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Calder spun around, a surprising amount of anger on his face. “Lara, did you just hear what I said? They might bekillingpeople for life insurance money; they definitely killed a man because he knew too much—”
“I don’t care. I’ll be careful. I’ll do what you tell me to do. Stay where you tell me to stay. Be silent. Be still.” I charged forward until I was in front of him again, fury jutting my chin out toward his towering form. “But what I won’t do is stay behind. Not after everything—”
“And if I don’t give you a choice?”
I sucked in a breath. True, Calder had not only the opportunity but also the skills to simply take the information and slip into the wilderness and leave me behind ... Rage fringed my view in red. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. I wouldn’t let him.
“Is that really what you’d do? Just up and leave me?” I dared him to admit it—dared his stubbornness to go toe to toe with mine.
Heat bubbled off him like molten tar, sticking to my skin, staining my veins, and hardening me to him with every passing moment. Gold-green eyes bored into mine as though he could stake me to the ground right here, right now, and not have to worry about answering.
“Dammit, Lara.” His hands rose to frame my face, and I swore with his exhale, I felt the crumbling of his reservations.
He wouldn’t go without me. He wouldn’t leave me.My lashes fluttered against my cheeks as his head lowered.He was going to kiss me.
I welcomed the warmth of his breath on my skin, the press of his fingers on my face. I welcomed the way, even when we were arguing, his touch chased the tension from my body.
But instead of his mouth touching mine, it was his forehead that pressed to my own, and a strained groan that caressed my lips instead.
“I’ll do whatever I have to to keep you safe ... even if you hate me for it.”
Hot and cold crashed like two oceans meeting inside me, churning and lurching my senses until I didn’t know up from down.
How could I both ache for someone to care about me the way he did but also hate him for it?
I jerked out of his hold, anger toppling all rationality. “Is that what you told Rachel when you left her? Because I can promise you, it didn’t help her at all.”
I spun around and stalked back to the house, burying the brief glimpse of pain I’d caught when it marred his beautiful face.
It was hard to think of Calder Stone as the kind of man who could be wounded, but the look on his face, the one imprinted onto the backs of my eyelids, was evidence that I’d accomplished the impossible feat. Like David taking down Goliath.
Only, by the time I closed Colby’s bedroom door behind me, I worried it wasn’t a giant I’d taken down with my harsh words, but a good man.
Chapter 23
Lara
Rachel had always said I had a long fuse attached to a big bomb; it was the foil to her very, very short fuse and tiny little explosions. And between what had happened in Phoenix, realizing my sister was missing, having to work with Calder to find her, having to fake (but not) my very real attraction to him, learning Rachel had joined a cult, telling Calder what happened with Ian,kissinghim, having to escape with Sarah, and figuring out that cult was killing people for insurance money ... my fuse had been whittled terminally short.
Mortally short.
And hearing Calder try to push me away ... The bomb had let my barbed words fly.
But now wasn’t a good time to apologize. I was still too ... everything. Too upset. Too worried. Too angry, scared, aching ... to tempt fate and face Calder again.
“I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep you safe ... even if you hate me for it.”
Part of me wished I could hate him for it. But there was no hating Calder Stone. Even back then, after Rachel had called me sobbing, telling me they’d broken up. Crying and repeating over and over that he didn’t care. That she couldn’t make him care. Thatit was all her fault. The only person I’d hated in those moments was myself for the tiny, nagging questionBut what if it was her fault?
I’d felt horrible, but I’d also been a witness to the truth behind her tears. The lies she’d told him more and more frequently. The excuses, the cover stories she’d roped me into.
No matter how hard I’d tried, no matter how upset she’d been or the path her life had taken, I never could fitwhoI knew Calder to be, the guy who came at the drop of a hat to track down a cat or rescue a hummingbird, with the man who’d broken my sister’s heart.
But even if what I’d accused held a fragment of truth, Calder didn’t deserve my vitriol. Not for his well-justified intention to protect me. I’d lashed out because it was easier than having to admit I was too afraid to demand a harder conversation.
I paced Colby’s room—unable to be still—and looked over her amazing landscape photographs hanging on the walls. I knew they were hers because they had the same energy as the ones in Calder’s Airstream.
And then there were the photos of the animals. Her animals.
