His brows nearly met over the bridge of his nose as he studied her. “You’re angry.”
“You’re trying to manipulate me into changing my mind about leaving. You want me to feel needed and useful while welook for the arsonist so I’ll consider staying here with you in Zion instead of just telling me how you feel about our deal.” Her body ached but worse, she just didn’t have it in her to go through all this again. She couldn’t keep doing this to herself. Waiting for him to come around, for him to tell her how he felt, for him to fall in love with her. “Why would you agree to it in the first place if you weren’t going to hold up your end?”
He didn’t answer. But that was his number one defense mechanism, wasn’t it? Stonewalling was his most efficient weapon against her when things got uncomfortable.
When would this game between them end? When would she accept he wasn’t ever going to be the Murray she’d desperately imagined all these years? He was all she had left. Everyone else was gone. No one left to want her. Why couldn’t he see it? The strength left her all at once. “I’m tired. I’m taking your truck back to my house. I’ll be back in an hour to pick you up and head to Lava Point. Until then, try not to make any other decisions for me.”
Murray handed her the keys. And let her walk away.
Chapter Ten
She’d seen right through him.
He shouldn’t have been so surprised. If he was being honest with himself, Murray was angrier with himself rather than with the deal they’d made this morning. It was why he’d given her the break she’d asked for without argument, despite every cell in his body screaming at him to keep her by his side.
Aslen had always been the outgoing one in class. There were only a couple times he could think of where she hadn’t immediately shot her hand into the air when the teacher asked a question, but after the incident in middle school, he found she’d more often than not lean into observing, even collecting information to use to her advantage. Or maybe she just knew him too well at this point.
Back in the day, there hadn’t been anything he’d been able to get past her once she’d finally agreed to move in with him and his family. Her foster mother had only been interested in collecting a paycheck that rarely funded enough meals to keep Aslen healthy or pay for the clothes she needed in below-freezing Salt Lake City winters. His parents had been willing and capable of watching out for her and offered a room right next to his with the intention of making the change official after a trial period. And she’d caught him sneaking out most nights, knew the names of the girls and the places he went under his parents’ noses. Hell, he breathed wrong in his sleep, and she was right there hoveringover him to make sure he wasn’t dying. Which he’d woken up to. Multiple times.
Even now, Aslen had directed her attention out the passenger side window as they made their return back to Lava Point two hours north, but his instincts told him she was cataloguing every move he made. And every word he didn’t say. The two feet of space between them across the pickup’s bench felt like a hundred miles. Since hearing about the explosion this morning and realizing Chief Higgins had assigned her onto that scene, his nerves couldn’t handle her so far away, but Murray had become an expert in keeping his distance. He’d survive not touching her, even if his brain told him otherwise.
“Are you doing anything for their anniversary this year?” Her question nearly got lost in the full force of the air conditioner. Summer in Zion wasn’t for the faint of heart, and he caught a glimmer of sweat at the back of Aslen’s neck as she turned her attention to him. “It’s next week.”
“No.” He never did. His parents had died a long time ago. Mom had accidentally fallen in the canal chasing after his brother’s Scottish terrier in the dead of winter. She’d ignored the symptoms for close to a week before the pneumonia did her in, but Murray’s father had never recovered from the loss. Aslen believed he’d died of a broken heart, leaving Murray to look after her and his younger brother at nineteen. Though he hadn’t done a very good job of that either. Why bring all that up once a year and remind himself of the aching tears in his chest? He’d moved on. Mostly.
“I took the time off to visit their graves.” She kept her face turned from him, but he didn’t need to see her expression to know every thought swirling in that brilliant brain. The time they’d spent together over the past twenty years had honed almost an entirely new language, one they’d designed based off body language and tone of voice. Aslen rubbed her hands downher slacks, gearing up to push him further. “You’re welcome to join.”
His knuckles protested the grip he had around the steering wheel. As much as he wanted to argue she didn’t have any right to invite him to his own parents’ graves, Murray couldn’t deny they’d loved her as their own. His mom had always wanted a daughter. She just hadn’t expected to find it in the scrawny teenager from next door. And she hadn’t expected not to be around to watch Aslen become the beautiful, dependable, smart woman she was.
Her gaze landed on him at the edge of his peripheral vision. “What about Jackson?”
Heat burned up his neck despite the onslaught of the air conditioner.
“What about him?” Murray didn’t like talking about his brother, and he sure as hell didn’t need Aslen to remind him about his failure to protect his brother.
“His anniversary is coming up, too.” She tried to keep her voice light, but he picked up on the strain. Aslen couldn’t hide anything from him. She’d felt Jackson’s loss as much as he had, maybe even more so considering he’d had a teenage girl to stay strong and provide for. So he’d distracted himself by applying to the police academy, made becoming a cop his entire personality, but it hadn’t stopped there. There’d been the promotions, the high-profile cases, the task forces. All to be who she needed. Someone she could rely on when he’d failed so many others. “I thought this year we could hike out to the arch together. Maybe bring a photo to leave on the trail.”
His blood ran cold.
“You’re not going out there. Ever.” The mere thought was enough to send him into a spiral he wasn’t sure he could escape again. Murray hadn’t meant his answer to sound as harsh as it did, but there was no way in hell he’d let her ever step foot on theKolob Arch Trail again. He’d said as much in the years following his brother’s disappearance off that trail and made her swear she wouldn’t go anywhere near Kolob Canyons when she’d made the brash decision to become a ranger in Zion. She knew that, and yet she still tried to get him to wallow in that dark misery he couldn’t face every year.
Her laugh lacked humor as she pressed her spine harder into the seat back. “Murray, you can’t just forbid me from—”
“I said no.” It took everything he had not to pull the truck over and jettison himself from the vehicle to get away from the sinking feeling in his chest, but it would just follow. It always did. “End of conversation.”
“And I’m telling you, you don’t get to make my decisions for me.” The tension in her shoulders drained, and Aslen sank back against the seat. “You can’t protect me from everything. It’s not possible. And the more you try, the more you suffocate me. The more I’ll resent you for it. Don’t you see that?”
“You can resent me all you want. At least you’ll still be alive to do it.” He wouldn’t budge. Not on this. He’d lost everyone he’d ever cared about. He couldn’t lose her, too. He wouldn’t survive it.
“Is that what you want?” Her voice broke. The question left her mouth as little more than a whisper over the roar of the air conditioner, but he’d heard every word. Etched it deep into his memory. “For me to resent you?”
He didn’t have an answer for her. Not one that she would like. Because the truth was as much as he needed to ensure she was happy and healthy and safe, he would deserve the guilt and pain that came with losing her. He deserved to be reminded of his failure to keep his family safe. And whether she liked it or not, he considered her family. It was why despite every dream, every fantasy, every time they’d gotten too close, he hadn’t let himself cross that line. He was older by three years. He was supposedto be the more mature one, the logical one, but nothing stopped him from thinking about taking their relationship over that line time and time again over the years.
She was freaking beautiful. Compelling, confident. She seemed to know everything about every subject, but he’d never seen anyone as passionate about fire management as she was. To Aslen, knowledge was a defense mechanism, a way for her to protect herself by knowing everything about everything. It was one of the reasons he could count on her to give insight into their arsonist. She’d taken her basic education and pushed herself to dive deeper, to have an answer for every incident, and he loved that about her. Loved the way her brain worked and how she never accepted the bare minimum. Never settled.
And she’d be settling for him. She might not see it that way, but Murray didn’t have a damn thing going for him. No family left to make up for the one she lost, no roof of his own to put over her head, no amount of space left for her in his chest. Whatever love he’d been capable of giving had died little by little with his mother’s death, then his father’s and finally, the day Jackson had gone missing. He had nothing left to give her but scraps, and while she was good at clinging to those small efforts he’d made over the years, they’d never make her happy. He would never make her happy.
Murray leaned into the center console, grabbed for his phone and tossed the device in her lap. “I asked Chief Higgins to send me the photos taken of the scene this morning as soon as they were ready. Tell me what you see.”
