“Scared me a little.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Fine. Okay. Alot. And I determined after that to look where I was going.” He took a breath. “Sometimes I think I look too far out.”
She frowned.
“Last night, Hudson said something about expectations and the fear of not living up to them.” He couldn’t look at her.
Silence. Then, “That’s what happened between us, isn’t it?”
He lifted a shoulder. “A lot happened between us.” He met her eyes. “But I was sitting there in the hospital all those years ago, my nose busted up, keenly aware that Sully had saved my hide and...”
And it stirred inside him again, the raw ... well, fear. The sense that, if Sully hadn’t been there...
He might have been killed. Or even, maybe been the one who killed. Either option shook him. But he met her eyes, and the words of the fight nudged against him.“I can’t watchyou die.”
He hadn’t been afraid she’d get him into trouble. He’d been afraid he wasn’t enough to save her. That someday she’d do something so far out of his reach...
The sense of it caught his breath.
She, however, put her hand on his arm, circling back to their stupid, impulsive, explosive argument. Her voice softened. “I get it. And, like you said, we were both young and stupid and...”
Her touch yanked him free of the past and he nodded. “I’m sorry. Youcantake care of yourself. I know that.” He met her eyes. “Really.”
She looked away then and sighed. “And now we’re both lying.Truth is, you were probably right. It’s possible that I don’t look far enough ahead.” Her mouth lifted on one side. “It’s possible I’m a little too impulsive.”
“Possible?”
She glanced at him, a full smile now. Then, she took a breath, and her smile faded. “I’m sorry I got you into that fight, Jericho.”
Aw.And heaven help him, he wanted to reach out, touch her face, even—
Nope.“It’s in the past.”
“Yeah.” She swallowed. “And I get what you said, about not being able to come home because of ... memories or regrets. But why did you leave? I mean, I thought you were going to stick around and then suddenly you were joining the military . ..Was it me?”
She met his gaze then, a sort of pain in her eyes. Aw...
“No.” The word barely carried over the storm. “I left because ... well, yeah, I was afraid I’d fail. But not just you ... I couldn’t take over the resort.”
She stared at him, frowned.
“My dad and I had a big argument right before the fight with Mars. There were a lot of arguments my senior year. I don’t know why, really. But suddenly, we were butting heads. In one of our battles, he actually said he’d built this legacy for me and I was throwing it away. I know now that he was really hurt, but I got it in my head that the only way out was enlisting.”
He made a wry face. “Truth was, it was an impulse, although Ihadbeen thinking about it for a while. My grandpa was in the military, and it sort of felt like a Bowie family legacy. I could live up to the Bowie nameandget out of Copper Mountain. I guess I thought ... well, I thought you’d be waiting.” He shook his head. “Selfish.”
“I might have,” she said it quietly, softly. “But after you left, Ijust ... well, so much of Copper Mountain was you, so...” She shrugged. “It’s old news. We can’t dial back time.”
Couldn’t they?
Silence hung in the air between them. The fire crackled, popped, scattered cinders into the air.
She sighed, then got up.
The shelf by the woodstove held decades of rainy-day entertainment, boxes worn smooth by hunting-cabin stays. Her fingers drifted over the stack until she found a puzzle. She pulled out the box and flashed it at him.
Neuschwanstein Castle rising through Bavarian mist.
