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“He talks about you, you know,” Ever soft-pedaled, leading in to what she hoped wouldn’t sound like a lecture.
“He does?” That shut Talia up. She hiked and blinked.
“Yeah. He’s kind of amazed you’ve become his…friend, considering you’re in a line of work that is almost completely beyond his comprehension.”
Talia snorted. “Right. He’s mentioned a time or two how cops aren’t high on his list of people to trust, but because of you and me, he’s changing his mind.”
“And doesn’t that tell you he doesn’t give a damn if you’re bossy or not?” Ever quipped, trying to lighten things up. “He’s not stupid, and he understands being a little arrogant, comes with the territory of law enforcement.”
“I…hadn’t thought of that,” Talia pondered, shifting the ropes that hung across her body. “I thought maybe he was slumming it with me, seeing how much he could put up with before he shut things down. Which…is kind of what I believed he did last night.”
Wrong.Ever knew what had been said. As well as attempting to gently tell Talia he wasn’t ready for things to move so quickly, Fleet had cited problems in his past as a reason. Maybe Talia had forgotten that as she’d sunk her teeth into his supposed rejection of her advances instead.
It was time to probe deeper. “Did Fleet give any hint of why he might be putting you off, other than your supposed aggression?”
There was a long silence from Talia. Ever figured the woman was playing back the conversation from the previous night.
“Well, shit,” Talia finally hissed.
“What?” Ever innocently asked.
There was a frustrated huff. “Hedidmention being burnt in the past, and I just…swept right past that.” Her eyes filled with tears.” I’m such an idiot. I didn’t listen, I just reacted.” She drew in a sharp breath.
“You’ll just have to apologize,” Ever suggested lightly.
Talia turned tear-soaked orbs toward hers. “Yeah. Let’s hope I get the chance.”
CHAPTERSIX
Talia couldn’t believe she’d been such an idiot. Because of the insecurities she’d hidden deep within her, she’d jumped to conclusions when Fleet told her he wanted to take things slowly. Now that Ever had prodded her, set her straight, she remembered the conversation correctly, and…
Dammit.This wasn’t the first time her words and actions had leapt ahead of her brain, and of course she knew why. When she was a kid, she’d been so freaking careful all the time, then all hell had broken loose. After that, she’d changed, figuring out that keeping silent wasn’t the best thing. So she’d made it an art; speaking her mind, being in the driver’s seat. She’d needed to do that not just for herself, but for her sister.
But this time it had backfired. Big time.
Her feet sped up the path. She wanted to go faster, but she had to stay with her group and not everyone was fleet footed. One EMT in particular, Brian, seemed very unused to the rough terrain. Didn’t they cross-train these guys anymore?
Talia gave an internal growl and kept trying to hurry him up while she continued to turn the situation over in her head. What could have happened to Fleet?
He’d clearly encountered a problem of epic proportions while hiking into familiar territory where he should have been most comfortable, and…
Dammit.Talia’s behavior last night struck her, in a way, as similar.
The previous evening, what should have been a routine, highly predictable response from her mouth, had turned the situation with Fleet sour. She’d spewed, he’d been…confused. Maybe her grab-the-balls approach to life wasn’t always the way to go. She and her gut—and Fleet with his loner bouldering—might need to examine the circumstances of certain challenges and change things up from here on out.
Talia wasn’t sure exactly how she’d do that, but what the hell? She clearly couldn’t go on the way she was if she didn’t want to end up alone and lonely. Shewanteda partner. A lover. A confidant. And she’d previously driven away all those who’d attempted to woo her by being a hard-ass.
She promised herself that if they found Fleet and he was okay, she’d change her ways and show him the soft underbelly she’d kept hidden for so long. But it wasn’t just she who needed to change. Fleet needed prodding as well. He clearly undertook self-destructive practices to compensate for something. She’d find out what, and they’d both work on their heretofore hidden shit, together.
“Just another five minutes until we reach our destination,” Mason told the group from where he’d taken point. “Keep your eyes open.”
As if they hadn’t been vigilant all the way up the trail, Talia wanted to scoff. But she held her tongue.Yup.This was her, turning over a new leaf.
As soon as they reached the clearing that became visible up ahead, Mason began to run. “Here,” he yelled, and Talia scrambled her way past a few of her squad members, more than anxious to see the condition in which Mason had found Fleet.
She almost wished she hadn’t.
Fleet lay still and unconscious, his body twisted in an unnatural way at the base of a rock wall. He’d hit and landed on his crash mat, but it clearly hadn’t helped. Was he concussed?
