Getting His Way: Sapphire Falls Book Seven (12 page)

But where he’d really shone was on the track. Bryan had run with a natural, powerful grace that was matched only by Ty Bennett’s. But Ty didn’t play other sports. He ran track, but during the off season he trained for triathlons by adding swimming and biking to his regimen. And Ty had never seemed to
enjoy
it all like Bryan did. Ty was all about being the best, about winning. Bryan seemed to do it just because he liked it and it felt good.

And now, even with a crutch under one arm, all of that natural athleticism was fully apparent.

Tess swallowed hard and tried to remember why she didn’t want to have sex with him.

Something about never recovering from it. Never leaving town. Something like that. But for a moment, she didn’t mind the idea of staying right here and looking at Bryan forever.

Okay. Right.
That
was the problem.

Her life could not revolve around Bryan. She needed to be independent, stop waiting, make things happen.

“Tell me what’s going on, Tess,” Bryan said, facing her from two feet in front of the sofa, only the short coffee table between them.

She pulled in a breath and nodded. “Okay. I’m not interested in a relationship with you.”

“Anymore,” he added.

So they were going to really rub in the fact that she’d been his number one admirer…forever. No. Not forever. She hadn’t known him until she was five. And she’d gotten over him two and a half years ago. “Yes, okay, anymore.”

“Which seems—and you said that you were okay with me using the word fuck, right?”

She gave him a
seriously
look, but nodded.

“Which seems pretty fucking crazy, everything considered,” he said.

“What is everything you’re considering?” Tess asked. “Besides the huge ego that won’t let you believe someone could get over you, of course.”

He narrowed his eyes. “
Considering
that you’ve wanted a relationship with me as long as we’ve known each other, and now I’m here, living in the same town, and very much interested.”

She nodded. “Okay, well, the living-in-the-same-town thing would be okay if it wasn’t Sapphire Falls.”

He leaned on his crutch with a frown. “Why is that?”

“Because I don’t plan to be here for long.”

Bryan seemed to freeze at that. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m saving my money to leave. I love Sapphire Falls, but there’s a big wide world out there.” She paused. “There’s no better way to appreciate where you are than to see all the other places you could be.”

That was a quote. From Bryan. From his blog.

But if he recognized it, he didn’t give any indication. “Where is it that you want to go?” he asked.

“Denver.” It wasn’t like it was a
secret
. Okay, it was kind of a secret. She hadn’t told anyone because she didn’t know how long it would take for her to save the money, and she hadn’t known if she would get accepted into Jake’s program, and she didn’t really have a plan B. She also didn’t want to talk about how serious the running had become. It wouldn’t make sense to most people.

But it would to Bryan
, a voice in her head said.

Yes, it would. And it broke her heart again that she couldn’t share it all with him.

“Denver,” he repeated as if sure he’d heard her wrong.

She chewed her bottom lip while he processed that.

“You’re saving up money to move to
Denver
,” he asked, his voice rising slightly.

“Yeah.”

“Denver,” he said again. “As in the city I just came
back
from?”

“Yes.”

“Is that a coincidence, Tess?” he asked, his voice firm. “Tell me that you threw a
fucking
dart at a map and came up with Denver.”

Well, at least he was over the swearing-in-front-of-her thing.

It wasn’t exactly a
coincidence.
Jake Elliot lived in Denver, and she knew about Jake because of Bryan. “I have to admit that I became obsessed with the mountains because of you. I’ve wanted to go for a long time.” There, that was true. And it didn’t tell him things he didn’t need to know.

No one needed to know about her running. With her not-so-secret crush on Bryan, everyone would assume it was because of him. She did
not
want that. Because she didn’t have time to explain the complicated reality of how it kind of was because of him, but mostly wasn’t. And no one would believe that anyway. Least of all Bryan himself. She’d humiliated herself more than enough in front of and because of him.

She was proud of what she’d accomplished with her running. And she didn’t want people to think it was about anything other than
her
hard work. She didn’t need praise or accolades.
She
knew what it was about. That’s all that mattered.

Bryan stared at her for several heartbeats. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he finally said. He moved swiftly, coming forward and sitting down on the coffee table right in front of her. “You were going to Denver for me, right, Tess?” he asked gruffly. “You were done waiting and you were going to make a move since I wasn’t?”

She started to answer, but he wasn’t done.

“That’s amazing.” He reached out and cupped her face. “You’re amazing. You’ve loved me all these years. You’ve made me feel like a rock star even when I was feeling like a joke. And then when I woke up in the hospital, and I realized my life was about to change forever, the one bright spot was you. I knew I was coming home, and knowing you were here made it something to look forward to. I didn’t worry about what I was giving up. Only what I was moving toward.”

Holy…
crap.
Tess stared at him. What was
that
? What was she supposed to say to all of that? And of course, he was assuming it was all about him. That was partly her fault, she supposed. But she’d been over him for more than two years. She hadn’t given him any indication that she was still all wrapped up in him, dreaming about him,
waiting for him
since he’d been back. For
over a year
, without saying a word about wanting her.

“Are
you
fucking kidding
me?
” she asked him.

That was clearly not the reaction he’d been expecting. “What?”

“You’ve been home for a
year
and
seven months
, Bryan. And you’re telling me this
now
?”

It wouldn’t have mattered. She would have still wanted to go to Denver to train even if he’d said this a year ago. But what the
hell
had taken him so long?

“I wasn’t…ready. I was still doing rehab and trying to get settled, to show you I was serious about staying. Then I got hurt again.”

He had kept her
waiting
because he was trying to prove to her that he was serious about
staying
? Tess couldn’t believe this. Or how much she wanted more vodka.

“That’s stupid,” she told him.

“No. Listen, we’re talking about forever here. I knew you weren’t a girl to mess around with. But now I’m ready. No messing around. For good. For real.”

She looked into the green eyes that she had lived to see in the hallways at school every day of her junior high and high school career. Dammit.

“I’m going to Denver, Bryan,” she told him. “I…have to.”

“Why? What’s in Denver now?”

Because he wasn’t there. Oh, she knew exactly what he meant. And a piece of her heart smiled. That was Bryan. Things worked out for him. Looking at him in a wheelchair after a bad accident in the mountains might not seem that way to an outsider. But to anyone who knew Bryan even a little knew that he was fine. He looked at everything with optimism and the knowledge that he could learn and grow from anything. He was amazing that way.

But his eternal optimism also lent itself to thinking that everything would always work out and he’d always get his way in the end.

It was probably incredibly hard for him to imagine a world where Tessa didn’t want to do whatever she could to be with him. She’d done what she could to be a part of his life for almost as long as they’d known each other.

But she’d very specifically
not
mooned all over him since he’d come home this time. She’d been careful to treat him like she did all of the other guys in Sapphire Falls.

“I want to travel, Bryan. I want to try new things, meet new people, have some amazing experiences.” She didn’t want to mention his travel posts. He’d given her a taste of the world, the hint she wanted to travel, but he wasn’t the reason she was going now. “You should know what that’s like. You’ve been to so many great places. Surely you can understand why I want that too.”

“Really? You’ve always seemed so settled and happy here.” He looked genuinely perplexed.

“I have been happy here,” she felt compelled to say. “But there’s so much more out there.”

“Why have you never gone?”

She looked him directly in the eye. Okay, new tactic. Maybe if he knew just exactly how wrapped up she’d been in him, he’d agree she needed a life. Like right now.

“I was waiting for
you
to realize all of this crap about how amazing I am, and for you to want to take me with you.” She had been. Up until two and half years ago when she’d realized she could make her own dreams come true.

“But—” He huffed out a breath. “I realized how amazing you are a long time ago. I was waiting until I was ready to come home to do anything about it.”

Well, so he’d been waiting a little too. That was nice.

Focus, Tess. You’re not a pitiful teenager who grabs on to every little smile or hears what she wants to in what he says. You’re a grown woman, with a plan and a life, and Bryan Murray was just a guy. A guy who was too late.

She sighed. This was all a lot harder to tell herself when he was right here, so big and hard and strong and warm. And when she’d had some vodka.

She really was a lightweight.

He hadn’t
waited
for her. He’d seen the world, had tons of women, lived his life fully and well. She narrowed her eyes at that thought. She deserved all of that. Traveling
and
tons of men.

She cleared her throat. Everything she knew about sex came from books. She was going to have to try a new genre if there were going to be
tons
of them.

“But you do understand me wanting to travel,” she managed to say.

He looked pained for a moment. Then he nodded. “Yeah, of course I get it.”

Tess pressed her lips together. Maybe he was going to leave her alone now. That was what she wanted. Then why did she feel a niggle of disappointment at hearing him agree with her?

He dropped his gaze to the floor between his feet. “I’m sorry I can’t show you the world, Tess.”

Aw, dammit. She felt a prickle of tears at the back of her eyes. She was sorry too. She was eager to see the Grand Canyon and the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean and the black sand in Hawaii. But there was a part of her that knew it would have been even better with him. “You didn’t even know I wanted to see the world.”

He lifted his head. “No, I didn’t.” He gave a short laugh. “I’ve been completely focused on the idea that you
didn’t
want to leave Sapphire Falls.”

She wanted to reach out to him so badly. “We’re just at two different places,” she said, her own voice sounding a little gruff.

“I would have loved showing you some of the awesome places I’ve been,” he said.

Her heart cracked a little and she just nodded, because she wasn’t sure her voice would work. It was one thing for her to have realized on her own that Bryan wouldn’t be with her, but it felt way worse to hear him say it.

“You don’t want to travel anymore?” she asked.

It had occurred to her, of course, that he could still travel. It wasn’t like he was bedridden. But he’d been so intent on settling in Sapphire Falls. He hadn’t just moved back. He’d bought a house, bought a business, thrown himself in to town activities and, most of all, he talked all the time about how great it was to be back, and how this had always been his plan and how he was happy he’d seen and done so much, and that the accident had been the universe’s way of telling him it was time to settle down.

That didn’t mean she’d been hanging on his every word. He owned the only bar in town and was there a lot. And Bryan talked openly, candidly and loudly about his life, his feelings, his thoughts…everything.

“I could, I guess,” he said. “But I’ve already taken all the trips on my bucket list and seen those places the best way. I’ve seen the Italian countryside from the back of a bike and I’ve run along back roads in Yellowstone. I’ve hiked in Ireland and climbed in the Grand Canyon. I think I’m ruined for any typical touristy trip.”

She believed him. She’d felt like she was there with him, reading his words about his travels. She wanted to do it the same way he had. No question.

The money she was saving was not just to move to Denver and pay a coach, it was so she could enter these races and travel to these places and really experience them. She wanted to replicate the way Bryan had traveled. On the rough days running the roads around Sapphire Falls, she would picture Bryan’s photographs and remember his words and be able to imagine she was running outside of Paris or along the beach in Honolulu.