He rubbed his forehead. “And what about your husband, Chelsea? Where does he fit into all this?”
The question hinted at an opening for them to start up again, but that opening was barred shut, and Reece had no intention of flinging it open. When he and Chelsea had first gotten together, he’d known it was a bad idea to mix work and pleasure, but they’d talked about it like two mature adults and had decided they were both in it for one thing: sex without complications. Given that she was his commander, it was the only way any sort of intimacycouldhave worked. No strings, no attachments, no expectations. His first boneheaded mistake had been not contemplatingthe consequences of a breakup. On some vague level, he had assumed the affair would run its course and die a natural death. His second blunder? He had never considered adding any other romantic relationships—like husbands—to the list of conditions.
Chelsea, as it turned out, had been clever at hiding the evidence of her married life. She never talked about a partner with him or anyone else. She had pushed to spend their intimate encounters at his place before he’d sold it. The few times they’d had sex at her apartment forty minutes from Fall River, Reece had never picked up on the telltale signs of a committed relationship. No pictures or men’s toiletries and no rings on her fingers to tip him off. Unbeknownst to Reece, the husband fought fires in a different state, occasionally traveling to Colorado to visit his wife. It had been easy for Chelsea to tuck away clues of his existence.
Reece didn’t believe in sleeping with women who belonged to other men—ever—but he’d been duped, and it pissed him off that his moral compass had pointed the wrong way without his knowledge.
The sex had been … great, and it had filled a yawning need. The arrangement had also been a perfect fit. Chelsea understood where his mind went when they struck out on a mission, and he had grown accustomed to sharing more than their ordeals and the inevitable suck that came from them—especially when faced with search andrecovery. That emotional component was more important to him than he’d ever realized, even though the connection was based on the purely physical.
Most women thought he was some kind of hero with a dangerous edge, which was ridiculous, but they got off on the crazy image of some white knight charging in to the rescue. They had no idea what he did day in, day out and how unglamorous and dull it could be. Consequently, they didn’t understand his motivation, his fuel. What filled him up and tore him apart. What kind of glue he needed to put the pieces of his soul back together again.
Like no lovers before her, Chelsea understood what drove Reece because she was wired the same way. With her, he didn’t need to explain. She understood when to give him space and when to fuck his brains out, making it easy to kid himself that he could pull off friends-with-benefits with her. Plus, he liked her. He had trusted her. Until that god-awful moment the husband Reece hadn’t known existed had walked in on themwhile they were naked in bed. Reece had been shocked to the core of his being.
The husband had also been left shattered. Chelsea had destroyed them both. Not because Reece was in love with her, but because trust was a precious commodity he didn’t hand over to just anyone, and she had tromped all over it.
Damn her.
The line was quiet. If he was lucky, maybe the signal had dropped. “Chelsea? You there?”
She came back with a small voice. “Pete and I are … talking things over.”
“Then work on your marriage, Chelsea. You have history with Pete, and priority one should be salvaging that. My working beside you is going to be a distraction neither of you needs while you’re trying to keep your marriage in one piece.”
Christ, he felt bad for the dude! He felt worse that he’d caused that kind of pain. And he couldn’t imagine being in a situation where his partner had not only cheated on him but continued to work side by side with her ex-lover.
“Reece, I meant we’re separated. Pete understands that I need to figure things out, and one of the things I need to figure out is if it could work between you and me.”
Reece’s tongue tied itself in knots of disbelief. Was she kidding? A beat passed before he recovered himself.
“I can answer that for you right now. It’snotgoing to work. You lied, Chelsea, and even if you divorced your husband and you and I started up again, I wouldn’t be able to trust you.”
“I didn’t lie, Reece.” Her voice trembled with tears.
“You lied by omission, and that’s just as bad. In what world is it okay to cheat on a man you exchanged vows with?” He told himself to tread carefully, to keep his temper at an even temperature, before he said something hurtful he couldn’t take back.
“We … we kind of have an open thing.”
“Really?” he scoffed. “Then I don’t think he got the memo. And what the hell is ‘an open thing’?” Besides a moral affront. Was Reece a prude? Maybe. But if a woman were his, he sure as hell wouldn’t be willing toshare her, underanycircumstances, nor did he have any interest in sharing another man’s wife, no matter how good the sex was.
“It’s … it’s hard to explain, Reece.”
“Forget I asked. It’s none of my business anyway.” A weepy hiccup came from the other end. In a soothing voice he usually reserved for the injured who weren’t going to make it, he said, “Why don’t you forget about us, about me, and turn your energy on your marriage? Pete seems like a decent guy who truly cares about you.”
And stop trying to coax me back. Ain’t gonna happen anyway.
“I can’t just turn off what I feel for you. I’m in love with you, Reece.”
Two thoughts battled for supremacy in his head. The first was, “No, you aren’t,” while the second and louder voice hollered, “Fuck this!”
He had to end this call before he burned down the fragile bridge spanning between them. “Chelse, you’ve got some sorting out to do. Us working in the same unit together isn’t going to help you do that, so let’s just keep going our separate ways.” If he repeated it enough times, maybe it would sink in.
“But you love search and rescue. You can’t give it up.”
“I don’t intend to. They’re hiring in Summit County, and they need trained people in Chaffee.” Taking a job at either station meant starting at the bottom; it also meant moving away from Fall River. And then there was the opportunity in Vermont. His heart sat heavy in his chest at the thought of leaving Colorado, but the role was made to order. He’d be starting a rung higher than where he’d been with San Juan.
Chelsea’s tone turned harsh. “Don’t count on getting a recommendation from me.”
He sighed, suddenly bone-weary. “I understand, and I won’t.” His well was as dry as the Great Sand Dunes.
