11

HE MIGHT NOT BE a chopper pilot anymore, but that didn’t mean Ty couldn’t search for—and find—the lost. He couldn’t help but reach over and take Brette’s hand as they pulled up to the Marshall family winery. He’d called in an update about Lottie on the walkie to Pete, who’d sent them back to the family base.

He needed to have the conversation about his latest hunch in person, really lay out the proof—solid proof, from his angle.

Hattie, the dog lover, driving a vehicle with a paw print sticker, which now sat in the rubble of the school. His best guess was that she’d met the team at the park and driven them in her Jeep to the school for safety. Maybe Creed had even followed her.

Leaving the red Impala to wait out the storm at the park.

As if she could read his mind, Brette squeezed Ty’s hand.

They’d made a good team today. He hadn’t realized how involving Brette in the search might pull her away from her fears. It worked the magic he’d hoped. “I’m not so scared, at least right now.”

You don’t have to be, Brette. Ever again.

He let those words sit in his head as he pulled up and noticed Pete’s Hummer in the driveway. Ty got out and nearly sprinted to the door with the adrenaline of his news.

But his step stuttered just a second before he reached for the handle.

“I’m so sorry to have to tell you this. It’s the last thing we want to admit, but . . .”

Oh no.

Ty yanked open the door and spotted Pete standing in the middle of the room, the Marshall family staring at him, agony in their expressions. Jenny had her hand pressed to her mouth. Garrett stood with his back to Pete, and Jonas and Ned glared at Pete as if they’d like to turn him to ash.

Gage examined the floor, shaking his head.

Ian paced the terrace outside, on his cell phone.

“This has gone from a search and rescue to a search and recovery.”

“Pete!” Ty couldn’t hold back as he strode inside. Pete glanced over his shoulder at him, narrowed his eyes, then quickly shook his head.

He turned back to the family. “We need to look at the facts here. They’ve been missing for over forty-eight hours. Even if they have mild injuries, if they don’t have any water, it’s likely they are . . .”

Jenny made a noise, a sharp intake of breath. Garrett went to his wife. Ned slammed his hand on the table.

Jonas found his voice. “What are you talking about here? Recovery? You think they’re dead.”

Pete drew in a breath. Nodded. “It’s . . . likely.”

“Possible. It’s possible,” Ty said, stepping up beside Pete. “But we don’t know—”

“That’s right. We don’t know.” Jonas let out a growl. “And we’re not giving up.”

“Stay out of this, Ty,” Pete said quietly, shooting him a look.

Ty didn’t move.

“What does that mean, recovery?” Jenny said, her eyes glistening.

“It means that we divert resources to getting systems up and functioning. Electric. Gas lines. Cell towers. We start putting Duck Lake back together again.”

“Does this mean you’re going to stop looking?” Garrett said, and even Ty felt a little sorry for Pete right then.

Which made him step in, despite his common sense. “No, Garrett,” Ty said. “It means we look with a smaller crew, but . . . listen to me. I think I know where they are.”

“Ty—” Pete started.

“No, listen. I’ve spent the day looking for them, and I found—well, you wanted proof, right?”

Pete folded his arms over his chest.

“Remember we went to look for Hattie Foreman? We went to her house, and her sister was there. She told us that often Hattie walked her dog in Heritage Park—where the kids were practicing.”

“That’s a pretty big leap. We don’t even know if the kids went there.”

“If they were with my wife, they did,” Spenser said, and Ty had forgotten that Spenser was behind him. If Pete gave up on the kids, he was also giving up on April. Pete should probably be a little more grateful Ty had shown up with this new lead.

“We don’t know if your wife was practicing with them today,” Pete said.

“What about the red Impala we found at the park that belongs to Addie Ridley?”

“What looks like an Impala.”

“Creed’s car is at the school,” Ty said. “And, did I mention that we also found a Jeep at the school with a dog sticker in the window—Hattie’s Jeep.”

“Are you sure it’s Hattie’s?” Pete asked. “And I just gotta ask, if they were at the park, why would they all go five miles down the road to the school, with a tornado on their tail? It doesn’t make sense.”

With Pete’s words, the entire premise suddenly seemed flimsy.

Except for . . . aw, shoot.

Pete raised an eyebrow, almost asking for him to say it.

“My . . . instincts tell me they’re there.”

Pete let a moment pass. “So, you want me to pull everybody off their duties, haul over all the equipment, and start digging around the school?”

“Tonight, with lights. Yes.”

Pete’s mouth tightened. “Listen. There is no electricity in the town of Duck Lake. No power, no gas, no phone lines . . . If someone in town should get injured, we wouldn’t even know about it. It’s a war zone over there right now. We don’t have the equipment or the people to go on a wild-goose chase.”

“And Creed, and his team—” Garrett said.

“And April—” Spenser interjected.

“Are all casualties of war,” Garrett finished, his words putting a sharp and dark finale on Pete’s proclamation.

Pete looked down. “No. I don’t know.”

And that was just . . . enough. “Are you kidding me?” Ty let the frustration leak into his voice, and didn’t care. “C’mon, Pete, have some faith! You were on the PEAK team. You know we can’t give up—why don’t you stick around and fight? Or are you a coward in this too?”

Pete’s head snapped up. Ty stood there, his gaze hard in Pete’s, seeing him struggle with his response.

Ty never wanted to hit something—someone—more in his entire life.

It seemed, maybe, that Pete shared his feelings. Pete’s jaw tightened, and a darkness rose in his eyes.

But a brawl, right here in the middle of the room, would only add to an already open wound.

Pete’s gaze flicked off Ty to Gage, then Chet. Finally, away to Jenny and Garrett.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, stepping away from Ty. “I have to get back to the staging area.”

Then he turned, pushed past Spenser and a white-faced Brette, and headed outside.

The mood in the room darkened with the silence in his wake.

Brette drew in a shallow breath, turned, and ran up the stairs.

Spenser just stood there, staring at Ty. “What just happened?”

Ty couldn’t speak.

Behind him, Ned let out a dark word. Ty turned to see him slam his way outside.

Jonas sank against the table. Jenny turned into Garrett’s chest, and his arms curled around her.

Ian came into the room, pocketing his cell phone. “Pete left?”

Ty glanced up the stairs, intending to follow Brette, but Ian caught up to him. “Let’s talk about this.”

There was just enough steel-edged determination in Ian’s eyes to make Ty listen.

“I don’t have the resources I used to, but I do have leverage, favors, and a few strings I could pull. I could get excavators and any other equipment we needed here by morning. We don’t need Pete’s permission to dig through the debris of the school, if you really think they’re there.”

Ty should have known that Ian wouldn’t give up a search. Not when he’d lost his own family, had searched for them in the chaos of Katrina for a week. And he’d formed the PEAK team and spent four years searching for his niece.

No, Ian might not have the financial resources he once did, but Ty did. Finally, a good use for his mother’s inheritance. And with Ian’s connections . . . no, they didn’t need Pete’s okay to dig out the school.

Ty met Ian’s gaze. “You believed, without a doubt, that Esme was alive, that she would someday come home. Which she did. I believe these kids are still alive and are trapped inside this school. You find the equipment and I’ll pay for it to get here.”

“That’s the yes I needed.” Ian pulled out his phone.

Ty moved toward the stairs again, but Ben came down, cutting him off. He carried a duffel bag over his shoulder.

Ty stared at him. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t stay. I got a gig. I was upstairs talking to Audrey.” He didn’t meet Ty’s eyes.

Incredible. “Does Kacey know?”

The answer lay in Ben’s tight expression.

“You gotta talk to her, dude. That’s not fair.”

Ben’s face hardened. “Leave it, Ty.”

Wow. Well, he couldn’t save everyone. He started up the stairs.

“Ty.”

Ben’s voice pulled him back. He motioned to the foyer, and Ty considered a moment, then acquiesced. “What’s up?”

“Audrey told me that Brette had a bunch of pictures from when we found my dad.”

“Really?” He knew she’d taken some shots of that day, but nothing personal.

“Yeah, and I realize she’s a journalist and I’m a public figure, but that’s a pretty private moment. I’d really like it if TMZ didn’t get ahold of them.”

“I don’t think she’s going to sell them to a magazine.”

“Maybe not, but even if they ended up on her blog, I don’t want my family pulled into the limelight. Can you ask her to destroy them?”

Ty nodded. “No problem.”

Ben held out his hand. “Thanks for showing up. For finding my dad. You mean a lot to him, Ty. I’m grateful to you.”

Huh. He met Ben’s grip, then let the man pull him in for a quick one-armed bro hug.

Then Ben let him go and escaped the room.

And Ty headed upstairs.

Every bone in her body vibrated. Kacey cast a glance at the horizon, where the sun spilled its last rays into the deepening twilight, turning the clouds to tangerine against a purpling sky. The ceiling hung low, but she’d managed to keep her bird in the air all day, with four fuel-ups from the local fixed base.

Still, her arms ached and she would have appreciated a copilot today.

Someone like Ty, who needed to stop letting his fears keep him from stepping back into the world that belonged to him. Or once had.

Although she understood too well the fear of grabbing for something you longed for only to discover it didn’t belong to you anymore.

She locked the chopper, then waved at the black pickup in the lot. Garrett Marshall, her ride back to the winery.

Where Ben would be waiting for an answer to last night’s plea to give them a future and marry him.

Somewhere around 3:00 this afternoon, after hearing his voice on the walkie as he reported in the dismal results of their search, she realized the truth.

She’d let her fear of not belonging in Ben’s world keep her from stepping fully in it. She hadn’t once asked to attend any of the country music events, didn’t join him on stage, and though she’d attended all his concerts in Mercy Falls and had flown out to a few on the road, once he left Montana, their lives separated.

“I’m not a glitzy, pretty, country music star wife.”

Her words rattled in her tired brain as she approached the truck, her helmet under her arm.

Maybe not. But maybe she could be.

She could try.

The other option would be to let him walk out of her life, this time for good.

She opened the door. “Hey, Garrett.”

“Sorry,” Shae said. She sat in the driver’s seat. “I offered to pick you up. Pete’s coming out to the house to give them an update.”

Shae Johnson, aka Esme Shaw, the girl who’d come back from the dead. Or at least from the forever-missing list. She wore her hair in a long blonde braid and looked impossibly young in a pair of short jean cutoffs and a T-shirt. The massive seat dwarfed her as she put the truck into reverse.

“Tough day,” she said as she pulled out. “Ned is pretty upset.”

Kacey nodded. “Yeah. People can lose their minds searching for their lost loved ones. Especially when the search starts to . . . well, look like it won’t end well.”

Shae glanced at her. “Are you saying—”

“No. It’s just that it can be pretty hard to keep a lid on your emotions. You go from hope to dread to despair and back again, sometimes all in one moment.”

Shae pulled out onto the main drive. “Is that what happened to Uncle Ian after I left? I worried about him a lot. I even called him a couple years ago, telling him not to worry.”

Kacey didn’t mean to emit the harrumph.

Shae looked at her, eyes wide.

“Sorry. It’s just, when you love someone, you never let them go. You never stop thinking about them, worrying about them. You probably only fueled the fires with that call.”

Shae nodded, but Kacey’s own words found soft soil and dug in. “You never stop thinking about them.”

No. Ben never strayed far from her mind.

And yes, she saw the Twitter feeds, the Instagram pics, the Facebook posts, the—

Oh no. She was jealous. Jealous of every single woman who took a picture with Ben. Every concertgoer who got to hear him sing the songs he’d written for her. Every band member who laughed with him after the show.

“I wanted to come home, more than you can know,” Shae was saying as she turned onto the Marshall family road. “I was afraid—of getting hurt. And of hurting Uncle Ian.”

Yeah, she got that too. Every time Ben had postponed the wedding, the wound deepened, that fear that he didn’t truly want her. Maybe that was why she so easily believed that he wanted to break up with her, reading into his words, expecting the worst.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I know.”

Maybe she should start believing that, start showing up and being a part of his star-studded life. So it was big—so big that it scared her sometimes. Clearly it was big enough for the both of them.

Yes, Ben. Yes, I will marry you. The words formed in her chest, bloomed through her tired, aching body.

She could fix this, turn it around.

End up married to the man she loved.

They turned into the driveway.

The trucks, along with a number of Suburbans, were all lined up, but her gaze went to only one. A large black Escalade with the back hatch open.

Ben stood at the end, rearranging duffel bags.

Kacey had the door open even before Shae stopped the truck.

“Ben!”

Panic sharpened the edge of her voice without her permission.

Ben turned, and in a flash, his expression tightened. He held up his hand. “Stop, Kacey. Before you start, yes, I’ve already told Audrey. I didn’t know when you were getting back, and we need to get on the road.”

Get on the road.

She tried not to let those words tear like a blade through her heart.

And she absolutely refused to let him see her cry.

“You’re leaving?”

His face gentled. “I’m sorry, Kace. We got offered a gig in Wisconsin, and we need to be there first thing in the morning. We could use the ticket sales. We gotta go.”

“But . . . what about Creed, and the other missing kids?” And no, that wasn’t what she wanted to say, not at all.

Ben shook his head, looked at the house, then at the ground. “Pete just left. He came over to tell them . . . well, he’s downgraded the search from a rescue to a recovery.”

Oh. She closed her eyes, turned away, took a breath.

And maybe fearing she might collapse, Ben put his arms around her and pulled her to himself.

Heaven help her, she leaned into him, putting her arms around his torso, leaning her head into his amazing shoulders. The labor of the day lifted off him, but it reminded her of his scent after one of his concerts when he’d left all of himself on stage, the stars still vibrating with the sound of his voice.

She was his biggest fan, and that realization welled up inside her, took root. She could live in his world because he was her world too.

Please, don’t go, Ben. The words rose to her lips—

“Ready, boss?” The voice came from his drummer, Moose, who got in on the driver’s side.

Ben sighed, and for a second she thought, Just hold on. Just . . . hold on.

But Ben released her. For a moment, his gaze held hers, roaming her face, as if he longed to kiss her.

“I’ll call you.” Then he smiled, something sad and tight, and turned for the SUV.

He didn’t even look back as he climbed into the passenger seat.

And she didn’t have it in her to wave as he drove out of her life yet again.

Breathe, just breathe.

Brette closed the bathroom door behind her and leaned back on it, listening to her heartbeat.

Recovery.

Not rescue.

God, please, it can’t end this way. She didn’t know where the thought came from, but she let it linger, even lifted her gaze to the ceiling, hoping that someone—the One—might hear her.

Please don’t let them be dead.

Her jaw tightened against a rush of heat in her eyes, and her throat thickened at the memory of Jenny’s face slowly morphing from fear to horror, as if the news seeped through her like poison.

And poor Garrett—the way he trembled, those wide shoulders about to give.

She’d suppressed the urge to go to Jonas, to tell him that they had a hunch about the school—and then it didn’t matter because Pete had shot so many holes in Ty’s theory that it turned Brette thin and brittle herself.

She should have known better. Hope did nothing but veil the truth. Turn them into fools.

And she’d reached out and invited it into her body, again. Let it sit in her chest and warm her. Again. She’d neatly, completely, too easily forgotten that it could burn her right through, leave her singed, scarred, and bereft.

She wiped her hand across her cheekbone.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and stared at the number.

A fist slammed into her gut.

No. She thumbed the call away to her voicemail but couldn’t look away, waiting for the icon to buzz.

Sure enough. She pressed the icon and listened. “Hello, Brette. It’s Dr. Daniels. I need you to call me. Your test results are in.”

A pause, then, “It’s not urgent, but we need to talk.”

Not urgent? Maybe because there was nothing they could do.

She stood at the window, watching the very last wink of sunlight across the tattered horizon. No rain, not yet, and the sky was a brilliant tufted red. She spotted Ned walking out through the vines of the winery, maybe hoping to lose himself in the maze.

Not a terrible instinct.

“We’re leaving first thing in the morning. Let us know if you change your mind.”

Geena’s voice found her and edged under her skin.

Brette released a breath, splashed water on her face, then emerged from the bathroom and headed across the hall.

As she pushed open the door, she nearly ran into Audrey, whose face was red, her eyes shiny.

“Whoa, Audrey, are you okay?” Brette caught the girl by the arms before she plowed her over.

Audrey stumbled back, as if in a haze, but in a moment she found her bearings. “My dad is leaving. He’s going back out on the road.” She said it just above a whisper. “I . . . I can’t believe it.”

Oh, Audrey. She didn’t know the girl well, but the look on her face made Brette want to reach out and give her a hug.

And how crazy was that? Because she hadn’t comforted someone else in . . . well, not since her mother lay dying, probably.

Brette softened her voice. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Audrey wiped her hands across her cheekbones, her voice gaining strength. “I guess I should be used to him leaving by now. It’s just . . . I thought they were going to finally get married.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “This is the third time they’ve called off their wedding.”

“And you think they’re going to break up.”

“No!” She flashed a look of horror at Brette. “I . . . do you?”

Oh. Brette scrambled for the right words, the ones that wouldn’t betray Kacey and last night’s conversation. “I just . . . well, three times calling off a wedding is a lot, so . . .”

Audrey didn’t move. “It is a lot.”

“Uh, well, not if you’re busy?”

“Nothing ever works out.” Audrey whirled around and headed to her mother’s bed. Threw herself on it, her head in her arms. “It’s not fair.”

Yeah, well, she got that. Brette sat at the edge of her bed, not sure whether to reach out, what to say. Because a not-so-tiny part of herself wanted to do exactly the same thing. “It’s not urgent, but we need to talk.”

Yeah, life wasn’t fair. Not at all.

“Just when you think that finally, everything is going to be perfect, something happens. It’s like God doesn’t want me to be happy.”

Brette stared at her. Yeah, it felt exactly like that. No matter what she did, she couldn’t escape the devastation of her life. She very much wanted to curl her legs up, roll into the fetal position, and simply let the storm take her, even if it left her wrecked and washed out.

In truth, she didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore.

“I wish we’d never come to Minnesota.” Audrey caught the pillow up in her arms.

“Yeah,” Brette said. Because she too just couldn’t stay one moment longer to watch the cruel ending of this story. She had enough tragedies playing out in her life.

Brette pulled her computer from her bag and set it on the bed. Opened it, and in a moment her screen flashed on.

“What’s that?” Audrey looked over. Sat up.

“That’s a Doppler weather map. We use it to track storms. See this cracked-egg-looking image here?” She traced her finger across the cell, the edges a bright green, then yellow, orange, and finally red in the center. “This is a storm moving across Nebraska. It’s not big enough to be a tornado yet, but if a hook forms in the lower left quadrant, that’s called a mesocyclone and can turn into a tornado. Storm chasers watch for these and try to predict when and where they’ll hit the ground.”

“This is what you use to chase the storms?”

“We try. It doesn’t always work. Sometimes the storm just dies out. Other times it drops in an area you don’t expect and you miss it completely. But then there are the times you get it right.”

“And you get an epic picture?”

“That’s the hope.”

“It’s dangerous, though.”

“Yeah. We get as close as we can, then I take pictures while our videographer, Nixon, grabs footage. Jonas is our meteorologist—he tells us where to drive and predicts where the tornado will land. And a girl named Geena drives. She’s . . . pretty cool.”

“Have you ever gotten caught in a tornado?”

She tamed her answer. “Almost.”

“Wow,” Audrey said, wiping her face clean. “Were you scared?”

Was she scared? “Yes, but . . . well, I was in this ditch and Jonas was with me, so that helped, to have a friend there.”

“We’ll face—whatever—together. I’ll keep you safe, with everything inside me.”

She shook Ty’s voice away.

He couldn’t keep her safe from dread. Not when dread could snake under her skin, around her bones, take root in her cells. “Dread is so insidious . . . steals every thought, every happy moment, every morsel of hope.”

Her future.

“Why do you do it?” Audrey asked.

“Chase storms?” She minimized her windows until her wallpaper showed, revealing the picture that had landed on the cover of Nat Geo. “Because of this.”

“Wow. That’s cool.”

“See how the funnel is on the ground, but up here, in the sky, it’s so blue? It’s amazing, isn’t it? It reminds me that inside the tornado, everything is in chaos, but outside, there’s still blue skies.” She looked at Audrey, not sure where the thought, the words, came from. “Maybe we just have to figure out how to survive the tornado, if—when—it hits.”

“Yeah. Like hold on to something really hard.”

Brette nodded, the smell of Ty’s shirt heady in her memory.

“Or maybe just run away?”

“That’s always an option.”

Audrey sighed. “Apparently.” She got up. “Thanks, Brette.”

“For what?”

“I’m not going to give up. My dad will marry my mom. They love each other—what else can they do?”

Sweet. “I’m sure you’re right.”

Audrey left, closing the door behind her.

If only it could be that easy. But love didn’t solve problems, didn’t protect anyone from despair. It couldn’t take her cancer away, save lives.

Love just got in the way. Kept people from making the brutal but wisest decisions.

Brette pulled up her email and found a reply from her editor at Nat Geo.

Brette—

Love the pictures, and the concept. Would consider running a spread on the summer of storms if you were to get a few more storm/tornado shots. Was that country music singer Benjamin King in one of your photos? Great personal angle. Let me know when you have more.

Gordon

More shots. They maybe had one more week of storm season. Unless . . .

A knock came at the door, and she expected Kacey to walk in. “Hello?”

“It’s me, Ty. Can we talk?”

She closed her eyes, grimacing. Not what she needed if she hoped to make a quick and quiet escape.

That thought hit her broadside. Really? Leave now, with Creed still missing?

Except, really, what could she do? She didn’t want to stick around to watch the grief. Worse, she’d willingly been wooed into a happy ending that didn’t exist, and the only way out was to leave, before she lacked the strength.

“Not right now—”

“Brette. Please. Listen, the search isn’t over yet. Don’t give up.”

She shook her head, despite the fact that he couldn’t see her. Got up and stood on the other side of the door, pressed her hand to it. “It is for me.”

“Brette—”

She opened the door, her jaw set.

He stood there, looking fierce and not a little undone, his whiskers dark across his tight jaw.

She should have kept the door closed.

“Ty—”

“I see it in your eyes, Brette. You’re scared and you’re letting it take over. But Pete’s wrong—they’re still out there. I have to believe they’re alive—”

“What is it with you! You don’t give up.” She grabbed his arm and yanked him into her room, shut the door. “You can’t keep doing this. Giving people—Jenny and Garrett—false hope. It’s cruel.”

“Hope isn’t cruel—”

“It is when it’s a lie.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing? Lying to everyone?”

The earnestness, even the hurt, on his face made her look away. Soften her voice. “I just think you don’t like being helpless, so you keep reaching—”

“So, lying. Dreaming up a happy ending.”

She’d didn’t want to wound him. “It’s a way of denying the inevitable—”

“Or it’s called faith. Believing in miracles.”

Oh Ty. She shook her head. “Faith hurts too much.”

Silence.

“Brette, what’s going on?”

His eyes caught hers, so much worry in them she had to look away. Clench her jaw to keep the words from spilling out. My doctor called . . . No, the last thing she needed was him swooping in, holding her hand, telling her that they’d fight this thing together.

“I’m taking off. First thing in the morning—”

“What—no. Why?”

She met his gaze, straight on. “Because I’m not a rescuer. You are. I’m a storm chaser, and there are storms coming.”

“C’mon, Brette, that’s just an excuse.”

“Okay, how about this—I can’t sit here and watch the Marshall family grieve. I’ve seen and done enough grieving in my life, okay?”

His mouth tightened to a grim line.

“I have a life. A job. I don’t have an inheritance to fall back on. Someone has to show up to pay the bills. And that’s me.”

He made to reach out for her, but she stepped away, and his hand dropped. “Brette, come back to Montana with me. There are plenty of photojournalist jobs, I promise—”

“And in the meantime, you’ll take care of me?”

His expression suggested that he’d do just that.

“Listen. I appreciate your friendship—”

“Friendship? An hour ago, you were kissing me as if I’d just come back from sea. That’s not just friendship.” He took a step toward her, his eyes raw. “Brette, I don’t quite understand what’s going on here, but please don’t leave. I don’t know how, but God brought you back into my life for a reason, and I’m not letting you go!”

She took a step back, swallowed.

He released a shaky breath. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I don’t want you to go, but . . . aw, shoot. You know what I meant.”

She nodded but didn’t close the gap. Because finally they were back to the truth, clearly free of the haze of hope. “I know that you would do anything to protect me, to take care of me, to make sure I had everything I needed. And I’d depend on you more and more, even start hoping, like I did today. And then something would happen—”

“And you’d be left with nothing, like your father was. Or worse, forced to be beholden to me.”

She swallowed. “Alone is better. Trust me.”

It took a second, but his voice dropped, low and pained. “Oh my gosh, this is about the cancer.”

She must have flinched despite herself because his eyes grew large. “Did you get a phone call? Are your tests back?”

“It’s no big deal. The doctor left a voicemail to call him back.”

A beat, then, “And? Did you call him back?”

“No. I’m not going to.”

“Brette—”

“No! I’m tired of fighting. Tired of picking up the pieces. I just want to—”

“Run away.”

She folded her arms. “I need to go on with my life, whatever I have left.”

“You don’t know that it’s bad news!”

“It’s bad news.” She stared at him, hating how her eyes filled. “Of course it’s bad news. That’s the only kind of news I get.”

She hated how pitiful she sounded, but . . . well, there it was.

“You still don’t need to be afraid.” He advanced on her, but she stepped away from him.

“Why? Because you’ll be there?”

“Yes. Yes.” His eyes had actually filled.

And if she needed any proof that her illness would destroy him, it was watching Ty, the man who didn’t give up, crumble in front of her.

“No, Ty. You can’t rescue everyone.”

“Maybe I just want to rescue you!”

Oh, the man could break her heart. “I can’t let you do that. For your own good. For my own good. I can handle my own broken heart. I can’t handle yours too.”

“Brette—”

“Trust me. There will come a day when you can do nothing for me. You’ll be helpless. You’ll have to stand there while I suffer. And then what are you going to do, Ty? What?”

He swallowed, took a breath, and the tear escaped without him trying to stop it. “Suffer with you. It’s what people do when they . . .”

And she waited for it, saw the word bloom in his eyes a second before he snuffed it out.

“When they care about each other.”

Right. Well, she cared about him too. And that thought gave her the courage to say again, “No.”

His jaw tightened.

“Can’t you see that it’s time to give up?” Her throat burned, but she refused to flinch.

“Apparently not.” His eyes flashed. “I have done nothing but prove myself to you. Try to show you that you can trust me. But you just can’t depend on anyone but yourself—your scars run too deep.” He reached up now and ran his palm across his jaw, his eyes dry and fierce. “This has nothing to do with your cancer, not really. That’s just a convenient excuse. Truth is, you got in too far, didn’t you? You wanted to believe me, and it freaked you out. You’re so scared that I will hurt you, that I might let you down that you’ll run away, even if you don’t want to.”

“And you always have to be in control—even if you have to call it a hunch. I call it being a bully.”

He recoiled.

She ached, all the way to her bones. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Yeah, I am freaked out. Because I know that storms take people out, and you can’t stop them. This . . . thing between us, it’s not going to save me. It’s only going to make everything worse. I’m beyond saving, so stop trying to rescue me.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t care. You’re too far into my life, Ty. Back out.”

He stared at her, his eyes dark and hard. “Fine.”

Although she expected it—wanted it—the word drove a fist into her gut. She managed to step away as he headed to the door. Don’t cry. Not yet.

He stopped when he reached the door, though, and for a moment she thought he might turn.

Beg her one more time to stay, or perhaps to go with her, but most of all not to give up on them. On life.

And oh, heaven help her, if he did, she would. Because despite her words, a much, much larger part of her wanted to stumble toward him, let him pick her up.

Carry her.

Don’t go.

“By the way, Ben told me about the pictures you took of him and Chet. Delete them.”

She blinked. “What?”

“You have no right to invade their privacy.” His voice emerged hard, sharp.

“I need those—”

“Delete them.”

“Get out.”

“I’m serious—”

“Get out!”

His shoulders rose and fell. Her heart banged into her ribs.

Then he opened the door and closed it with a soft click behind him.

And she sank onto the carpet, her head in her hands, and let the darkness have her.