He let out a breath. “I want you to know that I get that I tend to keep myself emotionally distanced from everything and everyone. But you…” He shook his head as if a little overwhelmed. “I’m not emotionally distanced from you, Katie. I never was.”
Her throat tightened. She moved around the counter to come to stand before him. “The day the bridge collapsed, I was tired.”
“Katie.” He reached for her hand, his eyes soft. “You don’t have to-”
“I want to. I want to tell you what I wouldn’t before. I was really tired of my life. My boss was cheating on his wife with the copy clerk and expected me to keep his secret. My last date didn’t call for a second one. Things felt…sucky. I looked at the bridge and thought-” She shook her head. “I thought if I drove right off the edge, no one would even notice.”
His gaze held a raw compassion. “Oh, Katie.”
“It was just a fleeting thought. Stupid and pathetic, and gone before I could blink. I looked around in the traffic and saw all the other people around me.” She drew a shaky breath. “Living their lives, talking, singing to the radio…and I thought, you know what? Life is what you make of it. I needed to make more of mine. And then in the next minute, it happened. A truck cut me off, I got mad, and then I was skidding toward the edge. Only one thing went through my mind.” She looked into his warm, grieving eyes. “I didn’t want to die.”
He closed his eyes briefly and let out a breath. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you didn’t.”
“Everyone else did,” she whispered.
“I know.” He hugged her in close, hard. “I know.”
“That’s why I dreamed. You were right. It’s what I was running from.” She looked up into his face. “I had planned to keep running until I knew the answer to that.”
His smile faded, his eyes filled with all sorts of things that, frankly, took her breath. “I want you to know I’m okay with it all now,” she told him. “I think I finally have my head on straight. I lived. And now it’s up to me to do something with the second chance. Something more than what I was doing before, which was nothing.”
“I feel the same, Katie. Because of you.”
She smiled. “I guess there’s only one thing to do then.” She lifted a hand and touched him, sinking her fingers into his hair, tugging his head down so that their lips were only a breath away. “Have our good-bye.”
“Katie,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers. “I don’t think-”
“Perfect,” she whispered, mirroring his long-ago words back at him, backing him to the throw rug in front of the fireplace where she pulled off her sweater, shucked out of her jeans. “Don’t think…”
And she tugged him down to the floor.
“God. Be sure.” From flat on his back, he cupped her face and pierced her with those green eyes, gently stroking a finger over the bandage on her brow. “I don’t want you to regret-”
“No regrets, remember?” She straddled him then, her knees digging into the thick throw rug. “No looking back…” She reached for her bra, which he immediately lent a helping hand to, skimming it off her as she wriggled out of her panties, which had him letting out a heartfelt groan of approval.
“Nothing but us,” she whispered. “This.” Getting his jeans down wasn’t a problem, they were baggy and already so low on his hips as to be almost indecent. “Just good-bye…”
His hands were as rough as her own, and the second he was freed, she wrapped her fingers around him and guided him home, wrenching another low groan from him.
“Wait.” His voice sounded like gravel. “I’m not-You’re not-”
Caring only that this was it, the end, the big finale, the last chance she would ever have to feel him inside her, she began to move, and letting her set the pace, he rocked upward to meet her. She bent over him, pressing her mouth to his shoulder as they moved, more wild than the storm raging outside. She needed to get there, to the big bang, to the explosion, to the mindless place where there was only sensation, glorious sensation-
“Katie…” He dug his fingers into her hips, slowing her down, skimming a hand down her belly, his fingers taking her there, as always, taking his time, taking her right where she needed to go.
Shuddering, she fell over him as he caught her in quaking arms, in the throes of his release. Still trembling, she pressed her face to his throat and pretended that he didn’t completely shatter her world, her heart, her soul. Pretended that she was okay with this good-bye, as okay as he was. And when she realized that maybe he didn’t need her smothering him, that maybe he didn’t crave this last moment of togetherness and tried to pull away, he tightened his arms around her as if maybe, just maybe, he wanted it every bit as much as she did.
Chapter 26
The next morning, Cam was spared from too much thinking by having to gear up mentally for a tough few days on the mountain. He was stuffing supplies into his pack, but his mind kept wandering from the trip to the tight smile Katie had given him when he’d left her.
He hated knowing he’d hurt her. The worst part was that he hurt, too, more than he’d imagined possible.
Annie came into the kitchen and he glanced over, then did a double take at the unmistakable look of bliss on her face. Nick was right on her heels, practically in her back pocket. “Coffee, baby?” she purred to her husband.
Purred.
Nick grinned dopily and nodded.
Cam shook his head. “Aw man. Why don’t you two just wear a sign?”
“Because I’ve got an apron.” Annie slipped one on and turned to face him: I’M MAGICALLY DELICIOUS.
Cam winced and closed his eyes. “Overshare.”
Nick kept grinning.
Annie patted Cam on the shoulder as she pushed him aside to start her coffee. “Hey, you’re not the only Wilder who likes hot sex, big guy.”
“Seriously.” He put his hands over his ears. “Stop it.”
Annie laughed.
Laughed.
And then leaned in and kissed Nick.
Nick, not a stupid man, grabbed her close, wrapped her in his arms, and kissed her back.
“Hey, hey, hey…” Now Cam had to slam his eyes shut too. “Get a room!” But they kept going at it. “I’ve stepped into the Twilight Zone, right? I’m on some alternate plane, the disgustingly happy plane.”
“It’s a new era.” Annie disengaged her lips from Nick’s to say, “You ought to try it, you might like it.”
“Try what, exactly?”
Annie reached for Cam’s hand, her eyes shining with love-for Nick, but also for Cam. “Being happy. Falling in love.” She paused. “Letting yourself be loved back.” She squeezed his hand gently. “It’s okay to let yourself be loved, Cam.”
She was speaking softly, earnestly, with an utter lack of sarcasm, and her words unexpectedly sneaked in past his defenses and leveled him flat. He’d heard these words before, from Katie. “Stop it,” he said again.
Instead, she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him. “You deserve it, Cam. So much.”
“Okay, look.” He pulled free and picked up his gear. “I’m happy for you, happy for both of you, but Nick and I have to go.”
Nick grabbed his own pack, gave Annie one more disgustingly long kiss, and then they were off for their four-day trek directly into the storm from hell. Which pretty much matched the one in Cam’s heart.
For two days, Cam climbed mountains and slept in snow caves, his mind way too far from what he was doing, which was a bad, bad idea with his life and other lives on the line. Still, he managed to get them all safely to Desolation Peak by late afternoon on the second day, and ten minutes later, the storm that was still raging doubled in intensity, complete with 120-mile-an-hour winds, sideways snow, and utter whiteout conditions.