Page 31 of Chasing the Wild
He said the words I'd been waiting to hear from someone all my life. Finally. And I couldn't say them back because my throat was closed with panic. I what I wanted to do, but years of conditioning, years of being told I had to be responsible and professional and perfect had be second guessing what was real and what wasn’t.
"I need to go back. Just to handle things properly. To give notice, to pack, to—"
His hands dropped from my face like I'd burned him.
"You’re not coming back," he finished, his voice flat. He stepped back, and the distance between us felt like miles. "I've been left before, Jess. By every person who was supposed to keep me. And they all had good reasons. Logical reasons. Responsible reasons. But at the end of the day, they still left."
"I'm not leaving for good. Just for right now."
He gave a half laugh. “That’s what they all say.” His ice-blue eyes held mine, and I saw the exact moment he gave up. "I asked you to choose me. Right now, in this moment. And you chose responsibility instead."
"Sam, please—"
"We need to get you down the mountain." He pulled on his shirt with jerky movements. "Don't want you to miss your ride back to the life you can't walk away from."
"Why are you being like this?" Anger flared through my tears. "Why does it have to be all or nothing? Why can't I go handle my responsibilities and come back?"
He finally looked at me, I flinched at the pain in his eyes.
"Because I know how this ends," he said quietly. "You'll get back to Manhattan. Back to your apartment and your job and your boss telling you that what happened here was just a breakdown. Just stress. Just temporary insanity. And you'll start to believe it. You'll convince yourself that we couldn't really have fallen in love in three days. That it was just survival instincts and adrenaline and good sex."
"No.” I shook my head. But a little tingle in me wondered if he was right. "You're not being fair."
"I'm being honest." He headed for the stairs. "And honestly? If you can't choose me right now, when I'm standing here telling you I love you and begging you to stay, then you never will. You either want this badly enough to fight for it, or you don't."
"That's not—" But he was already gone, his footsteps heavy on the stairs.
Fair
I sat in his bed and felt the weight of what he'd asked me to do. Stay. Miss the helicopter. Burn my bridges. Leave everything familiar behind. I couldn’t do it. I was too much of a coward.
Chapter 8
Jess
When I finally climbed down from the loft, Sam was at the stove, cooking eggs. He glanced up when I appeared, his expression cold.
"Coffee's ready," he said. "Breakfast in five."
"Thanks." My voice came out small.
He nodded and went back to cooking, not meeting my eyes.
This was worse than anger. Worse than fighting. This polite distance, this careful neutrality, felt like a door closing. Like he'd already let me go in his mind, and now he was just going through the motions.
"Sam—"
"Eat while it's hot," he interrupted, sliding a plate across the counter. "We should leave in thirty minutes. Weather's holding, but I want to get you back before anything changes."
Get me back. Like I was just cargo to be delivered. Just another client whose emergency had been resolved.
I ate because I didn't know what else to do. The eggs were perfect—of course they were, because Sam was competent at everything—but they tasted like mush in my mouth.
He ate standing up, leaning against the counter, looking out the window at his mountains. Not at me.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"For what?" His voice was carefully even. "You didn't do anything wrong. You have a life in the city. Career, obligations. Makes sense you'd go back to it."
