Page 284 of Her Reluctant Hero
“You were up there on the mountain. You think I was just going to sit in camp and wait till the fire blew over so I could retrieve your body? You couldn’t have survived on your own. I was your only chance.”
Her shoulders dropped. He’d seen people collapse on themselves in grief, and he knew what was coming. No matter what he said, she was leaving.
The coughing seized him and he doubled over as his lungs tried to come up through his windpipe. Peyton scrambled into action. She grabbed at his shoulders, leaned him forward to stuff pillows behind his back, and shoved a glass of water in his face. He slapped it aside, sending it sloshing over her hand and onto the bed, then glared at her, trying to make her understand.
“It was bad,” he wheezed when he could, “but it’s over.”
“It’s not!” Her voice rang out in the room, and the volume of her own vehemence seemed to shock her. Every line in her body screamed tension. “You’re going to go back up. Someone else won’t be able to survive without you rescuing them. You couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t go. And if I hold you back, I’ll lose you too.”
The difficulty he had breathing now had nothing to do with the smoke he’d swallowed on the mountain. He didn’t want to hear it, not when his feelings for her were so new. His temper rose as his heart sank, like a counterweight.
“I’m not Dan,” he growled, wishing it didn’t hurt so much to talk.
“No, you’re Gabe Cooper, Hot Shot of all Hot Shots.” She whirled on him, eyes bright, her movements jerky with emotion. He wanted to go to her, draw her into his arms, soothe her, but he could barely sit up. Not the best way to convince her he was healthy. “The mountain calls you. You’re going to fight fire until it kills you.”
“I can stop.” He couldn’t believe the words came out of his mouth. He hadn’t realized he’d do anything to keep her with him.
She was stunned silent for a minute before she shook her head. She wouldn’t look in his eyes, which was probably just as well. He couldn’t imagine the pain that had to be there, the desperation. It couldn’t be pretty.
“You can’t, and I won’t ask you to. But don’t ask me to stay.”
“What we have between us, Peyton, it isn’t casual sex. You said you love me.” The words were raw as panic clawed at him, smothering the physical pain.
“I do.” She stood and approached the bed, tried to smile, but the sentiment was washed away by the tears streaking down her cheeks. “I do. I wish to hell I didn’t, because this would be so much easier.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, clutching his arm at the same time. When she opened her eyes, he saw her resolve, and it cut him in two.
“But I can’t do this again. I have to protect myself. It’s selfish, but I won’t survive losing you. And I won’t ask you to be less than who you are. You’d hate me for it, and I couldn’t survive that, either.”
Tears burned his own eyes, blurred his vision, and he couldn’t blame his pain for being unable to speak. But the words to convince her to stay wouldn’t come.
She was right.
Damn it, he’d been a fool to fall in love with her—not because she was a reporter, but because she’d been destroyed once by losing the man she loved. If he was a hero, he’d let her go. “I love you,” he managed, watching helplessly as Peyton gathered her fire shirt. She stiffened for just a moment before continuing with her task.
“Gabe, you’re up! Can we come in?” Jen asked from the doorway. Then, “Oops.”
Gabe barely spared her a glance, his eyes on Peyton. She walked over to the bed, took his face in her hands, stroked his cheeks. She gazed into his eyes a long moment and through his tears he saw a pain echoing his own before she kissed him goodbye. Her lips were soft and dry, and gone before he could reach up to hold her to him.
She turned and walked out.
*****
Peyton was in no shape to speak to Jen, or Doug, who stood in the doorway behind his wife, and shoved past them, hating the desperation forcing her to flee. She pushed through the waiting Bear Claws. If she hesitated even one moment, she would turn and run back to Gabe. And immerse herself in the hell of being in love with a man who couldn’t live without danger.
She couldn’t be a hero. She couldn’t even love one.
She’d nearly separated herself from it in her mind, nearly separated Gabe from the risks he took. But the last twenty-four hours, on the mountain, in the hospital, brought it all into sharp focus, the memories of Dan’s death kicking in and overwhelming her. She understood completely that she was freaking out and behaving irrationally, but if this was the only chance she had to make a break from Gabe, she had to take it. She couldn’t live that way again.
“Peyton! How is he?” a man’s voice asked behind her as she headed toward the elevators.
She didn’t slow to see who was calling her. One of his crew, probably. They could find out from Jen. She had to get out of here right now. Footsteps echoed behind her and she picked up the pace. Escape was foremost in her mind.
A wall of men in suits stopped her exit and she looked up in surprise at the human barrier. The men looked down at her without blinking, their faces implacable. Alarm raising the hair on her arms, she tried to swerve around them, but the wall blocked her on one side, a waiting-room chair on the other. A hand on her arm had her whirling, trying to jerk free. Then she froze, face to face with the president of the United States.
“How is he? Cooper?”
Why was President Hutchinson in this hospital, dressed in yellow and green Nomex fire gear, for God’s sake, and why was he asking about Gabe with a touch of desperation? Had he been the one calling her? The president knew her name.
