Down & Dirty (Lightning 1)

She claps and hops up and down. “I knew the elephant would get you.”

“It was totally the elephant,” I agree, even though Lucy herself is the real reason I’m going.

Which is how, fifteen minutes later, I find myself in the middle of a long cavalcade of cars all bound for Coronado. Damn it. At least my abject terror over crossing the bridge does a good job of distracting me from worrying about seeing Hunter…until we actually get to the island, that is.

I’ve got my GPS on for directions, but mostly I’ve been following the other cars since they all seem to know where they’re going. At least until we get to the main highway and everyone turns left except for one car. Hunter’s car. He goes right.

Go left, I tell myself. Go left, go left, go left. If he wants a few minutes alone, give it to him. Let him be. Go left.

I go right, and as I follow him along the winding curves, I know instinctively where we’re going. Sure enough, he doesn’t stop until he’s in front of the house we saw that day when he was trying to explain to me what he wanted in a home.

This time he doesn’t pull into the parking lot at the corner. Instead, he stops right in front of the beach, barely bothering to parallel park before he bounds out of the car and heads straight down the sand to the water.

Fuck. Just fuck.

Because I have two choices here. One, stay in the truck and watch Hunter do whatever he’s going to do and hope he’s not planning on drowning himself. Or two, woman up and get out of this truck and go after him.

My nearly lifelong phobia of water—brought on when stepdad number one tossed me in the deep end of the pool and told me to swim even though I didn’t know how—tells me to stay right where I am. The truck is dry and safe and hundreds of feet away from the water. It’s the perfect place for me.

But there’s another part of me—one that loves Hunter more than I will ever fear water—that urges me to go after him. To get my ass out of the truck and up that beach so that Hunter knows he isn’t alone.

In the end, the part that loves Hunter wins. Barely.

Chapter 29

Hunter

I know I need to go to the house, know I need to sit through the wake—as much for Lucy and Brent as for all the people currently gathering at Tanner’s. And I will go. I will. As soon as I can remember how to breathe.

I haven’t been able to breathe since Heather died…since I sent Emerson away.

She’s texted me every day, just to check in. And I love her for that—and for a million other things. I know I s

hould call her, know that I owe her an apology, but I can’t do it. Not yet. Not when it feels like one wrong move will shatter me into a million fucking pieces.

I wasn’t ready for this. I thought I was, told myself I was going to keep it together for the kids. For my team. For Heather. But I’m a mess. I’m a fucking mess, all the way around. Oh, I’m faking it, holding shit together as best I can. But that’s all it is. One great big lie.

It’s why I can’t have Emerson around, why I’ve treated her so badly since Heather died. Because those moments in the waiting room, when she reached out to me—when she cupped my face in her hands and asked how she could help—I nearly broke in half. And if that happens…if that happens, I don’t know what I’ll do.

What Brent and Lucy will do.

What my team will do.

My niece and nephew have lost everything and they need someone to be strong for them. Someone to hold it together when they lose it—which they’ve been doing a lot over the last few days, understandably. How can I be strong for them if I let myself be weak with Emerson?

And then there’s the team. We’re 6-0 right now, which is a damn fine record considering the teams we’ve taken on so far this season. I’m team captain—the last thing they need is for me to start fucking up because I can’t get my shit together.

Which means I have to hold it together. And to do that, I have to stay away from Emerson, at least for a while longer. Until I’m no longer faking it. Until I’m strong enough to keep my shit together for real.

But right now, I can’t even think about keeping my shit together. All I can think about is trying to take my next breath. And the next one. And maybe, just maybe, the one after that.

Desperate to connect with something besides my own rage and pain, I kick my shoes off. Take off my socks. And dig my toes into the cold sand.

Relief sweeps through me, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough. I shrug out of my suit jacket, drop it on the sand. Unstrangle myself from the green tie Heather gave me a couple of years ago. Then, not giving a shit about what’s left of my Tom Ford suit, I walk straight into the ocean until the water is lapping at my knees.

It’s still not enough. But, short of drowning myself, I’m out of options. So I stand there, bent over, hands braced on my knees, and try to find my fucking balance. Try to find a way to breathe.

“Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?”