Falling for the Groomsman
“Yeah.” She grinned. “You didn’t know that?”
“Nope.” He gritted his teeth. How did he not know that about her? He should have tried to find out more about her long ago. He shouldn’t have tried to shove her away in the past. “Speaking of which, I’d like a few do-overs myself.”
“Let me guess,” she said sarcastically. “Mexico?”
“Yeah, but not what you’re thinking.” He took a deep breath. Should he open himself up to her like this? Why the hell not? It’s not as if she’d get more angry at him than she already was. “I would never have left like I did, if I could go back. I’d have held you all night long, as close as I could. I would have known you had a brother, damn it. Is he older or younger?”
“Younger.” She reared her head back and blinked up at him, her mouth open. “But w-why would you care about that stuff? We haven’t exactly kept in touch over the years.”
“It’s what I should have done, and if I had a chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing except instead of running…I’d have stood firm. I wouldn’t have given up so easily.” He met her eyes. “Maybe we would have even been together.”
“I don’t believe you.” She pressed her lips together and shook her head for good measure. “If you regretted it every day, why didn’t you come see me one of the many times you came back to the U.S.? Try to win me over? I mean, I really haven’t seen you at all.”
“I did, once. When I came home a year after Mexico, I passed by a restaurant, and you were inside. I saw you and some brown-haired guy sitting close and talking and laughing, so I backed off. He had his arm around you, and you were resting your head on his shoulder. You looked so…so happy.” He met her eyes, unable to believe he was admitting this shit to her. “I couldn’t bring myself to walk through that door when you were happy and with someone else. What happened to that guy?”
She bit down hard on her lip, not dropping his gaze. She didn’t show much emotion, or at least not that he could read, but she dropped her lids. “Did he have tattoos all down his arms?”
“Yes.” Tyler hugged her tighter to his chest as he stepped over a log. “Who was he?”
She opened her mouth, closed it, and let out a little sound that might have been a moan. “My brother I was just talking about. He was in the military, and he’d gotten in some trouble back home. He’d just signed up with the marines, and we were saying good-bye before he went to boot camp.”
Relief hit him hard and fast. “Oh.” He stepped over a fallen branch. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” She rested her head on his shoulder again. “But, you know, I haven’t been a nun all these years. I have been with other men.”
He stiffened, the relief going away in a blink of the eye. “I’d rather not think about that.”
“That came out wrong. I’m trying to say is that I wasn’t a broken shell of a woman who couldn’t live without you because you left or anything. I was fine. Happy, even.”
His arms tightened on her reflexively. “Don’t say another word, Red.”
She looked up at him, her brow furrowed. “I’m trying to make you feel better.”
He frowned down at her, jealousy ripping through him with sharp claws. “The idea of you with another man will never, ever make me feel better. You were supposed to be mine.”
Chapter Eleven
Christine rested her head on Tyler’s shoulder, not sure what to say to that. But really, what was there to say? He didn’t like the idea of her with another man? Well, great. She didn’t like the thought of him with another woman, but it didn’t mean anything. He was just stating the obvious.
There couldn’t be anything real between them.
Not now. Not then.
Tyler made his way around a fallen tree that blocked the path they’d been following. She glanced up at him and flinched. Sweat streamed down his forehead and down his cheeks, and his face was red. He hadn’t complained one little bit about carrying her. Knowing him, he saw it as some form of penance for leaving her all those years ago.
He was sick like that.
She understood him so much better now than she had all those years ago. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he felt responsible for everything and everyone. He felt the need to make everyone happy and healthy and whole. When he failed or caused harm…he swallowed the guilt and kept it inside him forever.
He grunted and stepped over a small boulder. The shadows were getting deeper by the second, and try as she might she couldn’t make out even a hint of the resort. He’d told her they wandered too far away, but she’d ignored him as she sought some solitude for her outdoor sex session. Stupid list.
Now they were stuck out in the woods with no rescue in sight. More than likely, they would be setting camp for the night and sleeping in the great outdoors. Already, the mosquitoes had bitten every exposed strip of skin she had, and the temperature had dropped rapidly. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell she’d make it through the night. Her idea of camping was the Holiday Inn Express, complete with feather pillows and a soft mattress.
Not sleeping bags and rocks poking her in the butt.
As if on cue, Tyler stopped walking and leaned against a tree. “I think we might need to stop for the night. I’m having difficulty seeing. I could wear a flashlight, but it’s still asking for trouble. If I step in a hole and twist my ankle while carrying you, we’ll be sitting ducks.”
“That makes sense, I guess.” She wiggled in his arms. “Are we even heading in the right direction?”
“I think so. We’re following the incline.”
She nodded. “You should check your compass, just to be safe.”
“I can’t.” He flushed. “I don’t have one.”
“Seriously? I thought you had a survival kit in that thing.”
“I do.” He lowered her to her feet. “But I lost my compass.”
She put the bulk of her weight on her good leg and leaned against a tree. There was a good-sized flat clearing in front of them, which is probably why he’d chosen here to stop. “So you have condoms, but no compass? What else do you have in your bag?”
“A lighter, a sleeping bag, water, and a few protein bars.” Her stomach growled at the mention of food, loud enough for the whole forest to hear it. “Which I’m guessing you’d like me to find,” he added subtly.
She dropped her head
back against the tree. She couldn’t even muster up the strength to get embarrassed at her bearlike growling stomach. “Yes, please.”
He chuckled and picked her up again. “Let’s go.”
“Wait, what are you doing?” She clung to him. “I thought we were staying here.”
“We are.” He skirted a huge boulder. “But over there, where it’s flat.”
“I could walk there myself,” she said.
“I know, Patient McClumsy. But I’m going to carry you anyway.”
Of course he would, because that’s the kind of guy he was. Compassionate, bossy, stubborn, and irresistible. Once he reached the clearing, he stopped in the middle of it and set her down. She missed his warmth as soon as he let go of her. It might be June, but it was still Colorado. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “Thank you.”
He bent down and yanked the sleeping bag out of his backpack, spread it out on the ground, and dug out a handful of protein bars. “Get in this and eat these. It’ll keep you warm while I set up camp.”
She nodded, but looked off into the distance, keeping her weight on her uninjured ankle. “Uh…I have to go…you know…I have to go.”
He looked up at her, his brow furrowed. “Go where?”
“Oh my God. Shoot me now,” she said, fisting her hands.
“I’m trying to—oh.” His eyes lit up with comprehension. He dug around in the bag a little bit, and handed her a roll of toilet paper. “Here.”
She eyed his bag hopefully. “You got a toilet and a shower in there, too, Eagle Scout?”
He laughed. “I wish. It’s not so bad, I promise.”
“Maybe not for you,” she pointed out. “At least you get to stand. I have to squat with my bare butt hanging out like a white flag for all the forest creatures.”
“At least it’s a hot ass.” He stood up and pointed over his shoulder. “I’ll go this way. You go that way. Don’t wander off, though.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
She bit down on her lip and limped toward the trees, her eyes on the darkness surrounding her on all sides. Was something out there, watching her even now? Plotting how best to attack, while she was at her weakest? She was obviously the easy prey. She’d be the first to go. Tyler would wrestle a bear with his bare hands.