Mess with Me by Nicole Helm (16)

Chapter Sixteen

Sam paced. First he paced the small interior of his cabin, but it wasn’t enough room to work out all the restless energy inside of him. So he went outside.

The sun was setting in the trees and usually that made him feel better about life. A cool summer’s night, a pretty sunset, the knowledge that this, up here alone, was his life and his domain.

But, of course, today it only reminded him of Hayley. He’d never even watched the sunset with her, but something about the vibrant orange, which matched the stretchy shirt she wore, and the way the sun’s evening rays glinted off the trees and rocks, gilding everything gold, reminded him of her eyes.

When he thought about her eyes, he thought about that expression in them this afternoon. How she’d walked into the Evans brothers’ lair of sorts and faced them with a vulnerable kind of confidence that ate at him.

He’d been in awe of her. For some crazy, blinding second he’d wondered what it would be like to go home. To show up at his parents’ door and say, Hi, I want to be a part of this again.

But that thought had only lasted a second. He didn’t want to be part of the world that was a constant reminder of what he’d done.

And his parents had made it quite clear that they didn’t want him there.

That was the problem with Hayley. She made him think about all this stuff. The complexities in his life that he had so carefully ignored. Possibly worst of all, she made him consider the meaning of forgiveness.

He turned to face the path that led to where she usually parked her car. Ever since Lilly had convinced him to leave Mile High this afternoon, he had been listening for the sound of someone driving her up the mountain, and the subsequent putter of her car’s engine driving away.

He could’ve missed it when he’d been drying out the tents or using the power tools to reattach a loose solar panel. He could have missed it when he’d taken a shower to try to clear his head.

He’d promised himself he wouldn’t check. Lilly had been right. He had had no business being there, listening to their conversation. Hayley certainly didn’t need to rehash her conversation with Brandon and Will with him. He was trying to create distance, not make them best friends or some bullshit.

His curiosity was killing him slowly. It was an inclination he’d mostly gotten over. He’d tamped down any and all curiosity, focusing only on avoiding his own pain.

Why did Hayley bring all of those old feelings back into his life? When feeling could only end with . . .

Something cold and uncomfortable settled in his chest. Hayley could be around for the next twenty years, reminding him of all the ways he used to be, the way life could be good and bright and warm, and he still wouldn’t be able to take that step back into it.

Because he’d been a selfish bastard, and that he could deal with. As long as no one else had to deal with it, as long as no one else had to pay the consequences.

Hayley would want to. He saw it so clearly now.

He had to keep his distance. He had to keep this cool façade, and Lilly had been right. He didn’t have any place in Hayley’s personal life. He didn’t belong in her dealings with Brandon and Will.

In fact, if she was willing to talk to them, it meant that his time with Hayley was over.

That cold, hard knot in his chest got colder and bigger and Sam nearly gave in to the need to sit down.

They were done. She was talking to Will and Brandon now, so that meant he didn’t have to train her anymore. Brandon or Will could do it. Sure, he could step in if he was needed, but . . .

Over a month ago he’d agreed to this because he hadn’t had a choice. Finally, he was getting rid of her. She was a nuisance, a distraction, an annoying little gnat.

The thought she wouldn’t be here bright and early tomorrow morning to hike with him was something of a blow. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

But it was great. Perfect. He could go back to a normal, peaceful life.

Empty. Cold. Lonely.

How dare she sweep into his life and make it feel that way?

He stomped his way down the path telling himself he hoped her car was gone. When he reached the little parking spot and found it empty, he could only stand and stare.

She had gotten her car and not come to him. Not to tell him what happened, not to be an annoying pain in his ass.

She had gotten whatever it was that she needed out of him. Now they were both free. It was for the best.

Sam trudged back to his cabin, ignoring the sharp pain in his chest.

When he reached his cabin again, he grabbed his keys and got in his Jeep.

He had to know what happened, whether she’d had a positive, fulfilling conversation with Brandon and Will, and then he could let it go. He could go back to his life.

He didn’t even need to ask her. He just needed to casually ask Brandon or Will how things went, and then he could move the hell on.

He drove to Mile High, repeating that thought to himself over and over again. Denial had once been one of his strongest attributes, so why was it failing him now?

He got out of the Jeep and headed inside. Luckily, Will’s Jeep was in the parking lot, so at least he would be here. Of the two Evans brothers, Will would be less suspicious of Sam’s asking questions about Hayley.

Of course, when Sam stepped inside, he heard two male voices. Two Evans male voices. He thought about backing out before they heard him, but he should have known better when entering through the front. He was too late.

“Sam, come on in. Perfect timing.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Have a drink with us,” Brandon offered cheerfully.

“Celebrating something?”

“We are.” Brandon and Will each had little tumblers of what Sam could only assume was Scotch. It reminded him of college. How they had all thought they were so big and important, infallible and maybe untouchable.

Will nodded toward the kitchenette. “There’s beer in the fridge. Or something nonalcoholic, if you prefer.”

Sam ignored the offer and took the tumbler Brandon offered him. Maybe it reminded him of an ugly past, but he wasn’t about to let them see it. That was the thing. You didn’t have to dwell in your pain if you never let anyone else see it.

Sam downed the drink in two quick gulps.

Brandon and Will exchanged one of their twin looks, but Sam couldn’t bring himself to care. He held up the tumbler and Brandon poured another.

“So, what’s the celebration?”

“Hayley.”

When they didn’t explain any further, Sam had to bite his tongue from demanding answers. What about Hayley? What was going on?

It was none of his damn business, and he could not for the life of him get over the curiosity that raged through his brain. If he could knock it out of himself, he would have.

In fact, he could always get drunk. Down a good dose of Scotch, forget any and all of this. Except he’d done that not too long ago with Will, and repeating that this soon seemed unhealthy. Dangerous.

Sam could only blink at the tumbler in his hands. He knew his life was a certain way, but putting it that way was . . . really depressing. Far more depressing than it had a right to be.

“Why do you look like you’ve just been punched in the stomach?”

“I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach a few times lately.”

At Will and Brandon’s interested looks, Sam shook his head. “It’s . . .” He wanted to say nothing, but it wasn’t nothing. “You guys called it. I’m going through some shit. You and Lilly getting married and having a kid. It’s all just kind of coming to a head in a way I didn’t expect.” Sam couldn’t believe he was opening up to Brandon and Will, but he sure as hell couldn’t open up to them about how Hayley had brought these emotions out of him. It was choosing one kind of honesty over another, and this one seemed a lot less dangerous.

“Well, you’re free of Hayley now, so if you need some time—”

He should say Great! and leave it at that. Just walk away with an easy acceptance of that offer. He couldn’t do it.

“I don’t need time for shit. I don’t mind training her,” he grumbled into his drink.

“You don’t?” both guys said in unison.

Sam shrugged, trying his damnedest to be casual. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders.” One he’d kissed, and had barely been able to stop thinking about for the past twenty-four hours. “And she’s a quick learner. I don’t exactly mind her presence.”

Didn’t mind. Wanted it all too desperately. What was the damn difference?

“Well, we can split it up then. However best works for the schedule.”

Sam opened his mouth to argue, but at Will’s questioning look, he just closed it. No arguing. No anything. He couldn’t let Brandon or Will know the effect that Hayley had on him, and he certainly couldn’t let them know he’d kissed her.

Certainly not after hearing Brandon’s estimation of him earlier today. It had stung, sure, but not because Brandon was wrong. Only because Hayley had heard it.

He was one sick puppy.

As if reading his thoughts, Brandon extended a hand. “Look, I’m sorry about what I said earlier today. I was frustrated and worried and—”

“And it was all true?”

“You think I’d let my half sister go with you anywhere if I didn’t trust you, Sam?”

No. Brandon was loyal and overprotective to a fault. Not just with the women in his life, but with everyone. He so desperately wanted the world to work the way it should, but Sam had learned the lesson that Brandon hadn’t yet.

It didn’t matter how the world should be, it only mattered how the world was. Because Abby should be alive, and if there was any justice, he would be dead instead.

Instead he was here. Barely living. And she was buried.

That struck him as wrong in a way it never had before: Maybe he should be living for her. Not dying for her.

“Sam? You know you can talk to us, right? We were there. We get it.”

“You weren’t there,” Sam replied with far too much gravel in his voice.

“Not at that particular party, but we were there, and we knew you, and we knew Abby. We all know what our lives were like back then, and we were ignorant, selfish, power-mad jackasses.” Brandon’s dismissive estimation of them was right on the mark, but the sympathetic, emotive look on his face had Sam backing away.

But Brandon kept talking. “I could never tell you not to feel guilty, because I know I would in your position. But there’s only so much blame you can heap on yourself before you become a waste of space.”

“And the last thing you are, Sam, is a waste of space,” Will added, far too seriously.

“Well, I didn’t come here for a heart-to-heart, so—”

“You can run away, Sam. You can always run away. But we’ll always be right here. We have been all this time. It doesn’t change.”

Sam had no doubt, and they reminded him so much of Hayley in that moment, he hated them. All three of them. All he wanted to do was exist without all this feeling and confusion. Why wouldn’t they let him?

“See you later.” He put the drink down and left Mile High and drove back to his cabin.

He sat in his Jeep and stared at the darkness. Once upon a time he’d felt pride at what he’d built here. He’d poured every last piece of energy into this cabin and this life.

Something had altered though. Hayley. Brandon finding Lilly. This summer had changed how his world looked.

For the very first time since he’d decided he was going to live here, he felt nothing but empty.

* * *

Hayley had gotten used to waking up at the crack of dawn for the past few weeks, so it was something of a shock to wake to the sound of someone pounding on her door before her alarm went off.

She glanced at her clock and realized in the upheaval of yesterday she hadn’t set her alarm. Still, five thirty in the morning was awfully early for someone to be knocking at her door.

It was silly to hope that it was Sam, to ask her about how yesterday had gone. Silly because he wouldn’t do that in oh, eight million trillion years. And yet she didn’t know anyone else who would come to her apartment. Maybe Brandon or Will or Lilly, but why would they come out so early when she had promised to stop by today?

She pushed herself out of bed and grabbed a heavy sweatshirt from her closet—the Hayley version of a robe.

She shuffled blearily to the front door and looked out the peephole. The man she saw on the other side was possibly the last person she’d expected to see.

She swung the door open. “James!”

“Rise and shine.” Her stepbrother grinned and enveloped her in a tight, comforting hug. She took some comfort in that for a few moments, because as great as it had been to face Brandon and Will and realize that it hadn’t been all that hard, it was nice to have a relationship in front of her she knew how to deal with.

At least until she remembered that her family wasn’t supposed to know she lived in Gracely. Let alone at five thirty in the morning. He would’ve had to have done some digging to find her apartment, since the only address she’d given her mother was a post office box in Benson.

“I suppose you’re wondering how I found you?” James said, pulling back. His smile was still in place, but James had the uncanny ability to smile no matter what was going on in that complicated brain of his.

“Underhanded police tactics, I’m guessing?”

James sighed, that world-weary, big-brother sigh she had hated growing up. “What are you doing, Hayley?” he asked, James Jordan’s version of gentle. It was more smoothness than actual softness.

“I’m finding myself,” she said, gathering the courage to look him directly in the eye. It was funny that courage was something like dominoes. Once flicked, they kept knocking the next down. Be brave one place and it suddenly seemed possible and even imperative to be brave other places.

James pressed his lips together and she could’ve left it at that. God knows, Mack or James wouldn’t want to touch “finding oneself” with a nine-hundred-foot pole, but she felt the need to reach out and have someone from her old life understand her new one.

It wouldn’t be her mother. It would never be her mother when it came to Gracely and the last name Evans, but maybe James could understand.

“I found this great town that I love. I found . . .”

“Your half brothers?”

It frustrated her beyond belief that he’d poked into her life when he could have asked. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell me everything you’ve investigated, and then I can fill in any blanks.”

“I don’t have any blanks.”

She was tempted to tell him about Sam just to prove that he did, because she was pretty sure if he knew that she’d been kissing anyone on top of a mountain one night ago, he would’ve led with that little factoid. And a full investigation of Sam and his background.

“What are you doing here, James?”

“Mom is worried. Dad is worried. I’m worried.”

“Why are you worried now?” It wasn’t fair to unload her emotional upheaval on him, but it wasn’t fair that he was here before she was ready to explain this to her family. “For years I was miserable and felt like I didn’t belong anywhere and that I was missing something. No one was worried about me then. Everything was fine then. But I finally found something that feels like me, like a place where I belong. Now you guys are worried.”

“It isn’t like you.”

“Nothing was like me. I was so afraid to do anything. I’m not afraid anymore. I’m not going to be afraid anymore.”

“If Mom knew . . .”

Hayley had that selfish old urge to tell him that her mom was not his mom. But it wasn’t fair because Mom had always given James love and affection. And he’d certainly deserved it. His mother died when he was a kid.

It was just . . . why hadn’t she deserved it? Hayley closed her eyes. Apparently courage didn’t solve every problem. “Why are you here?”

“I told you. We’re worried about you.”

“You could’ve said that over the phone. You could’ve . . . If you’re here, there’s a plan. At least have the decency to tell me what it is. I’m not a child anymore.”

She didn’t look at James, she couldn’t. Even though she had gotten a good night’s sleep, she was still exhausted—physically and emotionally. Worn out from taking all of her insides and putting them on the outside. It was exhausting, and it hurt like hell.

No wonder Sam hid in that tiny little cabin up on the mountain. This was bullshit.

“Dad doesn’t know I’m here. Mom doesn’t even know I’m here. I took it upon myself to come here and check up on you.”

Hayley whirled on him. “Mom and Mack don’t know?”

“Once I found out that you were here, I couldn’t tell Mom. And if I couldn’t tell her, then I couldn’t tell Dad. So I’m here, as your brother, to check up on you. To make sure you’re as fine as you claim you are.”

“Because you can’t just believe me?” she demanded, trying to fight back tears, trying to be the strong person she’d believed herself to be yesterday. But it all seemed to be crumbling here. Why couldn’t they believe? She understood why Mom might not be okay with this, but couldn’t someone at least believe she knew what was best for her?

“I want to, but when have you ever told us the truth about how happy you are?”

That mark hit home. Because she wanted to blame her mother for seeing her as half her biological father, a secret to be kept. She wanted to blame Mack and James for being steps and not getting her. She wanted to blame her skin color for not matching anybody she was related to. She wanted to blame a lot of things, but the bottom line was . . . she kept all of those feelings hidden deep down inside.

How could she blame anyone for not seeing through it?

“How long are you staying?” Hayley asked softly, not sure any answer would be what she wanted right now.

“Until I’m convinced you’re as happy as you claim you are.”

Hayley let out a breath. She wasn’t about to let him see her work. Though Mile High had become one of those things that made her happy, she wasn’t about to let James meet Sam. Not now when everything was so complicated and fraught between them.

James would read into that, and then he’d go full protective older brother. Sam was jumpy enough as it was. She didn’t need to give him another reason to pull back, to run away.

Not when she was determined to have so much more from him.

She’d have to call in sick, and tell James she had the day off. It wouldn’t work forever, but if she had some time to figure it out, maybe she could work around this. Convince James she was happy in Gracely by just being in Gracely. Or finding out Sam’s schedule and working around that.

Whatever the case, she was not letting her stepbrother near the man she had a romantic interest in until that romantic interest was far more secured.