She’d ended up at the Crawford home. She shouldn’t be surprised. Heidi was drawn to them like a moth to a flame, a bee to pollen, a bear to honey, or whatever appropriate cliché someone wanted to associate with it. It was more than the random text from Connie, inviting her to a homemade dinner—Connie knew Heidi’s welcome was outlived at Brad and Vicki’s—it was the idea of family. Heidi had to remind herself that she couldn’t expect to simply insert herself into a functional family unit, and yet here she was, leaning back in an overstuffed chair and playing Risk with Emma.
Venison steaks off the grill consumed, along with a spinach and strawberry vinaigrette salad, followed up with a slice of rhubarb pie. It was all so . . . homespun. Especially since Murphy was out in the yard, putzing around with an old chainsaw he’d picked up at a garage sale, and Connie was doing a crossword puzzle on the sofa just to the right of Heidi and Emma. It was the opposite of Heidi’s life. She was edgy, her burns and cuts stung, her mother’s words echoed in her ears, and the questions plagued her with dogged persistence.
Couldn’t she ignore it all for one night? One night of blissful peace? Just pretend that she was—somehow—a Crawford, and the hardest obstacle ahead of her was how to overtake the territory of Western Europe. And how to ignore Rhett. Firefighter Rhett. Volunteer firefighter.
He was like the proverbial hero. Brawny, grouchy, earthy, and . . . fireman-y. But for all his Hulk-smashing, the green skin was wearing off and he was becoming a man. Just—a man. That was perhaps even more dangerous. Heidi wasn’t in the right emotional state to ward off dangerous. It was good he was outside and not sulking in the corner. Good that the ball he was throwing to Rüger just beyond the window was green and reminded her of his grumpy side. Good that he had stopped and looked at her through the window and . . .
Heidi tore her eyes away.
Emma stared at her, a questioning look in her eyes. “It’s your turn.”
Connie glanced up.
Heidi cleared her throat. “Yes.” She picked up a die. “I’ll roll one and attack Western Europe.”
Emma gave her a smile of satisfaction that the game was on.
She lost the attack.
Heidi sighed. Figures.
“Heidi.” Rhett’s voice cut through the room. Heidi started, and a few of her armies tipped over. Emma reached to right them.
“Yeah?” Heidi eyed him, very aware that Connie was looking between them.
There was a weird tension in the air, as though something had shifted. She didn’t know what or why. But for some reason, she saw him differently now. Maybe that was it. He had calmed her after the spray-painted ominous message at the asylum ruins, and he’d tackled her during the fire, and somehow his force had shown her he had more control over the situation than she did. Why did she like that? She’d no desire to be dominated. No. It wasn’t domination. Far from it. It was that he was logical and capable of handling such moments when she clearly wasn’t. When she was jumpy and on the verge of tears. The yin to her yang.
“Come outside,” he said. Another directive, but spoken in his no-nonsense voice that communicated nothing other than a suggestion but without the extra words.
Heidi looked to Emma, who smiled. “It’s okay,” Emma said.
She didn’t seem disturbed by the fact they were leaving the game unfinished. Probably because it was Rhett. Heidi was learning that Emma would make just about any adjustment for Rhett. He was her safe person.
Heidi studied Rhett’s broad back as she followed him outside. She frowned at herself. She wanted a safe person too.
She always had.
They rounded the house to the backyard that was bordered by woods. A square block with five black circles on it sat at the edge of the woods, with a few hay bales piled behind it. Rhett paused about twenty yards away, and Heidi noticed two hooks jammed into the ground, bows hanging from them.
She gave Rhett a raised eyebrow. “Are you going hunting?”
Rhett leaned over and lifted one of the bows from its hanger. It was black with neon-pink strings, an arrow already mounted on it, wrapped with neon-pink wraps.
“Target practice.” He ran a thumb over the pink fletching on the arrow. “It’s how I de-stress.”
“De-stress,” Heidi echoed. Shoot things with a bow and arrow. Yes. This was the Northwoods of Wisconsin.
Rhett met her eyes. His gaze was frank and open. “You need to unwind.”
That was obvious. Heidi rolled her eyes and gave him a silly smile. “You think?”
She wanted to cry.
Rhett glossed over her retort and the underlying emotion. He looked down at the bow. “This is Emma’s. She’s okay with you using it. It’s set to pull back forty pounds. Let’s see if you can.”
Heidi blinked incredulously. The man was serious. “I’ve no clue how to shoot an arrow.”
“I know.” Rhett extended the bow toward her.
She stepped back. “My hand.” Waving it toward him, her hand bandaged from the, thankfully, minor burns she’d received from the fire.
“The grip rests between your thumb and forefinger. You don’t have to strangle it.” He demonstrated and then handed her the bow.
Heidi took the bow by its grip and steadied herself, surprised by the fact it wasn’t as heavy as she’d expected. He was right. It balanced remarkably well, and she didn’t need to grasp it with the full embrace of her hand.
“Give me your right hand.” Again with the commands.
Heidi held out her hand, and her palm instantly warmed when Rhett took it and slipped a black—thingy—over her wrist. It had a metal clasp that dangled from it.
“This is the release,” he explained, buckling it around her wrist like a watchband. “Pull back on the trigger here with your thumb and clip onto the D-loop on the bowstring. It might rub your burn a bit when you do this, ’cause you have to hold the grip tighter. Raise the bow and don’t throttle the grip. The arrow’s in the rest, so when ready, see if you can pull back the string.”
“Just like that?” Heidi had no idea what he was talking about. “There’s got to be a better way to do this.”
A tiny smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “There is. But you don’t have the patience for it.”
She tilted her head and glowered at him. “Really?”
“Just pull it back.” He neared her, the bow between them, and he positioned himself, like he was ready to grab her forearm and help her pull back the string.
But he didn’t.
Heidi pulled. Nothing happened. She gave him a doubtful look. “It won’t move.”
Rhett gave her a gray stare. “You need to really pull it.”
“I am!” She argued, half laughing, half whining.
Rhett shook his head. “It uses a distinct set of muscles to pull back a bowstring. But you should be able to pull back forty pounds.”
“How would you know?” Heidi retorted.
Rhett’s eyebrows creased inward. “Because I had to pin you down outside the cabin when it was on fire, and you just about clocked me with a right hook. So, pull it back.”
“Fine.” Heidi refocused, and this time she pulled the string back. Her arm quivered. She couldn’t get the string over the crux of the pull.
“Too hard?” he asked. It was a sincere question, not taunting. He reached toward her arm to assist, but paused when Heidi gave her head a stubborn shake.
“No.” Heidi put a few more grunts into her tug until the string was all the way back. “Holy wow! This is hard to hold.”
Rhett was intent on the bow and her form. Or what little form she had.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Forty pounds might be too hard since you’re not used to it. The draw length should be good, though. You’re about Emma’s arm span.”
“Okay, fine. What do I do now?” Heidi gasped, her arm shaking from the exertion of holding back the string.
“Look through the peep, line up the first pin in the sight, and release it. At the block.”
“What?” Heidi half hollered at him. Did he think she knew something—anything—about archery? Because she didn’t.
“Aim and release,” he barked.
She closed an eye and saw some glowing green pin in a round thing, aimed her arrow, and released the trigger. The string instantly let go. The arrow shot through the dusk and cleared the target, sticking instead into a hay bale behind it.
Heidi spun, the bow in hand, and gave a well-deserved slap to Rhett’s shoulder with her other hand. “You’re horrid.” She was peeved, and added to that, mortified and embarrassed.
Rhett reached for the bow.
Heidi swapped it to her right hand, as her burns were starting to sting. She pulled it away from him and leveled him with a glare. “No. I don’t need to be made a fool of. Not today. Not ever.”
“You’re not a fool.” Rhett sidestepped her and tugged the bow from her grip.
“Then what was this? A lesson in how to look stupid?”
“Nope.” Rhett hung the bow on its stand. “C’mon.” He hiked toward the hay bale.
Heidi chased after him. “This is no de-stressor, if that’s what you’re thinking. My arm hurts! Not to mention, I doubt anyone learns how to use a bow without a good lesson on the parts of a bow!” She hissed the last words. “You even said there was an easier way!”
Rhett was at the hay bale now. He reached up and pushed his left hand against it as he yanked the arrow from the hay with his right.
“You’re right.” He turned and stared down at her, holding the arrow against his leg. “There is. It’s called a lesson.”
Heidi was suddenly aware of how tall he was. She opened her mouth to argue, then snapped it shut.
“But this is how you do life.” His words pierced her like the arrow. “You’re obstinate. You don’t want to be taught.”
“What do you mean?” Fine. He had some overarching point he wanted to make?
Then go ahead, Rhett Crawford, make it.
“You just do stuff—without first thinking it through.”
“Whatever.” Heidi was finished with this conversation. She spun on her heel to stalk back to the house. It was annoying how perceptive he was—oh, and that he was right.
“Then you ignore it and walk away,” he added.
Heidi stopped, her back to him.
“You’ve got to stop, Heidi. Just stop.”
She heard him come up behind her. There it was. The hand on her arm, turning her toward him. Darn it. Heidi dropped her gaze to the grass beneath their feet. Her eyes burned with tears. It was what her family had always told her, and yet for some reason it sounded different coming from Rhett.
“The same way you won’t learn how to shoot with a bow by just doing it, you won’t figure out what’s going on here—in Pleasant Valley—with your family by jumping in and being reckless. When you get hurt, you shut down. But if you’d just slow down, if you’d let people help you, if you’d . . .” He stopped, almost as if the words took too much energy to spit out.
Heidi looked up.
Rhett’s expression was intense. She couldn’t look away. For the first time, for real, she saw what Connie had meant when she said he’d muscle his way in like a bear, but that he really, truly wanted to rescue.
“Let me help you,” he finished, a sigh following his declaration, as though his words were lame.
But they weren’t lame. Heidi felt her chin quiver. She pressed her lips together and looked past him at the hay bale and archery target. Tears escaped, and she wrapped her arms around herself.
“No one wants me,” she whispered. Aware she almost sounded like a wounded toddler who’d lost her way in a supermarket. “I saw a woman—at the fire, Rhett. I really did, whether anyone believes me or not.” Heidi lifted her eyes, not trying to hide the tears this time. “She pulled me out. She looks like that old picture in the album. I tried to talk to my mom. She’s completely losing it and thinks I’m dead. Maybe I am—to her. I don’t know. And Vicki thinks I’m nuts. Heck, I think I’m nuts. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t know where I belong, I don’t know who I am—who my family is. I’m a mess, Rhett. I’m such a mess!”
Her last words released in a choked sob.
Rhett drew her toward him. She stumbled, resisting at first. He gave another tug, the arrow dropping to the ground at his feet. Then her face was buried in his chest.
And, he was safe.