Summer Sunsets (12 page)

“
I’ve thought about renting
it before. It was just an idea.” She sets it back on the shelf and
starts to move on when I pick it back up.

“
So rent it. I don’t mind.”
I take her hand and push the box into it.

“
Yeah, you don’t mind so
long as you get your blood and guts, right?” She pushes some hair
from her face.

“
Exactly.”

One moment, Skye is looking
at me, and the next her has drifted to the side and beyond. The
smile she’s been wearing vanishes, and her eyes widen like she
can’t believe what she’s seeing. Her fingers release the box, and
it falls.

“
Boy, are you clumsy,” I
say, not sure what else to say as I feel things rapidly spiraling
south. I start to hand her the box, but she backs into the shelf
and knocks over a couple more boxes, still staring the same thing.
I’m too busy picking up the boxes to have a clue what she’s staring
at or why she’s so intent.

“
Clumsy, like I said.” I
manage to get the boxes back on the shelf before I turn. For a
moment, all I see are a handful of people roaming the store, and
even though it’s true Skye isn’t much of a “people” person, five or
so strangers wouldn’t cause her to act like this. There has to be
something more, and that’s what makes me nervous.

I look harder at the
people, trying to recognize them. I figure that’s what’s spooked
her—and I’m right. One of the guys is a little taller than I
remember and wider, with more muscles than before, which was creepy
because Tyler Rutherford had plenty of muscles in high
school.

I look back at Skye, and my
whole body tenses. While she seems to be drifting into the
fight-or-flight mode, I’m the opposite. I don’t care how ripped
Tyler looks because no matter where else he’s filled out, his head
is empty. Always has been, always will be.

“
What do you say we get some
lunch and rent these later?” I don’t wait for her to answer but
take the box from Skye and set it back on the shelf. She’s standing
there, her chin tilted downward, her eyes closed. Her face is pale,
and all I want to do is get her out of here before that asshole
sees her.

She doesn’t say anything as
I slip my arm around her and lead her to the door. As I open it,
the bell overhead jangles, and everybody turns to look at us, but
luckily Tyler doesn’t give us more than a passing
glance.

I lead Skye back to my Jeep
and open her door for her so she can slip inside. She’s staring
somewhere beyond me, and I’m pretty sure if I knew where her
thoughts were, I’d hate them. It’s amazing how it takes so little
to remind her of the past, and here I am, working so hard to
establish a future between us—a future that makes her feel as safe
and loved as she should.

I slip my keys into the
ignition and start to pull out of the lot, already thinking over my
options for where to eat.

“
Could you take me home,
please?”

I look over at Skye, but
she’s staring out the window like she’s afraid to face me. Damn
Tyler Rutherford—damn him to hell.

“
How about some breakfast
first?” I ask, trying to buy some time to talk to Skye. I
definitely don’t want to give her time to think too hard about what
just happened because I know it’ll lead her to jumping to
conclusions I really don’t want her to jump to. It’s weird how Skye
doesn’t have much faith in a lot of things, but if she thinks she’s
gotten a sign about something, she’ll jump on that in a heartbeat,
especially if it’s a negative sign. Like Tyler.

“
I’d rather just go
home.”

Knowing it’s probably going
to cause a fight between us, I tap my signal and turn the way
opposite of Skye’s house. I can’t just drop her off like this. I
won’t.

“
You’re going the wrong
way,” she half-whispers and leans back in the seat.

I don’t say anything. Right
now, I’m trying to figure out what to say that’ll make this whole
nightmare better, but I keep coming up empty. I’m pretty sure she’s
going to have a bird and we’re going to have a fight if I keep
driving, so I find a parking lot and pull into it so I can give her
my full attention.

“
Skye, listen to me. I know
you saw Tyler, and he probably creeped the hell out of you, but it
doesn’t matter. He’s part of the past and doesn’t deserve a second
thought.”

Her eyes are closed, and
I’d swear she was sleeping if I hadn’t seen her swallow hard.
“Devin, I just really want to go home. I’m tired.”

One step forward, two steps
back.

“
You’re not listening,
Skye,” I tell her, desperate to get her to hear something besides
what she’s telling herself because I know how powerful that voice
can be. It was the same one which almost made her kill
herself.

“
It doesn’t
matter.”

That’s when I lose it. I
whirl toward her and grip her shoulder. “Damn it, Skye, it
does
matter. Everything
matters. But here’s the kicker. I could tell you I love you every
day, but it wouldn’t matter nearly so much as seeing Tyler. He’s a
waste of flesh, Skye—a
waste—
and yet because of what he did
to you, you let him keep hurting you.”

She flinches at my grip,
and I must be holding her harder than I thought, so I ease my
fingers back and slowly move away. “It doesn’t matter. I just want
to go home.”

Sensing I’ve lost, at least
for the moment, I tool through the parking lot to turn around
before heading to her house. “So I guess that’s it then. We don’t
matter, either, do we, Skye—or was there even a ‘we’ to begin
with?”

She doesn’t answer.
Instead, she keeps staring beyond me to a place I can’t reach her.
I could keep throwing out arguments all day, but that doesn’t mean
Skye would respond to any of them, and the last thing I want to do
is make her back off even quicker because I couldn’t keep my
temper. So the only option I have left is to pull up in front of
her house, watch her get out, and drive away.

So much for one perfect
evening that should have been the turning point.

I’ve barely reached my
parents’ driveway when my cell rings, and part of me is grateful
because I’m hoping it’s Skye calling to ask me to come back for
lunch or something. Yeah, I know, as much as she doesn’t have
faith, I have more than enough.

This isn’t Skye. It’s
Warren. Unnerved, I say, “Hello?”

“
Devin, it’s
Warren.”

“
Hey, Warren.” A pause fills
the air, and my stomach starts tensing like I’m expecting a punch
to the solar plexus. “Is there something wrong?”

Another pause. “Did
something happen to Skye? She was really upset. I haven’t seen her
like that in years.”

I grit my teeth, already
imagining how her world must have unfolded when she walked in. All
the emotions she was trying so hard to hold back in front of me
started spinning out of control.

“
We had a great evening, and
then it all went wrong this morning.”

“
Did you propose to her?”
Concern deepened Warren’s tone.

“
No, I didn’t get a chance.”
That was a lie because I’d had plenty of chances. None of them had
felt right, and that was the problem. Now I’m wondering if I should
have. Would it have made any difference?

“
Then what
happened?”

I get out and lean against
the truck. “She was okay, and we headed to a video store to rent a
movie. While we were there, Tyler Rutherford happened to walk in,
and seeing him spooked her.” I rake my fingers through my hair,
trying to calm down. “I tried to talk to her, but I couldn’t make
her see Tyler was powerless in her life.” I close my eyes, suddenly
feeling just as helpless as I did when we were in school and our
lives came unraveled at the drop of the hat. “I’ll come back
over.”

“
No,” Warren said. “She’s
quiet now. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

I start to get into the
Jeep “I can be there in five.”

“
It’s okay, Devin. She needs
time. You’ve been down that road before. I’m not going to let
anything happen to her. I promise.”

I know he’s right. That’s
why I lean against the Jeep, trying not to imagine her face and all
the emotions storming through her she won’t be able to control.
“Please.” My fingers curl into a fist I lightly tap against the
side of the Jeep. “Please, if there is anything she
needs—anything—let me know.”

“
Of course. Just give her
time. She’ll come around.”

I close the phone and lean
back, trying hard to keep calm in the face of a panic rising like a
wall of blackness that blots out everything. There’re no words to
tell him how much I’m counting on that promise.

It takes two days for Skye
to finally come around. The whole time I’ve been calling her cell
and checking in with Warren to make sure she’s all right. While I’m
not getting any information from Skye, Warren’s definitely keeping
me informed about what is going on.

It’s late in the morning
when I hear the doorbell. I’m half-drowsing because I’ve not been
sleeping well. The old nightmares have been rearing their ugly
heads, and nothing gets rid of them except daylight and Skye. I’ve
replayed how things went so many times my head is spinning, but no
matter what I do, it doesn’t change her pain. I wonder if I should
have made love to her. Would that have made a
difference?

I’m not expecting the soft
tapping at my door. Yeah, my mom knocks, but it’s more of a loud
warning before she comes in—a way for me to throw on clothes so she
doesn’t see me naked and embarrass the hell out of both of
us.

The knock comes a second
time, so I frown and get up. When I open the door, Skye stands on
the other side. She’s wearing a white t-shirt and tan shorts. Her
long hair flows around her face, shadowing a lot of her expression,
which makes me wonder if she’s trying to hide. Her cheeks are pale,
and there are dark shadows beneath her eyes, suggesting she isn’t
sleeping any better than I am. Probably Tyler again.

“
Hey,” I say, feeling my
back and shoulders stiffen as I pull the door open wider. “Come on
in.” I try not to seem overly glad to see her, and right now I feel
like everything I do is a mistake in the making.

Her eyes flash briefly
toward my face, and she quickly ducks her head and steps across the
threshold. She starts to sit in the chair by my desk, but the shirt
I wore yesterday keeps her from going there.

“
Here, let me get that.” I
grab the shirt and throw it in the hamper. I rake my fingers
through my hair and ease down on the bed. I start to say something,
but everything I’ve imagined coming out of my mouth sounds stupid,
from “How are you?” to “What’s going on?” Somehow we are both past
the surface-level stuff, and there’s no going back. That camping
trip changed things, and I’m not sure I can put all the pieces back
together.

Skye eyes the chair but
walks to the window and looks out. My jaw clenches. “Did you come
to check out the view from my window? It’s the same as it was when
we were in high school.” I fold my arms across my chest,
immediately regretting the words. I don’t know what the hell I’m
doing and it scares me.

“
No, I came to tell you I
shouldn’t have done that.” She keeps looking out the window, and
right now I want to shake some sense into her.

I know what she’s talking
about, but if she’s going to go down that road, she’s going to have
to drag me. I’m not going to make it easy on her because in this
case, she’s wrong. She’s afraid. “Can you be just a little more
specific?”

She takes a deep breath,
and it shudders through her. “You know—the other night.”

Forcing a calm I don’t
feel, I try to engage her eyes. I know she must feel me staring as
she scurries around the room, trying to keep moving so the pain
she’s obviously causing both of us never catches her. The problem
with that is sooner or later it does catch up, and you can either
feel it with someone who matters or feel it alone.

“
What about the other
night?” Again, me playing dumb.

Skye flinches and steps
towards the door. Crazy, I know, that I can almost see the
flight-response kicking in. Then again, she’s going to have to get
through me first. I’m not saying she can’t, but it’s not going to
be easy.

She’s two steps from the
door when she finally turns back. Her gaze rises, and our eyes
meet. “Look, Devin, you’re my best friend, and I don’t know what
I’d do without you, but the other night when we….” Her voice trails
off. She can’t even say it.

“…
made love?” I supply for
her, inching her way.

“
Yeah.” She pushes the hair
from her eyes, and she’s wearing this pinched expression that makes
her seem like she’s in physical pain. “It shouldn’t have
happened.”

I see just the slightest
hint of tears in her eyes, and she turns to leave, her trembling
hand seeking out the doorknob. Without thought, I set a hand on one
side of her, and then I place the other on the other so she’s
forced to slowly turn and face me. Her eyes widen in surprise.
Although she’s not breathing very loudly, I can hear the rapid
inhale and exhale as the nervousness seems to overtake
her.