At Last

A big one.

She headed toward the mountain and parked in front of Matt’s cabin. His truck wasn’t there, and she didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. For the third night in a row, he hadn’t come to the diner for food, and this time she knew why. All day long she’d heard the gossip about the fallen climber and Matt’s supposed negligence. She glanced at the bag she’d packed up, the one sitting on the passenger seat, and called herself all kinds of a fool.

Matt didn’t need her to look after him. He was a big boy. But she got out of the car and then found herself standing on his porch, trying to figure out if she should leave the food for him or if that would attract bears, when a truck drove up.

Matt, of course.

Their eyes met as he got out of his vehicle, and her tummy quivered. He was still in uniform, looking dusty, hot, exhausted, and like maybe he could use a good fight.

“Hey,” she said softly when he hit the porch.

“Hey.” He unlocked his door then turned to her. “I’m not much company tonight.”

“You’ve had a bad day.”

He let out a sound that didn’t hold any mirth. “Yeah. A bad day.” He stepped inside, leaving the front door open.

Not exactly an invite, and she paused, knowing damn well that he clearly wanted to be alone. She recognized the need, since it was how she felt most often.

Sometimes being alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…

He’d said that to her, all those nights ago on the mountain at Sierra Meadows. And he’d been right.

So she stepped inside and shut the door behind her.

He glanced over. Obviously he’d expected to find her gone because he raised a brow at the sight of her.

“Want to tell me about it?” she asked.

“What, the gossip train didn’t come through the diner today?”

“Yeah, and I’m the type to get on that train,” she said dryly. “How’s the guy who fell?”

“In ICU, but it looks like he’s going to make it.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “He shouldn’t have been on the peak. I had the trail closed off. I chased him and his friends out of there less than a week ago, but they came back.”

There was something in his tone that caught her attention. Self blame. “Matt, it’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, it is.” He let out a long, jagged breath. “My district. My problem.”

She’d never known anyone like him, so willing to be in charge, and just as willing to take the responsibility that went with that. “Come on, give yourself a break here. You couldn’t have known those guys would go back on that climb.”

“I knew.”

She moved closer. “Well then you also know that you couldn’t have stopped them. You’re just one man. How are you supposed to keep the entire area patrolled?”

“It’s my job to figure out a way.”

She ran a hand down his tense back. “God complex much?” she teased.

He moved away from her touch, and while she tried to be okay with that, he spoke again. “I f**ked up, Amy. And it’s not the first time.” He strode into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Yanking out a beer, he stared at it, then set it back in the fridge and grabbed a soda. He opened it and handed it to her, then took another for himself. “You asked why I came here from Chicago.”

“Yes.” She took a long drink because her throat felt suddenly dry.

“I came after everything went to shit. My job, my marriage… Both my fault, by the way.”

“Matt,” she said, setting down her soda, shaking her head. “You—”

“No, it’s true. My partner was on the take. I knew it, and I was told to look the other way. I didn’t. He tried to implicate me. He couldn’t quite pull that off, but he caused enough doubt about me on the job that it hurt my career, and I—Hell.” Again he shoved his fingers in his hair and turned away from her, staring out the window.

“You what?” she asked softly.

“People didn’t like what I’d done, turning Ryan in. He maintained his innocence throughout his trial, and he was well liked. No one wanted to believe it of him.”

So he’d taken the heat for turning on him. “You did the right thing,” she said, aching for him. He always did the right thing, even when it wasn’t the easy thing. “My God, would they have rather he continued?”

He shrugged. “People believe what they want to believe. And it was damn hard for them to believe that of Ryan, even after he went to jail. It was easier to…”

“Blame you?” She shook her head. “You did what you had to. You couldn’t have lived with yourself if you’d done nothing.”

“I ruined his life. And I ruined Shelly’s, too.”

“Your ex?”

“Yes. Our marriage failed because she hated being a cop’s wife, hated the privacy restrictions my job imposed and the extra security it took to keep her safe when there were bad guys gunning for me. She never believed there was really a threat until she was stalked by someone I’d once put away.”

“Oh my God. What happened?”

“He got out of jail and came after her and found her an easy mark. He jumped her in a grocery store parking lot. Pulled a gun on her, but she was able to get away without injury.” He shook his head. “The marriage, not so much.”

“She blamed you,” Amy said quietly.

“She did.”

“She knew who she was marrying, Matt,” she said carefully. “She knew what she was getting. Telling you that you ruined her life doesn’t seem anywhere in the vicinity of fair—”

“It had nothing to do with fair.” His voice was grim. He’d obviously blamed himself for it, all of it.

“Oh, Matt.” She had no idea how to console him, but he clearly had no desire to be consoled. “I’m sorry.”

“You wanted to know,” he said. “You wanted the story, and you’ve got it. You should stay as far from me as you can get, before I screw up your life, too.”

“Okay, that’s a little—” She broke off because he snatched his keys off the counter and headed out the door. “Matt—”

He turned back to her. “You told me not to get attached, that this was just sex. That still true?”

Shocked, she stared at him, unable to think.

He took in her expression and nodded as if she’d answered the question. “I have to go.” He shut the front door behind himself, leaving her alone.

In his house.

She heard his truck start and take off, and she shook her head. What had just happened? Did she really let him go, thinking that what they had was just sex? And did he honestly believe that he didn’t deserve happiness? He was the best man she’d ever known. If anything, she was the one he should run from. She was the one who’d been stupid and hurtful to the people in her life, not Matt. With every fiber of her being she wanted to help him, but she had no idea how or what to do. Nothing in her life had given her the experience required for this. Good girl lessons certainly hadn’t covered this. She was way out of her depth and out of her league.

She drove back to town, still reeling. She glanced at the time. Riley was due to get off work from the diner. The other day, Amy had caught her hitchhiking back to the forest.

Hitchhiking was a good way to get around. Amy had done it herself for years. But it was also a good way to get dead.

She pulled into the diner’s parking lot with the intention of driving Riley herself. Jan was closing up, locking the front door. “Girl’s out back,” Jan called through the glass. “Dumping the trash.”

Amy walked around and found Riley standing on the back step tying up a trash bag. “Hey, I’ll give you a ride.”

Riley looked up. She actually almost smiled before she caught a good look at Amy’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Since when were her feelings that visible? How had that happened? Once upon a time, she’d been so good at hiding them that no one had ever been able to gauge her moods.

Riley wasn’t fooled. “Something’s wrong.”

“Long day,” Amy said. “Come on, I’m parked out front.”

Riley shrugged and tossed the trash into the Dumpster, and a minute later, they’d walked around and gotten in Amy’s car.

“You going to tell me now?” Riley asked.

“Tell you what?”

“Why you’re pissed at me.”

Amy blew out a breath and studied the pier ahead of them, shame filling her that she’d let Riley think she could be mad at her, even for a second. “It’s not you. I’m sorry if I made you think that.” It was late, and everything was quiet and dark. Even the Ferris wheel was still, as still as her heart. “I had a fight with someone.”

“Yeah? You kick their ass?”

“Not that kind of fight.”

“Oh.” Riley sounded disappointed. “Was it with Matt?”

Without warning, Amy’s throat tightened. Not wanting to speak, she simply nodded.

Riley sucked in a breath. “He hurt you?”

“No.” She turned to Riley and saw the worry in her expression. “No, he’d never hurt me.”

Riley relaxed slightly. “But he made you sad.”

“Well… a little, yeah. Forget it. It’s not your problem.”

Riley rustled around in her ratty backpack and came up with two lollipops, clearly pilfered from the small can at the hostess station from the diner. She very sweetly offered out the stolen loot.

Reminded of just how young Riley was, Amy took one. Under normal circumstances, Riley would probably be having her first relationship with a boy about now, writing his name on her notebook, dreaming of proms and football games instead of figuring out where to find her next meal or who was going to try to hurt her next.

“You’ll make up,” Riley said. “Because he’s totally into you. I can tell by the way he’s always looking at you. Not like pervy looking,” she said quickly, “but like… like he loves you.”

Amy doubted that very much. She knew Matt loved being in bed with her, and as it turned out, she loved that, too. And maybe deep, deep down, she’d told herself she might have eventually let it turn into more, but she’d been fooling herself. He didn’t know her well enough to even think about loving her.

And if he had, he’d have run from her even sooner. “Where’s the sweatshirt I gave you?” she asked Riley. “It’s cold tonight.”

“Crap,” Riley said, smacking her own forehead. “I forgot it in the kitchen. Wait here, I’ll try to catch Jan before she locks the back.” She dashed out of the car and vanished around the corner of the diner.

Amy sighed and set her head down on her steering wheel. Her mind was going too fast.

Or not fast enough.

She didn’t understand how it had gone so badly with Matt. And if she was admitting not understanding that, she also didn’t understand something else.

He’d walked away from her. Actually, not walked.

Run.

If it had truly been just physical chemistry between them, then why? There’d been no reason for him to go, though she understood the concept well enough. After all, she’d spent her life making sure she was always the one to go. Now it was second nature.

And yet somehow, this time, this one time with Matt, she’d felt different. Like maybe she’d thought that this time there’d be no walking away.

She’d been wrong.

She lifted her head, wondering what was taking Riley so long. Too long. She got out of the car and retraced her steps to the back door of the diner.

Riley was there, pinned up against the alley wall by a guy in a hoodie and homeboy jeans. “You owe me, you greedy little bitch,” he was saying, hand at Riley’s throat, the other one on her breast. “You know you do.”

“Hey!” Amy yelled, white-hot fury taking over. And something else just as white-hot: Fear. And a terrible sense of déjà vu. “Let her go!”

Mistake number one. Because the guy dropped Riley and turned toward Amy.

Swamped with the memories of another time and place, of a different man who’d wanted Amy to pay what she’d owed, she took a step backward. She tripped over her own feet and went down. Mistake number two.

Because then the guy was on her.

Chapter 18

Man cannot live by chocolate alone, but it sure is fun trying.

Panicked and driven by horror, Amy scooted back on her butt, but the guy was fast and already towering over her. She reacted with instinct, swinging out with her foot. He hit his knees on the cement steps, and she flung her keys as hard as she could into his face.

“Bitch,” he snarled, and slapped a hand over his eyes. “Goddammit, bitch.”

“No, Troy, you’re the bitch,” Riley yelled from behind him and clobbered him over the head with what looked like an empty beer bottle.

It shattered.

The guy’s eyes went blank, then rolled up in his head, and he slowly fell over.

“Oh my God.” Amy lunged over him and grabbed Riley’s arms. “Are you okay?”

“F-fine,” Riley said, clearly not fine, shaking like a leaf. Amy knew the feeling since she was shaking, too. She pulled Riley over the crumpled body, and they both tumbled inside the kitchen.

Jan, sitting alone at the island, counting receipts, looked up in surprise. “What—”

“Police,” Amy managed, slamming and locking the door. “We need to call—”