“Yes, sure,” Jacob agreed, but he was talking again even before Mårten had time to press the button.“I just got word there’s been an arson attack on the gold mine at Yellowstone.The whole fucking place has been destroyed.One person dead, two others injured.There’s a huge forest fire raging on the outskirts of the national park.”
Summer stood, the light of something unreadable in her expression.Mårten was sitting upright in bed now, the hand not holding the phone clenched at his side.That fucker!Mårten knew immediately what’d happened.
“Let me guess, it was Tyrone King,” he said, locking his gaze with Summer’s.She nodded in agreement, her one good eye going wide with shock.
“That’s what we suspect, yeah.They were using Summer as a decoy so he could carry out his plan while our focus was fixed on finding her.”
“Wow,” Mårten breathed.That was why Tyrone had tried to make them believe he was no longer in America.So he could continue planting incendiary bombs while the FBI searched for him outside the country.
“We don’t believe their intention was to kill her,” Jacob continued.“Just hold her until the arson attack went through, perhaps even long enough for Tyrone to then flee the country.”
“So I was sort of like a hostage, and the price of my freedom was a successful burning of the mine site?”Summer had stepped forward, her poor battered face looking more animated than he’d seen all night.“And so Paige was right; she never intended to kill me.It was Nathan who changed the plan.”
He could see relief in her one good eye.Relief that Paige had been telling the truth, at least about that part.He could understand why Summer wanted to redeem the Paige in some small way.
“Yes, that’s probably accurate,” Jacob replied.“Although we can’t be sure until we interview Nathan.I’m hoping to catch the next flight to Luleå and be there in a few hours.I want to get you as many answers as we can, Summer.”
While this was all good information, and Mårten wholeheartedly agreed, he didn’t want to get sidetracked and so he interrupted with another question.“Where is King now?”Because that was the next most critical item.It was important for them to know if he yet held a grudge against Summer.Because if he did, then Summer wasn’t safe until they had the bastard behind bars.
Jacob’s silence was all the answer Mårten needed.He must still be at large somewhere.There was absolutely no chance of his letting Summer go back to America with that lunatic on the loose.But when he opened his mouth to tell her this, the same stubborn look settled on her face as if she already knew what he was going to say.The one he remembered when he’d first met her in Seattle.She wanted to go home, and she would fight him every step of the way.His heart sank.All he wanted was to protect her, but it seemed everything he did alienated her even further.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SUMMER STOOD NEXT to the hospital bed, only half-listening to Jacob and Mårten talk.They were discussing the finer details of the attack on the mine site and where Tyrone might be hiding out now.None of this felt relevant to her anymore, however.The only thing that was important to Summer was her urgent, undeniable need to get home.Ever since she’d seen Mårten bleeding from a stab wound, a switch had flipped inside her.It might be better to call it a panic button.Whatever it was, now all she felt when she looked at him was a terrible fear.Dread clawed at her gut, tried to climb her throat and get out of her body as a never-ending scream.It was all she could do to keep a straight face in his presence.
Mårten had come close to dying.And it was all her fault.Again.She was bad luck to have around.Cursed.She needed to get away from him before something else terrible happened.Because she couldn’t watch someone else she loved die right in front of her.
Summer barely acknowledged the idea that she might be in love with Mårten.That emotion came second; it wasn’t important.She wouldn’t put him in danger again.
And while he hadn’t actually come out and said the L word just as Jacob’s phone call had interrupted him, even the suggestion had been enough to scare her.What if he was already in love with her?And what if she’d allowed herself to fall for him too?What would she have done then?If Mårten had died, her world would’ve been shattered once again.And she wouldn’t have been able to recover this time.
It was too much for her to risk falling in love with Mårten.Sometimes the risks did outweigh the benefits.Living in Sweden with Mårten had made her forget the rules she’d used to live by for a little while.Her rules had been set in place to protect her heart.She knew what true heartache felt like, and she never wanted to go there again.Never ever.Reality could be cruel.It could crush your dreams, and hollow you out, until you were a mere shell of a human being.
Mårten finally ended his call, placing his cell back on the side table, searching her face for answers as he did so.But she refused to look at him, instead walking over and staring out the window.
“You can’t go back to America.Not yet.Not until we find Tyrone.He could still be after you.”It was exactly what she’d expected him to say.Mårten was a protector at heart, his profession as a police officer a perfect match for his personality.But she could no longer be his responsibility.He needed to get on with his life, and she needed to get on with hers.
But the only way to get him to listen was to tell him the truth.Mårten deserved an answer; she owed him that much.And the only way she could explain that her carefully crafted life was the best way she knew how to live—so that she never went back into that soul-crushing, horrific, dark place—was to tell him about Marco.The whole story, the unvarnished truth.The terrible years she’d spent blaming herself, so grief stricken that in the end she had to leave her family and friends so she could build a new future in Seattle, where she wasn’t reminded every day of what she’d lost.
She turned and met his serious silver eyes.Eyes the color of liquid mercury, or a wild, stormy ocean.Expressive eyes that hinted at everything he was feeling.
“I need to tell you something.About my past.About a boy called Marco.”
“Hmm, the mysterious Marco,” Mårten said, then immediately grimaced.“Sorry.It’s just that you mentioned his name last night, and I’ve been wondering about him ever since.”
She was sure he had.The way she’d acted must’ve seemed crazy.But maybe after he heard her story, he would understand.
“Marco and I were in love.We were seventeen, and after we finished school at the end of the year, we planned to get married.”She’d never told her parents this.No one knew; it was a secret they’d kept between themselves.Summer never allowed herself to go down thewhat-iftunnel.After Marco had died, she’d shut away all her hopes and dreams of a white wedding, of both of them getting jobs so they could eventually afford to buy a small house.Of having children together; she would’ve liked at least three.But just for a second as she stood in front of the hospital window, she let the images resurface.
“We could’ve had a perfect life together,” she breathed.“But that was all taken away when we were walking home from the cinema one night and a gang of young, Black guys stopped us in the street, demanding my handbag.I would’ve willingly given it to them, but Marco stepped in front of me.He was trying to protect me.They stabbed him ten times.He died in my arms.”
“Summer, I didn’t know.I’m so sorry…” The raw empathy in his voice was nearly her undoing.He had one leg out of the bed to come to her before she held up a hand to stop him, because she needed to finish before the words stuck in her throat.
“You weren’t supposed to know.Because I’ve put it all behind me,” she said bluntly.“But you have to know this story because it explains why I am the way I am.I don’t enjoy being out after dark.And I don’t go into gloomy alleys or deserted places by myself.I used to suffer nightmares every night.But now, until recently anyway, I stopped having them.I’m happy with my life as it is.I have my photography, and I have my friends, and I don’t have any complications.”
This time Mårten got out of bed and limped toward her.His legs were bare beneath his hospital gown, his handsome face contorted with distress.
“I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.”Mårten stopped mere inches from her, his head bent low so he could look her directly in the eyes, but he didn’t touch her.Thank the Lord.If he had…
