“We don’t have to talk about it yet,” she whispered. It was a plea more than an offering. “You’re tired, and I need to get back to the kids soon …”
Warren didn’t seem to hear her at all. “I need you to hear me when I say that last night wasn’t okay. If we’re going to keep doing this, things need to change. I need you to at least pretend to care about your safety.”
“You make me sound like I’m some …”
“Impulsive, defiant woman? Aye, that’s because sometimes you are.” His tone left no room for argument, sterner than she’d ever heard him before, even in the bookstore. Only it was worse, because he wasn’t shouting. He wasn’t anything. “Maybe I’m a jobsworth, like you said, but it feels like I need to be with you. You’re so careful with the kids, but when it comes to yourself, you just don’t see how easily things could go badly.”
That word,defiant, made her feel sick. What did he want? To own her the way Finlay had?
Why, for once, couldn’t he just accept her as she was? She hadn’t gotten hurt, not in the flood, not in the fires. And she’d never been that way for anyone else: it washimwho brought it out of her.
“I’m an adult, Warren. Maybe it’s you who needs to stop treating me like I’m made of glass.”
His glance fell to the scaffolding around his house, where plastic coverings gusted against the rain and wind. “Well, I’m not going to do that.”
“Not even if it’s what Ineed?” She stepped closer, panic rising in her. Maybe she should never have let him back in. She’d just left one man who had been determined to trap her. Now, here was another, acting as though his way of living was the only way. Fine, it was his job, and maybe there were things he hadn’t told her yet that contributed to his need to control, but it didn’t matter what materials the cages were made out of. Only mattered that she’d spent enough time locked away. “Warren, I have been in a relationship, been a mother, for my entire adult life, and I’ve struggled my way through most of it. I’m still figuring out how to be a person away from that. If you … If you can’t let me, this can’t work.”
His eyes were all sadness, tongue swiping away the rain on his Cupid’s bow. “How is asking you to be safe the same as not letting you figure your shite out? Newsflash, Eiley: we’realltrying to figure out how to be a person. You’re not the only one who’s struggling. And fucking hell, you should feel lucky that there are people in your life who actually want to keep you here!”
It was an echo of his words last night, the ones that had cut through her senses. She eyed the house again, and then the rotting barn and patches of dead grass, life that hadn’t survived the fire. “I’m sorry if you lost something, Warren, but it isn’t fair to throw that in my face over and over. My brother is protective enough—”
“I didn’t just lose something. I losteverything!” His fractured shout carried with the wind, cutting through her clothes and leaving her shivering. “My family and my home were taken from me right fucking there!” He jabbed a finger over to the house, and her stomach sank over and over, no end to the fall. “Everything I owned, everything that made me feel safe and loved, burned to the ground because my dad forgot to turn off the oven after dinner. That was it. One tiny mistake led to the worst day of my life. I was eleven years old, Eiley.”
Tears rolled down Eiley’s cheeks, mingling with the rain. After last night, and perhaps even before, she’d suspected he was rooted deeper to Galbreath Farm. Still, she hadn’t thought he’d lost both parents. Had wanted to believe the world couldn’t bethatcruel. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Warren. I can’t imagine—”
“No, you can’t,” he spat.
Eiley closed the distance between them, grabbing his damp face in her hands. “So tell me. Talk to me.”
“Would it make a difference?”
She hesitated. Would it? Hadn’t she already made up her mind? It wasn’t just the fear of being controlled that had wormed its way into her. She’d spent all night waiting for Warren to get back, to know he was safe. Could she do thateverynight? Could herkids, if he became a permanent fixture in their lives?
They’d just lost their father, and Eiley was barely hanging on by a thread most days. If she had to add worry for him to her list, how would she be able to focus on raising the children? On healing her own wounds?
He told her that she was reckless and unsafe for a few decisions she’d made out of love, but he ran into the danger every day for strangers. For the entire community.
“That’s what I thought,” Warren muttered at her silence.
“We’re so different,” she whispered.
He peeled her hands from his face gently, fingers hanging loose around her wrists, as though still conscious of the bruise Finlay had left.
It wasn’t fair. He was good. He cared about her, and she him. He lit her soul on fire, made her feel like the passion she’d only ever read about before now was possible. But he wasn’t any safer than Finlay, not really. If anything, he had the power to break her heart all the way through, not just reopen the surface wounds Finlay had left.
“How do you do it?” she couldn’t help but ask. “How do you face the thing that hurt you every day?” She could never be that brave.
Warren leaned against the car, his soaked T-shirt sticking to every gorgeous muscle. Somebody else deserved him more than her, she convinced herself. Somebody who needed to be protected, who liked the feeling of a man taking charge and worrying to the point of devotion.
A spike of pain, jealousy, for this imaginary future love of his jolted through her. She hoped she wouldn’t be around to witness it. Warren was the type of man she would always wish for a second chance with. She was certain of that already.
“I was in the barn with the cows when the fire started. I should have run to get help, but I didn’t. I went back in to find my parents instead.”
“But you were just a kid.” Only a few years older than Brook. Too young to shoulder that burden.
“Aye. And that made me weak. My mum was trapped in the kitchen, and the door had swollen in the frame. I couldn’t get it open.” His features turned vacant, transporting him somewhere she wished she could follow, even if it killed her. If it meant he didn’t have to be alone this time round, she would go back into those flames by his side, if only he would let her. “I couldn’t save her. Then, right when I thought it was over for me, there was this firefighter. I barely remember her face, but I’ll never forget her name: Ruth. She pulled me out, talked me through the agony of the burns – god, I’d never felt anything like it. Still feel it sometimes when I close my eyes.” He touched his ribs, where Eiley had seen the scars. Eiley’s throat ached like the lump stuck there was made of thorns. “She stayed with me in the hospital until my aunt got in from Inverness. And I thought if I could just be like her, if I could be there for someone who’s lost everything, maybe it might fix some of the guilt I felt for surviving when they didn’t.”
She wished she could take it all away, especially that guilt. To think of a world where he didn’t make it out, or worse, didn’t become a firefighter, was a bleak and empty vision. People needed him.Sheneeded him. Just not as much as she needed to protect her heart.
