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  Therapy. Well, there was something he never wanted to talk about. “Right.”

  “I mean, in the sense that no one actually knows about that except for you and the other EMT that you were with.”

  “Right,” he said again.

  “There’s just no point informing anyone new about it.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “A very long time ago. I mean, ancient history, really. Except that we obviously both remember.”

  “Yeah, I tend to remember things like that,” he said.

  He couldn’t read her expression. “I guess I didn’t think that you would.”

  “There’s a reason I’m not an EMT anymore. I was good at my job, but I saw a lot of things that you can’t just forget. And to an extent, you don’t really want to. You get called to the worst moments in people’s lives. And sometimes, to moments that are just going to make for a funny story later. I did help get a bead out of one of the Miller kids’ noses. Scary for a few minutes, but once we were there everything was fine, and his mom knew that he would be. But I’ve also seen the kids who weren’t going to be fine. And that’s just the kind of thing that... It stays with you. There was a time limit on how long I can do that.”

  “So you moved into firefighting?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, saving people, but less directly most of the time.”

  “More dangerous for you personally.”

  “It was never about my own safety.”

  “Right,” she said. She took a breath. “Well, I look forward to seeing how everything is going to run around here.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Me too. My older brother, who has really no experience with children, has decided that this is a great way for him to give back to the community. And...I guess he thinks it’s just easy.”

  Vanessa laughed. “I doubt he thinks it’s going to be easy.”

  “Oh, I’m damn sure he does. Gabe Dalton is nothing but overconfidence and good intentions. Let me tell you.”

  “You don’t put a lot of stock in good intentions?”

  He didn’t speak for a moment. He didn’t know what there was to say about that. Except to bring it back around to when he had worked in emergency services. “Good intentions never stopped a tragedy, and they never saved a life. Actions and reactions are all that matter. And believe me when I tell you, I think my brother has a pretty good reaction time. Considering that he used to be a bull rider and all. But I don’t think he knows what he’s getting into.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “Do you?”

  “No. But I don’t intend on doing a lot of work with kids. Not specifically. In part because I don’t have to. I won’t be teaching or anything like that. Gabe’s fiancée, Jamie, is going to be the riding instructor. I’m just going to help facilitate things.”

  “Well, it sounds good anyway.”

  “What about you?” he asked. He realized then that he really didn’t know anything about her life. He had no idea that she was coming to be the teacher at the ranch. And yeah, he had gone to her house last night, but he hadn’t looked in any of the other rooms. For all he knew she had a husband. Maybe by now she had children. “Do you have experience with...this kind of thing?”

  She laughed. “Not a lot. But I’ve done a lot of art therapy. So I’ve worked with troubled kids in the past. I’ve also done a lot of free art classes at rec centers. And a lot of adult painting classes. I have experience working with a variety of people. But I never expect any one group of people to be the same.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because people are all different. One particular personality can completely change the dynamic of an entire group. No matter how much experience I had I wouldn’t venture to think that I could anticipate how a group was going to behave.”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure I agree with that. In my line of work I’ve seen a lot of human nature. And in my estimation there’s just a few types of people. All the window dressing might be different, but the basic way that we behave is the same.”

  “The window dressing is what makes us interesting,” she insisted.

  “Yeah, and the blood in our veins is what makes us human. And that’s essentially all the same.”

  She squinted. “I can’t decide if your outlook on life is incredibly hopeful or if it’s sort of sad.”

  He tilted his lips up into a smile. “Consider the source.”

  “I don’t know the source. You were a part of a pretty dramatic moment in my life, but I don’t actually know you.”

  “I’m not a hero,” he said. “That’s about all you need to know about me.”

  * * *

  BECAUSE GABE CALLED that night’s drinking session a meeting, Jacob really had no choice but to go. Not that he minded having a beer. Far from it. But he might have preferred to stay in and have one. Alone. But whatever, for the second night in a row he found himself sitting in the Gold Valley Saloon with Gabe, Caleb, Ellie and Jamie.

  He was allowing them to talk because he didn’t have much to say. Not really. As long as they were happy to let him sit in silence, he was happy enough to sit there. Or maybe happy was overestimating it.

  “I want to thank you all for getting this far with me,” Gabe said. “It means a hell of a lot.”

  Jamie grinned. “Well, you couldn’t have done it without us. Let’s be clear.”

  “It’s true. I couldn’t have done it without you. Any of you. You most of all.”

  Jamie seemed to take that as her due. And he supposed that was fair enough. Being with Jamie had changed Gabe. And if Jacob were given to thinking much about that stuff, he would say that it was for the better. But he didn’t do all that navel-gazing stuff if he could help it. Thinking of navel-gazing, though, he did wonder why Vanessa hadn’t come out, when the rest of their ragtag staff was here.

  “Where’s the art teacher?”

  He didn’t call her by her name because he didn’t especially want to give them the idea he and Vanessa had a link that extended beyond the ranch school.

  “She said she was busy.”

  Gabe went back to talking, as if the reasons that she might be busy weren’t interesting to him at all, and Jacob found that they were of interest to him. Whether he wanted them to be or not. He wasn’t in a space in his life where he could be interested in a woman.

  Hell, even back in the day his interest hadn’t had anything to do with what a woman did when she was at home by herself on a Sunday night. Unless that something involved every masculine fantasy, where the woman drew herself a bath and lit some candles and briskly sought her own pleasure, preferably while on the phone with him.

  And now he wasn’t even in the position where that did much for him.

  Although the minute he let himself have that thought, his mind immediately superimposed Vanessa over it.

  The visceral reaction he had to that was extreme and swift. His stomach tightened, recoiling. He pushed that thought to the side, forcing himself instead to think of her as she had been, in pain and alone, all those years ago.

  Not because it was a happy way to picture her, but because it was safer. At least for him.

  He wondered if she had manufactured an excuse because of him. Though the woman who he had talked to earlier at the ranch hadn’t seemed like she would avoid difficult situations. She seemed like she charged right into them headlong.

  “We have files on all the kids who are coming. And Ellie has done a lot of comprehensive reading on the subject. I decided that, for a while at least, one of the men needs to be in the classroom with Ellie or Vanessa. At least just until we get an idea of how all of this is going to work.”

  Jacob frowned. “Really?”

  “Yes,” Gabe confirmed.

  “Like a classroom marshal?” Jacob pressed.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Caleb said.

  But of course Caleb would think that. And Caleb would be first in line to work in Ellie’s class because he was her pers
onal protector at all times, and Jacob couldn’t see why this would be any different.

  “So we’re just supposed to sit there and observe and make sure that none of the kids cause problems?”

  “Some of them come from pretty difficult circumstances,” Gabe said. “And obviously I don’t think they are bad beyond redemption or I wouldn’t have them out at the ranch. But I wouldn’t say they’re all just good kids with tough centers. Some of them have been in violent altercations. No sex offenders. But some that are definitely physical scrappers.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Jamie said.

  Gabe shot her a look. “You’re going to be with me.”

  Jamie looked particularly annoyed, like Gabe was her overprotective dad. “I know how to handle myself. It’s not like any of you can shoot a gun straighter than I can.”

  “You’re not going to shoot anyone,” Gabe said.

  Jamie shrugged. “I’m not above a little bit of brandishing to prove a point.”

  “No one is brandishing,” Gabe said.

  “We might have to brandish,” Caleb said. “I mean, if things get real.”

  “This is a school,” Gabe said.

  “You’re the one who brought up the subject of protection,” Caleb said. “I was just saying—”

  “You’re going to get all of our licenses taken away before we even get started.”

  “You’re paranoid,” Jamie said, patting him on the shoulder.

  His future sister-in-law was another of those women who didn’t back down from a challenge. Jacob appreciated that about her.

  “I suppose that means I’m assigned to the art room,” Jacob said. Because of course he was. Of course he was being put right in the path of Vanessa Logan.

  He couldn’t figure out why it bothered him.

  “Yes,” Gabe said. “Feel free to take up painting if you have the urge.”

  “Yeah, I can’t say that I am exactly itching to explore my artistic side.” As far as he knew, he didn’t have an artistic side. He was completely fine with that.

  He had a hard-drinking side. A selfish side. An adrenaline-junkie side. But art was not his thing.

  “I’m going to head out,” Jacob said, standing up. He had the urge to go and drink a lot more than he could here. He needed to be able to drive home.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Gabe said, his brother’s eyes watchful.

  “That’s mighty kind of you, Gabe,” Jacob said. “Do you want to hold my books?”

  “Stop being a dick.”

  Jacob waved goodbye to everyone else, and he headed toward the door, weaving through the crowd of people, the floor slightly sticky beneath his boots thanks to the revelers getting in their last weekend hurrah, being careless with their beers and syrupy mixed drinks.

  Jacob pushed the door open—the handle of which was a little bit sticky itself—and stepped out onto the street, the night air flat and temperate. It was strange. Not warm like it was in the height of summer, and no crispness yet like there would be once fall took hold.

  It was quiet out on the street, everyone safely tucked away in the bar, or in restaurants. It was dark, the glow from the streetlights bathing the uneven cement sidewalks in a golden glow and making each and every crack look deeper, wider.

  His truck was parked two blocks away up against the curb, beneath a sign claiming a time limit that he knew wasn’t going to be enforced at this hour.

  “There a reason that you’re walking me out like I need a babysitter?” Jacob turned to his brother and shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “I just wanted to make sure if there was anything you needed to tell me.”

  “Oh. I take that back. You’re acting like you’re my dad.”

  “Don’t be silly. Our dad never asked if there was something we needed to tell him. At least not so he could scold us or make sure we were okay. Mostly to see if he needed to give us a high five for doing something particularly questionable.”

  “Fair enough,” Jacob said.

  “I promise I’m not busting your chops or trying to make things harder on you by putting you on classroom duty. And I really did think that you would mostly just be doing outdoor stuff. But I got to thinking about it, and I was a little bit concerned because, hell, I don’t know what these kids are going to do. They’ve never had structure in their lives. And I don’t know anything about kids.”

  “And yet you decided that this would be a great idea for you in terms of what direction to take your life in.”

  “Yeah.” Gabe said this as if it wasn’t a little bit weird. “Don’t you know what it’s like to want to make amends for something? Hell. I know you do.”

  “I think you overestimate me,” he said. “There’s no making amends to a dead man, Gabe. I’m not fool enough to think that there is. Not even me.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “People change,” Jacob said. “I spent a lot of years being the asshole middle kid. I just wanted to skate along. I did the bare minimum.”

  “I’m not sure very many people would say that an EMT turned wildland firefighter is selfish.”

  “Yeah. Because they think everyone does jobs like that to help other people. Some of us just do it for the thrill. That’s why I didn’t keep working as an EMT. The kind of crap that you see doesn’t make up for the thrill, all right? I think you have a warped view of me because you’re my brother, and you want to believe that I’m a really good guy. But I’m not. The older I get, the more I realize that. But my younger days are what they are. I can’t do anything about it, it is what it is. But thirty-five-year-old me is not twenty-five-year-old me.”

  “I know that. I’ve changed too. It’s just that...”

  “You think I’m punishing myself. I get it. I haven’t done a whole lot to make you see it differently. I’m not. Whether that makes you think better or worse of me, I don’t know. But it’s just the truth. So don’t worry about me. I may not be exactly what you expected me to be. But I’d like to think that I’m better. Hell, I’m helping your ass out, aren’t I?”

  “True enough,” Gabe said.

  “I think we both know that I probably wouldn’t have done that not very long ago.”

  “Also true,” he said gruffly.

  They both knew it was because of Clint. He’d spent months isolating himself. Dealing with his grief alone. And then he’d started to change. He’d quit drinking as much. He’d started asking how he could help around the ranch. He didn’t go out to bars, didn’t hook up.

  Too late, he was trying to be the man who would have gone on the call that day. Not the man who’d blown off his responsibilities for a good time.

  “If you’re worried about someone punishing themselves, look at Caleb,” Jacob said.

  “Caleb, huh? We usually sit around talking about what you’re doing to yourself.”

  “I know. Because he’s a dumbass. Look at him. He’s with Ellie all the time, acting like a husband without getting any of the benefits. Come on. What would you call that if not punishment?”

  “He cares about her. She’s our friend.”

  “Yeah. But he acts like he has to be her personal bodyguard for the rest of her and Amelia’s lives.”

  “Or for him that’s just friendship. Maybe that’s just being there for people. And were you saying you were trying to do that?”

  “Yeah. I was. Still, if you’re looking for someone broken, look somewhere else. I think you just don’t get how I could be happy living up away from everyone else. Spending time by myself.”

  “I’m happy,” Gabe said. “I want you to be happy.”

  “And that’s great,” Jacob said. “Really great. I’m glad that you’re happy. I think happy might not be what I’m aiming for. I did happy. For a long time. People got hurt.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t doing the blame game.”

  “I’m not. But I am speaking the truth.” His words landed like a rock between them.

  Gabe could say whatever
he wanted. That there was no way he could have known. That there were any number of reasons a person could miss a shift. He could have been sick. Then would he feel guilty? He could be dead. Would that be better?

  But the fact was, Jacob hadn’t been sick. He’d wanted to have sex with his one-night stand again. Had wanted to sleep off his hangover in peace. He’d thought only of himself.

  He’d told them to call Clint. To have him cover his ass.

  He’d lost his life.

  Those were the facts. And no matter how much he might wish them different, they couldn’t be.

  Clint had lost his life.

  The least he could do was own the guilt.

  “All right. Hey. Whatever.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. I’ll be fine, Gabe.”

  “Okay. See you tomorrow. Dumbass.”

  And then Gabe turned and walked back into the bar, leaving Jacob standing alone on the street trying to find a feeling in his chest. To figure out if he was lying or telling the truth to his brother. The thing that bothered him the most was that he wasn’t sure.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  VANESSA FELT LIKE it was her first day of school. Like she was in junior high again. Waiting to walk into a classroom full of people, feeling like nothing more than a square peg being shoved into a round hole. Of course, back in school it had not been classrooms full of strangers. No. She’d never been given the benefit of a classroom full of strangers. She was Olivia Logan’s twin. Her family among the most influential in town.

  She had known everyone and everyone had known her from the first. And there had always been something about that that she found disconcerting. Maybe it was because no one actually knew her. They looked at her, they saw her name and they overlaid an expectation that had never matched up with what she was. There had been so much credit given to her, at least by anyone outside her family. People would have had no idea.

  She was the chronic underachiever. She was the one who was not expected to try. She was a little black hole that happened to be shaped like a girl. And nothing more.

  At least, that was how it had always felt to her. But no one understood that. And she had never wanted to confess it. Because it was sad. And weird. And no one would believe that a girl who had money and a beautiful house in their small town could be anything but deliriously happy. That the girl who was part of a family who had such a tight-knit bond in the public sphere would feel isolated and alone. That a girl with an identical twin could possibly feel like a singular misfit who was like nothing and no one.