Getting Over It: Sapphire Falls Book Six (8 page)

She shrugged. “I guess we could each go and meet up there. But if we do that kind of stuff a lot, people are going to notice that we’re always gone at the same time.”

“And who the fuck cares if they notice?”

But he knew—she cared.

She frowned up at him. “Are we really going to have this conversation
every
day for the next hundred years?”

Ty ground his teeth for a moment and then forced himself to relax. Like he forced Hailey to stay in his arms when the song ended. “We’re not done.”

She sighed and they began dancing to the next song.

She wasn’t going to make a big scene here, and Ty was grateful it was a wedding dance. If they’d been at the river hanging out around a bonfire with their friends, she wouldn’t have hesitated to shove him back and maybe even throw a beer at him in her irritation. But she wouldn’t do that here at a wedding reception, with most of the town present and the postcard-perfect gazebo in the background.

“I want to date you. Publicly. We don’t have to tell anyone that we’ve been having a relationship. It will seem like it’s just started,” he said. She opened her mouth to reply and he growled, “And if you fucking say it hasn’t been a relationship, I will make the biggest, most romantic public declaration of love anyone in this town has ever seen right here and now.”

She snapped her teeth together and swallowed hard.

He knew she hated how well he knew her.

That was too fucking bad. It was going to be right in her face all the time now.

“No,” she finally said.

“No, what?” he asked with a scowl.

“No, I don’t want to date you.”

“You want to get engaged?” he asked. Hell, he could pick out the perfect diamond in ten minutes.

“Don’t be stupid,” she told him. “We can’t do this.”

“Why not? I’m living here now. In
our
hometown. I want to get married and have kids and be with you every day instead of two days every ten weeks.”

Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him.

“What?” he asked crossly. Was that
really
a shock? They’d been together for three and a half years. He’d been in love with her for more than a decade.

“You want to get
married
? Live together? In the same house? Have
kids
?”

The pitch of her voice rose a bit on the last word, and Ty couldn’t help but grin. He loved making her forget herself, forget where she was, and have her just react to him.

But this probably wasn’t the place.

“Of course I do. You thought we were going to have weekend flings six or seven times a year forever?”

She nodded. Quite emphatically. “Yes. That’s exactly what I thought. What I
hoped
for, Ty. That was perfect.”

But it wasn’t. Not for him. Not anymore.

“How could you think that?” he asked. “You really thought nothing would ever change?”

“I
thought
—” she started, then glanced around, lowered her voice and moved in closer to keep their conversation between the two of them. “I
thought
that you were pretty into your own thing, all caught up in your life and your training and everything, and that our arrangement was perfect for you too.”

He frowned. Okay, she had a point. When she hadn’t been with him in Colorado, he’d certainly had enough to fill his time and take up his energy. Until it had all come apart and his training had been axed, his goals had been shattered and everything ahead of him had seemed depressing.

But it wasn’t fair that she thought he’d
never
want more from her.

“Things were perfect, for a long time,” he said honestly. “But things change, Hailey. Life moves on. And do you really want to grow old
next door
to each other? Do you really think
that
will be enough?”

“No, I really
don’t
want to grow old next door to each other,” she said, sounding partly exasperated and partly sad. “But
you
put us in that situation without a word to me.”

“So date me.”

“You keep talking about change,” she said, instead of answering him. She studied his face. “What’s changed, Ty? Why Sapphire Falls? Why now, all of a sudden?”

He hadn’t told her about the accident. It was one of those things that fell into the weird gray area they had in their relationship. They lived separate lives. They were having an affair. More personal details would have meant a deeper relationship and, frankly, he’d been afraid she’d break it off entirely if he tried to go there.

It had taken him years to get her the first time and it had been over in one night. It had taken years after that to get her back into his bed.

Over the past three and a half years, pathetic as it seemed sometimes, he had taken what he could get. And that meant in Denver, he called the shots. In Sapphire Falls, she did.

When the accident had happened, he’d thought about calling her and then…hadn’t.

“Do you really want to know?” he finally asked.

She paused to actually think about that and he felt like laughing. Sort of. But that was Hailey. She would carefully weigh how involved in someone else she wanted to get.

“Yes,” she finally said.

“Bryan’s in a wheelchair.”

She stopped dancing and stared at him. “What?”

Ty glanced around and then took her hand and pulled her off the dance floor and over to a more private space near the wooden structure they used for everything from a kissing booth to a hot chocolate stand. Tonight, it held the punch bowl and other non-alcoholic drinks.

“Bryan…” He
almost
added, “And I,” but hesitated. He’d trashed his knee and he’d known within forty-eight hours that his days of competing were over. But he’d had months to deal with that. He had a new plan now. “Bryan was in a biking accident. A truck crossed the center line on a highway he was riding. He swerved and hit the shoulder and was thrown over the edge. He hit a rock and partially damaged his spinal cord.”

Hailey covered her mouth with her hand. She knew Bryan. He’d grown up in Sapphire Falls. He’d been two years behind her in school with Ty, so she didn’t know him well, but she knew what the injury would mean. Bryan was an adrenaline junkie, always on the go. He loved extreme sports, and if he’d been more disciplined, he could have potentially been a pro biker. But that would have curtailed his party activities and his tendency to say, “Ah, fuck it.” Still, professional biking or not, being wheelchair ridden was obviously a tough blow and a huge adjustment.

“Oh my God,” she murmured.

Ty nodded. Every time he thought about it, and how much
worse
it could have been, his blood went icy.

“It’s an incomplete spinal cord injury,” he said. “That means he’s not totally paralyzed, and they think a lot of his function will come back. He’s already seen some return. But he’s still in rehab as an outpatient and uses a wheelchair some of the time.” Okay, so the,
“Bryan’s in a wheelchair,”
had been a little dramatic. But he was. Seeing one of his best friends in a wheelchair even some of the time was a lot to deal with.

Ty would have been in Sapphire Falls the day after he realized that his competitive life was over, but he’d stayed in Denver to be with and help Bryan. His friend was now out of the rehab hospital and back home with the modifications and help he needed.

“Wow, I didn’t…you didn’t…” Hailey pressed her lips together and Ty was shocked to see tears in her eyes.

Fuck. She would hate it—hate
him
—if he made her cry in public in Sapphire Falls.

He looked around. There were several people watching them. Some were trying to pretend they weren’t, but most looked as if they were waiting for the show to start.

He was going to have to give them a show. Just not one that involved Hailey’s tears. He raised his voice. “I want that fence between our houses down. You can do it or I’ll do it.”

She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“That huge-assed fence,” he said. He did hate it. He didn’t want a damned thing between them. Though demanding she take it down was over the top, he knew. It was for the sake of the fake argument. Or so he told himself. “I don’t like it and I want it down.”

She stared at him for a millisecond. Then it all seemed to sink in. Or she actually got pissed. She pulled herself up tall. “You touch one splinter on my fence and I’ll have you arrested.”

“Will you be the one putting me in handcuffs?” he asked. And the answer would be no. When they played with restraints, it was him restraining her.

Her eyes narrowed. “You wish.”

“I’m not so sure,” he said thoughtfully. “Silk ties are more my style, and I like to be the one tying the knots.”

As she well knew.

Her cheeks were flushed and he again had to wonder which emotion was dominant—anger or desire.

“That fence stays exactly where it is. And your fantasies are going to have to stay in your head.”

He read between those lines easily enough. The fantasies were going to have to stay in his head
in Sapphire Falls
.

“We’ll see about that.” He knew the crowd would assume he was talking about the fence. He also knew Hailey would know he wasn’t.

He tried not to smile. Even when it was fake, he loved when she was fired up.

“You might be used to having women do whatever you want them to in Denver,” she said. “But you’re in
my
town now.”

Then she turned on her sexy black heel and left the square, haughty and snotty.

In other words, the Hailey Conner he knew and loved.

Hailey hated herself for it a little, but she kept looking out her window to see when Ty’s lights went on next door. She knew he wouldn’t be far behind her.

He’d been at the dance to see her. He might have talked to a few people about whatever this mystery project was, but when she’d walked into the square, she’d felt his eyes immediately, and his attention hadn’t wavered in spite of her making her way through the crowd, chatting with other people, and him dancing three dances with Kate. Not that Hailey had been counting.

The problem was, she’d
felt
him the entire time she was in the square, even before he’d approached her, and she’d had an incredibly hard time keeping her mind even on small talk.

She’d felt itchy and restless and keyed up.

And that was
before
he’d told her he wanted to get married and have kids.

Kids
. Hailey could barely keep
herself
together, how was she going to be able to handle kids? And marriage? Even having him next door was preferable to having him living in her house with her. At least there were some barriers between them. Walls and windows and
space
and…her huge fence.

She’d finally picked up on the fact that he was faking a fight with her for the onlookers, but she’d seen the truth in his eyes—he didn’t like having anything between them.

This was getting out of hand quickly.

She had to put a stop to all of this. Even if it meant she quit speaking to him and turned up her bitch setting to high.

She saw Ty’s truck pull into the drive and her heart kicked against her ribs.

She could put her bitch back on tomorrow. For tonight, she needed Ty. She needed to know more about Bryan’s accident and how Ty was handling it and if Ty was okay and…

Yeah, she was in trouble.

Talking and sharing wasn’t part of their…thing. She sensed sometimes Ty wanted to push it and go deeper, but she also knew he was waiting for a signal from her that
she
wanted more, and the truth was she didn’t.

She’d liked things exactly as they were. She liked having a life in Sapphire Falls and an escape in Denver. She didn’t want the two to mix. The times when Ty was home to visit were bad enough. She lost her edge when he was around. She let go with Ty. She unwound. She didn’t worry about things. She didn’t push herself. She left behind her sticky notes and highlighters and meditation exercises and the feeling of constantly being
on
. And it felt great.

But it was like eating the Everything Pizza from the Stop, the convenience store/gas station/pizza place/ice cream shop. It was okay once in a while, as long as she was back to working out and watching her carbs immediately afterward.

She saw Ty’s living room light go on and started for her back door. She was going over.

She needed to know more about Bryan and she…
Dammit
, she wanted to hug Ty.

Hailey wasn’t a hugger by nature. Keeping people at arm’s length made hugging difficult. But she wasn’t going to be able to help it.

She was so torn. She wanted to keep her distance from him but couldn’t now that she knew he was going through something. He and Bryan were close. Seeing his friend so badly hurt doing something they both loved had to be hard on Ty too.

The realization that Ty had been driven home to Sapphire Falls by seeing Bryan’s life-changing injury was really bugging her. Ty had clearly been spooked by it all. But Ty had to understand that it was Bryan’s challenge, that continuing to compete didn’t make him a bad person, and that he couldn’t hide out in Sapphire Falls.