Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
He doesn’t reply.
“Or I should study.”
“Right.” He looks at my knots. “Those look good.”
“They’re knots,” I say. “They do the job or they don’t.”
“Right,” he says again.
The space between us gets that electric hum we feel when we’re pretending we’re not thinking about last night.
We finish our breakfast.
Thirty-Two
Henry
I’m clearing the breakfast dishes when Tabitha’s phone buzzes.
“Angie again?” I ask.
She flips the screen over. “No.”
“Spam?” I ask too fast.
“Probably,” she says without looking at me.
Buzz. Again.
My jaw clicks. Zach lifts his head. I go to the sink and rinse the dishes.
“Jesus.” I set down a mug harder than I mean to. “Who is it?”
She sighs. “Does it matter? I’m not going to reply.”
“Him.” All I need to say.
Everything in me goes tight. The rescuer. Right. The man who found her, who saw her shaking and put his coat around her shoulders and got to be the hero. My stomach turns over, hot and stupid.
“What does he want?” I ask like it’s my business.
“He’s just checking in,” she says.
“Checking in,” I echo, and I hate how it sounds in my mouth.
She flips the phone fully face down. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That tone. Like I’m sneaking around with some other guy while we’re…” She gestures between us. “Whatever this is.”
I laugh once. “Fine.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? With you.”
“Because my sister booked you a relaxing weekend,” I snap. “You wouldn’t have come for me.”
“You wouldn’t have come for me,” she retorts.
“You’re really going to go there? As I’ve told you a dozen times, I was ready to drive to Boulder before my own house tried to kill me.”
She winces.
“And I asked for you in the hospital. You.”
“You did. And you have no idea how much I wanted to say fuck everything and go to you.” She purses her lips. “But—”
“But the seminar was too important. I know.” I cross my arms. “You’ve mentioned it a hundred or so times.”
“That’s rich.” She balls her hands into fists. “It’s been three weeks, Henry. Three weeks. Maybe you couldn’t drive until now, but you could have picked up a phone if you wanted to talk to me. This works both ways.”
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Fuck you too.” She stands. “You want me to go?”
“No.” Too loud. The room shrinks. I rub my hand against my temple. “No.”
She stares at me a beat. “Then stop picking fights you don’t want to finish.”
Something cracks. Maybe it’s me.
“I watched you last night,” I say. “You—” I break off, see the heat rush her throat. “You were with me. You were with me. And now your phone is buzzing because some other guy wants to make sure you ate dinner.”
Her mouth tightens. “He’s a decent man who helped me when I needed help.”
“I helped you when a man had a gun pointed at your head.” It comes out harsher than I intend. The memory hits like a flash-bang. The feel of gunmetal, the yelling, the split-second decision that cracked my world in half. The gun was technically pointed at Jason, not her, but she was in harm’s way. Ralph wasn’t going to leave witnesses.
She flinches, just a little. “I know.”
“Do you? Do you know what it’s like to see a face every time you close your eyes? To feel the recoil in your bones when you try to sleep?”
I hate the words.
Because she does know. Now. She may not know his face, but she sees him. She has nightmares. I witnessed one.
“You need to stop that,” she says. “I know you’ve been through trauma. Probably worse than mine. But stop. It’s not a damned competition, Henry.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she stops me with a gesture.
“You told me,” she says, more calmly than I deserve, “that we didn’t have a future. At the ranch. After the wedding. Your words, not mine. How was I supposed to know you had decided to come after me?”
I grab the back of a chair. “I said a lot of things I didn’t mean.”
Her laugh is soft and stunned. “That one felt pretty specific.”
“Yeah.” I swallow. “I wanted you so bad I could barely see straight. That was the problem.”
“Explain how wanting me equals ‘no future.’”
“Because wanting turns into more,” I say. “And more turns into promises I don’t know if I can keep. Not when I’m a fucked-up mess.”
Her eyes flash. “So you decided for both of us.”
“Yes,” I say, because lying now would be pointless.
She shakes her head slowly, like she’s trying to dislodge the past three weeks from behind her eyes. “You don’t get to burn the bridge and then be angry I found a raft.”
I take a step around the table.
She doesn’t move.
“I’m not angry you had a raft.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I’m angry the raft texted you here,” I say. “I’m angry he gets to be uncomplicated.”
“Uncomplicated?” She huffs. “You think my life is a choose-your-own-adventure with all the traps clearly labeled?”