Lean on Me (12 page)

She pushed past him, trying to focus through the anger clouding her vision. She made out the outline of her pack and grabbed it, nearly toppling over from the weight of having combined everything together.

Mitch’s hand slammed against the door by her head. “Where are you going?”

She refused to turn around. She did not want to see Mitch. Hearing her voice right now made her want to scream. “Allan’s house.”

“I thought he didn’t have a house anymore.”

Ignoring the sarcasm and what the move would cost her, she glanced over her shoulder. “It’s never been about the house, but I don’t think you’ll ever get that.”

He frowned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I know.” She pulled open the door and walked into the night.

Chapter Fourteen

Spence and Travis crowded into his office the next morning and slammed the door behind them. Mitch was getting tired of banging doors. He wasn’t really happy with the idea of company either.

He’d been staring at the two unopened beer bottles on the corner of his desk for the last hour. Drinking at ten in the morning would be the beginning of the end. He could punch his fist through a wall, but he wasn’t ready to wander around in a drunken stupor. Not yet.

“You’re a jackass.” Spence shook his head as he delivered his assessment.

Mitch didn’t want to hear it. He’d slept all of ten minutes the night before. After getting in the truck and following Cassidy to Allan’s place at a five-mile-per-hour walking pace, and he’d swear she’d slowed down when she saw him beside her, he squealed the tires and left.

He hadn’t planned on running the stop sign. He had the traffic ticket in his desk drawer as a reminder of his shitty evening.

“Go away.” He’d hoped that would do it but knew when they didn’t move it hadn’t.

“Did you really kick Cassidy out?” Travis asked.

That got Mitch’s attention. He stopped pretending to look at his computer screen. “That’s what people are saying?”

“Town gossip is you had a fight, you lost your mind and she ended up back at Allan’s place and we all know that’s a temporary solution.” Spence raised his eyebrows as if asking for confirmation of the evening’s events.

Figured people twisted everything up and pointed the Bad Guy arrow at him. “Why am I the one at fault here? I was trying to help.”

Spence smacked his lips together. “Did you kick her out?”

“No!”

Travis balanced against the side of the desk until Mitch’s scowl had him standing up again. “Stop making faces and tell us why she left.”

No fucking way
. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Spence snorted. “Tough.”

Mitch needed a target and silently thanked Spence for giving him one. “I thought you hated her.”

“You know that’s not true.” He shrugged. “Besides that, whatever questions I had about her were resolved when I saw her with Allan.”

The mood shifted. Mitch heard it in the less harsh tone of Spence’s voice and felt it in the air. He had no idea what happened but something big. “What does that mean?”

“He told her about using the money for her mom’s cancer treatment. They hugged. It was girl stuff, and I didn’t get all of it, but there’s no question the strong bond is there.” Spence acted like none of it mattered but his voice continued to change, lightening as he talked. “She tried to help and Allan wouldn’t take it.”

That couldn’t be true. Mitch shook his head as he tried to put it all together in his head. If that were the case, then he was the biggest ass to walk through Holloway.

Then he remembered the huge fact flashing in his face, the same one he’d ignored a second ago. This round of gossip didn’t attack Cassidy. It went after him. Somewhere, somehow, she’d taken on a role other than villain.

Except in his head. He had cast her in that part last night and thrown everything he had at her. All his insecurities about Susan, his parents’ indifference toward each other, his worry about getting involved and falling so fast. It had all bubbled up, mixing with his exhaustion and he unloaded.

He was a total ass.

“Are you sure about Allan?” Even he knew he sounded pathetic with that question.

“Aw, man.” Travis winced. “What did you do? Not the Cleo thing?”

Spence’s eyes widened. “What’s the Cleo thing?”

“Town gossip about Cassidy running through her parents’ money. Cleo insisted she knows someone who knows, that sort of thing. Bottom line was she blamed Cassidy for Allan’s financial troubles.”

Spence shook his head. “Nah, I was there for this conversation. It didn’t happen that way. Allan was clear the money went to medical treatment for Cassidy’s mom. Cassidy didn’t know a thing about it.”

Travis and Spence had taken over the conversation. They argued back and forth, agreeing on the facts but disagreeing on how big of a jerk Mitch was. Both agreed the answer was pretty damn big. The only question was if he rose to the level of the biggest jerk ever.

Through it all, Mitch listened and didn’t disagree. He doubted he could speak. He’d taken the one good thing in his life, a woman who meant more than all the others before her combined, and pushed her away. Make that shoved.

Travis held up a hand to stop Spence’s tirade. “Hold up a sec. Look at him.”

They both stared at Mitch. The pity was right there.

“You do know you love her, right?” Spence asked.

Mitch didn’t hesitate. “I do now.”

* * *

Cassidy stopped halfway up Culver Mountain. This was the place just outside of Holloway where she hiked as a kid. The one spot where she could watch over the town from above. She used to take her time and wind through the trees instead of staying on the path. Today, anger fueled her steps and she’d raced up the dirt road in record time to this lookout point. She’d been sitting there blankly staring for more than two hours. Much more or this and someone might call for help.

A few people walked by her, most in guided groups. She loved that people were out and sharing the specialness of this place. In a state where the average was fifteen hundred feet above sea level, the mountain was a safe walk with a gentle rise another thousand feet. There was a railing and park rangers wandered by every few minutes.

But none of that mattered today. The impressive view out over the top of the trees and the burst of fall colors below and around her didn’t even appeal to her. With her insides crushed and her heart barely thudding, she had trouble breathing. Throughout China and Pakistan, she’d scaled more than thirty thousand feet into the air, twice without supplemental oxygen. Today walking onto the front porch hurt.

Everything ached. Her sore muscles felt like the hour before the flu set in. She knew she wasn’t sick, unless being heartbroken counted as an illness. No, there was only one cause and every time his face popped into her head, she blinked it out again.

She straddled the bench and put her hands on her thighs to stand up. A movement about twenty feet down caught her attention. She looked over, expecting to see another Cub Scout group.

Mitch stood there. Well, not really stood. He leaned against the tree with an arm wrapped around his stomach.

She blinked a few times, waiting for him to disappear. When he didn’t, she called out his name. “Mitch?”

His head popped up and his body swayed. “There you are.”

Her anger faded to be replaced by concern. She ran down to him. And helped balance his back against a tree. “What happened to you?”

If she didn’t know better, she’d say he’d been mauled by a bear. His clothes weren’t torn but he’d looked like he’d survived a pummeling from some creature with claws and sharp teeth.

He leaned his head against the thick trunk and closed his eyes. “Been trying to find you. Darla said you told her you were coming here. Tried to find the best way up and the lady down there told me this was an easy trail.”

If it were a ski slope, it would be whatever was easier than bunny, but Cassidy didn’t share that fact. “You walked up here willingly?”

She remembered his overreaction to the ladder and all that talk about gravity. The color had left his face and despite the cool day, the neck and armholes of his shirt were soaked with sweat. The man could bench press her without trouble, so she knew this wasn’t a fitness issue. His fear of heights had him all wobbly.

“We need to get you down,” she said, hoping he didn’t pass out on the way. He outweighed her by a decent amount and getting him to the bottom would not be easy.

“No.”

She’d cajole and convince, but first she had to make sure he didn’t dehydrate. She took her water bottle out of her safety belt and put it to his mouth. “Drink.”

“Only if you come away from the edge.”

She was five feet from the fence and already on top of him, so she didn’t bother moving. “Okay.”

She would have said anything to get him stabilized. After a few swallows of water he opened his eyes again. The blue looked cloudy but the white-sheet coloring of his face had faded to chalk. She doubted he’d be back to normal until she got him back down but she’d settle for any color outside of the white family.

The bigger question was what had brought him up there in the first place. “I’m not sure you coming up here was a good idea.”

“Had to.” Strength returned to his voice. “Had to come find you.”

Hope bounced around in her stomach but she tried to crush it out. “Why?”

“I was an idiot.”

She knew when he meant and had called him worse all day. “No arguments here.”

He lifted away from the trunk by inches. When his head didn’t bobble, he pushed off and stood only slightly bent forward, which was ten times better than where he was a few minutes ago. “I took it all out on you.”

“What?”

“My experience with women. Having Susan walk away, looking for something better than me. Listening to my mother talk about the life she should have had. It all backed up on me until—”

But he wasn’t admitting to the sin that nearly killed her. Cassidy struggled to say the words. “You started believing the crap people were saying about me.”

“No.” He shook his head but quickly stopped then swallowed three times. “I admit I let a trickle of doubt in, but I know you.”

The sentiment was nice and the gesture more endearing than she thought possible, but Cassidy had enough trouble fighting off her past without taking on his. She could work with him and support him, but she wouldn’t be blamed for things she didn’t do. Not anymore.

“It’s sweet you came up here.” Kind of sexy too, even though he looked about a step away from falling down.

“Sweet? Woman, I almost died.”

The news sent fear racing through her. “When?”

He swept one arm out to the side while the other hand gripped the tree. “Look out there. It’s dangerous. Anyone could slip or get too close and go right over the side. I can’t even believe this place is open to the public.”

She glanced at the couple walking with their kids in backpacks but decided not to point them out. Mitch was on a roll and she let him go.

Well, not without hitting a few points. “It’s a park.”

“More like a death trap.”

She did laugh then. She had to. He was so serious, his anger so real and out of control.

“You think this is funny? I almost threw up.”

She bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing. “You did?

“I had to leave the trail.” He sounded like he was blaming her for that.

“So, you actually did throw up?”

“Gagged.”

The poor thing really did hate heights. “Oh.”

He actually growled. “Twice.”

She thought about him doubled over. She viewed him as so strong and in control. It must have killed him to lose it…literally. “Really?”

“The third time was because I swallowed a bug.”

She covered her laugh with a cough. Since he aimed a deadly glare in her direction, she guessed she’d failed in the subterfuge department.

It was hard to believe just a few seconds ago everything seemed so dark, despite the bright sunshine. Just seeing him, even in this sorry state, sent a burst of light flashing through her. She felt the lightness. Fought back her love for him.

“You clearly hate this.”

He loosened his death grip on the tree but didn’t wander any closer to the middle of the path. “Leaving the ground? Yes.”

Since he had stopped shouting, she also decided not to point out they were on the ground. “I’m going to ask again. Why are you here?”

His eyebrows snapped together. “Why do you think?”

“To apologize.” She was about to use the word sweet again when he snarled.

“No.”

Her heart clenched. “No?”

“Because I love you.” The words snapped out of him like an accusation.

To her they meant everything. Her heart thundered back to life. Every cell inside her snapped to alert. She wanted to believe, to throw her arms around him and kiss the air back into his lungs. She wanted to make promised and ask him when he knew.

She wanted it all, but her emotions had been bouncing around with his mood for the last two days. Opening her heart again and letting her mind believe terrified her.

“You do?”

His eyes bugged out. “Why do you think I would risk my life and gag on my breakfast to crawl up here?”

She really hoped he hadn’t crawled but a quick check of his jeans showed dirt all over his knees. “It’s hard to take your words seriously when you’re yelling at me.”

He fell back against the tree and held a hand out to her. She grabbed onto it like it was a lifeline. In a way, it was.

He dragged her body between his legs and balanced his hands on her hips. “I was a jerk. What I felt for you, it hit me out of nowhere. I didn’t expect it, didn’t really want it.”

“Thanks.” But she knew what he meant. It slapped her too.

He dropped his forehead to her shoulder and placed a small kiss there. “When it came at me and you got into my head and my heart, I panicked. I wanted to push you out before you hurt me.”

“So, you hurt me first.”

He looked up with sadness washing over his face. “Damn, hon. I’m sorry.”

She knew he was. She could hear it and fell it. Just as she knew he loved her. For a man who couldn’t get on a stepladder to climb up a mountain, that had to be love.

She brought his mouth down to hers. With her lips over hers, she whispered her pledge. “I didn’t expect to love you but I know I won’t stop.”

“I can’t promise I won’t try to protect you, but I will listen and believe in you. Your dreams are my dreams now.”

She kissed him then. Their mouths met in a promise of love and devotion. The longer it went on, the more his strength returned. By the end he was standing straight up and some color had returned to his cheeks.

He rubbed his nose against hers. “I love you. Please come home.”

Everything she’d ever needed and never knew she wanted loomed just out of reach. She would love him forever. When times got tough, she’d remember seeing that ghostly white face and knowing what it took him to come for her.