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As I leaned on his chest, he slowly lowered his gaze.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“You.”
He chuckled, rubbing his jaw then easing his arm behind his head so he could gaze into my eyes. “What about me?”
I took a leap of faith, one I knew would open up a can of worms. “What happened on Sapphire Ridge all those years ago?” As expected, he tensed but instead of pulling away, he took a few seconds to think about the question.
“Not much to tell. When I was in high school, I ran with five other guys. We were pretty tight, all from different backgrounds. My parents were always working at that point, and I was an only kid who liked to get into trouble. So we did it together.”
“The Missoula Bad Boys.”
“It wasn’t official or anything. We were called delinquent by school officials, kids destined to head to prison by the sheriff’s office and unintelligent by our teachers. While we never did anything too extreme, we were damn lucky we hadn’t gotten into more trouble than we had. This girl who had nobody in her life refused to take our crap. She had a little mouth on her, smart as a whip but had been tossed around in the system for years. All six of us took her under our wings.”
“Ah. All six of you fell in love with her. Right?” I could sense him tensing.
Exhaling, he nodded. “I think so, some of us talking about how special she was. There wasn’t a one of us who didn’t have darkness inside of him, the reason for acting out. Belle was able to pull us into the light and keep us there.”
“She sounds wonderful.”
“Yeah. We all felt responsible for her, and it was good for us. We started taking her with us everywhere, including to the mountains. One day we decided to stay all night. It was beautiful and we planned on making a fire and sitting around telling ghost stories or some shit. If you want to know the truth, I think every single one of us planned on making a move on her that night.” He took a deep breath, a portion of the memory allowing him to smile. “Anyway, Phoenix started a fire, but it kept going out. Snake was trying to help, but he got distracted. With the sun hidden behind the trees, after a couple hours it was freezing up there. The wind was blowing like a son of a bitch. Houston wanted to leave but it was already starting to get dark so most of us didn’t want to make the trek. Big bad boys afraid of the dark.”
I continued stroking his chest as his breathing changed. “You didn’t huddle up for warmth?”
“Hell, no. We were arguing back and forth, and I think Belle got sick of our pettiness, so she took a walk into the woods. I can’t remember who followed her first. She loved nature, birds, and small creatures.”
“A little bit like me.”
He shifted his gaze. “Yes, but the way I feel about you isn’t because of the way I cared about Belle. You need to know that.”
“It’s okay, Maverick. I already feel honored. Go on.”
“Some of us started arguing, Snake and Colt ready to start a fight, and I got fed up, tossing some liquor onto the fire. It flared and none of us were paying attention. I headed into the woods to try and get her back so she could warm up. The next thing I knew, the woods were on fire.” His breath caught and he fisted the hand behind his head.
“You went to look for her,” I encouraged.
“Yup. I think all of us did, which left the fire unattended. Within a few minutes, it was too late. The weather had been so dry that year that the underbrush went up like a matchstick. The fire raged and we tried to find her. We were still arguing, getting into a screaming match. No one wanted to leave but it got to the point we knew we’d perish. And we left. We left her there.”
As he looked into my eyes, I sucked in my breath, sliding further up on the bed. “It wasn’t your fault, baby.”
“Like hell it wasn’t. If I hadn’t thrown the goddamn bourbon on the fire, it wouldn’t have gotten out of hand.”
“Baby. You said it was windy, right? And it had been dry?”
“Yeah, but it’s my fault, Amelie. My fault. Don’t you get that?”
“What I get is that you’re blaming yourself for an accident. If I had to guess, I’d say the other five Bad Boys have felt the same way for all these years. The fact the townsfolk blamed all of you for the death of that girl didn’t help.”
“They showed the shit on television?”
I nodded and he shook his head, grumbling under his breath.
“There was also a clear shot of my face.”
He took a deep breath, snarling. “I could kill the reporters for putting your life in jeopardy.”
“I don’t know if it mattered. With that killer in town, that means he already knew you were here.”
