Wake My Heart (Jasper Falls 1)

“I’m not dating her. We went out for coffee once and she asked me to be her plus one for an engagement dinner. I didn’t even realize it was her brother’s engagement, and I had no way of knowing you’d be there.”

“Well, at least you got the whole meeting her parents thing out of the way.”

“I don’t care who her parents are! I have no interest in her, and I’m not going out with her again.”

She pursed her lips. “Oh, come on. I’m a heterosexual woman and even I’m attracted to her.”

“She’s not who I want.”

Her gaze dropped to the road. “Don’t do this.”

“Come on, Maggie. I’m crazy about you. I can’t sleep without dreaming of you. I’m constantly staring at your property looking for you. I had to delete your number just so I wouldn’t text you. And tonight, when I saw you—you look like a million bucks by the way—all I wanted to do was kiss you.”

Her brow pinched and her head lowered. She shivered and he took off his suit jacket placing it over her shoulders.

“You’re freezing.” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, and she didn’t push him away. “At least let me take you home.” He noticed her bare feet. “Why aren’t you wearing your shoes?”

“They’re killing me. I can’t walk in them anymore.”

“Aren’t your feet cold?”

“I don’t know. I lost all feeling in them an hour ago.”

“That’s it.” She squeaked as he lifted her into his arms and carried her to his truck.

“Ryan, no. I want to walk.”

“Just warm up for a few minutes. I left the heat on.” He deposited her in the passenger seat, which was much warmer than the street and she stopped arguing. He walked around the front and climbed in the other side. “Music?”

“No.”

“Booze?”

She turned her head. “Do you have some?”

Leaning across her seat, he flipped open the glove compartment and caught a thin metal flask that tumbled out. He gave it a shake, noting it was a little more than half full. “Here.”

“Do you always drive with an open container? That’s illegal you know.”

“Get broken down in the dead of winter, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell signal and those laws become gray areas. Take a sip. It’ll warm you up.”

She tipped the flask back and took a long pull. She didn’t gasp or show any signs that the whiskey was too much for her to handle.

“So, Perrin’s your sister.”

“Yeah.”

“She seems nice.”

“She is. I’m the mean one.”

He smirked. “You’re not mean.”

“Has your life gotten easier since knowing me?”

He loved her snark. “In a way.”

She scowled at him like he was the village idiot. “How so?”

He shrugged. “I’m not guessing anymore about what I want.”

“Ryan, don’t,” she warned.

“What? It’s the truth. I’m not going to pretend my feelings changed just because you broke up with me. If anything, they’ve grown.”

“We didn’t break up. We weren’t officially together. You just want what you can’t have.”

“Maybe I do, but I still want you, so what difference does my reasoning make?”

She looked out the window at the cemetery.

He followed her gaze. “How often do you come here?”

“Every day.”

“Is that where you go in the morning?”

She nodded.

He tried to think of something to say after just learning the girl he loved hung out in graveyards on a daily basis. “Does it help?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Sometimes.”

“And other times?”

“Mostly it’s just sad.” She fiddled her thumbs. “Sort of like a dead party.”

He looked at her and held his breath so he wouldn’t laugh, certain she couldn’t have just been making a joke about the cemetery where her husband was buried.

She smiled. “I have a morbid sense of humor.”

He still didn’t think he should laugh. “A few weeks ago, I saw you riding in a truck with some guy. Who was he?”

“My boss, Jim.”

“So, you do accept rides when you have to.”

“When my boss orders me to get in his truck and it’s storming, yeah, I make an exception.”

“Were you in the car when it happened?”

Her gaze dropped to her lap. “You mean Nash?”

“Yeah.”

Her head shook. “I was home. I was eating an orange when the phone rang. When I got to the scene, I still had the peel in my hand. He was barely holding on.”

Her voice grew smaller with every word. He reached across the seat and took her hand. The force at which she gripped his fingers surprised him.

“They had to cut him out and there wasn’t much time. The fire department was there. A lot of them work with me, so they tried to wait as long as they could. Once they removed him from the wreckage, because of the way his body had been crushed and pinned, there was only minutes. I had to decide when we’d said enough goodbyes because the engine was about to catch fire.” A tear fell on their entwined hands. “I wish I would have waited a little longer. There was so much I forgot to tell him.”