As my turbulent thoughts turned downright tumultuous,I suddenly felt like smashing to pieces all those brand-new beams I’d just installed. Which… why? What the fuck was my problem? Willow could do whatever the hell she wanted. She wasn’t my business anymore. I’d fulfilled my promise and gotten her to safety and in doing so, there was no known reason to concern myself with her ever again.
Only the more I tried to convince myself of just that, the more I found myself feeling the opposite.
Jesus Christ, my headache was quickly becoming a migraine.
“Hey, man, you okay?” EJ asked.
I gave a sharp nod. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” I replied through gritted teeth.
It was the wrong response, I realized, as EJ’s curious gaze turned downright speculative. “Was Willow your girl?” he asked. “‘Cause I thought Britta had said something about her being with your brother.”
I found my fists clenching, disliking his implication that I shouldn’t be concerned with who Willow spent her time with. I’d spent the last decade concerned about her; why would that suddenly change? But before I could think of a reply that didn’t include me knocking EJ flat on his ass, there was a sudden commotion.
“Someone get Doc! Hank fell off the roof!”
Our cups clattering to the ground, EJ and I broke into a run, slowing at the edge of a small crowd forming around a cabin. A woman turned away in a hurry, her hand covering her mouth. Taking her place in the growing circle of people, I saw Hank. He lay on the ground, his face covered in blood. His left arm was bent backward, looking as if it had two elbows; someone had already torn his pant leg away, revealing an ugly wound on his thigh—a jagged shard of bone jutting through his mottled skin. The older man looked dazed—the whites of his eyes showing. He was panting and shaking, clearly in shock.
“Where’s Doc? Someone get Doc!”
“We need the stretcher!”
“Everyone back up, back up—give ‘em some space!”
The crowd hurried to part as Doc and two others came running through, pulling a stretcher along with them—the rolling sort you used to see in ambulances. Hank startled back to consciousness as he was lifted and shifted onto the gurney. His eyes bulging, a cross between a moan and wail burst from his lips in a spray of blood.
As they rushed Hank away, others followed. Those that remained formed small horror-stricken groups, speaking among themselves in hushed tones. I stood alone, wondering what I should be doing.
As the minutes ticked by and no one returned to work, I eventually collected my things and headed home. I’d only just arrived at my cabin when I noticed a familiar figure limping down the path, looking around as if she didn’t know where she was.
“Willow?” I called out.
Willow faltered before freezing on me, her eyes widening in surprise. Standing yards apart, we stared at one another, her expression tight with strain, me unable to think of a single thing to say to her.
I cleared my throat. “Is everything… okay?”
Willow shook free from her freeze. Moving cautiously closer, she stammered, “Did you… did you see what happened?”
“The guy who fell off the roof? Yeah.”
Rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if she were cold, she whispered, “I couldn’t be in there—he was screaming, and there were…people everywhere, and blood…so much blood.”
“I… uh, I was just going home,” I said, jerking my chin at the cabin. “You could come in… if you wanted to?”
Willow glanced at the cabin, her tight expression relaxing fractionally. “I mean… if you don’t… mind?”
It wasn’t that I necessarily minded her company, only that I still didn’t know what to say to her. Which was ridiculous. This was Willow; annoying, obnoxious, never-listens-worth-a-damn Willow. So why did everything feel twice as stiff all of a sudden?
With a silent growl of frustration, I pulled the door open. Willow followed me in, passing me as I paused at the entrance, the sweet smell of her flooding my senses. She had always smelled vaguely like flowers, but her scent, coupled with that of the soap she’d recently used, was downright intoxicating.
Fidgeting with the knot on her T-shirt, Willow’s eyes bounced around the room before freezing on the sleeping bag on the floor. Her throat visibly bobbed.
“That’s Luke’s,” she said thickly.
Idly, I rubbed at my neck. “Yeah.”
“Do you, um, have anything else of his?” she asked hesitantly.
“Just his bag.” I gestured to where it was propped against the wall.
