Page 52 of Screwed

His brake lights stayed solid as his truck lurched to a halt on the narrow shoulder. I slammed on my own brakes, and Deacon’s truck skidded several feet before coming to a hard stop a mere car-length behind him.

For a second, the only sound was the heavy, rhythmic ticking of the cooling engines. I threw the shifter into park, my hands shaking so badly I could barely unlatch my seatbelt.

Before I could even push my door open, Nate’s driver-side door flew backward. He stepped down into the mud, and he was already arguing. He didn’t wait for me to get out. He didn’t take a breath. He just stormed toward me, his heavy work boots tearing up the damp earth. His face was flushed beneath his light stubble, his jaw clamped so tight I could see the muscles leaping in his cheek.

“Are you completely insane!” he roared, his voice echoing off the dense wall of pine and cedar. He slammed his hand against the hood of Deacon’s truck as he reached it, the metal letting out a dull thud. “What the hell is wrong with you, Ava? You don’t take a heavy three-quarter-ton pickup and chase someone down a washed-out ridge road! You could have rolled this thing into the ravine!”

I pushed my door open and climbed down, my boots squelching into the wet dirt. The frigid mountain air hit my thin cotton shirt, sending a sharp shiver straight down my spine, but the adrenaline burning in my veins kept me moving. I stood up tall, refusing to cower no matter how much he screamed at me. “I wouldn’t have had to chase you if you hadn’t bolted like a coward, Nate!”

“A coward?” Nate stopped dead in his tracks, a harsh, humorless laugh ripping from his throat. He threw his hands up in the air, pacing a tight circle on the gravel shoulder before turning back to face me, his chest heaving.

Around us, the wild space felt suffocatingly small. The focus I’d admired so much was now turned to me, directing his visceral rage my way. “I’m a coward because I don’t want to stand around on a job site and watch my crew turn a renovation into some kind of twisted, back-porch soap opera? I’m the contractor here, Ava. I have a business. I have a reputation. And more importantly, I thought I had your respect.”

“You do have my respect!” I yelled back, my voice cracking slightly as the emotional pressure of the entire day threatened to break through.

“Oh, really? Because it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it,” Nate snarled. He took two long strides closer, towering over me, his shadow completely swallowing me up in the headlights. The hint of protective warmth that usually lived in his eyes was completely gone, replaced by a look of betrayal. “I thought, at the very least, we were friends. But I’ve been sitting in that cabin for weeks, measuring timber, designing blueprints, and drawing up schedules while you’ve been keeping secrets that could get people killed!”

He paced again, his heavy boots crunching on the gravel as he pointed back down the road toward the cabin. “I feel like a total chump, Ava. The absolute last person to know anything. Our lives have been in literal danger this whole time, and you didn’t think to mention it to me? Not even once? Friends don’t keep shit like that from each other.”

“It wasn’t like that!” I pleaded, stepping into his pacing path to force him to look at me. The wind whipped a wet strand of hair across my face, and I angrily brushed it away. “I didn’t tell you because I was trying to protect you! Julia and I found something highly illegal, and the less you knew, the safer you were. I didn’t want to drag your business or your crew into my wreckage. I didn’t think they’d find me this fast!”

“But they did find you!” Nate shouted, his voice cracking with unexpected emotion that made my throat tighten. He stopped pacing, his shoulders sagging as he stared down at me, his gaze sweeping over my face as if looking for a version of me he recognized. “They found you, and my guys knew about it before I did. You trusted them with the truth. You trusted them with everything, clearly, given what I just walked in on at the shower. But me? I’m just the guy who runs the job.”

“That’s not true, Nate, and you know it,” I said, my voice dropping from a yell into a whisper. I reached out, my fingers brushing the rough denim of his jacket sleeve, but he pulled back, crossing his arms over his chest to build a wall between us. The rejection stung worse than I cared to admit. “Deacon noticed the footprints because he’s paranoid, and Ethan found the drone by total accident. I didn’t plan any of this.”

“It doesn’t matter what you planned,” Nate said, his tone suddenly shifting from explosive anger to a flat, exhausted coldness that terrified me far more. He looked past me, staring down the dark, empty road. “I can’t run a safe job site under these conditions. I can’t look at my guys and give them orders when we’re all tangled up in... whatever this is.”

He took a deep breath, his jaw tightening again as he delivered the blow. “I’m resigning from the job. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll draft the paperwork to transfer the permits. You can find another contractor to finish the lake house. I’ll have my tools packed and my crew off your land by noon.”

The words sent me reeling. The thought of Nate walking away and pulling out of my life sent a surge of panic through me that quickly curdled into defensive rage. My eyes narrowed, and the tears that had been threatening to fall dried up.

“You’re resigning?” I laughed, a bitter sound that made him blink in surprise. “Wow. That is incredibly rich, Nate. You’re going to stand there on the side of the road and lecture me about honesty and secrets, and then you’re going to use this as an excuse to run away?”

Nate’s brow furrowed, his chest puffing out as he took a step forward. “An excuse? I am trying to salvage what is left of my professional integrity, Ava. I have never lied to you about a single thing since the day I took this contract. Not one.”

“Yes, you have,” I said, my voice deadly quiet. I was running on fear and adrenaline, all logic put on hold. I strode into his space, ignoring every alarm bell screaming in my head, until my chest was pressing against his. I looked up into his familiar, dark eyes. “You’ve lied about one massive thing, Nate. You stand there and talk about how we were friends.”

I lifted my chin, my lips a mere breath away from his stubbled jaw. “We were never friends, Nate. You know it, and I know it.”

Nate froze, his eyes widening as the accusation hung in the cool forest air. The anger leeched from his face. Beneath it was an undercurrent of tension that had been building between us for months. I knew I’d seen it simmering under that stoic mask. His gaze dropped to my mouth, completely trapped.

Before he could utter a single word of denial, I reached up, my hands clamping firmly around the lapels of his heavy denim jacket, and pulled him down to me, capturing his mouth in a reckless kiss.

31

Ava

Kissing Nate did something to my brain. It was like fireworks being set off in your backyard on the Fourth of July—wild and unrestrained—but even during that was his steadiness. A feeling of familiarity, of home.

I made a soft sound against his lips, one that shouldn’t have been audible over the noise of the worsening rainfall. But I think he felt it more than he heard it, because his hands flew up to cup my face. His long fingers tangled in my hair, drawing me closer until we were sharing ragged breaths in the cold. My arms slid up around his neck, and I wondered how it was possible to feel so grounded, yet so weightless at the same time.

The sensation of coldness chased with internal heat was intoxicating.

It was the rain that eventually broke us up, and as we pulled apart, Nate’s eyes were as open and vulnerable as I’d ever seen them. He looked around, then up at the sky.

“We should get some shelter,” he said, his voice sounding like it had been scraped raw. He took my hand and led me to his truck, but instead of opening the back passenger doors, he went to the trunk and pulled out a blanket, sticking it under his arm to shield it from the weather before he led me away again.

His hand was large and warm and calloused, just like the other two guys’, yet distinctly different. It enveloped mine and anchored me through the now-blinding downpour. I noticed how he used his body as a physical wedge against the driving wind as we walked to God knew where. That was Nate Kavanaugh for you. Still protective, even in the heat of the moment.