A Fire That Burns (24 page)

“You remembered?” Austin asked. She continued to remember how they
shared the deadly mound of ice cream before collapsing against one another. It
might have been sickly, but every time it rained, that was their first port of
call.

As the nurse and doctor came in with Jane, Tyler’s smile electrified so
much that it was infectious. “With you, Aus, I remember everything. Especially
when our freezer hosted a home for more ice cream than any other food,” he
teased her gushingly and watched her just smile brightly.

Austin didn’t know if it was the fever, or the drugs that were still
flying through her blood stream, but again she went on impulse. She grabbed
Tyler with her good arm and kissed him as though it was her only life line
left. She wanted to recapture a love she had come back thinking was lost. She
wanted to finally give herself wholly to Tyler now she knew there was nothing
to stop them.

 
   
Now she wanted to get home more than ever.

Chapter Forty-Two

NOT
fair, Knucklehead!”
Austin whined as she watched Tyler chuckle from his end of the bed.

Snapping into seriousness, Tyler gave her a look, “Knucklehead?” he
asked her and then moved to go towards her. “
Gonna
call me that again?”

Giggling, she watched him lean in closer, “
Knucklehead
,” she
whispered to him at his command, her voice tinkering on seductive. The moment
the word ended, Tyler was kissing her. His lips pressed to hers in a heavy and
hard manner. The greediness they both exhibited was almost like they were
trying to make up for the six years they had lost. Austin moaned in disapproval
as he pulled back, but she managed a few more kisses before letting him go
completely. “It’s been a while since I got to call someone that and got a kiss
for it.”

“I never thought I’d get away from that nickname so long as you lived,”
Tyler replied jokingly, but his smirk slackened as he took in her still pallor
complexion, “You feeling okay? You look a little flushed, Baby.”

“I’m fine,” she told him, batting away his concern. “Just a little warm
that’s all.”

Leaning back in, Tyler put his palm to her forehead and frowned heavily.
“You’re more than a little warm, Aus. You’re boiling hot.”

“Can I blame it on being in a fire?” Austin asked him innocently, “Or
that I’m just that
smokin
’
hawt
?”

Chuckling, Tyler sat up slowly, “You could, but we all know you’re just
trying to ignore the blatant fact that this infection won’t leave you.” He
watched her groan against the truth, “Believe me, Sunny, if I could say it was
down to your fiery hotness, I so would.”

“Can we be in denial for a moment or two?” she asked him coyly, “Or at
least let me believe so before you go and call a nurse in?”

“Of course we can,” Tyler relented, knowing he could force help on her,
or give her a moment to revel that everything wasn’t quite so bad. “You know I
just want you better though, right?”

Nodding, she looked at him, biting her lip gently, “I do, but I just
want to not have to live with every minute being wrapped in the fact that I’m
in pain, or ill with an infection that has me completely whipped.” She looked
into his eyes and smiled meekly, “I just want a little bit of peace.”

“Soon,” Tyler spoke and was able to make it sound like a deep promise.
“Believe me, soon you will get all the peace you want and you won’t know what
to do with yourself.”

“Build more computer programs,” Austin told him with a smirk. “I do miss
it. It feels like forever since I sat and built a software program from scratch
and managed to do
good
with it. That, and get lost a
little.”

“And get good money for it,” Tyler teased her back. “That new system at
the PD cost a fortune.”

Austin smirked at him pleasingly, “Can’t put a price tag on perfection,
Handsome.”

“Too right!” he exclaimed to her and then gave her a pointed look, “Now
can I go get a nurse?” he watched her purse her lips with readied disapproval.
“You won’t get out of here otherwise.”

Pouting at that, Austin let her shoulders drop, “Fine.” She relented,
then
slumped down into her pillows. “You’re mean for pulling
the going home card on me.”

“
Gotta
be cruel to be kind some days, Aussie,”
Tyler responded before dropping a kiss to her lips and leaving the room to get
a nurse. Retreating, he watched diligently as Austin’s temperature was taken
along with her blood pressure and he listened carefully.

“Everything’s okay, your temperature’s up, but not alarmingly,” the
nurse told Austin sweetly and looked at Tyler, “We’ll just keep an eye on it,
but it’s always worth asking. What with you going home in a few days,” she gave
a wink then excused herself, leaving Austin with the advice to rest up.

Watching the nurse leave, Tyler relaxed as he knew everything was well
under control as it should be. He sat up again, and leaned in towards her. “I
guess that makes it official. Three days from freedom, Aus,
how’s
it feel
?” Tyler asked her almost excitedly.

“There’s a family meeting later,” Austin started with a cocked brow,
“Does that tell you how I’m feeling?”

Tyler winced and shook his head, “A family meeting over you going home?”
he asked her. He knew that Pearson family meetings were never something to be
taken lightly. They usually meant business, and no one ever left until a dead
set decision was made.

“Mom wants me with her and dad, you want me with you, Tom wants me
there,” Austin threw her hands up in the air, her bad arm giving a little in
protest. “I don’t know if I’m coming or going.”

“You know I understand your reasoning to not coming with me, but maybe
your parents would be good?” he questioned her. He remembered her telling him
that she couldn’t live comfortably in a house that he had once shared with
Natasha. It just wasn’t right for her and he respected her honesty.

“I’ll decide later. For now, I want some alone time with you before the
chaos erupts,” Austin said almost seductively. She knew she wasn’t the most
attractive creature at that moment, but Tyler never took his eyes off of her.
It was always her he seemed to want – greasy hair, no make-up, it didn’t matter
– it was always her.

“Oh, is that so?” Tyler asked her with a self-assured smirk.

“It really is so,” she spoke back playfully, biting her bottom lip with
eager tease.

“We best use our time wisely then,” Tyler mentioned as he closed the gap
between them, his eyes staring intently into hers.

“God, I love you so much, Tyler Armstrong,” Austin commented all of a
sudden as she looked deeply into his eyes. “And that’s all I’ll ever know about
love.”

“I think you find that’s enough,” he finalized for her and kissed her
again.

***

“Whoa! Whoa!
Whoa!”
Austin shouted out, waiving
her arms to call a halt to this discussion before it
spiraled
out of control. “Give a girl a say in this, yeah?” she asked them and watched
everyone as they turned to face her, “My stuffs at Tom’s and I’d like to go
back there.” Austin told them with a matter of fact tone and brought her good
hand up to soothe her injured arm after the strain of getting their attention.

“Aussie, you need twenty-four hour care,” Jane jumped in hoping to win
this debate.

Austin exchanged a look with her mother, before the sarcastic response
just rolled off her tongue. “My feet still work, as do my arms and hands-”

“So does her mouth,” Tyler jokingly jumped in and was rewarded with
Austin sticking her tongue out at him.

“What I am saying is that I am not a cripple,” Austin told them, “and I
know you all want to look after me, but to do, so you’d have to move all my
stuff over and that’s too much effort.” She told them truthfully and smiled,
“Plus, how much mischief can I really get up to on my own when Tom’s not home?”

“Do you really want an answer for that?” Sienna said as she sat down on
the bed and smirked at her sister.

Giving Sienna a glare for not being any help, she looked back to her
parents, “It’s my arm and side. I’m not broken, just crispy around the edges,”
she joked, trying to break into the tension that was eating at every viable
piece of atmosphere in the room.

Tyler chuckled, “And there’s the sense of
humor
you’ve been holding out on us.”

“There’s a lot you’ve been holding out on, Baby,” Austin replied sweetly
to him and just watched everyone realize that she was actually back with a
vengeance. “Believe me; we’ve got all the time in the world to fix that, Ty.”

“And point proven!” Tyler teased, making everyone laugh. “Well we’re all
going to need to keep her under wraps, and if she won’t stay with me or you
guys, so I guess we’ll have to make a schedule.” Tyler said as he spoke to Jane
and Nicolas.

Austin put her good arm across her eyes and groaned, “I’m twenty five,
not five!” she shouted at them, hating that all her rights to independence
seemed to be snatched away in that instance. “No offence, but I did manage six
years on my own.”

“Yeah and look where that got you,” Dean teased her with his brotherly
sense of
humor
.

“Out of debt?”
Austin quipped back at them with a grin.
“Can’t deny
that one!”

“She’s got a point,” Tom told them as he relaxed. “So what, you’re going
to stay with me and not allow anyone to help?”

“I didn’t say that,” Austin huffed at them. “I am plenty capable of
doing some things on my own because life has to go on.” Austin told them,
then
smirked as she spoke without thinking. She needed life
to go on, but if they were going to suffocate her, then nothing was moving
forward. “Believe me I, am plenty capable at looking after myself, and the last
year and half proved that.”

“Aussie’s got a secret!” Sienna all but shouted as she heard that
statement and the tone of voice Austin used. She watched Austin try to think of
ways to deflect the question and knew she had let too much slip for that
sentence to just be overlooked. “What do you mean the last year and half proved
that?”

“Nothing,” she said as her
defenses
flew up to
the heavens. “I meant I had survived the last six years.”

“Spill,” Tom pressed and watched her purse her lips in refusal. “Spill
it, Aus, or I’ll make sure they find a reason for you to stay in here a little
while longer.”

“You wouldn’t!” Austin shouted back in horror.

“Oh, I would,” Tom told her with a voice slick with glee, “Now tell.”

“Don’t judge me?” Austin questioned them all as she looked from one
person to another and back again, “
Imighthavegottenarrested
,”
she muttered under her breath so quickly all the words became one.

“What was that?” she heard Tom press.

She looked up and tried not to break, “I might have gotten myself
arrested,” she told them and heard her name gasped in shock horror.

“Good Lord!” Jane gasped as her hand flew to her chest. “What for?” she
asked having multiple questions buzzing around in her head. Horrible scenarios
of her daughter committing horrific crimes flew to her mind.

“I just hacked the wrong software,” Austin shrugged like it was nothing
to worry about. “I just did it once and that was it. After I was arrested I
never did it again.”

“Did you not get a sentence or anything?” Tyler asked, not sure how to
respond. The love of his life had committed a felony, and right now, he
couldn’t stop thinking how sexy that was on a woman.

“I was recruited to fill a position in a division for the FBI for a
year’s trial. If I didn’t do anything that went against regulation, and I
didn’t hack anymore, then I was fine. I wasn’t a threat. Even though the job
required me to
hack
and break regulation, but it was within reason. At
the end of it, I was reviewed and evaluated and they set me loose.”

“You?
FBI?”
 
Sienna asked confused slightly.

Austin nodded and gulped, “In New York.” She told them truthfully and
shrugged, “When the year was up I wanted out. I couldn’t do it anymore; I just
wanted to come home. I learned my lesson for trying to be creative,” she looked
down as her emotions bubbled and tears spilt.

“Hey,” Nicolas said swooping in to wipe away her tears, “Aussie, you’re home
now. You had every right to come home whenever you wanted to. You did, and
that’s all that matters.”

Austin sniffed as she looked into her father’s eyes, “Nobody wanted me
back though.” She whispered as the sting still lingered long and heavy in her as
a result of her arrival back. It caught her unaware and the backlash was harsh
from time to time and she hated herself for it. “It was selfish to come back.”

“Oh hell no,” Tyler stepped in and sat on the other side of the bed,
“Austin, Baby, you coming back was a shock and I reckon everyone in this damn
town will vouch for me on that. You left without warning and came back exactly
the same, but my God you came back at the right time.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Austin muttered to Tyler.

Tyler laughed a little, “Aus, you saved me from a life I would have
regretted and both our families are closer than ever, and that’s because you’re
back. Your mom’s happier than she has been, your brothers and Sienna
are
too, your dad for sure, and me,” he paused and sighed, “I’ve
wanted to feel alive for so long and now I do. Never think it was selfish to
come back or I will spank you from here through to next year.”

“Is that a promise?” Austin retorted thoughtlessly as her mood seemed to
break as easy as it always did.

“Best believe it,” Tyler told her back enthusiastically and winked at
her.

Exhaling loudly, Austin let her shoulders slump, “Sorry.” She mumbled
apologetically, and she felt a blush of embarrassment sweep her cheeks.