he’d walked the rugby field until the wee hours of the morning, talking about loved ones lost, or soon to be.
“My parents are gone, too.” She wiped a cheek like she was brushing away a fly, but he knew better. “I lost them when I was barely out of my teens. Then I lost another family when Ian died.”
His heart squeezed. He couldn’t imagine. His family, as annoying as they could be, were the center of his life. He couldn’t imagine a world without them.
“Grief is a strange thing.” Her throat flexed as she lifted her chin from her knees. “Some people cling to every piece of clothing, to every memory. They become hoarders of an old life.” She glanced up past the canopy of the trees toward the velvet-black sky. “But I fled in the opposite direction. When Ian died, I gave everything up.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She felt like an egg cracked open. She hadn’t talked about her past to anyone except her sister and Jillian. Hell, Casey hadn’t even thought about that old Victorian fixer-upper that she and Ian had bought, or even Ian’s sweet, nerdy face, not for a while. She’d urged those memories to recede through the van’s back window when she’d last driven away from the house.
“I wish I had the right words, Casey, but I know there aren’t any.”
She hugged her legs tighter, glad he didn’t say, I’m sorry. She remembered flinching at the apology every time the words had been spoken during the wake and funeral, when she watched her high school sweetheart lowered into the ground along with every plan they’d made for the future.
She smoothed her face against the old, familiar pain. “It was a terrible tragedy. A car accident. Random chaos.”
There they were, Jillian’s words, coming out of her own mouth, just like Jillian said they someday would. Jillian had insisted that Casey shouldn’t feel guilty for being alive, that random chaos couldn’t be controlled. But certainly it could. Life could be controlled. But only if she reduced that life to what could fit into the back of a minivan. Only if she kept her grip firm on the steering wheel and kept moving.
She said, “I talk to someone regularly about all this.” The stab in her heart dug a little deeper. “By phone, because with my life, I never know where I’ll be from week to week. Jillian—my therapist—keeps me honest.”
He murmured, “And yet you’re still living out of a van.”
“I stay with my sister about once a month.” She shrugged. “It’s my prescribed dose of domesticity.”
It ached every time, sleeping in her sister’s guest room on a bed of ruffled sheets, listening to the giggles of her nieces as they raced down to breakfast in the morning. She fixed her gaze on the center of the fire, rocking a little, feeling more exposed than she ever had, even lying bare next to Dylan inside that sleeping bag.
“Here,” Dylan said, holding a candy bar out to her. “Take it.”
She hadn’t heard Dylan rifle through his pack, but she reached blindly for the chocolate he offered. The bar was wide and smooth and heavy…and, she suddenly realized, not chocolate at all. Firelight gleamed off a glassy screen.
“I can’t promise you a signal.” He pointed to the sky. “I doubt there’s a cell tower for a hundred miles. But it’s worth a check.”
She curled her fingers over the phone. This was a forbidden thing, except for emergencies—those were the rules. She hadn’t once touched her own, despite the temptation. She didn’t want to be a disruptive force in the expedition, or affect the very story she was covering.
“You’re absolved,” he said, reading her mind, flames reflected in his eyes. “Call your Jillian.”
She gripped the lifeline he’d flung at her. Her heartbeat slowed and then pounded hard. It would be so good to hear Jillian’s voice. Jillian would soak the whole story in, about how she’d gotten to this place, in the middle of nowhere, so far from the world. Jillian would ask questions about Dylan and listen not just to Casey’s words but also to the tone of her voice. What had Jill said about discomfort? All growth came from it. Casey sure as hell was uncomfortable now. How did running away from her old life lead her to such confusion?
To such a man?
She didn’t look up, but mentally she stretched toward the warmth of Dylan’s presence. She ached to place her cheek against the nook between his head and shoulder, to feel