Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tyler had no idea what to do. He’d start packing his things, only to remind himself he still had two more weeks and unpack all over again.
He finally understood why his mom was always on the move. How could anyone stay in one place when their world had cracked open, an earthquake under the skin?
But as much as he wanted to load his truck and get away, that wasn’t an option. He and Abbi may have been over, but that didn’t mean the firebreak was done. It had been pushed back, but his job here wasn’t finished. How could he leave with nothing to show for himself? How could he ever call Aidan again, if all he did was run?
So he buckled down on the project, meeting with Walker and Chip, trying to come up with the next move. Abbi’s threat of an endangered species petition might have made the Forest Service waver, but that was before the fire broke out. He hated that Russ had, in his own sick way, been right—the fire had made residents that much more committed to building a firebreak.
Which was good for Tyler. Even if it sucked to admit it.
He’d heard Abbi was home from the hospital and getting better. The benefit for him was that he could be at the nature center without running into her. He tried not to look at her dark, empty office every time he walked by. He missed her laughter, the flash in her eyes when she was excited, the mess that came from her trying to tackle too many projects at once.
He missed everything they’d done in there, how he’d claimed every inch of her as she bent over her desk and let him have her.
But he couldn’t think about that anymore. Especially not at night, when his whole body ached with need. Or when he woke up in the morning, still so unsatisfied. As soon as this project was finished—and he would get it finished—Abbi would have her wish. She might not wind up with her promotion, but at least he’d be out of her life.
He left the nature center as late as he could stand, so he’d be less likely to risk running into her when he stopped to run errands on his way home. Then he flopped on the couch, cracked open a beer, and dove into some questionable leftovers. He wanted to go back to Mackenzie’s, but…Abbi. Her friends. He couldn’t stand being the asshole. He couldn’t stand thinking about everything in his life that was now gone.
Which was probably why, when Aidan called, he finally picked up. He’d been—not avoiding Aidan, exactly. But sending quick texts, an email here and there, saying he was too busy to talk much when the reality was that he didn’t want to talk at all.
“It’s about time,” Aidan said. “I’ve been afraid you were avoiding me. How’s cleanup going after the fire?”
Tyler closed his laptop and leaned back on the couch. “It’s been okay. The blaze is out.”
“You get checked for oxygen?”
“I’m fine, Aidan.”
“You were out there longer than anyone. If you were under my watch, you’d have been looked at.”
“But I’m not under your watch,” Tyler said, then regretted it. He didn’t need to be petty.
“What’s going on, McCall? You’re not returning my calls, you’re not taking care of yourself—is this about that woman you rescued? I know it makes you think about Scott, but you can’t keep shutting down.”
Tyler took a deep breath. Why did everyone think it all came back to Scotty? “She wasn’t just some woman,” he said.
“I know, I read the news. She was that naturalist you said you’d had a problem with, right?”
Lying to Aidan was impossible. Especially now.
“It wasn’t like that,” Tyler said. “I mean before, when I talked to you about it. It wasn’t really the way that I said.”
Aidan was the kind of person who could draw out the truth with just one look. Tyler didn’t even have to be facing him to know the expression he was wearing right now: one raised eyebrow, hint of a frown.
When he said, “Tell me,” the whole story came tumbling out. How they’d met, realized who the other one was, and still had to pretend. How the pretending turned into something so much bigger than any of the lies they had told.
How Tyler had managed to fuck it up anyway.
“I saved her life,” he said. “And I guess I thought that’d be the moment, the one where we put everything aside and realized what was important. But it’s like it was too much for either of us, and she froze me right out.”
Aidan sucked in a breath. “You were with a woman who’d just been through a horrific ordeal, was probably hopped up on painkillers, and you left her?”
Tyler had been hoping for a little more support than that. Hadn’t he done what Abbi wanted? Hadn’t he also taken care to protect his own heart?
“She didn’t want me there, Aidan. She was so mad at me just for trying to help.”
“Tyler—”
“And it wasn’t only that. It was everything. She and I don’t work together.”
“Or you don’t want the two of you to work together.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He’d thought Aidan would be completely dismissive, like it was fine that Tyler went away for the summer and had a fling to help him take his mind off things, but now it was time for him to finish up his project so he could get his life back on track.
So why was Aidan coming after him, acting like he’d done something wrong?
“It means your commitment to making yourself miserable after Scott died can only go on for so long,” Aidan said.
Tyler stood up, stubbing his toe against the foot of the couch. “I’m not—”
“You leave California, your friends, your crew, your whole life, to hole up in some remote mountain town, thinking you have to move to the middle of fucking nowhere and sit behind a desk for the rest of your life. Then something good happens—I can hear it in your voice, Tyler. I can hear what this woman means to you. And yet you still won’t let yourself have it! Don’t you think you’ve punished yourself enough?”
Tyler was silent for so long Aidan asked if he was still there.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m here.”
“And?” Aidan asked.
“And it doesn’t matter what I want.” His voice sounded flat to him. Emotionless. Dead. “Abbi doesn’t want me. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Are you sure you’re not coming up with excuses for why the two of you won’t work?”
He sat back down. Ran a hand over his mouth. Took a deep breath and decided to tell Aidan everything.
“There were a lot of things we were fighting about at the hospital. But then something happened. I don’t know how to explain it. When I found Abbi, she wasn’t quite unconscious. She was talking to herself when I carried her out. She kept saying this nonsense over and over, stuff about cash.”
“Cash?”
“Yeah. She kept saying cash and no, stop, I’m sorry, that sort of thing.”
“Jesus.”
“So I asked her about it.”
“And?”
“It’s like there’s this whole part of her life, of herself, that’s just…closed. I told her about Scotty, I told her everything. But she doesn’t want me in her life, Aidan. She kept telling me to get lost. And then she said the cash thing was nothing, but I know that’s not true.”
“Did you find out what she was talking about?”
“No. And I know I should let it go—”
“But you googled her anyway.” Aidan laughed when Tyler admitted it was true.
He’d expected to find something about money troubles. She’d mentioned a New England boarding school and what sounded like wealthy parents. Maybe they’d been embezzlers. Drug smugglers. Wild scenarios had danced through his brain, some secret financial history she’d felt like she had to keep from him, that stopped her from getting too close.
“But there was nothing,” he told Aidan. “If her parents are white collar criminals, they’re hiding it well. All I found were LinkedIn profiles and a few boring interviews.”
“Now you’ve got me curious,” Aidan said.
“It’s none of my business. She hates any kind of meddling, anyway.”
“But what if you’re thinking about it the wrong way?” Aidan asked. “What if cash isn’t about money. What if it’s something else?” He paused, thinking. “What if it’s a name?”
“You think she was talking about a person?”
“Try it.”
Tyler opened his laptop again. It took a little bit of digging. Not Abbi Haas and cash—he’d already tried that. Haas + Cash + Washington didn’t help, either. But then he thought back to the other things she’d let slip. High school. That Heather girl. Things that were buried inside her. Things that hurt.
He tried Haas + Cash + New Hampshire. Then he added in other key terms, looking for the right kinds of schools in the right sorts of places. Counted back and put in the dates she might have been there.
Even after he found what he was looking for, he stayed breathing into the phone for a long time, unable to speak.
“You still there?” Aidan finally asked.
“No.” Tyler felt like he was choking.
“What did you find?” Aidan’s voice was immediately on edge.
“I have to go.”
“Tyler—”
“I have to—I don’t know.” He couldn’t breathe. He was afraid he was going to throw up right there on the couch. “I just have to go.”
“Talk to her,” Aidan said. “Forget about the firebreak. Forget about work, or your next job, or whatever it is you’re worrying about. Forget about who’s right and who’s wrong, or what she has or hasn’t said. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But I think you should see where this goes.”
Tyler couldn’t even process what Aidan was saying. He hung up, blood roaring in his ears.
State of N.H. v. Owen Cash. Abbi wasn’t named as the defendant. She was underage; she’d been protected in the news. But the whole case was written up on some court website for anyone who cared enough to go digging.
He finally understood why she was so reluctant to accept his help, why she’d worked so hard to take charge of her life and make sure nobody pushed her around and told her what to do. He could only imagine how it must have started, the way that fucking monster weaseled into her life by dangling kindnesses and making demands in return.
He slammed the laptop shut and jumped up. He had to get out of there. He had to move. He had to do something. Now.
He wanted to drive over to see Abbi. He wanted to hear her voice and take her in his arms. He wanted to tell her it was okay. She was okay. There was nothing in her past to make him stop loving her. And if there was, it certainly wasn’t this.
But he sat his ass down.
It was late. He couldn’t very well barge in on her while she was supposed to be taking care of herself and tell her that he and his mentor had discovered the secret she’d been desperate to keep from him.
She’d be embarrassed. And he knew that no matter how many ways he found to tell her she was an amazing woman who’d done nothing wrong, she wouldn’t believe him. She’d assume he thought her weak, helpless, easy to manipulate—all the ways she was afraid of appearing to him.
He didn’t know what to do. If she’d wanted him to know, she would have told him. If she’d wanted to make things work, she wouldn’t have pushed him away.
Just because he knew this one thing didn’t change any of their history. It certainly wouldn’t make her want him again.
The adrenaline was leaving him, making him exhausted. His heart was heavy, his mind too full.
He looked at the papers scattered around the living room. The firebreak looked so unimportant now.
He went into the bedroom and opened the nightstand drawer. In the picture, he and Scott were smiling like brothers. It was the first time Tyler had felt like he had a home, since the one he’d grown up with was taken away.
“What should I do?” he asked the picture. But Scott just kept smiling back, no clue how few years he had left.
“Goddammit.” Tyler shook his head. “Why couldn’t you have stayed where you were supposed to? Why can’t you still be around to get drunk and give me shitty advice?”
But he knew the answer to that.
Scott wasn’t the type to hang back when things got tough. He wasn’t the kind of person who’d choose inaction over taking a risk. He wouldn’t put himself first—not if it meant sacrificing doing the right thing. Scott had taken a chance, and it hadn’t worked out. But he’d taken the chance.
Would Tyler really want his friend to have gone out a different way?
The truth was, he couldn’t have stopped Scott even if he’d tried. He didn’t pull rank. He didn’t have a better idea of how to fight the fire than Scott did.
And he’d been scared.
He’d wanted to retreat, pull back, run to safer ground. Scott was the one who wasn’t afraid, who knew the only way to beat the fire was to keep fighting. Until he couldn’t fight anymore.
But Tyler was still here. Tyler was still fighting.
He propped the picture frame on top of the nightstand and went to find his phone again. It was late, but he knew one person who might still be awake.
He googled the number for Mackenzie’s and was relieved when Mack picked up.
“I know I might not be your favorite person right now, but hear me out,” he said. And then he told Mack his plan.
Maybe he and Abbi both deserved to be happy. Maybe she’d even forgive him for all the wrong he had done.