Page 50 of Fireworks
And the ropes tightened when, right as she pressed the call button, her phone screen went black.
Dead. She hadn’t had time to charge it this morning between rooting through the cupboards for swimsuits and towels.
“Of fluffing course you’re out of battery. Why wouldn’t you be?” She threw the phone down on the passenger seat, sucking in a long breath. It was fine. She just needed to have a cry, maybe follow it up with an existential crisis, and finish with complete disillusionment. And then she’d get out of the van and go home, and her children’s smiling faces would make it all better until the next thing went wrong, and the next, and she would always be just a little bit tired.
Maybe the hour’s walk back to Belbarrow would be good for her, anyway. It would give her chance to collect her composure. She could sit by the loch for a while and try to gain some perspective. She didn’t have to meet Cam for another few hours. For once, she had time.
22
Warren’s feet pounded the pavement at a slower pace than usual. He’d overdone it with work on the house again, especially after the weekend spent tending to the Highland fires, and he intended to flop into his van to nap the afternoon away.
Pushing past the knots in his muscles to jog around the loch was the only way he could trick his body into falling asleep. Sweat trickled down his back and music pounded through his headphones as he tried to focus on the road ahead rather than the awful car accident he’d tended to in the wee hours of the morning, or his next move in the construction process, or how long was appropriate to wait before he could text Eiley again.
As it turned out, he needn’t worry about that last one. He stopped, confused, when her figure emerged between two tall redwoods on the loch’s footpath. What was she doing all the way out here, alone? Was he so tired that his brain was playing tricks on him now? Providing the images he longed to see?
He slipped his headphones down and paused the upbeat Vance Joy song shuffled on his running playlist.
“Eiley!” he called, avoiding the raised tree roots to meet her on the trail. His stomach swooped, her effect on his body tugging ever stronger since the weekend. Even a message from her set him off these days, especially the one he hadn’t been expecting, asking how he’d gotten on with the wildfire. The last time he’d felt so smitten was …
Well, never. That was the bloody problem. He’d been waiting for a connection that would ravage him, rewrite his body, and he’d got one. For the wrong person. A person who couldn’t commit to anything serious.
Startling, Eiley locked her arms around her torso. Her eyes were cloudy and bloodshot. She’d been crying, and the urge to fix it cut through him like glass.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I’m fine. What areyoueven doing here?” She shrugged his hand off her shoulder, letting it fall pathetically to his side. “You’re just …everywhere.”
Great. They were back to treating each other like strangers, like their moment in the woods had never happened.
He wasn’t in the mood for this today. Not even close. “I was on a run. I didn’t realise I needed your permission for that.”
Eiley’s tongue swiped between the seam of her lips as she looked at him – properly, as though that instinct to hate him had receded all at once. Thank fuck, because he wasn’t sure he could deal with it again.
“My van broke down after I dodged a deer,” she admitted.
“Did you crash? Are you hurt?” His hands hovered with the urgent need to check, but were quickly batted away.
“No, I’m fine.”
“And where is it now?” He wiped the sweat from his brow, hoping he didn’t smell as gross as he felt as he put his hands on his hips, though it was likely. His T-shirt clung to his abs, hair brushed messily off his head in all directions. He’d gone straight to the house this morning to chat with the construction workers and ended up sawing wood for the roof’s framework.
“I don’t know. It ran towards the loch. It’s probably long gone.”
He frowned, hiding his amusement. Did she truly think he was more concerned about the unharmed deer than her? “I mean the van, Eiley.”
“Oh … Half a mile back?” she questioned, as though he was the one who was supposed to know. “That’s a lie. I have no concept of distance.”
“Bloody hell. What are you doing wandering out here? You could have got lost! Why didn’t you call m—” He corrected himself quickly with, “Someone?”
“My phone was dead.”
“Of fucking course.” He wanted to shake her until she saw sense, or maybe just kiss her until she didn’t see anything. He couldn’t be sure, but he was annoyed either way, flashes of last night’s car wreckage and the barely adult lad within tormenting him. “Do you realise how ludicrous it is to come out here without a way of contacting anyone? I’m beginning to think that youwantto get yourself into trouble!”
The wrong thing to say, clearly, because that fiery glower returned all at once. “I’ve lived here my whole bloody life,so don’t even start! I’m capable of walking back to town on my own.”
“It doesn’t matter what you’re capable of. Cars race down these country roads without thought!”
“Warren—”
