Chapter Twenty
Fuckity fuck fuck fucking hell fuck.
How had she pulled herself away from his bed? He was beautiful, kind, and so obviously in pain. She just wanted to reach out and hold him.
But she saw the way he looked at her, the desperation in his eyes, and she had to get away.
It was too much. He’d told her his secret and now he’d want to know hers. Intimacy building on intimacy, and she’d have no excuse for withholding. As much as she wanted to stay in his bed, she couldn’t give him that piece of herself.
Because when he lay down and looked at her, his eyes rimmed with red, she’d felt the words threatening to push out of him and knew it was only a matter of time. She wanted it to be true. She wanted him to love her, to make this thing they’d started become something real. But that sadness in his eyes was like ice water extinguishing that flame.
The first boy she’d slept with after Cash, she’d said I love you to under the moonlight in a field behind the dorms. Nice setting, except it was the first (and only) time they had sex. And the first (and only) time they’d said much more than hello to each other. The guy’s eyes had bugged, and then he’d laughed in her face, called her cute, and asked if she’d blow him again.
It hurt more than every dirty look, every whisper, every Heather who turned her back.
But once Abbi finished crying her eyes out, she could barely remember the guy’s name. And she knew she’d just been hoping for someone, anyone, to say something kind to her. To say I’m here when she needed it most.
Whatever Tyler felt about her, it all stemmed from grief. He’d been so close to somebody who was now gone. So he wanted to be close to someone else, to recapture what he was missing. And right now, that person happened to be her.
Those words were no more real than the honeys and sweethearts they’d sneered to each other that night they got caught at the farmers market and had to put on a show. It sounded right, and from a distance most people were fooled. But look up close, and nothing was there.
She promised she’d call him and then drove home, showered, and headed to the nature center, hoping there hadn’t been any more calls in the night about someone lurking around the firebreak site. She had to finish the endangered species petition to bolster the case to the Forest Service. She didn’t know how she felt about what Tyler had told her. But she at least knew how she felt about that.
When she pulled into the parking lot, though, she paused. If she wanted to focus, a place that made her think of both Tyler and Russ wasn’t going to cut it. She knew Tyler would come around looking for her later, and no matter how much her brain tried to keep her on track, she’d take one look at him and drop everything.
She sent him a text telling him she was heading to the firebreak site. She didn’t want him to arrive at the nature center, not see her, and think she was mad or avoiding him after their talk went awry.
As soon as she pressed send, she wished she could take it back. It was a pretty girlfriendy thing to do, keeping him posted on her whereabouts so he wouldn’t miss her or worry.
Getting more hard data for the petition, she added, in case he got the wrong idea.
Her heart broke for Tyler and everything he’d been through. She wished she could make it better for him.
But she also knew that was impossible. They were impossible. They weren’t even a thing beyond whatever they were doing for these last few weeks he was in town.
And they were only able to keep pretending they could be together because they were stuck in this holding pattern, waiting for the Forest Service to make its decision. If the firebreak went through, there was no way Abbi could shrug and jump back into bed with him as though everything was fine, she was happy just being a little arm candy, she didn’t care about the landscape or the promotion anyway.
And if the break was cancelled? If things went her way?
She knew Tyler would feel the same.
Even worse, without the break he’d have no excuse to be in Gold Mountain anymore. He’d be back in his truck, leaving town, jobless and broken, before she could say I think I might be falling in love with you, too.
It was almost enough to make her turn her car around yet again and go back to the nature center, pretend there was nothing else she could do to stop the break. Let the chips fall where they may, no one on the hiring committee could say she hadn’t tried.
But Abbi wasn’t the kind of person to sit back and do nothing.
Besides, doing nothing would still land her alone. Because no matter what, on August nineteenth, he was leaving Gold Mountain. And her.
She was on her way to Ridge Line Road when it occurred to her that she hadn’t had the idea to start her count of old growth trees until she was already climbing up the mountainside. But in order to protect the forest from winds through the valley, Tyler’s proposal recommended thinning the canopies downwind of the firebreak itself. It extended the radius of damage—and the radius of trees she could advocate for protecting.
She turned around and drove to Silver Meadows. It was a longer hike, but she didn’t have to walk the whole ridgeline this time. She had water and a daypack in her car, and without an overnight bag, she could walk faster.
She wanted to be there for Tyler. More than she’d ever expected when it came to some guy she’d randomly said yes to for a night. She certainly didn’t want them to be over.
But that didn’t mean she could give up on everything she’d worked for, and the life she’d still be clinging to once he went away.