Page 88 of After All

Everything was different now than the last time he’d been on an extended op. He could go to North Dakota, do the work, make it really matter, and then, after all the dirt and darkness, he could come home. To Sapphire Falls and to Peyton.

He reached out and snagged her by the wrist, pulling her into his lap. “What if you need me?” he asked, putting his nose into her hair and breathing deep.

She wrapped an arm around his neck and snuggled close. “Well, I’m not going to lie and tell you my vibrator is going to stay in the drawer,” she said.

“Not what I mean.”

“Why would I ne—” She stopped and pulled back to look at him. “Wait a second, you mean, like a ride home from a party or bail money?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Anything.”

“I did ninety percent of the shit I did so I could have your attention,” she said with a small frown. “You know that.”

Yeah, he did. It didn’t matter. He wanted to be the one she could call no matter what. And that couldn’t happen if he was in North Dakota for God knew how long. “Not when you were in Vegas,” he said.

“I’m not planning another trip to Vegas.”

“You didn’t planthattrip to Vegas.” That had been a last minute, hey-I’ve-got-an-idea Peyton move.

She sighed. “Okay, I promise not to go to Vegas.”

“That was hardly the first or last time you needed me, Trouble.”

She suddenly pushed back off of his lap and frowned down at him. “Okay. But I don’t understand what that has to do with North Dakota. I’m not going to be drinking and partying while you’re gone. Is that what you want me to say?”

He sighed. “I just want to be around. In case.”

Her eyes widened. “In case of emergency,” she said, almost to herself. She frowned. “Like in my phone,” she said, referring to putting his number in under ICE on her phone so he’d be the first call anyone made if she was in trouble.

“Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.

“You really get off on that.”

“On being someone you can count on? Yeah. You matter to me, Peyton.”

“Well, thank you. And I know that,” she said. “But you do realize that I’m not going to start questioning that just because you’re not around to give me a ride home sometime.”

Scott clenched his jaw, then forced himself to relax. He wanted her to be okay. Better than okay. Heneededher to be good, safe, healthy and happy. And if he wanted something done right—like Peyton protected and cared for—then he had to do it himself. No one else had ever done it very fucking well. “It matters to me to be there for you.”

“You can’t come running every time I have a hangnail, Scott.”

“I wish I could,” he shot back. “That I could fix.” Then he froze. Fuck, why had he said that?

She seemed stunned too. “My stuff does seem pretty easy to fix, doesn’t it?” she said after a moment.

“That’s not what—”

She held up a hand. “No, seriously.” She seemed to be thinking as she spoke. “You worked on a task force where, no matter how many people you saved and how many bad guys you put away, there was always more. You never really felt like you completely fixed anything. And then you came to Sapphire Falls. Where you could fix the noise complaints and the speeding and the littering. And you found me—a girl youcouldsave. Because what I needed was someone who would show up, over and over, no matter what I did wrong or how I screwed up.”

“Peyton, that isnot—”

“No, hang on,” she said. “This is really it, Scott. I needed you. And I let you think I needed you even more than I did because I knew that’s whatyouneeded. You needed to clean out gutters and give rides home and give self-defense lessons to someone because you needed to feel like you were actually making things better for someone.”

Jesus. His heart was aching as he watched her process everything going through her head. But he didn’t try to stop her again. Because she was kind of right.

“Derek said that he didn’t think you liked me just because I was the girl in town who was the most trouble,” she said. “But that’s part of it, isn’t it?”

“You talked to Derek about this?”

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