Page 128 of Fire Fight

“I wish I could remember that lost day,” she growled out in frustration. “If I could remember…something, we might have already caught this guy.”

“Baby, it’s not on you to find who is doing this.”

“Maybe not,” she conceded, looking up at me. “But I want to help. I’m the only living victim, Crew. I owe justice to the ones who didn’t get to live.”

“Have you talked to Lane about it? Maybe there’s some sort of interview technique he’s got in that cop repertoire of his that he can try.”

Aspen snorted. “Lane never wanted me here in the firstplace.” Her gaze dropped again, hair falling in her face as she said, “Maybe he was right. Maybe it’s time for me to go.”

“No.”

Final answer.

“Crew,” she sighed. “Me being here has dredged up all this shit for you, your family, and the residents of Dusk Valley. The Lees just lost their house! The place where Vicky had grown up.” Her voice cut off as she choked on a sob, tears instantly pouring from her eyes like someone had turned on a faucet. “A teenage boy nearly got arrested. You’ve been forced to confront your demons, and this entire town is on edge. That’s on me.” She swiped angrily at her cheeks. “Everything that’s happened the last few months is my fault.”

“No it’s not. You can’t shoulder the blame for any of it, and you can’t give up. We’re so close to catching this fucker. We wouldn’t be this close without you.”

“Yeah, but as long as I stay around, he’ll never leave me be. Maybe if I left, things would go back to normal.”

I shook my head. “What is normal anyway? All of us constantly looking over our shoulders, wondering if our daughter or sister is going to be next? No, little phoenix. You blowing into town and disrupting this guy’s MO is exactly what we needed, don’t you see that? He’s getting careless now. Taking chances he hadn’t been before.”

“I think things would be better for everyone if I left.”

“I refuse to accept that.”

She offered me a sad smile. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter.”

“The hell I don’t.”

The look she gave me was pure venom, and I could practically see those walls going back up in her eyes as her spine straightened. “Just because you’re fucking me doesn’t give you the right to make decisions about my life.”

Oh, little phoenix. My girl was lashing out because she was hurting,not because she actually believed the shit coming out of her mouth.

“We’re doing a lot more thanfucking,” I growled.

“Doesn’t seem like it to me.”

“Then how about because I love you?” I said softly, with a calm I didn’t feel. “Does that give me the right to weigh in on your choices?”

Aspen stilled, and all the air around us seemed to evacuate.

Fuck, what had I done? I meant it, and I wouldn’t take it back, but the middle of an argument was absolutelynotthe time to say it.

“You don’t get to love me,” she whispered.

Oh god. Did that mean she didn’t feel the same?

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I’m not staying!” she exploded, pacing across the room, away from me. “Whether I leave tomorrow or whenever—ifever—we catch this guy tormenting me, this was always going to be temporary. This thing between us was nothing more than the result of me almost dying and you saving me from that fate. We got swept up in the investigation and heightened emotions because I nearly died. You’ll always be special to me because you brought me back to myself. But that’s all this is.”

No, that wasn’t how she felt at all. I knew it in the way she curled in on herself, in the way she refused to look at me. Aspen was lying to herself—and me.

She was crying again, and I understood why. She was trying to cut ties and run before things got too deep.

Well, newsflash, baby. I was already in as deep as it got, and I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“Is that really how you feel?” I pressed, taking a tentative step toward her. When she didn’t move, I took several more until I was right in front of her, my hands cupping her cheeks. I brushed the moisture leaking from her eyes away with my thumbs.