by Kay Lyons
With one last look, Colt ran out the door. Alex watched him go, the book in her hand as she stood on shaking legs.
“I was going to tell you. Not in the beginning, but when we began to get close.”
“But you didn’t.” And she couldn’t even be mad about that because hadn’t she done the same?
“I didn’t want my past to scare you, to scare you away. I wanted you to know me, not what others made me out to be.”
She knew him. In a way she felt she saw Dylan more clearly than he saw himself. He hadn’t told her so as not to scare her but it did. It did. Not because she believed he’d had anything at all to do with Lauren’s death but because she’d come to Deadwood Mountain Lodge under the guise of a vacationing photographer and she hadn’t told Dylan the truth of why she was there. How sad was that? Neither one of them had been open and truthful. They’d both been deceptive.
She knew how upset Dylan would be that her review would promote the lodge and bring in outsiders, and even now she couldn’t force herself to open her mouth and say the words because she knew it would be one more wedge between them when they already had a mountain. “Believe it or not, I understand. Your past is…huge. You needed more time to tell me the truth.”
He nodded slowly, his confusion at her easy acceptance evident. “I had to be sure of you, of your reaction and dealings with Colt. You didn’t know me well enough to set aside the hype, and I knew if you remembered what happened—which you obviously do—you might not have believed me.”
And that was important to him. He hadn’t hurt his wife. Regardless of the evidence, she now knew Dylan well enough to not doubt that. “I believe you. I’ve always believed you.”
Relief transformed his face into a smile. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way but I’m glad it’s done. Now you know. Alexandra, I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay with me and Colt. I called my attorney when we were at the hot springs. He’s made an offer on that tract of land I told you about. We’ll leave Zeke to his entertaining and guests and we’ll build there. We can have our own life.”
She blinked at him, shaking her head slowly back and forth. That track of land flashing through her head. Build there? Stay with him there?
After wanting Dylan to tell her how he felt, now that he was she couldn’t rid herself of the image of Kate Foxx’s stack of books, of her little house on the frozen tundra where she had only Old Maude for company.
Kate had Old Maude but Alexandra would have no one because there was no one there. That wasn’t what she wanted. That wasn’t what she wanted at all. “I can’t. No,” she said when he stepped forward as though to take her in his arms.
She didn’t want him to touch her. If he touched her, she might try to lie to herself again and for both their sakes someone had to say enough. Someone had to be real. What was she thinking? She’d known him three weeks and suddenly she was going to give up everything to live in the middle of nowhere? Who did that? “Stop. I do believe you, Dylan, but this—this is crazy. It’s only been three weeks and we’ve been kidding ourselves the entire time.”
“What do you mean?”
Him. Her. How could it be so difficult to talk about something as elemental as their identity? How indicative was it of their true feelings if they were both afraid of the truth?
Three weeks wasn’t enough time for someone to choose the right paint colors for a bathroom, much less plan a future with a man she barely knew. She believed him, but was this what she wanted?
Somewhere along the line she’d gotten caught up in the moment. In the passion and fun and sweetness and tenderness, in the adventure of Alaska and Dylan and the romance of falling in love.
But more important, somewhere along the line she’d forgotten it was just a fling. “Neither one of us has been entirely honest, that’s what I mean.”
This was why she didn’t get involved. This was why her jet-setting, country-hopping lifestyle suited her so well. A few days here, a week there. Short periods of time that left no chance to get involved, that didn’t leave her feeling the way she did right now.
“I don’t understand. What have you not been honest about?” A dark look transformed his features. “Is there someone else? Someone waiting for you at home?”
She shook her head, hurting because this shouldn’t be this hard.
Dylan moved forward and he didn’t stop until he stood directly in front of her, his scarred hands extended but not touching her.
“What is it? Alexandra—”
“No. No, I can’t do this. We’ve had a great time but I’m not the person you want me to be.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t live in the middle of nowhere!” she said, blurting out her thoughts and hating herself for it. “And what about Colt?” Alex stared at him, her fingers hurting where they gripped the book. Dylan’s past, their future. They didn’t have a future. Not here. Even if he forgave her for her part in the review, what then? Compromise was one thing but total surrender wasn’t in her genes.
Her heart pounded in her chest, fighting the hurt of it splitting in two. “Dylan, Colt barely sees people now, and you want to take him farther away?”
“I want to be free to breathe. I want to be away from Zeke’s guests crawling all over the place.”
“You want to hide. Even at maximum capacity the lodge and cabins would hold what? Twenty people?”
“You don’t understand because you didn’t live it. I don’t want to risk going back to that. I am thinking of Colt.”
“No. No, Colt’s fine. He’s getting better every day but you’ve been hiding ever since the fire and I don’t blame you. But it has to stop, for both your sakes. Dylan, how far will it take for you to feel safe? How far before you realize you can’t run from what happened? If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I’d probably believe you were guilty because of how you’re hiding away here instead of living your life.”
Dylan stared at her, anger hardening the muscles of his face, his eyes that of a man broken. “I’m talking about building a life with you and my son. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to be surrounded by people.”
“You don’t have to be surrounded. But you do have to be able to deal with people and you can’t.” How sad was it that he couldn’t see the difference? That she hadn’t seen the difference until moments ago? “That’s not building a life, Dylan. That’s creating a bubble. You’re innocent of Lauren’s death but you’ve let everything you’ve been through make you afraid. You’ve trapped yourself here and because people are encroaching, you want to go deeper, to get farther away. You keep retreating, hoping to find a place where no one can trespass and no one can hurt you again. That’s not possible.”
He wanted her. She saw it on his face, in the way he looked at her. He wanted her as much and as desperately as she wanted him. But for her it was love and for him it was fear—he was afraid yet he didn’t want to be alone.
What would he do when he found out about the review and discovered she was the one helping to bring more people to his hiding place, what then?
She knew the answer. He’d be furious. But it didn’t matter because right now there were way more important issues to be faced. “I love you,” she whispered softly. “If someone had said it was possible to fall in love in three weeks, I would have called them crazy. I love you,” she repeated, “but I can’t save you, and, Dylan, you have to face this because no one can but you. Not Zeke, not Colt and certainly not me. I’m not Kate Foxx,” she said, careful to keep her voice low. “I would feel trapped in a place where it’s a two-hour plane ride to get anywhere.”
“People live it every day.”
“And it works for them but it wouldn’t work for me.” It was getting harder to get the words out. Dylan said he wanted a place to breathe but she couldn’t breathe, not here. Not like this. “Maybe if we’d met somewhere else. Maybe if you weren’t so determined to hide…. My family would not understand and even though they drive
me nuts on a good day, I wouldn’t want to be so far away I could only see them once a year. And when I did go home,” she said, even though she could see that her words hurt him, “or I went on vacation, I wouldn’t want to go alone and you wouldn’t go, would you?”
His eyes blazing with anger and hurt and numerous other emotions, Dylan shook his head.
Pain stabbed deep in her heart. That wasn’t the answer she wanted. “I love you, I want to be with you, but not here. Dylan, I refuse to give up everything in my life because you’re afraid of yours.”
Dylan scowled at her with the look of someone lost in a sea when he couldn’t swim.
Dylan had to save himself. She only hoped he managed to do it before he dragged Colt down with him. “Always remember I didn’t come here to hurt you….”
Alex dropped the book on the bed as she passed and thanked God the hallway was empty when she collected her luggage. Somehow she put one foot in front of the other. Sam was here. If she could get to Sam before he took off, he could take her with him. Fly her away. She didn’t care where, so long as it wasn’t here.
Her vacation was officially over.
Chapter 19
SHE WAS GOING TO DIE.
Alex stared up at the fasten seat belt sign as the jetliner abruptly dipped and rattled through another wave of turbulence. She gripped the armrests and began to pray, her voice drowned out by the shrieks of the three hundred fifty passengers filling the plane.
It’s a Wonderful Life droned on from the tiny screen built into the seat in front of her, the earphones useless against the worried chatter and tears expressed by her fellow seatmates. Couples held hands and snuggled close, children clung to mothers and fathers and cried. Alex sat surrounded by people yet totally alone, her gaze focused on the movie, on the child cradled in the hero and heroine’s arms.
The plane took another plunging dip as though the very air had been removed from beneath the wings. People screamed as the structure rocked from the force of the wind and rain, and the person in front of her disobeyed the pilot’s request and raised their window slide to see how bad it was outside.
Abandoning the happy couple on the screen, she looked outside the window as jagged lightning shot straight for the wing.
Alex awoke with a gasp and bolted upright in her bed. It was only a dream, albeit one she’d lived just hours ago.
She put her hand over her chest and held tight as though that alone might slow her heart’s pace. The curtains covered the windows and the hotel room’s darkness reminded her too much of that glance outside the plane window.
She rolled to her side and turned on the bedside lamp before dropping onto her pillow and smoothing the hair off her sweaty forehead.
Her flight to Mexico had started off great with a bump up to first class and free drinks. By the time the wheels had touched down she’d struggled to stand on her wobbly legs like everyone else emerging pale-faced from the nightmare in air.
During that flight she’d come to the conclusion that size didn’t really matter in anything. It wasn’t the size of the plane that mattered. Large or small, the experience could be smooth sailing or a disaster.
No, it was the richness of life and how well it was lived, the people in your life and the dreams that filled it. The love you gave and hopefully received. Those things mattered.
And it was during that plane ride on her way to someone’s idea of paradise that she realized she lacked those very things.
She’d come to the hotel and literally collapsed into bed, falling asleep almost instantly from the physical and emotional toll of the experience. Now she was wide-awake and fear uncurled in her stomach as she recognized the truth and intensity of those feelings she’d had on the plane.
It was like that instant oh-my-God-jolt one got when she almost stepped off a curb in front of a speeding bus. Or that knot in the stomach that grew bigger because there was a chance the plane could very well go down.
That feeling no one wanted to feel.
It was the sense of momentous regret.
As the family on the airplane’s movie screen had smiled their joy and talked of angels and wings, she’d felt that regret all the way to her soul and wondered if she would get the chance to fix it.
If Dylan knew where she was. If he broke out of his shell and came to her…
Like that’s going to happen.
It was the truth. Dylan was wrapped up in the world he’d created. He wasn’t leaving.
She was alone. But, God’s honest truth, she didn’t want to be alone.
The awareness settled deep and let her identify the thing that had been bothering her for the past year. She hadn’t been able to put her finger on what it was but now she knew.
The thrill was gone.
Like the shininess of silver, the thrill had tarnished to a lackluster patina. She used to feel so worldly. But the bedside lamp showed her the truth she’d been avoiding by hopping a plane and going somewhere else every time she began to notice what was absent in her life.
Though nicer than some, this room looked like all the others. A little dingy and worse for wear, more than a bit tired and worn. No matter the simplicity or glitz or style, every hotel room held the same cold bed, the same ugly curtains. The same overwhelming loneliness.
Hotel rooms were meant to be shared. That’s why there were either two beds or a king. And the people who should be here with her would have provided the missing sparkle and beauty and shine. They were the life, the joy of the room, not the room itself.
Where was her life? Where was she running to?
Where Dylan lived in the prison of his past, where he hid from the world unable to dig himself out, she realized that, for quite a while now, she’d carried her prison with her.
She’d used her job as an excuse to avoid her family, to avoid witnessing what they had that she didn’t. She’d used it to run, to not get close to a man, to not care too much, not love too much because she didn’t want to give up the control she’d finally found from being on her own. She enjoyed that freedom.
But she wanted more. She wanted to love and she wanted to be loved. And that meant making the conscious choice to slow down long enough for it to happen. It meant not compromising but not avoiding happiness.
She loved Dylan. She wanted to be with Dylan, spend her life with him, but she was also smart enough to know she wasn’t strong enough to break him out of his prison and her words to him in Alaska were right on the mark.
He had to stop hiding, she had to start living.
So what now? Where did she go from here?
She mulled that over, staring at the ceiling. Maybe, since her journey with Dylan had begun with a reservation, her future also needed to start with one.
Make sure this is what you want. Make very, very sure.
Once more her heart pounded fast. Alex ignored the frantic pace and leaned over to pick up the phone, punching one of the marked buttons at the bottom with her finger before tossing her blankets aside and moving to the edge of the bed.
“Front desk. Good afternoon, Ms. Tulane, may I help you?”
She closed her eyes and inhaled. “Yes. I’d like to cancel my reservation and book a flight.”
* * *
FIVE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS Dylan shook Owen’s hand and tried not to think about the last time he’d been here and who’d accompanied him.
“Too soon for another supply drop. Did my Christmas orders finally make it?” Owen asked.
“Yesterday. Cutting it close this year. Kate’s probably worried, eh?” He and Owen began to unload the plane and by the absence of Owen’s kids, Dylan guessed Kate was keeping them occupied inside.
“No, she did most of the shopping for them earlier in the year. Already got it wrapped up and everything. This is for her.” Owen gave Dylan a proud grin. “I got her a new set of luggage. She’s going to love it.”
Dylan grabbed one of the two large shipping boxes and began to follow Owen toward the house, shaking his h
ead at Owen’s thinking and remembering Alexandra’s last words to him about traveling alone.
And there he went, thinking about her again.
“Better prepare yourself. Kate’s going to be disappointed when she sees you and doesn’t see your woman with you.”
Dylan swore silently. He didn’t need Kate’s disappointment to deal with when he was already weighed down by Zeke, Ansel and Walter’s. Plus his own. And Colt’s. None of them had been the same since Alexandra had walked out the door that day.
They took the boxes directly to Owen’s workshop for safekeeping, then Owen led the way into the house for coffee before Dylan’s flight back to Deadwood.
In the house the rich smell of pumpkin pie and gingerbread greeted them as they walked in the door. The kids were huddled around the kitchen table hard at work decorating a mound of cookies, but Kate was in the living room working on their Christmas tree, Christmas carols blaring out of the computer speakers. She smiled at the sight of him but, as Owen had predicted, her smile seemed to wobble when she realized he was alone.
“Keep working, Katie. I’ll get the coffee. Dylan, have a seat. Hon, you want some?”
“No, thank you.” Katie continued to stare at Dylan.
Pressed for something to say Dylan murmured, “That’s a pretty tree, Kate.”
“It is, isn’t it?” She lifted something from a box. “Since you’re here, would you mind putting the star on the top? You’re tall enough without having to drag out the ladder.” She lowered her voice. “And if Owen drags it out, he’ll insist on climbing it instead of letting me or you do it.”
“I heard that,” Owen said from the other room.
“Meant you to,” Kate called back sweetly, even as she winced at Dylan.
One slip off that ladder and Owen would be laid up all winter. “Glad to help. Where is it?”
“On the computer table.”
He welcomed the reminder. “I’ve been wanting to ask about your setup for school. Zeke’s getting satellite Internet and I need to get organized for Colt to begin homeschooling.” Dylan moved toward the computer and picked up the intricately woven star. He dreaded the complications of trying to teach Colt given his silence but they couldn’t stall forever. He glanced at the computer screen and stilled. “What?”
