He gave me a questioning look and lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug. “No, but all of us usually have a layover in Denver when we travel out of state; why?”
It was my turn to shrug. “My sister worked in the airport. She mentioned a MacKenzie that left quite an impression on her. That’s why I’m in Surrender. She talked about it all the time. She wanted to come here but she passed away recently.” I turned back to look at the trees passing by alarmingly close to the windows. “I came here for her, because she would never get the chance.”
“I thought you were meeting friends? Isn’t that what Ben told Cooper?” Now there was suspicion in his tone, making it sharp and hard.
“Ben lied. He told me I was chasing ghosts and he was right. He didn’t want the sheriff to think I was some crazy woman that had purposely driven off the side of the road because of her grief.” It was stretching the truth just a little. I couldn’t very well tell Thomas that Ben didn’t want me ruffling any MacKenzie feathers unjustly.
“Ben likes to play fast and loose with the truth, doesn’t he?” My executive lumberjack was always going to be an outsider while he was stuck up here living a life that wasn’t his.
“I think that’s a survival mechanism. Sometimes, you have to tell yourself so many lies that you can’t even recognize what the truth is anymore.” Right now, I was lying to myself and not doing a very good job of it.
Over and over again, I silently chanted, everything is going to be fine, but I was having a hard time believing it. Nothing felt fine. It felt awful and empty.
“I have a younger brother, Shane. He’s actually the youngest of all of us and he’s always been kind of a wildcard. He’s restless, has a knack for trouble, and lives for a good time. His life went a little sideways recently, but before that upset, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one that caught your sister’s eye. He’s a flirt and a charmer without trying to be either. Women tend to fall at his feet and he’s gotten used to maneuvering around them as delicately as he can.” There was pride and hard-won understanding throughout his tone.
I thought having an idea, having a tangible person to hang all my grief and sorrow on would help. It didn’t. Ben was right. All I felt was understanding and the familiar thrum of pain that echoed inside of me when I thought about Xanthe. I was an older sibling with a wayward younger sibling, so I understood every ounce of emotion the doctor had in his voice. We loved, even when those we cared for made it really hard to do so. “I’m glad I got the chance to see the place she dreamed of. It was worth the trip.”
It was so worth it.
Chapter 10
Benny
I spent the first week after Echo left moping and feeling sorry for myself.
I spent the second week plotting and planning. I made myself dizzy trying to figure out a way off the mountain, but every direction I turned led to me dragging her into a mess she didn’t need to be in. The feds weren’t going to let me go, not when they thought they could still use me, and if I went off the reservation, they would stop at nothing until they found me. It would put Echo directly in the center of law enforcement crosshairs if I took off and they found her with me. It wasn’t like I could ask them for any favors either. They’d dropped me in the middle of nowhere Montana for a reason. I hadn’t earned my way out of prison based on good behavior. No one in their right mind was going to go out of their way to make my life a little easier and a whole lot more pleasurable by moving me to an actual city with a population of more than a couple thousand. To them, keeping me breathing and putting a roof over my head was good enough. This was all the consideration I deserved after the kind of life I’d lived and the things I had done.
The third week I convinced myself it was all the intensity of the situation and emotions running high because of how long I’d been without a woman, or without any kind of company really. I told myself it was a fluke, that I couldn’t really be that twisted up and upside down over a girl I’d only known a couple of days. I blamed cabin fever and ordered myself to finally settle in and start appreciating the second chance I’d been given. I polished myself up, got back into the habit of taking care of myself, working out around the cabin and running when the weather cooperated. I slapped on the smile that used to get me whatever I wanted back home, and went on the prowl. These ski bunnies didn’t stand a chance. I was going to gorge myself, stuff myself full of sex and satisfaction so there was no room for the uneasy ache that now seemed to live around my heart.
I quickly came to the conclusion that I was a fantastic liar, but there was no way I was going to buy in to my own bullshit. After dismissing the tenth or eleventh girl who made it clear she would be up for some no-strings vacation sex, for reasons that were ridiculous and reaching, I realized there was no way I was going to get over what I was feeling for Echo by getting inside someone else. It was fucking depressing, so I spent another week moping and feeling out of control because I couldn’t get a handle on how to make the situation any better. The only things in this life I’d ever been good at were figuring out a way to fix things, and making people do what I wanted them to do so they were part of the solution, not part of the problem. There was no force to be used here, no knees to break or threats to throw around. There was no manipulation to be had and no strings to pull to get my way. I was stuck, dead in the water and the shore I wanted to reach seemed ridiculously out of my grasp.