Swept Away (Wildfire Lake 3)

Xavier doesn’t speak until Lucero is in the elevator and we’re alone. And even then, I have to prod him. “What’s going on? Is Piper in surgery?”

“Yes.” His walls are twenty feet high. I’ve never seen them before, and I’m beginning to understand why everyone who should be afraid of him usually is.

Instead of being relieved, I’m growing even more frantic. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

He paces away from me, hands on hips, then turns to face me and exhales heavily, as if it’s all just too much. “Piper was in some type of challenge with Smith, Dale, and Willow.”

He’s talking like a cop, clean, measured, official, definitely not the man I’ve spent too few nights in bed with. And not my friend either.

“What kind of challenge?” I ask.

“You don’t already know?”

My stomach chills. “No, why would I know? And why are you using an accusatory tone?”

“Maybe because the last words she said to me were ‘It’s not Chloe’s fault.’”

I gasp, and my hand flattens on my heart. “She’s… Last words…?” I look around for some indication that she’s not dead but in surgery. I return my gaze to Xavier. “Stop talking to me like a cop and just tell me”—I put one hand out and ticked off my demands—“what is Piper’s status right now, what is her prognosis, when will surgery be over, and what the fuck happened?”

I yell the last, tears on my cheeks, my body trembling.

He tells me about the break-in at the dispensary and why she’d done it. Tells me about her injury and how serious it is. Tells me again about Piper’s last words before going into the ambulance. “You knew Piper was hanging with those kids. You knew she was cutting school and smoking with them. You know how hard I was trying to keep her on the right path, yet you deliberately kept all that from me.”

“Just because I caught them cutting school and smoking,” I say, “doesn’t mean I knew anything other than they were cutting school and smoking. I didn’t know anything about any game. I told her that she’s not like the other kids, that she has people who love her, especially you. I reminded her of just what you gave up to be here with her and that she should act like she appreciates your sacrifice.”

He crosses his arms and lifts his chin in a way that’s both knowing and accusatory. I’m getting a firsthand look at the reason so many people are intimidated by him. “You didn’t know about them passing drugs.”

I pull in a breath to say no, but realize I can’t. “I only found out about that today. I told her she had to tell you as soon as you were off work, or I would.”

His arms drop, his hand

s dig into his hips. “Why didn’t you tell me right then and there? Why didn’t you pick up your phone and call me right that second?”

“Because you were working.” We’re both yelling now. “And it wasn’t my story to tell, it was Piper’s.”

“You should have known I’d want to know immed—” He stops midsentence and darkness crosses his eyes like a shadow. “You knew all this when you called me this afternoon. You called to see if Piper had told me yet.”

“I was worried about how you’d take it. How she would respond.” I throw a hand toward him. “And this is exactly why.”

He takes one big step toward me, but I’m not afraid. I’ve never been afraid of Xavier. Only right now, I sure as shit can see my heart teetering on a cliff ledge.

“If you’d told me when it happened, if you’d told me when you called today, I could have stopped the break-in. Hell, if you’d told me the day you saw her cutting and smoking with those fuckers, I could have intervened even earlier.” He slashes his arm toward the OR. “Then maybe she wouldn’t be in there right now.”

Pain cuts through me in a hot swath, and I fall back a step. Then another. I can tell by his expression those words also hurt him. Maybe even shocked him. But he’s right. If I had told him everything I knew, maybe the whole trajectory of Piper’s immediate future would have shifted. Maybe she wouldn’t be in a life-threatening surgery.

“You know how important she is to me,” he says, voice low and shaking. “You know, more than anyone, the challenges I have with her. I explicitly told you she was being secretive and that I was worried about it. You were supposed to be helping me with her, not keeping her secrets.”

Someone comes into the waiting area—a man dressed in blue scrubs wearing a stern expression. “We can hear you all the way in the back of the department.”

He’s scolding, but I guess we deserve it.

Xavier pushes his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. Is there any word on Piper Tenley?”

“I’ll check and send a nurse out to talk to you. Just keep it down. You’re not helping anyone by yelling.”

He turns to head back through a set of double doors just as the elevator dings and Piper’s mother hurries in, disheveled and emotional. She stops and studies Xavier’s face.

“She’s still in surgery.” His words are soft and sweet and patient, yet they hurt me even more than his yelling did. “We’re going to hear more soon. Someone’s going to come talk to us.”