Page 44 of Stormswept Colorado (Hart County #3)

THIRTY-EIGHT

Ayla

“I’ll walk you home, Ayla,” Sergeant Carpenter said.

Smiling, I pocketed the money he’d just paid me for babysitting that night. His son was reading comics in his room before bed, and Mrs. Carpenter was relaxing on their couch watching TV.

“It’s just next door. You don’t have to.”

“No, it’s late. Want to make sure you’re safe. It’s no trouble at all.”

We walked through the Carpenters’ front yard, past their planters of flowers. Red daisies grew in a pot on the side closest to my house. The same red daisies the sergeant had left in a bouquet on my porch for my birthday.

He was a nice man. A good father. Proof that some of those existed in the world, unlike the colonel.

Whatever. The less time I spent dwelling on my dad, the better. I had to deal with him enough in person. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to get out of here and live on my own.

We stepped onto my house’s front porch. The light was off, both of us mere shadows. “Goodnight,” I said, but Sergeant Carpenter didn’t go. Instead, he stepped closer.

“You know, I never got a chance to enjoy my teenage years. I became a dad way too young. What I wouldn’t give to be sixteen again.”

“Okay.” I shrugged, not sure why he was telling me this. “I promise, it’s not that great.”

“You’re special, Ayla. You could have the world in the palm of your hand. You have no idea how beautiful you really are.”

The sergeant pulled something from behind his back. A red daisy. He held it out, reaching toward me.

The daisy melted into his palm, turning to blood that spilled over his skin and onto the porch.

I screamed, and the door burst open behind me. My father stood there, so tall he could barely fit in the doorway. “I knew you were a worthless little—” He grabbed my shoulder, yanking me into the darkness.

I jolted upright in the bed, a scream still on my lips.

My hands fisted the sheets. Someone else was here, broad shoulders in silhouette, and I cringed away from him.

“Sweetheart, it’s me,” Teller said softly. “You were having a nightmare.”

“Teller.” It’s him. Just him . Somehow, I managed to breathe. I crawled toward him, folding myself into his arms. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’re okay. I just didn’t want to touch you until you were fully awake. I know how nightmares can be.”

He was right. In my fear and confusion, I’d almost pushed him away.

“Have some water.” Teller grabbed the water bottle from my nightstand, and I took a few gulps.

That had been so awful. It took me a couple of minutes for my thoughts to become coherent again and my stomach to settle.

“Did you have nightmares?” I asked, voice hoarse. “After you were wounded?” He’d told me before about his flashbacks.

“Yep. I did.” Teller rubbed my back. “Still do, every once in a while.”

I burrowed as close to him as I could. “I had a lot of bad dreams around the time Lori died. I’d wake up in a cold sweat.” I would dream about the basement. My father yelling at me through the closed door.

But dreaming of Sergeant Carpenter, of that night… I hadn’t played out those details in a very long time. Either asleep or awake.

“Did you have one because of what we talked about last night?” Teller asked. “Is that what your nightmare was about?”

How did he understand me so well? Better than anyone else I’d ever known. “Yeah. Sergeant Carpenter was walking me home. It was the night he tried to kiss me, when my father threw me out. But the nightmare was different. The sergeant…”

I inhaled, sitting up as I remembered.

“What is it?”

“I dreamed that he gave me a red daisy. His wife grew them in the summer. I forgot about that.” My gaze found Teller’s in the dimness. “The flower arrangements from Biggest Fan had red daisies, too.”

Teller sat up, reaching for my hands. “Both of them? You’re sure?”

I nodded. “Do you think that means something?”

“Do you think it does? You would know better than me.”

“I don’t know what any of it means.” My breathing started to speed again. Like I might hyperventilate.

Could Sergeant Carpenter have something to do with Biggest Fan? But how? Why ? After all these years?

“Come here.” Teller sat against the pillows and opened his arms. He pulled me so I was between his legs, lying back against his chest, and he held me tight. Just the way I liked. “We don’t have to figure it out right now. But we will.”

I turned my head to breathe in his scent from his bare skin. Letting him calm me again. This was much better than when I usually woke up from a nightmare alone.

I wasn’t alone anymore.

I kept repeating it to myself. You’re not alone .

Teller grabbed the blanket and pulled it around us. This felt so good. Being skin to skin with him, nothing between us. No more secrets.

I’d barely begun to process what Teller had said to me last night. That he loved me. I’d been overwhelmed by memories, by the need to confess my deepest secret to him. So he knew I wasn’t as perfect as he seemed to think.

I’d felt like a liar for so much of my life. Pretending to be somebody important who mattered when my own father didn’t want me around.

But that hadn’t made any difference to Teller.

He’d said everything that I’d needed to hear, and I’d known it was the truth.

At least, the truth from his perspective.

Those old wounds were still raw. But Teller was healing them even now.

It meant everything that he saw the real me, knew my past, and he still loved me.

I was falling for him too.

I’d been on my own for so long after leaving home. I’d trusted the wrong people. Gotten hurt. But all of that had led me to Silver Ridge. To Teller.

How could I stand being away from him again?

I pressed my face to his chest. “I don’t want you to go. I need you to stay with me.”

Teller’s grip on me tightened, his body tensing. Immediately, I regretted what I’d said. I hadn’t been thinking.

“I didn’t mean that,” I said. “Not literally. I wouldn’t ask you to?—”

“It’s okay. I want you to be honest with me.”

“I know you only have this weekend here. I’m grateful for that. I promise.”

He lay his palm over my cheek. “I could find a way to stay. Not permanently at first. But maybe I could arrange a leave of absence from work. Susan has years of experience in the department. She could?—”

I sat upright. “ No . Don’t even say that. You’re not giving up what’s important in your life for me. ”

“ You are important. That’s what I’ve been telling you. I love you.”

Unshed tears ached in my throat. “Maybe I could come to Silver Ridge for a while. I’ve thought about it.”

“You have?”

I nodded. “Maisie and the O’Neal family are there. It’s always hard for me to leave when I visit Colorado. But I cause problems when I’m in town. Remember the riot over me last time? What if you resent me for that? What if you don’t want me around anymore? Because I’m too much trouble.”

His expression crumpled like my words had given him physical pain. “Ayla, I hate that I’ve ever made you feel that way. I was an idiot. You don’t cause problems. It’s other people, and that’s on them, not you.”

“But when the media finds out we’re together, they’ll put you in the spotlight. You know that, right? They’ll write articles about you. They won’t leave you alone.”

“It took me a while to figure it out, but the kind of trouble you bring to my life is exactly what I want. I’ll deal with whatever that entails. The more important question is, would you be happy not living in LA? You’ve worked so hard for what you have here. This house, your friends.”

I hesitated before I answered. Other musicians lived in small cities or towns, and they found a way to make it work with their careers.

“I do like it here. Being near the ocean. I’ve got the industry at my fingertips. And my friends are important to me too, especially because I know how hard it is to find genuine ones. But I like Silver Ridge and the people there a lot. I like you most of all.”

Teller grinned. “Do you?”

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” I whispered.

He took my hand and kissed the end of each of my fingers. “Then I won’t let anyone or anything keep you from me,” he said, voice low and rumbling. “Not anymore.”

We didn’t make any final decisions yet. It was only Saturday, and we still had Sunday to talk things through. Figure out our next step. But we both knew one thing for sure.

Somehow, we would find a way to stay together.

We got out of bed, showered, and slipped on loungewear for a relaxing day together.

Made breakfast and had coffee. My view of the Pacific was pretty great, but so was Teller in nothing but gray sweats.

His sexy chest and arms on display, along with the scars that spoke to his history.

Something about his bare feet in my kitchen was intimate and adorable.

Then we went to the living room. I’d picked up a fast-paced techno thriller yesterday, with a plot as far from my real life as possible. As I sat down to read, Teller picked a non-fiction book and snuggled in beside me.

I glanced at his book’s cover. “A parenting manual? Is that for Ollie?”

He shrugged. “Sure. I know I’m not his parent, but I like to put in a good effort at whatever I’m doing.”

Of course he did. “Would you ever want to have kids?” I asked, trying to be casual. As if this question hadn’t been burning in the back of my mind.

He set the book on the coffee table and turned to me. “I used to see kids in my future. Then I figured Ollie was the closest I would get. I love being in his life. I would never want to change that. But…if I had a chance to have kids of my own too? Yeah, I would like that. What about you?”

“I never gave it much thought before.”

He pinched my chin playfully. “Because you’re in your twenties.”

I smiled. “But Maisie makes me want kids of my own.” I put my arms around him and kissed his collarbone. “I think you would be an amazing dad.”