“I need to go.”
“Don’t do this, Iz.”
She opened her eyes.
His gaze held quiet pleading mixed with challenge. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Fear gripped her heart and squeezed. She couldn’t lean on him. She couldn’t lean on anyone without the risk of furthering the pain of loss she continued to battle every single day. She squirmed out of his grasp and he released her. “You’ve got me? God, Trent, have you forgotten Robbie was your best friend? That he’s dead?” She cursed and looked around, before stepping back. “I have to get of here. I want to leave. Right now.”
She whipped off her shoes and ran across the sand toward the steps that led to home and safety. Memories crashed into her mind and coated her throat with the bitter taste of fear.
The explosion that killed her brother had been so loud, so sudden, the first thing that went through Izzy’s mind had been that someone had thrown a petrol bomb through her studio window. She’d gripped her best friend’s arm as they simultaneously dropped to the floor. The floor tiles had vibrated through Izzy’s palms as the echoes of people’s screams filtered through the open studio window.
She’d looked at Kate, her heart racing. “What the hell was that?”
Kate’s eyes had been wide as she visibly shook. “I don’t know, but whatever it was, people are going to need our help.” She’d leaped to her feet. “Come on. We have to go out there.”
They’d sprinted from the darkroom and into the studio, running toward the picture window at the front.
Bright orange flames had rolled from the entrance of the garage where Izzy’s brother worked, blurring Izzy’s vision. Thick black smoke spiraled on a plume through the doors, diving and leaping on the summer breeze.
“Robbie...” Izzy had reached blindly for Kate’s hand, arm, anything. “Robbie!”
TRENT CURSED AND took off after Izzy as she bolted onto the promenade.
The idea had been to get her to the party and then concentrate on whatever she needed. He wanted her to relax, smile, have a drink and realize the whole world wasn’t a threat to her existence. Hadn’t his entire mission tonight been about making her trust him enough to feel safe? That maybe one day she might see him as a man rather than a monster?
He was sick and tired of trying to get her out of his mind by dating other women. Life was too short not to listen to his heart and act on feelings that refused to abate. He clenched his jaw. He’d seen too much death in his career, but it had been Robbie’s that made him determined to act on his feelings for Izzy. He wanted her...and deep in his heart, he sensed she wanted him too.
Something had always held her back from him. Something he wanted to hear her explain. Her new reason for not giving them a chance was Robbie’s death. If she wasn’t attracted to him, didn’t like him...regretted the three fantastic weeks they’d spent together...then she only ever had to say that and he’d leave her alone.
She hadn’t, and every time she looked at him, her eyes said the exact opposite was going on. She was attracted to him, liked him...but still held herself out of reach.
She’d only gotten as far as the small circle of shops situated on a paved area above the beach. Trent slowed to a walk. She sat on a wrought-iron bench, hunched over with her face in her hands.
He sat beside her and leaned his forearms on his thighs. “Tonight was a bad idea. Sorry.”
Slowly, she lowered her hands and turned to face him. The silver tracks of her tears shone beneath the streetlight beside her. “I don’t want to go on like this.”
It was painful to see her blue eyes so full of anguish, confusion and pain. He tilted his head toward her hand. “May I?”
She nodded. Releasing his held breath, Trent lifted her hand and put it on his thigh, holding it tightly. Despite the warmth of the night, her fingers were like ice. He rubbed them against his jeans to warm her. “I miss him too, Iz. There was nothing I, or any of us, could’ve done. If for one minute I could’ve saved him, don’t you think I would have?”
“That doesn’t make it any easier for me to be around you.”
“But it isn’t just me, is it?” He kept his voice soft, not wanting to sound accusatory because he wasn’t. It was up to Izzy how she dealt with the grief emanating from her, but that didn’t make it any easier for him to stand by and let her push him and her friends away. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Iz, but if you won’t give me a chance to be there for you, can’t you at least let Kate back in?”
She slipped her hand from his and stared ahead. “I just need some time, that’s all.”
“It’s been three months. We’re just trying to be there for you.”
“How much time I need is anyone’s guess, but I’m not ready to sit around chatting and laughing as though Robbie’s still here.”
“No one’s asking you—”
“Trent. Please. Just let me do things my way.”
Frustration and helplessness rolled through him. “Why can’t you give us another chance?”
“It’s too complicated.”
“Complicated? I’ve never found anything less complicated.”
Her gaze darkened. “Maybe not the first time around, but it would be different this time. If you don’t understand that—”
“I don’t, so you need to explain it to me.” He hated pushing her, but she needed to say the words clearly before he could accept what was in her heart and mind.
She exhaled a slow breath. “When my parents left...or when I demanded them to...” She shook her head. “They tried so hard to reach me, Trent. Tried to help me through my grief, but in the end none of us were strong enough for the other. Mum and Dad resumed their careers and I was alone. I just don’t trust... Not anymore.”
“You don’t trust that I won’t leave you alone too one day?”
Her gaze bored into his until she looked away into the distance. “Maybe. Those few weeks we were together weren’t enough to make me believe you’ll always be around. I have no one left. I’m not in the right mind to give myself to anyone at the moment, let alone a firefighter. You run into danger every day.” She faced him, her eyes filled with determination. “I can’t deal with that. I don’t want to deal with it.”
“But what about before Robbie died?”
“There is no before Robbie. All I have in my head is since Robbie. How can you not see that?”
He exhaled, lowered his voice in an effort to soften the battle going on inside him. “We were great together. Or did I imagine that? Were you not there with me?”
Her gaze ran over his face,
