Chapter 12

Tristan usually avoided the springs that had given the town its name. There was nothing wrong with them in practice, but everyone in Superstition Springs talked about the place as if it held some kind of mystical quality that fixed things between couples. As if he hadn’t had enough of that sort of thing messing with his life lately.

Fixing things with Cassidy wasn’t on the horizon and the springs wouldn’t help that even if he did go there with her on his mind. She wasn’t on his mind. Not really. Maybe a little.

What had really gotten him stirred up was the appointment he had with Mayor Hardy tomorrow, one that his former team leader had set in stone and ordered Tristan to attend whether he liked it or not. He didn’t like it. Because he knew what the subject would be even without Hardy mentioning it.

Tristan’s time had run out. Hardy was going to lay down the law about needing a fire chief and how the job had Tristan’s name all over it. Odds were good he wouldn’t be able to actually open his mouth and refuse, and that had put him in a pretty wonky mood.

So it wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate to say he intended to lay low at the springs as he stewed over it. Alone. Hopefully that would negate all of the otherworldly romantic mumbo jumbo that went part and parcel with a town that had been founded as an artist’s colony.

The springs weren’t hard to find. There was nothing but flat, flat, flat and more flat, then an eruption of limestone shooting up a good fifteen feet in the air that hid the springs from view. Once Tristan topped the outcropping, the springs opened up below, clear and blue and perennially cold according to legend, even though the outside air temperature would hit one hundred today. The water looked inviting to someone who had just hiked over a mile in said heat, so Tristan didn’t hesitate to strip off his shirt and pants so he could dive into the water in nothing but his boxer briefs.

The shocking chill engulfed him but felt amazing. His mood slid back toward the realm of steady as he swam toward the far shore of the springs. Should have done this ages ago. He’d been too idle, that was his problem. SEALs didn’t spend a lot of time mucking about in their own feelings. There was always a training exercise or a mission, and what little down time he’d had, he’d spent in select company that had always served to keep him on an even keel.

Burn fast, burn hot, let it go. C’est la vie.

Except he hadn’t been able to do that since Syria. Not on any front. No fire, no women, and the only one that had piqued his interest in the slightest had sloughed him off like yesterday’s news. Not unusual. Except for the part where he hadn’t burned off anything where Cassidy was concerned.

That was screwing with his head. Sérieux.

Okay, this wasn’t helping take his mind off anything.

And then to make matters worse, by the time he hauled himself to shore and climbed out, he discovered he wasn’t actually alone. Cassidy sat on a rock not fifty yards from where he’d emerged dripping all over the limestone and when their gazes met, something zapped him underneath his skin, shooting around like fireworks and destiny all wrapped up in one. Stupid mystical springs.

He rubbed at the place in his chest that hurt as she unwound from the rock where she’d been sitting with her arms around her bent legs for who knew how long. Judging by the way she was devouring him with her eyes, it hadn’t been long enough for her to look her fill regardless.

“Did you enjoy the show?” he asked her and cursed the crack in his voice.

It was a mere reflection of the chaos going on inside. Slowly, she picked her way toward him across rock that had enough variations of height to make it slightly treacherous, but he wasn’t overly worried about a native’s ability to avoid accidentally slipping into the water. Plus, he had enough lifesaving skills in his little finger that she would be in good hands no matter what happened.

Who was going to save him from going under though?

“I didn’t mean to spy on you,” she responded when she’d finally made her way to the little ledge where he’d hauled himself out of the springs, no small feat since it didn’t have a natural shoreline. “I followed you because I saw an opportunity to talk without an audience. I um, didn’t know you were planning to dive right in before I could say anything.”

Cass refused to look directly at him, and a small splotch of color stained her cheeks way up high in a place he wouldn’t have guessed she might blush when confronted with a nearly naked man. Served her right for sticking around once he had stripped down.

“That didn’t answer my question.” His lips quirked up before he could stop them.

“Watching you do anything is enjoyable. Watching you swim borders on spiritual,” she said immediately with a brutal honesty that did nice things to his insides. “So no, I can’t honestly say I enjoyed it when I spent most of the time trying to remember how to breathe.”

Her own lips curled up in a self-deprecating smile that shouldn’t have warmed him as dangerously fast as it did. But the water had chilled him, and he’d been standing there dripping in the shadows of the limestone overhang without a towel and his traitorous insides craved her with a fierceness he’d deny if it would do any good.

“Why did you follow me?” he asked her bluntly before he completely went off the rails. “We don’t have anything else to say to each other. Do we?”

That last little bit of hope inside him just wouldn’t die, would it? And his fingers wouldn’t quit straining to reach for her.

She nodded, her expression earnest and nine kinds of vulnerable that shouldn’t have been so endearing. “We have plenty to say. Or rather I do. I wouldn’t have intruded otherwise.”

“It’s not an intrusion,” he countered gruffly, though he would have labeled it exactly that five seconds ago. He had no barrier against her when she wasn’t showing her claws. Maybe he should be striking first strictly with the intent of riling her then, because otherwise, he was headed toward a very nasty breaking point where it would be impossible to stop himself from hauling her into his arms.

He couldn’t touch her. That’s why he’d stayed away from her. She’d been so adamant that he was bad news, a womanizer, a flirt or whatever label she’d concocted in her head as the reason they could never be an item. What else could he do but honor her wishes?

“Good.” Her brief smile slipped away too fast. “I have a learning disability wrapped up in attention deficit disorder. There’s some hyperactivity issues thrown in there somewhere. I plan to get an official diagnosis soon so I can start to manage it. But in the meantime, I needed to explain to you why I’m so difficult to deal with.”

“Why you’re so—” His brain rolled over or something, resettling with thud that reverberated through his skull. “Cass, you’re not difficult. Trust me, I’ve known my share of difficult women and you’re so far on the other end of the spectrum that I can’t even see the difficult end.”

“I appreciate you saying that. But it’s okay. You don’t have to humor me. I can be realistic about my deficiencies. That’s what got us locked in the shelter, after all. My spazzy brain.”

“Being locked in the shelter with you ranks as one of the highlights of my experiences thus far in Superstition Springs,” he corrected with a scowl. “That was fate, not a deficiency.”

But bits and pieces of things floated together to form a whole that snapped into focus quickly enough that he got the point. She was coming to him with this revelation for a reason and his job was to shut up long enough to let her get there. Then he could start to unravel it.

“Tell me,” he said simply. “I want to learn about you.”

Her brows came together. “Why?”

“Because I care.” Gently, he took her hand and stroked her thumb with his to help convey the validity of the statement, completely forgetting about his vow of four seconds ago to not touch her. “No matter what. Would it help if I got dressed and we actually treated this like a conversation instead of me standing here half-naked?”

“That would be a little like draping a sheet over the statue of David,” she said drily. “You don’t get an eyeful of a work of art and then forget it just because it’s covered.”

The compliment shouldn’t have pleased him so much. After all, lots of women had said things to him that were far more provocative, but he’d never been one to internalize his own press. Mostly because he’d spent a lot of years facedown in the dirt of whatever county he’d been deployed to, absorbing the filth and evil of the forces he’d been sent to destroy, and transforming himself into the opposite of that afterward was a necessary decompression technique. He had never ironed a shirt or conditioned his hair in hopes of attracting female attention. That was just a bonus.

With Cass, it had been a long, hard road to get here to this place where she not only wasn’t insulting him any longer, she’d admitted she found something about his appearance that she liked. Without sarcasm. It was both humbling and not a little enthralling. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he liked the stroke to his ego.

“Maybe the covering is for me,” he told her, and it wasn’t a lie. She needed to talk, not have a man slavering after her and it would be hard to focus on much other than how nice she would feel if he gathered her up in his arms.

“Can you wait just a sec?” Her gaze stopped him cold before he could dart for his clothes. “I need to get this out. It was hard enough to say the first part and I’ve let you distract me. I have a problem learning and doing simple daily tasks. I didn’t do well in school and only got a high school diploma because Tallhorse coached me through taking the GED test until I passed it on my fourth try. It’s not hard for me to feel like I’m in a competition with other women that I’m losing.”

Her anguish swarmed over his bare skin, stinging him until he felt raw. She’d felt inferior? That was a travesty of the highest order, one he could have rectified a long time ago if he’d bothered to get over himself.

“You aren’t losing,” he insisted hoarsely but she held up a hand, cutting him off.

“This is my problem and I’m trying to explain why I got so bent out of shape when I heard you talking to India. You tried to tell me you were just being nice, and I acted like it was a criminal offense instead.”

“Because I did something that upset you,” he reminded her even though, yeah, she had taken that situation way out of context. It had been bothering him but not for the reason she seemed to think. “Which is the thing I can’t figure out. We’re not even dating. Why would it matter to you if I had a snogfest with Dr. Kingston in the middle of town?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Because I care too, okay? More than I should. I pushed you away on purpose so I didn’t have to worry about how I compared to all the other women you flirt with.”

“Cass.” He couldn’t stop the short bark of laughter at this situation which wasn’t the slightest bit funny. “I only flirt with women I have no interest in. You haven’t figured that out yet?”

Her expression grew nothing short of dazed as she stared at him. “You…what?”

“I mean, not always. Sure, I’ve used a few well-rehearsed lines here and there over the years but not for a long time. Speaking of confessions…” He swallowed but couldn’t weasel out of this, not when she was being so honest with him. Not when she’d been in such anguish over how she measured up to other women. “I haven’t dated anyone since I left Syria.”

Almost a year. Geez, how had it been that long? That’s why he never thought about this stuff—too hard. And now that he’d opened that can of worms, he had a feeling she wouldn’t let the revelation die a natural death.

She didn’t disappoint him. “Like at all? Not even once?”

“Well, I went to the movies with you, if you recall.” He grinned to soften the comment because that had not been a date and they’d both spent more time sniping at each other than watching the thing. He’d have sworn they’d hated each other then, but it seemed as if they might have both been pushing each other away for nebulous reasons that hadn’t fully come out yet. “But other than that, not once.”

“So…you haven’t kissed another woman either?” This she asked with extraordinary caution as if she really didn’t want to hear the answer and it kind of pained him that she thought there was a chance he might run around kissing women he wasn’t dating.

He couldn’t fault her for clarifying though and held up a hand with the thumb and forefinger linked in the universal gesture that meant zero. “Except you.”

“Just me,” she repeated with a dazed whisper. “How…why? I don’t…”

“You,” he murmured. “Because you’re beautiful and unexpected and you make me laugh even as you give me a reason to think. Why would I not want to kiss you? In fact, that’s pretty much all I want to do.”

That’s when he lost every ounce of will he’d been clinging to and yanked her into his embrace. She didn’t resist, melting against him with apparently no issue whatsoever with his residual dampness.

She felt better than good. Unbelievable. He buried his face in her hair, breathing her in, and something cracked open inside him that he had no idea had been sealed up so tightly. Or that so much had been trapped inside it. Now that he had her, how was he supposed to let go?

“I don’t get it.” Cass shut her eyes for a beat and then blinked up at him rapidly as if trying to be sure she could believe what she saw before her. “You’re the one who said you’d never change and that meant you’d have to stay away from me. Why didn’t you just tell me all of this then so we could have avoided all of this time apart?”

Wait, what did she think was happening here? A sense of foreboding snuck over him as he tried to gauge her expression and failed. Had she somehow gotten the impression that this was a lead up to a grand gesture that resulted in happily ever after? “You didn’t ask why I haven’t dated anyone since Syria.”

That got the wheels turning in her head and she must have picked up on the tension that had suddenly crashed their party. She frowned. “I assumed you’d tell me if it was relevant. Is it?”

“Extremely.”

Clothes. He needed some. She didn’t stop him as he clambered up the steep face of rock to get to the top level where he’d left the pile. His hair needed to be twisted up too and it would be helpful if he had a mirror, but whatever.

By the time he scrambled back down to where she waited, she’d taken a seat on the hard ledge, wrapping herself back up into a little ball. Good. She’d need the fortification.

“I killed a lot of people,” he said without preamble because that’s how she’d done it, just blurted out the ugly parts. “In Syria. You may have heard the story from Aria or Havana as odds are good they’ve had this conversation with Isaiah and Caleb. But they were just there. I’m the one who destroyed the village, one building at a time until there was nothing but rubble.”

She flinched but not with nearly enough revulsion. That would come in a moment.

“It was my job,” he said with a shrug that didn’t begin to convey the way talking about this made his stomach hurt like someone wearing spiked shoes had kicked him. “No different than any other day. Except it was. There was something wrong in the atmosphere. We all felt it. But we had orders. The wrong ones, as it turned out, though we didn’t know that until later after seventy-five civilians had gotten caught in the cross hairs of one of the most elite special teams America could produce.”

“Tristan—”

“It’s not bragging when it’s true,” he said without an ounce of humor. “They couldn’t have bought more catastrophic results with hired mercenaries. I made sure of it. Destruction is what I do best.”

“It was your job,” she murmured but as bleakly as would be expected when reciting facts that couldn’t be changed.

“Doesn’t excuse the mistakes. And I made many of them. Seventy-six to be exact.” When the puzzled glint came into her eye that meant she’d caught the addition of one more soul, he lifted his chin. “Rowe. The scar on his face is a walking advertisement for my services.”

“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”

Her foot had started jiggling the way it did when she sat still for a period of time. Hyperactivity she’d said, though he refused to call it a disability. It was just the hummingbird part of her that made up a very intriguing whole which he didn’t and could never deserve long-term.

“Because you wanted to know why,” he choked out. Somehow. “That’s the answer to everything. Why I haven’t dated anyone since then. Why I said I’d stay away from you. Why I didn’t tell you any of this earlier. What does it change?”

“Nothing,” she said with a puzzled lift of her hands. “Did you expect it to? I’m still here, listening. And waiting for you to get to the punch line. You went through a really bad experience, and it affected you. There’s nothing wrong with that or with taking some time to reassess what you want from life. I’m glad that fate put you in my path so we could figure this out together.”

“Oh, no.” He shook his head grimly. “That is not what’s happening here. If anything, fate is pointing out that you should stay away from me as well. Have you forgotten your prediction?”

She shook her head, long brown strands of hair falling down on her raised knees, and levered a tentative smile in his direction. “Of course not. But obviously there’s one guaranteed way to avoid pregnancy. We don’t have to jump into the fire right away, right?”

That earned her a short chuckle that hurt his throat as it came out. “I’m afraid that’s impossible for me. Fire is what I do. Weren’t you listening? How do you think I destroyed the buildings? Not with superpowers. Fire. I burn everything in my path. Including women.”

And if he had to hurt her in order to save her, then he would. Usually, women in his life figured out on their own that there were so many better uses of their time than to cling to a sinking ship. Cass didn’t have a lot of experience with men like him and thus needed a good shove.

“You’re being silly,” she said with a small smile. “I just said we didn’t have to introduce even a tiny spark into our relationship. No spark, no fire.”

“I’m being realistic,” he corrected. Her smile needed to go quickly. Because it meant she was still clinging to hope. Had he foolishly given her that hope somehow? “So that’s why I said I’d stay away from you. I’m letting you go. Without burning you to a crisp. That’s what would happen if you stuck around, Cass. I’m speaking from experience. I’m not built for anything different, and the faster you realize that, the less harm will come to you.”

Just because she had no intention of heeding her predication’s warning didn’t mean he’d do the same. Surrender to the flow of life and death. What was this but the thorough destruction of any chance he had of reaching for something that would last?

“Go,” he barked because she still sat there like there was more to say. “You’ll thank me one day.”

“Tristan—”

He held up a finger to hush her and went for the big guns. “You clearly need a visual.”

Instantly the length of pure flint he’d started carrying in his pocket again appeared in his fingers as if by magic, and in many respects, he truly believed his skills had an otherworldly quality. Always had.

With a sharp crack, he struck the flint against a protrusion of limestone that had a rich vein of metal running through it—probably fluorite if he had to guess—and the resulting sparks hit the dried grass directly underneath it. In seconds he had a flame because yes, he was still that good.

The bright, beautiful fire licked at the scrubby grass. The sight of it shouldn’t hurt so much, should it? He’d kind of thought it might be cathartic, as if everything had coalesced into this one singular moment when he’d be free of the burdens he’d been carrying. The flame would grow, and it would cleanse him somehow.

That’s not what happened. Instead he just ached. He ached for the people who had lost their lives, for Rowe who’d had to heal and relearn how to function, for Cassidy, this bold, strong woman he’d met who still had hope despite all his best efforts to squash them.

And she was still here. That hadn’t been the point of this exercise in apparent futility. She needed protection from him and his dangerous skills. More than that, she needed to find someone who was worth her time.

“This is the part where you leave,” he told her in no uncertain terms.

Cass met his gaze, locking him in her sights and said, “No.”