Page 73 of The Ripple Effect

But now Lyle’s lips tell me, “If all Fisher’s team has is our geographical locations, they have nothing that matters. They don’t have my field notes. They don’t have our teachings or debriefings. Our clients signed NDAs; we can sue them if they steal our confidential course information. I can’t believe anyone here is a criminal. Can you?”

He hasn’t learned what my dad taught me at age ten: it’s only a crime if you get caught, and laws only matter if you have the power to see them enforced. If we go bankrupt, who’ll pay the lawyers to sue Fisher? No one.

He’s right, though. We have no evidence beyond chance meetings and bad feelings, and I don’t think the Mounties believe in a sense of doom the way we do in medicine.

“I believe you, Stellar. I trust your instincts. But I can’t chase after someone in anger—not ever again. Andwe,” he says, landinghard on the pronoun, “can’t live like this. We can’t spend our lives holding our arms over the things we create, or we won’t be able to build anything new. We’re making more than a one-size-fits-all curriculum that we can recycle over and over. You and I are special together. We’ll create something unique every time. They can’t take that away.”

“But what if the Love Boat dies? What if Fisher kills it?” I hate my voice for shaking.

He presses his broad, hard palm to mine, intertwining our fingers. I can feel the scars that mark his fingertips where they curl around the back of my hand. “Then you and I will be all right.”

Lyle doesn’t understand. He was able to get out of his PhD program and make a career. He recovered.

“What if I’m not all right?” I whisper, the words small and fearful. “I wasn’t last time. And if the Love Boat dies, I can’t afford to stay in Grey Tusk. I’ll have to leave town. Leave Liz.”Leave you, my heart whispers.

“I hope this place doesn’t die.” His voice is so kind. Gentle, like I mean something to him. “But if it does, you won’t die.”

“But somethingdoesdie,” I say urgently. “They kill a part of you. You’re not the same after that.”

I’ve been undead for a year. Angry and afraid and ashamed for ayear. Unable to forgive the people who were supposed to have my back, unable to forgive myself for trusting them.

“You deserved better, Stellar. I won’t minimize how shitty it was for you. But I believe all the best parts of you are still there, waiting. I see them, every day. You can put yourself back together. Surgically, if you have to.”

My laugh has the short wet sound of someone who’s not quite crying.

“I don’t want to burn our days and nights thinking aboutwhat they’re doing. Let’s makeusthe best we can be,” Lyle murmurs, tempting me to soften in the face of his openhandedness. But some last fragment of wrath ignites, its fire just hot enough to help me resist. I can’t go along to get along the way I did at the hospital, ignoring the signs because people I shouldn’t have trusted reassured me everything was fine.

Even if this time it’s Lyle telling me everything is fine.

“I want to call Sharon. I’ll take the fall if my suspicions are wrong, but I want her to know what we’ve been seeing.”

“We’ve covered this, Stellar. Sharon can’t do anything.”

“But there must besomething. What if we went public?”

“If we go public, we expose ourselves. We’re faking our engagement, for—”

“It’s not fake!”

He shoots me a pained look. “So you proposed because you love me? And you’re definitely planning to marry me?”

I draw back, stung. He knows it’s too soon. I promised him my best; what more can I give?

“Okay then,” he says, releasing my hand to rub his eyes. “At the very least, our relationship history won’t stand up to serious examination. Any press coverage could also expose your reputation in the medical community, however unfair and unearned. My juvenile record, too. Plus the fact that our celebrity endorsement is coming from your sister. I’m not trying to be an asshole, Stellar, but I have some experience with crisis public relations that you might not. Once your reputation gets cemented, sometimes nothing can change it. Not even the truth.”

I press my lips together on a wave of nausea. He’s right again: we’re vulnerable, and a lot of our weak spots are my fault. I put a foot wrong—atoewrong—with the milk and lost my job. What would happen if everything Lyle listed became public knowledge?

Still. “One more thing.Onemore suspicious thing happens with Fisher, and we call Sharon, fallout or no fallout.”

“Deal.” Lyle eases out of our sleeping bag, leaving me shivering with the rush of cold, damp air. “I’ll start the hot water. You stay here. Get an extra ten minutes of sleep,” he says, tucking me in so I’m cozy and contained like a kitten curled in a hat.

He only has to press his big hands on my shoulders, my ribs, my hip bones, and I’m hypnotized into a half slumber.

We didn’t get to discuss what Mitch knows about Sloane, but what could he do about that, even if he wanted to? I’ll wear sunglasses and stick my hair under a hat so Sloane and I look as different as possible.

And the minute we get back from the overnight, I’ll call Sharon. Once the guests are safely checked out, we’ll have a week and change to deal with fucking Fisher. He won’t be able to follow us on the capstone trip, anyway—not after we changed our campsite at the last minute to better accommodate Lori.

It’s reasonable to wait. Lyle will hold on to what matters. We’ll be all right.I say it to myself again, then again, repeating it like a mantra until it’s time to get up.

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