“Oh my God! I worshiped you. I would’ve done anything to make you happy, Brooks. I left because I was offered the opportunity of a lifetime, and you didn’t come because you couldn’t leave Rugged Mountain.”
The weight of his body shifts back, and his arms cross over his chest. “Look at me, Kelsi. I’m not built for tiny sidewalk chairs and city apartments. I’m a giant. I wouldn’t fit in California. All I know is that I went to bed one day lovin’ you and woke up the next to you gone.”
“It was not that simple. We fought for weeks, months maybe. You didn’t want to get married. You didn’t want kids. You didn’t want anything other than work.”
“Yup,” he rubs the back of his neck and glances toward me, “remember it how you will. We were in love, Kelsi. You wanted to move for work, and I wanted you to stay here and focus on your dreams. You felt trapped, and you left.”
“Right.” I laugh under my breath as the doctor pulls back the curtain. I wonder how much of our conversation the entire medical staff is absorbing.
“We make up our mind on where we’re going?”
I exhale loudly, frustrated with this entire morning. “Not—”
“Yes,” Brooks interrupts. “I’m taking her home. She’ll be safe with me, and she knows it.”
“Are you okay with that, Kelsi?” The doctor’s words sound kind, but they’re tinged with a bit of annoyance. At least I think it’s annoyance. I could be projecting given that I’m annoyed, though my annoyance is coming from a different place than it usually does, and I’m not fully sure how I’d classify all of this. It’smore of an emotional discomfort. A reality check that I wasn’t expecting, which is well…annoying.
I glance toward Brooks. He’s leaned against the door frame, nearly filling it up. Why does he have to be so insanely hot? The man is a god. Tall and broad. Inked and bearded. Rough and rugged. He’s everything I’ve looked for in everyone over the past five years, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him again.
Sure, the last few hours have been stressful and we’ve both built some pretty solid walls over the past five years, but there’s an attraction between us. A pull. A chemistry beneath the surface that we’re both fighting.
“Yes,” I finally say to the doctor, unsure of what I’m getting myself into. “He can take me home.”
Chapter Four
Brooks
“Why didn’t you remove this?” Kelsi runs her fingertips over the heart engraving on the glove box with our initials. I carved it in with a Dremel on our third date. We’d taken a trip up to the lake and had a tailgate picnic under the purple sky before a storm rolled in. “It must really confuse all the other women.”
I grin. “There are no other women. I thought that was the point. That seat belongs to you. Now and forever, whether you take it or not.”
She rolls her eyes and tucks her hands into her hoodie. I haven’t seen this one on her. It’s something new she got out in California. Looks like it has the emblem of the production company she works for. It’s so weird to think she has a whole wardrobe I haven’t seen her in. In my memories, she’s still wearing the same clothes from five years ago. How sad is that? My brain is so fucking broken. What am I doing?
“What do you want, Brooks?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are you doing? Why are you coming to take care of me and my mother? Who does that?”
“I do. I told you, I’m expectin’ repayment.” It’s a joke, but if she repaid me with a few kisses, I wouldn’t hate it.
“I’m serious. Why?” There’s strain in her voice, and everything inside of me wants to pull her close and make everything better again.
Fuck, I hate this. The last time she was in this truck, my hands were all over her. Her heart belonged to me. Her body belonged to me. Now, I don’t know what the hell we are or how we got here. I just know I need to get everything back. It’s more apparent now than ever, but how the fuck do I get to that place?
I glance toward her as we pull into the driveway. “I’m here because I love you.”
“You still love me?” Her tone is soft for the first time in hours.
“Of course I love you. Is that really a question?”
She stares at me for a long moment, and I half expect her to lean in for a kiss, but as I’ve been wrong with all of our interactions today, she leans back, sprints from the truck, and heads into the house without a word.
What the hell is going on?Maybe I said I loved her too soon. It has been five years. She has an entirely different life now. Shit! What good does saying it mean, anyway? Nothing can come of it. She’s obsessed with Johnny Nicholson, and I’m not leaving this mountain.
Hell, there was a time when we both said we were never leaving this mountain.We both valued that this is the one place left on Earth where there’s still a sense of simplicity left. A place where technology and the internet haven’t taken over. People still use the library for books, and they carry cash to pay for coffee. It’s a place where folks raise kids outside, playing in dirt, fishing in the stream. A place where weddings happen in a little church or down by the river. A place where your word still means something.
Maybe she’s over all that now. Clearly, she is. She’s got a new life, and I’m stuck in the fucking past like a fucking idiot.
