her irritated state she couldn’t let go. Toby had been worse, far worse. Will had been . . . oblivious and ignorant, and it had made him more callous than he would have been otherwise. Toby had been a total dickweasel in just about every aspect.
She blew out an angry breath, but if she breathed too much she’d lose the anger, and she’d have to deal with all the vulnerability swimming underneath it.
Will’s fall. Will’s touch. Will’s too weird certainty that Hayley was trying to set Tori up with James.
Who was nice-looking, but that was the extent of what Tori knew about the guy.
She looked at herself in the mirror and cringed at what she saw. Because she looked nice, and she rarely looked nice. She looked like she had that night, and for a brief, crazed moment she’d wished she hadn’t burned that dress.
She would have worn it. Like an amulet of power or something.
As it was, she had her hair down, which she never did because it was so thick and unruly and took forever to dry. She’d chosen a floral sundress Toby had bought for her, which she should’ve burned too. Maybe she still would, but for tonight it would suit her purposes.
If she didn’t break Will open, he was going to worm his way back into her heart, and she couldn’t let that happen. So she had to bring out the big guns. She had to force as many reminders of that night down his throat until . . .
She sank onto her bed feeling unaccountably lost. What was the point? Ignoring it didn’t fix it or make it any less painful. Why did she think making him talk about it would? She should change, braid her hair, and then go out to dinner with her friends.
And learn more about James and open herself up to the possibility of a future where the past didn’t matter.
Except Will was future and past and she didn’t know what else to do but barrel on with her plan. Crack him open. Right down the center.
Which would crack her open in return, but hell, hadn’t everything she’d built come on the heels of the worst things in her life? She’d met the Mile High boys only a year after she’d finally left home, and they’d given her so much. She’d learned how to be alone in the years after her breakup—so to speak—with Will, and she was here rebuilding that old plan in the wake of everything Toby had done to her.
So.
A knock sounded at the door and Tori took a deep breath.
She couldn’t let herself be swayed by softness. Softness had gotten her clobbered time and time again. To save her life, to build a life, she’d had to be hard and unrelenting time and time again. When she lost sight of that and let emotion or softness rule, she always ended up bloody and bruised—either literally or figuratively.
She pushed off the bed and walked to the front door. She opened it effecting the most casual demeanor she could. She refused to soften when she saw Will’s complexion still seemed a little off. Instead, she focused on the little thrill of success when Will’s eyes sharpened and his jaw clenched together.
Dressing like this had hit the mark.
“We’re not going to the fucking Ritz,” he grumbled.
She cocked her head, something like an avalanche of hair falling over her shoulder at the move. God, she hated leaving it down. “Oh, aren’t we?” she asked sweetly.
His eyes narrowed and there was something lurking in their depths, but she didn’t want to think too hard about it.
“Remind you of anything?” she asked, doing a little twirl.
She thought she saw a flash of hurt cross his features, but that couldn’t be. Why would it hurt him to remember the night when he’d so coolly dismissed her as if her being in love with him was some hideous affront?
He turned his back to her.
“You know, I always wondered,” she said conversationally, closing the door behind her and locking it. “I realize you were taken off guard that night, but I never understood why you had to be so mean about it.” She stepped into stride next to him down the uneven walkway to the sidewalk and where Will was parked on the street.
“I’m not doing this,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “Your hair down and wearing a dress with shit on your face isn’t going to make me do it.”
“But I think Benson is something like a thirty-minute drive, so we have a whole car ride together to talk.” She sauntered toward the Jeep, heart beating a little too fast, something like panic clawing at her chest.
Will walked stiffly to the driver’s side. She gave him a quick once-over. He’d cleaned up since the hike, and now he was wearing nice jeans and a button-down shirt.
She focused on getting in the Jeep instead of doing what she really wanted to do, which was ask him how he felt. But how he was doing after the fall was not the point of tonight. Whether his hip, head, or shoulder ached, it didn’t matter. Not to her. She was here to get under his skin. Because he thought he was saving her from a very nice thing Hayley was maybe trying to do.
Will climbed into the driver’s seat, his large, broad body taking up far too much room. He shoved the key into the ignition and turned it, his jaw clenched tight. He jerked the wheel to get the Jeep on the road, but he winced with it.
It took everything in Tori not to wince with him. Took every ounce of
self-preservation she had not to offer to drive.
“So you don’t have an answer then?” she poked instead. He gave the most imperceptible shake of his head. “Nope. Sure don’t.”
“Do you want to hear my theory? Because, you know, I’ve had a lot of years to make up theories.” She smiled sweetly, but Will didn’t even bother to look over. His eyes were glued to the road, his hands tight on the wheel.
“The thing is, I assumed that you knew. I didn’t think I was capable of being subtle about it. I know I wasn’t some sorority girl flirting expertly, but we did spend a lot of time together. I thought for sure you saw through me.”
Still nothing. Her stomach was starting to turn in nauseous circles, but she had to do this. To save herself. To build her life.
“I mean, I get it, Courtney’s boobs were probably pretty distracting, and what guy wouldn’t want to run off with a lingerie model?”
“Don’t talk about her.”
She blinked in surprise. It wasn’t like Will to so obviously give away his weakness.
“Oh, I didn’t consider the possibility that she might have left you.”
The Jeep jerked to a stop with a screech. Will swore, his good arm moving up to grab his shoulder. Tori was too shocked by the hard slap of the seat belt against her chest to think.
She rubbed a hand over her chest and glared at him, but her glare died because he was looking at her with such sparkling fury and menace she actually shrunk back.
“Don’t bring up my marriage. Ever. Do you understand me?”
Normally she’d argue out of principle, but there was something so wrong about the way he said that, as though there was a deep, awful hurt wrapped up in his marriage. She never thought she’d say the words to him, but in the face of his pure display of emotion, they just slipped out.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Are you?”
She swallowed and looked down at her lap. “Look, I think we should talk about what happened between us, and I’m not going to stop poking about that, but I don’t want to make you—”
He hit the accelerator again and was driving out of Gracely and toward Benson. The sun was setting in the mountains and the golden ball of light was so bright she had to close her eyes against it. A tear almost escaped, but she muscled it back just in time.
