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Herowas a weight to carry. It wasn’t as simple as civilians wanted it to be.
“She might call you a hero, but you don’t upend your life and come all the way to Grizzly Harbor for a fantasy.” Isaac shook his head. “That would wear off sometime during the first layover. What she wants is her man.”
“That’s not me.” Blue pushed the words out past that choke hold around his throat. Again. “That’s not ever going to be me.”
“It’s either you or it isn’t, but she came a long way to find out.” Isaac had turned to look at Blue then, his gaze steady. “You should probably tell her yourself.”
And here Blue was. Ready to tell Everly what he should have that night in her parents’ house. Which was whatever he needed to tell her to get her to go away and never come back.
To make her hate him.
Or at least make sure she never, ever told him she loved him again.
“You need to go,” he told her.
She looked prettier than he remembered, and he remembered every single detail. She’d piled that strawberry blond hair on top of her head, and strands of it were curled up around her face, likely from the heat in the hot springs. She glowed, rosy and warm, and it reminded him of all the many shades of red he could make her turn, which made his body harden. Her eyes were just as green as always, but tonight they were different. It took him a minute to realize it was because there was no lingering fear in them. Because she wasn’t on the run tonight. Hell, she was even wearing those dumb shoes of hers—but somehow, this time, he found them cute.
Everly caught him staring at the shoes and smiled, sticking one foot out as if she’d forgotten she was wandering around Alaska in shiny, metallic,foldableflats she claimed were practical. “The fire trashed my bedroom but not my closet. Go figure.”
Blue ordered himself to get back on track. “You cantell me you love me a thousand times and it won’t make any difference. You don’t.”
“I do.” But she sounded serene, not rattled. And not at all dissuaded.
He couldn’t say he’d expected that reaction.
“Everly, listen to me. Intense situations—”
“Do you love me?” she asked him, in that same direct way that was like the slam of a bullet into his chest. When he opened his mouth, she shook her head and moved closer. And then reached up with her hand and placed it over his heart. “Tell me the truth, right now, and I’ll believe you. I promise.”
He could have taken a punch. Hell, an actual bullet would have been better. He could have handled her angry, her upset. Tears or a temper he could have taken in stride.
But her kindness undid him. Her trust in him destroyed him.
He felt as if he were bloodied and staggering, though he knew he didn’t move. It was that earthquake in him, the one he’d been ignoring since that last night in Chicago. The fault lines hadn’t gone anywhere.
If anything, they’d gotten worse.
He could feel them give way, right there beneath her hand. He could feel his foundations crumble.
All the walls he’d built. All the lies he’d told himself.
“I want to love you,” he told her, the words torn from him, “but I don’t know how.”
He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t what she did.
Everly moved closer. She slid her other hand on his chest and tilted her head back to look up at him.
“You do know how,” she told him, her voice fierce and sure. “Look at what you do. Look at who you are.”
But that was the problem.
His own hands came up to push hers away, but instead he found himself holding them there.
“I’m trained to do things that would give people nightmares. But good people don’t have nightmares about men like me, Everly. They don’t know I exist. That means I’m the one who has those nightmares. I’m the one with blood on my hands.” He was too loud, too rough. Toosomething. “And it never goes away.”
“You saved my life,” she told him.
He shook his head. “You saved your own life.”