CHAPTER 29
LIAM

The wind was howling and the ground was moving. I ran and I ran, breathing in the metallic scent of the air. Bombs were whistling in the distance and gunfire was shooting all around my head. The rock sprayed into my face while I held someone on my back, trying to get them to safety.

I could feel blood trickling from my nose. I could feel it dripping down my throat. I could feel my ankles burning from the lack of skin and I could hear the person on my back groaning for help. I kept turning down hallways while the lights got dimmer, threatening to swallow us both in darkness while I kept running.

Suddenly, I was outside. The ground was moving like waves in the ocean and I was running over them but getting nowhere. Bombs were going off beside me while someone kept screaming for help in my ear. I held the body on my back close to me, trying to let them know it was going to be okay. That as long as they were with me, they would be safe and healthy.

Because I was a doctor and that was what doctors did.

But then, I turned a corner and was met with a stone wall. A wall with chains dangling from them that dripped with the blood of the dead. Bodies were scattered around me. Bodies that had scalpels impaled into their backs. Scalpels that glared with my fingerprints while tears poured down my face and that was when I recognized the voice on my back.

“Canter. Help me.”

I shot up like a bat out of hell in my bed while sweat poured down my neck. Wiping it away, I groaned as I shifted my legs over the bed. Another fucking nightmare had come and gone, waking me up before dawn to greet me with its sleepless calling. It’d been two days since I’d last seen Whitney and every fucking time I closed my damn eyes, I saw it. War. Unrest. Blood. Bodies. I saw that damn shithole flash behind my eyes as if it had fucking happened yesterday.

I wasn’t getting an ounce of sleep.

Grunting, I lifted my drenched body off the bed. I ripped the sheets up and walked them to the washer, tossing them in before I took my clothes off. I threw everything in, along with some detergent and started the washer. Then, I slipped into the bathroom to take a shower. I smelled like I’d just come running out of the woods and I needed to get myself clean. I needed to scrub the blood off my hands and run hot water over my back, just to make sure he wasn’t there.

I stepped into the tub that reminded me of Whitney before I turned on the shower. I had no idea how in the world I was going to get back to normal. I had no idea if the nightmares were ever going to go away again. It was easier when the nightmares settled in. It was easier when I wasn’t reminded of what peace felt like. I’d dealt with them for two solid years and I’d gotten used to being disturbed. I’d gotten used to being bothered and sleepless. I’d gotten used to having to fill my body with coffee just to get through half the day before I needed another sleepless nap.

But then Whitney happened.

She appeared in my life and reminded me of what it felt like to have peace. Her body reminded me of how wonderful it felt to have the warmth of a woman around and her smile reminded me of what it felt like to be happy. I knew what a good night’s rest felt like when she was in my arms and it was something I’d completely forgotten I was capable of. I’d made my bed in my misery and it didn’t seem so bad. The comparison I used to have had faded into the dark recesses of my mind.

But now, with everything I’d experienced with her, the comparison was fresher than ever.

Now, I painfully understood the lack of sleep I was getting. Now, I painfully understood how much it hurt my body to wake up from these nightmares. She revived that comparison with her eyes and her smile and her playful demeanor and, now, I was sinking back into the hellhole she’d found me in.

I was sickeningly aware of how lonely it was in this cabin, and I couldn’t stand it any longer.

I needed to go into town. I wasn’t sure what I would need from town but I was sure I was running out of something here. I stayed in the shower and allowed the steam to drift around my body until the water started running cold. Then I got out and toweled myself down. The sun was shining through the few windows the cabin harbored and I could tell the snow was melting further and further. I’d be able to travel into town with my truck and not have any issues.

And then I remembered that damn tree.

I put on some clothes and slid on my boots before I dug around in my shed for my chainsaw. The downed tree would be rotted out and soaking wet but I took my chainsaw just in case. If I didn’t clear the main pathway to get to the road, then I’d have to wind my way back through the resort to get to town.

I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to risk running into Whitney and having to admit to her I was wrong.

She had been right. I needed to open up to her, but not for any of the reasons she spat out. I didn’t owe it to her to open up, nor was it some sort of requirement for us to move forward. I should’ve opened up to her because I wanted to. Because there were so many times where I’d come so close to telling her everything. Like over the rice and beans she cooked at the cabin or over dinner when we’d had a little too much to drink. So many times when my body was practically begging me to open up to her and I was fighting it.

It was wrong to accuse her of using me because, the truth was, I’d used her in some ways. When I found solace in her presence, I didn’t want to let her out of my sight. I didn’t want to risk losing the peace she instilled within me whenever she was around and that wasn’t fair to her. Sure, I might’ve just been a fling to her, but we were both providing temporary comfort to one another. She knew it and, deep down, I knew it.

It just made me upset that I’d allowed myself that temporary comfort in the first place.

This was where the line for men like me got confusing. We made our bed in our sorrows and we dealt with them. Was it fun? Hell no. Was it comfortable? Not even fucking close to it. But we got used to it and that dulled the pain of the experience. It wasn’t ideal but neither were the circumstances that put men like me in that position to begin with. Men like me would actively stay away from things we knew would bring us comfort because we knew that would make the nights harder. But if we ever found that type of comfort, if we ever allowed ourselves to indulge in the idea that maybe this could all turn around, then we were fucked. Like I was right now. I was fucked from the moment I allowed myself to explore Whitney’s body because I knew the beauty it would bring into my life. I knew what a woman’s presence was capable of doing to a man and I knew I was crossing a line I might never come back from.

And hearing her confirm that this was only temporary shot me into a blind state of panic.

She would leave and I’d go back to the hell of an existence I was living now. She’d leave to proceed with her life and I would be nothing but a glory fuck while for me she was so much more. So much good and so much bad at the same time. Hearing her talk about our dwindling time together only served to remind me that everything was temporary. Just like my sanity, or my comfort, or the men I’d killed with my own two hands.

I walked all the way down the path to the downed tree and cranked up my chainsaw. I probably didn’t need it with how wet the wood was but I cut the tree into chunks anyway. I tossed them off to the side and cleared the path before I started back up to my cabin, my mind still racing with thoughts of Whitney and where I’d gone wrong.

I’d never find another woman like her and I’d spoiled the bit of time I had been granted with her.

I slung my chainsaw into the back of the truck before I slid into it. I set myself to getting another chain for it while I was in town, just in case I didn’t already have a spare. I cranked the truck up and rode into town with my tired mind swirling around the past week but then I saw something that caught my eye.

There was a main road that split Gatlinburg in half. One side was a tourist-type side and one side was geared toward the locals. But that main road traveled all the way through the town. If you passed the grocery stores and the restaurants, however, the street narrowed into a two-lane road that dumped right into the heart of downtown. I had to cross through downtown to get to the only shop I trusted with my power tools and such but I didn’t get through it before I stopped.

I’d only ever been out here a few times but it had different kinds of shops. Coffee shops and craft shops. A used bookstore and a couple of antique stores. A jeweler set his shop up there and a couple of hole-in-the-wall restaurants had made a name for themselves on the strip but there were two vacant buildings that hadn’t been vacant before.

They were for sale and they were right next to one another.

I pulled my truck over to look at the two buildings while a series of ideas crossed my mind. I knew I was crazy even thinking them but, even as I tried to pull myself away, I pulled my phone from my pocket. Both buildings seemed to be a decent size and, as my phone rang in my ear, I chuckled to myself.

I really had lost my mind.

“Hello?” the gruff voice asked.

“Yes. Hello. My name is Liam Canter and I’m looking at a couple of buildings downtown that are for sale. Am I talking with the right person?”

“That’s me,” he said. “Name’s Lee. What can I do ya for?”

“I was wondering if you could give me a price quote on the two buildings,” I said.

“To sell ‘em and get those damn things off my hands, I’ll cut ya a deal. I’m tired of upkeepin’ ‘em. Too old to do most of the maintenance. Back’s no good anymore. Three hundred thousand for the both of ‘em, but they come as-is.”

“Can you give me a rundown of what needs to be done to them?” I asked.

I knew it was a farfetched idea, even as the older man talked me through things that needed to be fixed. Everything seemed pretty superficial. No plumbing or electrical issues that he knew of. I took a mental list of all the things I could fix on my own before I’d have to bring in someone to fix up the rest of it all and, even then, I could hear my mind calling me crazy. Something like this would never work and, even if I thought it would, how in the hell was I going to get Whitney to talk to me?

I honestly wasn’t sure, but this chance opportunity seemed too perfect to pass up.