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Her fingers twisted in the smattering of dark hair on his chest as they lay together on the beach.
“So, are you going to tell me what that was all about?” she asked him, unable to just let things go. “I thought we’d gotten over all of this controlling business.”
His hand closed over the top of hers. “I wasn’t trying to control you, Charlie. I was trying to keep you safe.”
“I realize that, and I’m sorry I’m so hot-headed about things. I’ve been judged my whole life, and I hate that you think I’m some useless, stereotypical blonde, too.”
“I don’t think that about you. You know I don’t.”
“So why the over protectiveness?”
“I’m not ...” He trailed off, his hand subconsciously reaching to rub the scar on the bridge of his nose. He was shutting down on her again, and she was certain if she knew what he was hiding, she’d be able to understand him.
She pushed herself up to prop herself on her elbow and look down at him. “Talk to me, damn it. If things are ever going to work between us, then you need to talk to me.”
“I ...” He hesitated again, as if needing to force the words out. “I just can’t stand the thought of losing someone else I love.”
“Love?”
But he didn’t answer.
“Who did you lose, Tyler?” she asked gently. “Does it have anything to do with the scar you keep rubbing?”
He snatched his hand down and wouldn’t meet her eye. She waited. He finally lifted his eyes to hers, and she saw a deep sadness, and something else, a haunting that frightened her. It was that haunting she needed to know about. That was at the cause of how he acted.
“Tell me,” she pleaded. “Just tell me.”
“You’ll hate me if I do.”
“I won’t, Tyler. I could never hate you.”
“Okay,” he said, defeated. “I guess you have the right to know. But if you do decide you hate me, I completely understand. I hate myself enough.”
“Tyler,” she started. But he lifted a hand to stop her and pushed himself to sitting. She moved herself to sit beside him.
“I was married once, a long time ago. We got married right out of high school, and everyone told us we were too young, that it would all go badly. But I was in the Marines, and we wanted to set up home. I wanted to know I had someone waiting for me, wherever I was stationed, whatever dangers I encountered. But it wasn’t just that. We were in love, truly in love, not just some kind of young puppy love. She liked doing all the same things I did. She was outdoorsy, enjoyed adventurous stuff.” He gave a slight shrug. “Anyway, a couple of years passed and we were still happy. Sure, we had the occasional fight, but what couples don’t? The time came when I had some leave and we had a little money saved up, so we decided to do something exciting and head to a ski resort I knew in Wyoming. I convinced her to go off-piste, told her it would be a thrill. Except it all went wrong. The snow was too powdery. It sent her flying into the air and she hit a hidden rock. She was wearing a helmet but it wasn’t enough. She had bleeding on the brain. She fell into a coma for three days and then was taken off life support. She didn’t make it.”
“Oh, Tyler. I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t as if it was your fault.”
“But what about the scar? You said that would make me hate you?” She was confused.
“I let her go first. I should have scoped the track, let her come after me, but I was trying to push her. We were racing each other. When she hit the rock, I didn’t know how bad it was. I was still heading downhill, but I turned my head to see what had happened and I saw her lying, half-buried in the snow. I tried to stop, but the snow was so powdery, I just drove my skis deeper. She wasn’t that far away from me, but trying to get uphill in the powder was almost impossible. It took me almost a half hour, while she was lying, in the freezing cold, not moving. I called out her name over and over. I could even see the piste from where we were. People were skiing past us, I could see them through the trees and bushes, but no one heard me or saw her. I finally reached her and I unclipped her skis and tried to carry her toward the piste, yelling for someone to help us the whole time. I fell while I was carrying her, smacked my face against a tree.” He touched the bridged of his nose where the scar was and the slight disjoint in the shape. “But that didn’t matter. I think I hit her head at the same time. I can’t be certain, but I probably made her head injury worse. I could have been what killed her.”
“You don’t know that, Tyler.” Her eyes had filled with tears at his story. She only wanted to make him feel better, to offer him some kind of comfort. This was the guilt he had carried around with him for so long, that he’d been the cause of his young wife’s death.
But Tyler didn’t want to hear it. “It was my fault, whether the fall made things worse or not. It was my idea to go off-piste and then I goaded her to go faster. I always wanted more—bigger, faster, scarier—whatever was the biggest adrenaline rush. My need for adrenaline caused her death.”
“She was a grown woman, Tyler, and you said you guys were into the same thing. If that was the case, then she was probably chasing her own adrenaline rush. It wasn’t your fault.”
He turned to look at her, his dark eyes fathomless and focused on hers. “Charlie, I didn’t tell you this to try to get you to convince me of that. Nothing you say will ever make me stop wishing I’d lived that day differently.
Of course. She was thinking too much of herself if she thought a few simple words would change years of guilt he’d been carrying around with him.
“The reason I told you,” he continued, “is because I want you to understand why I act the way I do around you sometimes. I’m terrified of losing you, Charlie. I’m terrified of history repeating itself and me making a mistake that takes your life.”
She touched the back of his hand gently. “I’m an adult, Tyler. You’re not responsible for me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m here because I was employed to take care of you, remember?”
“That was a lifetime ago. Everything’s changed since then. I’ve changed since then. We’re equals, Tyler. Partners. You’re not responsible for my survival. Only I can be responsible for that. I didn’t even realize until now. My whole life I’ve been relying on other people to support me and get me out of holes I’ve been in. But not anymore.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. It’s not because I was employed to take care of you that I feel the way I do, that this situation has brought all those feelings from years ago rushing back, that I’ve been acting like a huge controlling, over-protective jerk. It’s because I love you, Charlie. No one has made me feel the way I feel about you for a long, long time. I can’t help being overprotective. I’m so terrified that at any minute I’m going to lose you. I don’t think I’d recover if that happened.”
She stared at him, tears filling her eyes once more but for a whole different reason this time. “You love me?”
He nodded. “Pretty much from the moment I saw you wearing those stupid little shoes on the runway.”
She pressed her lips together, trying to suppress her emotions, but they all burst out at once, laughing, crying. She flung herself into his arms, wrapping her own arms around his neck and pressing her face into his broad throat. “I thought you were checking me out,” she spoke against his skin. “And then you told me off for my footwear.”
“I was checking you out. I had to hide it somehow.”
She laughed again and smacked him on the shoulder. “I knew it!”
He smiled at her and took her hand. “So what about you, Charlie? What do you want from life?”
She shrugged. “All I’ve ever wanted is a family around me. To have somewhere I feel like I’m wanted. To know that whatever happens, I’ll have people who are there for me. Right now I have no one.”
He pulled away from her, stared into her eyes, and spoke softly. “You have me.”