Page 116 of Sunkissed Colorado

It was Zandra who finally spoke up. “For a long time, I couldn’t even think about that night.”

I knew exactly which night she meant. I rubbed her back and waited for her to say more.

“The police made me talk about it over and over and over. And then the way people didn’t want to be around me after… Looking back, I realize that was more about me pushing people away. But then the rumors started, and Tommy said what he did, and I blamed you. I’m sorry for that.”

I shifted to see her better. The firelight caught in her eyes. “Z, you don’t have to apologize to me for anything.”

“But I was so mean to you when I came back.”

“It’s all right. Turns out I liked it. Does that make me a masochist or something?”

She snickered. “I don’t think so. I think you just like a challenge. And no other woman gave you one before.”

“You might be right.” Even though my attraction to Zandra went so far beyond anything so simple as being competitive. “I wish I’d been able to know you like this back then.”

“If I’d gone to the bonfire party?” She said this lightly, but a sharp pang of guilt hit me in the chest.

So many years ago, and this was still weighing on me.

“Z, there’s something I need to say. I wish I could take back everything that happened the day Jessa died, including my part in it. If you’d been at the bonfire party…”

“If Jessa dying wasn’t my fault, then it definitely wasn’t yours.”

“I know. This isn’t about me at all. But I just want you to know, if I could go back and take away how much you were hurting afterward, make it even a tiny bit better, I would do fucking anything to make that happen. You are so amazing, and you deserved a lot better.”

She sniffed. Wiped roughly at the corner of her eye. “You’re going to make me cry.”

“If you do, I’ll kiss away every one of your tears.” I leaned in and kissed her gently, tasting the salt on her lips, and she buried her face against my neck afterward.

“When I left Silver Ridge, I put all those memories in a box. But that meant shutting down the good memories of Jessa too.” She took a shaky breath. “It’s been coming back since I came home. Like when we were at my parents’ house, and I looked through that old box of stuff I’d kept.”

“The broken window and that sick note someone left you didn’t help.”

“No. It didn’t.”

It still filled me with rage that someone had been actively harassing her after Jessa’s death. Someone who still didn’t wantZandra to get over the past, even now. Whether it was Tommy Pickering or whoever, if I got enough proof, that person was going to be very sorry.

She swallowed hard, and when she spoke again, her voice broke. “It’s just a few weeks until the anniversary of her death. Another year of her being gone. I want to be able to look back and not hurt. I want to let go of that night, even if I’ll never fully understand what happened. And I have to think Jessa would want that too.”

“Baby. Of course she would. I’m sure she loved you. Anyone who gets to know you, who sees you for how brilliant and strong you really are, wouldn’t be able to help it.”

She was holding tight to me, shaking. “My parents don’t think so.”

“Then fuck them. I’m crazy about everything I see in you. That’s why I asked you out and introduced you to my family. Because I’m pretty fucking wild about you.”

Her eyes were wide in the firelight. “But this thing between us was supposed to end when one of us got the general manager job. Coworkers with benefits, Callum. That’s the deal we made.”

“Then I’m negotiating a new one.”

“But you can’t do that.”

I held her chin in my fingers. “Baby, you just watch me.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m going to keep treating you so good, doing everything in my power to make you happy, that you can’t help giving in.” I added my most charming smile. “Because I know you want to.”

She huffed a laugh, since we both understood I was kidding. Not like I’d keep pursuing her if she truly wasn’t feeling me.