Page 58 of All It Takes

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The following day, Farrah stood beside my desk, arms akimbo, as she eyed me. “You’re cranky,” she announced. “You miss Wes. Why don’t you just admit you really love him?”

“Farrah!” I sputtered.

She shrugged. “I get it. You’ve got baggage. Welcome to life. We all do. It’s that whole bag of rocks thing we’re all carrying. Some of those rocks are pretty jagged. I get your thing with your mom and that stupid guy who ghosted you. You have two choices: carry that weight forever or toss those rocks out. We could even do some kind of woo-woo ceremony, where we get you a rock, and you throw it,” she offered.

Alice happened to appear in the doorway just then and burst out laughing. She divided a look between us. “I’m all in on the throwing the rock ceremony. Where shall we go for this? Maybe we go down to my place and do it off the dock.”

Farrah grinned, her hands falling from her hips. “Perfect.”

Just then, Alice’s cell phone chimed, and she slipped it out of her pocket, glancing down. Her brows hitched up as she looked back at us. “It’s the hospital. That’s weird.” She slid her thumb across the screen. “Hello?”

The moment she answered the call, an unnerving sense of anxiety, bordering on panic, began to spin inside of my chest. I felt a little sick. I wanted to snatch the phone from her and demand answers. I didn’t know what was happening, but everything in my body told me something had happened to Wes.

“Uh-huh, okay. She’s right here.” Alice handed me her phone.

ChapterThirty-Nine

WES

Five hours earlier

Even though I was breathing cool spring air and patches of snow were still on the ground, the flames cast off walls of heat. I heard the sound of a helicopter above, glancing up to see it angling to the side before dropping water. It had been a dry winter for this area of the state, like much of the west in general. The fire had been set off by sparks from a faulty electrical line in one of the small villages nearby. Fortunately for the village, the wind had driven it away, but we needed to establish a perimeter and get the fire out before it changed direction again.

I turned my attention back to what I was doing, steadily working with the chainsaw, creating a perimeter along the edge of a river. Fortunately, that hadn’t dried up yet. I was tired, but I kept on moving, as we all did. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you exactly what happened. All I knew was the blade of my chainsaw hit an unexpected rock, and it kicked back. By the grace of fucking God, the chainsaw missed me, but I stumbled against a tree that was still smoking from the fire that had burned through the area only hours before we got to this section. I cried out abruptly as I fell.

I was conscious when the guy working closest to me, Chase, reached me. My vision was blurry as I looked up at him. “Please tell me my side looks okay.”

Chase’s eyes were worried as he looked at me. “Okay is relative. We’ve gotta get you out of here.”

God only knew why I chose then to blurt this out, but I did. “I love Tiffany,” I said between ragged breaths.

Chase had already opened a backpack that appeared out of nowhere, it seemed. Rowan arrived, and they both began peeling my clothing away to check the burn on my side.

Chase looked at me, replying, “I don’t think now is the best time for this conversation, but I already knew that. You’re a dumbass.”

“Why is he a dumbass?” Rowan asked.

My breath hissed through my teeth as I felt him carefully peeling away my shirt from the area where I’d collided with the smoldering tree. Chase glanced at Rowan as they continued working. “It doesn’t look too bad, maybe a second-degree burn. It’s gonna leave a nasty scar. I think we just clean the area and cover it up for now. He’s a dumbass because he decided to tell me he loves my sister. Now.”

Rowan let out a chuckle. “A little pain will do that.” His eyes met mine. “Hang on, we’re going to spray that antiseptic, numbing stuff on this. It’ll burn for a sec.”

“Can’t be worse than—” I let out to get another sharp breath as I felt a stinging spray on my side, the sensation immediately followed by numbing.

“You’ve been moping around for weeks,” Rowan said as he efficiently placed a bandage over the area. “We all know you’re in love with Tiffany. Why don’t you do something about it?”

A while later, after they had walked me over to an area where a helicopter could land and lift me, Chase was waiting beside me.

He glanced over. “I don’t know how much Tiffany told you, but our mom was a hot mess. Trust is hard for her. Just know that. If you love her, you might have to go out of your way to help her believe she can trust you. And if you ever fuck her over, I will make your life fucking miserable.” His tone was gruff.

“Understood. Is there something specific I should know about your mom?”

He shrugged, looking away. “She was never really around. And when Tiffany was younger, she dragged her around with her. It was hard. She had two affairs.” He looked back at me. “We both hated her for it because our dad was rock solid and deserved better.”

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What felt like hours later, they wheeled me into the hospital in a wheelchair. I had resisted, but Graham insisted it was necessary.

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