Chapter Nineteen
Bravado was great in theory.
In the face of a hulking, vibrating bridge, it morphed into a bad idea.
A really, really bad idea.
Caitlin hesitated at the foot of the cross-town bridge, convinced she already felt the span shaking under the weight of the traffic. Why couldn’t she have found a bookstore for sale in the desert? With her luck, it would have been at the edge of the Grand Canyon.
Though even that might be preferable to this.
“Breathe,” she told herself. “One foot in front of the other. You’re too short to be blown over the edge.”
At least her bridge-panicked mumbling had been upgraded to a pep talk, however pathetic. Plus, she wasn’t crying. Definitely progress. Just a few more steps and she could consider herself on the bridge. After that, it was a matter of taking a selfie without dropping her phone, then sending it to Shane. He’d announced to the world that he was over her by leaving. This would be her version of that. She didn’t need his help. Or him.
She needed him to know that.
Maybe she needed to know it, too.
She stared at the bridge, mere steps in front of her. The stupid pedestrian lane offered an impossible choice: cling to the rail that separated her from falling to her death, or skirt the edge of traffic, where massive trucks could roll over her without feeling the bump.
Hero, her ass.
Like it had been a feat to convince her off this thing.
Getting her on it, however…
Her slow-motion progress, now all of six inches from dry land, ground to a halt. He had gotten her on the bridge. But it didn’t count. She was doing this to prove she didn’t need him in her life. Totally different thing.
Irritated, she took another step. Then another. It was probably the slowest water crossing since Columbus, but she was doing it.
Without him.
Inch by inch, she forced herself to take each terrifying step, convinced the undulating span had nothing on Tacoma Narrows. The worst part was trying to look normal, or at least the exact opposite of whatever had made someone call her in as a jumper that first day. All she needed was for that scenario to play out a second time. Granted, Shane wouldn’t be there—as far as she knew, he was off searching for the kind of meaning that required fifty-six floors of concrete instead of twelve. But she didn’t need a do-over any more than she needed to offer the guys a second round of ammo.
After nearly thirty painstaking minutes, she neared the center. Above the bridge, a sign announced the name of the river, so she took her first selfie with that in the background, pretty damn proud of herself for not looking terrified. Then she turned to take the hard one—the one where she had to hold the phone up to see the river behind her and far below. Her hand shook so hard she almost dropped the device, but she finally managed to get a somewhat clear shot. She sent them both to Shane via text message. The pictures said what words couldn’t: she was moving on.
Satisfied that she’d accomplished something earth-shattering, she crammed the phone in her pocket then eyed the remaining distance. Actually crossing the bridge would be huge, but that would put her on the wrong side of her grand opening, and besides…she was almost halfway. The trip back counted.
If she made it.
She’d make it.
When she turned to head back, a shadow crossed her periphery, but she didn’t follow it. Instead, she pinned her eyes on the solid ground ahead and took her first tentative step toward freedom.
And hit a wall that was decidedly not in Denver. One whose achingly familiar scent nearly crushed her. Her pulse fluttered, dizzying her, but she’d dropped to her knees for the last time. At least for Lt. Shane Hendricks, or whatever he was now that he’d switched departments.
“You need to move,” she told him, trying to ignore the unruly cadence of her heart. There was no denying the shift, or how little it had to do with the bridge.
“Actually, I don’t.” There he went, straight back to cocky, and barely glancing up from his phone, the jerk. Then she remembered the pictures she’d sent. At least he now had proof they weren’t Photoshopped.
“I know I’m short,” she told him through gritted teeth, “and I know you have the upper hand, but I swear to God if you don’t get out of my way, you’ll be on the evening news with me.” She paused. “Why are you even here? Aren’t you in the wrong city?”
He leaned over the rail, his forearms resting on the top while his shoulders and head extended over the river. “I was.”
Caitlin felt sick at the sight of him bent over the railing like that. “Good for you for getting out.”
He loosely touched his fingertips and stared down at the water. “That’s kind of what I was thinking. In fact, I was on my way back to your grand opening—”
“You’re at the wrong address,” Caitlin told him. So what if she melted a little because he’d bothered to be there? Her emotions had been raw since the day she’d met him on that bridge. Every girl had her breaking point. “I appreciate the effort, but really, you should go home.”
He cocked a brow. “I did.”
Whatever that meant. She tried not to stare, but it was either him or the ground, or the river beyond it, and she couldn’t go there. Instead, she decided to drown her own way, by looking into his eyes.
“Funny thing about Dry Rock,” he said.
She silently willed him to step aside so she could get off that bridge. Her discomfort welled. She didn’t dare step into traffic to go around him, and getting past him would require climbing over or under. No way in hell she was getting any higher or crawling, which left only one option: spinning on her heel and heading in the other direction. She’d get a ride back once her feet hit solid ground.
“My family is here,” he called after her. “My life is here.”
“Happy for you,” she muttered, probably not anything he heard over the traffic, especially with her back to him.
“My girl is here.”
She halted. Turned slowly. He stood several feet away, right where she left him. When she realized the distance she’d traveled without a second thought, pride bubbled in her chest. “Your girl?”
“Yes. A pain in my ass redhead with a store full of sex books.”
“No librarian jokes?” she stammered. Really, she had to be hearing him wrong. And if she wasn’t, she needed to do something other than swoon, because he didn’t deserve it. Not the way he’d left. And what was he going to do? Ambush her at her store?
“Sweetheart, when you knelt in front of me with that little skirt and those glasses and your hair pulled back—”
A passing car honked. Caitlin desperately hoped it was coincidental timing. “You do realize your so-called girl said she was falling in love with you, and you left?”
He closed the distance between them. She was grateful he’d finally given up hanging over the edge, but she didn’t need him in her face, either. “I waited twenty years for that job, Caitlin. Ten as an adult, but all those dreams before that time counted, too.”
She eyed the railing. She might be able to get past him…nope, not that brave yet. He watched her, probably waiting for her to fall at his feet and swoon. Hell, she was tempted to do exactly that. He looked too good, and she’d really missed him, but they were over. She had to remember that. She really needed to get back to solid ground. “You’re right,” she said. “Those dreams counted. I shouldn’t have implied otherwise.”
He blinked, and she took advantage of the moment to push past him. For three terror-filled seconds, she had to squeeze against the railing, but then she was free. Nothing but open space between her and her store. She’d been gone so long Lexi was probably losing her shit. Either that, or giving tours of the back room where the sex books were.
Shane didn’t try to stop Caitlin, at least not physically. But she was only a few steps into her escape when she realized traffic was no longer whizzing past. She turned to see him standing in the middle of the road, a line of cars stopped behind him. “Yeah, you should have,” he said, like he wasn’t blocking two lanes of traffic. “Because there’s something that matters more.”
“You’re crazy,” she said.
“Kind of like when you showed up at the station and said you were falling in love with me?”
“Yes. And it didn’t work out.” God help her if the windows were down in any of those cars. Was holding the bridge-goers hostage something that was supposed to work on her?
“I think it could work out,” he said.
They really should be having this conversation anywhere else, but that didn’t stop her from staring. Of course, there were dozens of people watching him, listening when he called out to her. He tilted his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I figured as long as you’re in Dry Rock, Denver has nothing on it. Hell, I checked. They haven’t had a call for a bridge jumper in months.” He approached, slowly, but didn’t let the traffic through. “Not once in the last twelve months has a woman smoked herself out of her bookstore trying to use an air conditioner.”
Damn it. The knot in her chest loosened.
“No one has reported any kind of rooftop break-ins involving phallic glazed ham-and-Swiss and wine.”
“You told me you had permission to be there,” she sputtered.
“And now I’m here,” he said, “to tell you I love you.”
A handful of hoots erupted from the stopped cars. Ordinarily, she might have been mortified, but ordinarily, she didn’t have a man blocking traffic to say he loved her. He left the road, meeting her where she stood on the side, so close that she could see the hazel in his eyes.
“I love you,” he said. He touched the back of her head, tentatively at first, then pulled her in when she didn’t resist. And how could she? He was reeling her in, just like he’d always been able to do. “The elevators in Denver,” he said, leaning to brush his lips against hers. “They all seem to be working just fine.”
“I don’t believe that last one,” she told him.
“Maybe not,” he admitted, “but I was going for a thing.”
“Which is?”
“All the excitement I could ever want is here. With you. If you’ll have me.”
“You left,” she said quietly.
“I did,” he said, matching her tone. “And that means you won’t ever have to wonder what I gave up for you. It wasn’t right for me, Caitlin. Not with you here. This thing between us, it’s worth fighting for.”
Her frustration fled in the wake of his words. No way he’d come back to throw anything insincere at her, but if ever she needed to not melt, it was now.
Melting now was the worst thing ever.
“I love you, too,” she told him, “but under one condition.”
“Anything,” he said.
“Scoot over so I can get off this bridge.”