Want You More by Nicole Helm (22)

Chapter Twenty-One

Will needed a few minutes to get his whirling emotions under control. It never would have occurred to him to prepare for all this.

Being livid on her behalf. Remembering too much all the mistakes he’d made. A bitterness over his father he’d thought he’d left behind when the old man keeled over, much deservedly.

But she touched his face again, something gentle and soothing, and he thought he’d crack himself open a million times over to earn that.

“My father had a charm, a way of making you forget all his shortcomings and over-focus on his good qualities. The town treated him like a benevolent king, and everyone loved him or was in awe of him.”

“Except you,” she said, still studying his face and gently tracing his hairline with her index finger.

He wasn’t sure if that was something he’d told her years ago, or just something she put together in the way he spoke, but either way . . . she was the only one. As a kid when he’d thought his father wasn’t all the town cracked him up to be, Bran and Mom and whoever else usually figured it was because he was the spoiled youngest. Clearly the favorite.

No one had ever figured it must be true, but Tori, forever his benefit-of-the doubter, even now . . .

It was important. It was something to hold on to. More and more and more.

“I . . . I didn’t idolize him the way Bran did. I didn’t sweep away him being a dick like my mom or people in town did, but you know what sucks is even when it turned out I was right, that Dad was just a jackass on a power trip who didn’t care who he hurt, it didn’t matter that I was right, because everyone was suffering. There’s no satisfaction in that—being the one who sees through the bullshit, living in the aftermath of it. It all sucks.”

Her fingers filtered down over his beard and jaw, that soft look still on her face. He wished he knew how to bring that out without sharing tragedies. He wished he knew how to scale her walls without sympathy.

But if this was all he had right now, then this was all he had, and he’d take it. Because she . . . She was it, and this was his second chance, and nothing was standing in his way.

“But the thing is, once you get some hindsight, you see that men like him chose the people they can manipulate. Whether it’s a finely honed skill or some asshole intuition, they seek out the people they can bend to their will without the people ever knowing it.”

She withdrew her hand. “I’m not sure I like what you’re trying to say if you’re drawing some correlation to what I just told you.”

He took the hand she withdrew, put it back on his jaw, placing his own hand over it so she had to keep it there. “You’re thinking I think that makes you weak, that a man could sneak under your defenses, but it isn’t weakness. That’s the whole point. Everyone has a vulnerability, and some people excel at stepping all over them. I saw the pattern.”

She didn’t try to tug her hand away, but the ease in her expression had vanished into skepticism and maybe irritation. No, Tori did not like any implication she might not be Ms. Strong and Mighty.

He wondered if she held on to that idea of herself as tightly as he’d held on to the idea of frivolous party guy.

“What pattern?” she asked flatly.

“One summer I was . . . The summer before college, actually, I was working at Evans Mining Company. Brandon was at some leadership conference Dad had sent him off to, grooming him to lead, and he stuck me in the mail room because of my lack of drive among other things.”

“That doesn’t sound very fair.”

“It was Evans fair, I suppose. It didn’t surprise me and since I didn’t want the Evans Mining life, I wasn’t too bent out of shape, but I overheard a lot taking mail and packages here and there. The ways my father took advantage of employees—mainly women—who also did not view my father as a shining savior of all that was Gracely holy, but they were women who were alone, who didn’t have people or money to fall back on.”

“Took advantage of . . . like . . .”

Will squeezed her hand under his harder because what he really wanted to do was make a joke and laugh it off, but that didn’t do anything. “I’m not sure anyone was ever . . . I don’t know details. But I heard whispers, and one day I happened to overhear one woman crying to another that she’d slept with my father.”

“Will.”

“She was upset about it, for a lot of reasons, and the woman she was telling told her not to be like Vanessa. I didn’t know who that was, but . . . Well, it stuck with me. The woman crying. The other woman acting like that was normal. That there was a precedent you had to make sure not to do.”

Tori’s free hand, which had been curled in her lap, uncurled. She gently placed it on his knee, soft again.

Was it his own kind of manipulation that he was using this? He felt sick at the thought, but only for a second. Tori did fit the mold, alone and a little desperate for money, except . . . She wasn’t really alone. She had Brandon and Sam, Lilly wouldn’t be content to let her flap in the breeze, and he doubted Cora would either.

It had been a short amount of time, but Tori had people now. People who wouldn’t so easily let her run away a second time.

“I . . .” He laughed a little at how crazy it all sounded. “I got the name, figured out she was an old employee, and I saved up my generous allowance to pay a private investigator to figure it all out. He found her, and her daughter, and it didn’t take a genius to connect the dots. Dad had gotten his secretary pregnant, then paid her off to disappear and never tell anyone about the child.”

Tori’s hand tightened on his knee. “Oh my God, Hayley.”

“Yeah, Hayley.”

“But I thought you guys just met her . . . You didn’t tell anyone.”

Finally Will let go of the hand on his face. He wasn’t sure he actually did want all this touching, for this anyway. But her hand remained firm on his face and on his knee, and maybe anchoring with something—someone—good wasn’t such a terrible thing.

“Actually, I told my mother.” He sighed. “I don’t know what I was thinking. That I’d be hailed as a hero? I guess I had it in my head she’d thank me, or tell me I’d been right all along. Something childish and flat-out stupid.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing at first. She just . . . hit me.”

“Hit you?”

“Backhanded me across the face. Definitely not the reaction I was expecting.” He tried to laugh, but no sound came out. Except a gasp from Tori.

“Will . . . That’s . . . Why on earth would she hit you?”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever unwound that. I know she was mad, and hell I was seventeen and a lot bigger than her, so the hitting wasn’t such a big deal. I never figured out why she got so angry with me, but . . . She told me to never utter words like that again to her, and that if I dared spread that story along she’d make sure I was cut off from Evans, Brandon, and Gracely for good.”

Will didn’t look at Tori, he stared at the stones, and tried not to remember the rage-filled words his mother had yelled at him. When she’d never yelled before. She’d always been so poised, maybe cool and aloof, but never . . . brokenly furious.

“So, point being, my father knew all along what he was doing. He knew Mom was so wrapped up in the life of being an Evans she wouldn’t leave, no matter who he slept with. The women he took advantage of knew they had no recourse because the town loved him. Men like that always know.”

“And you never told anyone.”

His guilt. His shame. “Couldn’t be cut off now, could I?”

“I don’t believe that’s the whole of it, Will Evans, and you shouldn’t either.”

“What whole of it would there be? She threatened. I caved. And Hayley suffered the consequences.”

“I know I don’t know Hayley all that well, but I’d hardly say she suffered, and even if she did, those weren’t your consequences. They were your father’s. Your mother’s. How dare she. How dare she lay a hand on her child because of a truth she didn’t want to face.”

Will didn’t really have an argument for her vehemence, any more than he knew how to explain . . . It had started with his parents, sure, but he’d held on to that legacy, hadn’t he?

“You don’t blame your child. She had no right to lay the blame on you. Tell me you understand that.”

She seemed so vested in his understanding that, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was just another way their individual stories poked at something inside of themselves.

“Is that what your parents did when it came to you and your brother?”

“No, they never blamed me,” she said, and she didn’t look away, or get all defensive, so he had to believe she was telling the truth. Still.

“But they didn’t protect you.”

“I could protect myself,” she said quietly, looking away from him. But she lifted her chin. “Still can. Shit happens, Will, and you learn to move on.”

“And what’s the difference between moving on and running away?”

Everything in her stilled, and then she withdrew herself completely. Her hands off his person, her hip scooted away from his. He’d hit a nerve, which he’d hoped to hit.

Because hell if he knew the answer to that question, and if she didn’t, it meant they had to figure it out together.

* * *

Tori knew Will would read too much into her standing up and demanding they leave, but she didn’t know how to fight the urge.

The difference between moving on and running away? Who the hell knew. She didn’t want to know.

She had to get up, no matter what he might read into it. “What is this, group therapy? I think maybe it’s time to head back.”

“Tori.”

“I just don’t know what the point is,” she said, trying to sound calm and careless instead of what she actually was. Panicked as all get-out.

Because how did you keep yourself separate and not in too deep and not falling back in love with someone when you were doing things you’d never done back then? Back then she’d known who he was, even underneath all his easy fake charm, but she hadn’t known what shaped him.

She hadn’t wanted to know. Almost as much as she didn’t want him to know what shaped her.

“Okay. Okay, we’ll let it settle, huh?”

She almost sighed in relief, but after a second she realized those words sounded awfully familiar. Because they were the exact words he’d uttered last night after, well, everything.

“Is this your new tactic? You say we just let things settle and then you wait until I’ve let my guard down and—”

“Nothing is a tactic, Tori. I’m trying to figure my life out. It’s a life that I want you in, and that means learning when to push and when to back off.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a ski slope or a rock to climb. You can’t figure out when to zig and when to zag.”

“Figuring you out isn’t the same as mapping out a battle plan. Learning how to be someone who’s good for you isn’t the same as climbing a fucking rock, believe me, one’s a hell of a lot easier. I wanted Mile High, and I worked with Brandon and Sam to build it—making allowances, pushing when I needed to push, yeah, even me. That isn’t tactics, it’s relationships.”

Tori didn’t know what to say to that, because she didn’t know shit about relationships. She could be the fun-time girl. She could be the quiet, dutiful daughter or the runaway one. She could be a lot of superficial things.

But the connecting thing . . . Well, she’d learned a long time ago that wasn’t for her. Plenty of people lived their whole lives alone, didn’t it make sense that she was just one of them? Of course it did.

She jerked a little when Will rested his palms on her shoulders. She’d been so worked up, she hadn’t felt him approach. So tempting to lean into that touch, into him. He’d always seemed strong, but now he seemed certain with it. Even when he was blundering through.

“I spent a lot of time running away from what I wanted, Tori. Because I guess I didn’t think I deserved it, or that I’d only mess it up, or maybe some combination of that and other shit. But I’m done with that. I want Mile High. And you. That might be the extent of what I know, but I know that much, and I’m not backing off just because that’s hard. For me. Or for you.”

Yeah, not exactly a surprise. When had anyone ever worried if things were hard for her? “Right.” A good reminder, all in all, that this was all about him. For him, about him. She was some sort of prize at best.

And at worst . . . this ended up worse than it had before, because she could tell herself a million times she wouldn’t fall for him, but wasn’t she here doing just that?

“We ran away last time we had a chance.”

We? She wanted to scoff. He had run away, if she wanted to believe this revisionist history of his. She had protected herself. Leaving had been necessary.

Maybe it was always necessary.

It hurt, that realization, but it also calmed her. Because that was the answer. Wading through all this emotion, weighing what-ifs, taking chances . . . it was all too hard and too much work.

Leaving, leaving was always the answer. You didn’t have to work at leaving, or unwind all the complicated things, you just had to do it.

She looked at him, all certain in his change, in making a life with Mile High and her. Regardless of whom it hurt, because he’d decided. Well, that was fine and dandy. Maybe it was even necessary for him. He’d run away. He’d dealt with a kind of insecurity about his own worth. She could understand that. She could even empathize with it.

It didn’t mean she would stick around to be clobbered by it. Not this time.

And if she had to leave this thing she thought had been permanent and a new start, didn’t she deserve a parting gift? A memory instead of what-ifs. Because on this rocky beach in front of this beautiful lake, she knew she wasn’t meant for people.

Not people she didn’t love, and not the people she did. She’d stayed away from her family for over a decade, and between her staying away and the money she sent home, they kept Tim medicated and home like they wanted.

She just had to stay away. If she’d stayed away from Toby, well, maybe he would have found someone else to betray his wife with, but it wouldn’t have been her.

If she’d stayed away from Gracely, Colorado, none of this would hurt all over again. But here she was, not running away, but moving on. It was moving on when you knew you’d only end up hurting.

It was saving yourself. It was being strong.

She forced herself to meet his concerned gaze, and to focus on her certainty while she did it. Here was not for her, no matter how beautiful and good. He was not for her, no matter how much she’d probably always love him.

“What is going on in that head of yours?” he asked, as though he wanted to know.

Yeah, she was positive he didn’t. Because he wouldn’t like it. He’d fight it, and he’d think he was right, and she would be clobbered in the aftermath.

Not this time.

This time she was in charge, and she would take what she wanted, and then she would leave. She would find a place where there was none of this. Where it didn’t hurt.

But first . . . First. She pressed her hand to his chest, then slid it up to his shoulder and around his neck. She tugged his mouth to hers, pressed a sun-drenched kiss to it.

“How much time do we have before one of our excursions?” she asked, not letting her gaze drift from his for a second.

Will glanced at his watch. “About an hour.”

“Take me home.”

He studied her for a few seconds, but she refused to let him see beyond what she wanted him to. Let him see the want, the need, the attraction, and the way they fit.

She would hide the good-bye behind it, but it would be there.