She climbed into my Jeep with a wary look on her face.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked for the millionth time.
She nodded. “I’m safe. I know I am. Just… don’t get too far ahead of me, okay?”
I swallowed down the lump that formed in my throat and then put the Jeep in drive. “Tell me something.”
“About?”
“Um, well.” Small talk was more difficult than it looked. “Is it just you and your ex in the band?” I knew the answer to this question already, but hey, it was a start.
She shook her head. “There’re three other guys too. All Brits.”
“How’d you end up with a bunch of stuffy British guys?”
She grinned. “Nothing stuffy about these guys. They like to fight almost as much as they like to rock out. Niall, Jules and Ewan.” She smiled wistfully. “I miss them. They were like the big brothers I never had. They sort of adopted me and showed me the ropes. They never really wanted to get big, though. That was all Killian.” She paused for a second. “I can’t wait to be able to safely return their calls. Thank you for that, Derek.”
“Stop thanking me,” I begged.
She laughed. “How do you even know how to do stuff like that?”
How much should I, could I, tell her? I was asking her to trust me, but could I trust her? “I picked it up here and there.”
“Right.” She laughed again. “Fine, keep your secrets.”
“I’m better at secrets than small talk.”
“That’s fine with me.” She turned to the window. Trees still thickly crowded the side of the road, but up ahead, the landscape was opening up, giving the first glimpse of the deep blue ribbon of Ganagua Lake. Aria sighed. “It’s so pretty here.”
“It is.”
“I always meant to come back.”
I could hear the years of hurt layered onto her voice. “You’re here now.”
“Yeah, but at what cost? My parents hate me. My band, the guys I think of as my brothers, they think I bailed on them for no reason.” Her voice trembled. “I’ve fucked every single thing up.”
I reached over and took her hand. She looked down at it, and then up at me, alarmed. “Not every thing,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re pretty good at piano.”
She laughed, then twisted in her seat and stared at me. “Do you remember me? From back then?”
“You mean high school?”
She nodded.
I took a deep breath. “This is going to sound bad.”
“Can’t be worse than the last voicemail I got.”
“I think I do.”
“You do what?”
“Remember you.”
“You think?” The slump to her shoulders was barely perceptible, but I saw it just the same.
“Aria,” I said. “I’m an alcoholic.”
“No you’re not.”
“I am.”
“You just liked to party.”
“Yes, I did. But I also needed to as well. What you saw? That was me falling apart slowly, piece by piece. I remember you. Yeah. Little flashes of the prettiest girl in school.”
I caught a glimpse of her cheeks as they flushed prettily. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do. But I was too busy drinking myself to death to say hi. I missed out on the chance to know you. ” I reached over and took her hand. She looked at me startled, and then down at her hand with the kind of private smile I wanted to see over and over again. “But I really want to get to know you now.“
She took a deep breath. “Then it’s a pretty good thing we’re going on a hike together, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I nodded. “A very good thing.”
“No one else around.”
“I fucking hope not,” I growled.
“Just you and me…getting to know each other.”
“We’re here,” I said, taking the turn too sharply. I clenched my fist and forced myself to think of math class, Mrs. Collis, that one long hair that stuck out of Mr. Green’s nose…
Some of the blood flowed back into my brain and I could think again.
I shut my door and hurried over to the passenger side. “You don’t have to open the door for me,” Aria complained as she slid from the seat.
Then she shivered dramatically. “Holy crap it got colder.”
“You going to be warm enough?” I asked, offering my jacket.
“Is it a hard hike?” She pushed my jacket back.
“We can take the long way around through the woods, rather than going up through the falls.”
“Through?” She raised her eyebrows. “I’m impressed. Mountain man.”
I draped my jacket over her shoulders. “Come on,” I said. “You need to see this.”
She followed me into the woods.
The trail was well marked with bright yellow blazes on the tree trunks. Afternoon sunlight filtered down through the tops of the trees, casting a golden light on the forest floor. I could hear Aria’s breath coming faster as we started the sharp ascent upward. I reached behind me and closed my hand around hers, helping her hop from rock to rock.
She moved like a dancer, weaving lightly on the balls of her feet, but she was as sure-footed as a mountain goat. It was clear she was in incredible shape, and more than once I had to look away as my thoughts traveled to what her body looked like under those clothes.
It didn’t help that I could picture it exactly.
I’d told her she was safe with me, but she made me feel like a wolf in charge of a lamb. I hadn't spent three years doing penance for my sins only to commit brand new ones at the first opportunity.
The sound of falling water grew louder with each step. The forest thinned out. “Through here,” I said, gesturing for her to come off the trail before it wound us away from the banks of the creek.
“We’re going near the water?”
“How else are we going to see the view? Isn’t that what we came up here for?”
I saw her hesitate and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was thinking. The view was not at all what I had come up here for. She was expecting me to make a move. That was the Derek she knew.
But he was dead and I was here in his place.
And I wasn’t going to be another man who caused her pain.