Shaw dropped the bags with a thunk. “She did what?”
“Yes, sir. She said that you’re a good man who’s been terrorized by the media and that the press needs to quote ‘leave him the hell alone and let him live his life because he’s a victim in all this, too.’”
“Shit.” He looked up to the dark blanket of night sky, some weird combination of frustration and amazement washing over him. She’d told the truth. Taryn had stood up for him. She’d told the truth and made herself a target. Risked her friends’ and family’s trust. He let out a rough breath. Dammit, professor.
Why would she do that? Why would she put herself through that? He’d lined everything up to save her that pain. The wind off the ocean whipped around him, tugging his hair out of the rubber band he’d pulled it back with, blocking his view of the sky.
“So I was hoping you’d give me a statement?” Angelica asked, her voice rising at the end. “Confirm or deny?”
He pushed his hair out of his face, grabbed his bags, his fingers numb, and picked up speed to get back to the RV. He needed to see what kind of fallout Taryn was facing. Maybe he could still undo this. He could say he’d put her up to the statement or… God, he didn’t know. Something. There had to be a way to undo it. “I can’t make one right now.”
“Mr. Miller—”
Shaw ended the call and caught sight of his RV. The music grew louder, and the smell of roasted hot dogs drifted on the air, but his stomach was churning. He’d set everything up for Taryn to be okay. He needed to figure out how to fix this.
But when he rushed around the rear corner of his RV to get to the door, he stopped cold. Sitting on a rock under the light of the moon was a girl with a guitar, her hair dancing in the ocean breeze like a wild thing and his parents’ song drifting from her fingertips. His heart fell to his feet.
Taryn looked up from her guitar, and his breath froze in his chest. He was afraid to move, as if she were a butterfly who’d easily startle and flit off if he so much as breathed. She gave him a tentative smile, her fingers stilling against the strings. “Hey.”
Her eyes looked puffy from crying, and there was a somberness to her, but he’d never seen anyone look more beautiful—the guitar cradled in her arms, a long, flowery skirt swirling around her legs, moonlight kissing her smooth skin. He set his bags down slowly, afraid he was having some kind of mental episode and hallucinating her presence. “Taryn.”
She draped her arm over the top of her guitar, an unsure look on her face. “Surprised?”
And the winner of the Understatement of the Year Award goes to…
“What are you doing here?” He glanced around as if he expected the answer to pop up from behind the sand dunes. “How are you here?”
“How?” She smirked. “You do realize I’m a researcher, right? Stalking is in my wheelhouse. Your phone’s on Rivers’s account. He tracked your location.”
He stared at her. “But why?”
“You weren’t taking my calls, and I needed to talk to you.” She wet her lips. “Because you can’t tell a woman you think you probably love her in a voicemail and then disappear into the night. That is a chickenshit thing to do, Miller.”
“A—” His lips parted, but he was having trouble finding words.
“I thought we should talk,” she said finally. “You know, before you go.”
He shook his head, still not believing she was right there in front of him. He’d thought he’d never see her again, and his head was spinning, but then the phone call he’d just received set in. “You told a reporter the truth. You weren’t supposed to do that.”
“Yeah.” She looked down and ran her fingers over the strings. “I’m not real good at following orders.”
“Taryn…” His ribs cinched. “Your family. Do they—”
“They know.” Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath, and she set the guitar aside, leaning it against the rock. “I told them before the news could get out. They…did not take it well.” She looked up at him. “But I wasn’t going to lie about you. You don’t deserve that.”
He stepped closer, almost afraid to get within touching distance. He wanted to embrace her, to tell her he was sorry, to take away some of that hurt in her voice, but he forced his arms to stay at his sides. “You don’t deserve to have your family upset with you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Neither of us did. That’s the point.” She stood and pushed her hair away from her face, her skirt dancing like flames around her legs. “Believe me, I considered lying for the sake of my family, but shielding them from the truth meant harming you. Harming us. Long Acre has enough victims. We shouldn’t have to apologize because we…like each other. Don’t we both have the right to feel what we feel? Haven’t we earned that?”
“Of course you have,” he said without pause. “You deserve the world, Taryn. That’s why I didn’t want you dragged into any of this.”
She took a step forward, her arms at her sides, palms facing him. “But what if I want that world to include you?”
His lungs compressed as if they’d forgotten how to draw air. “Taryn…”
“Don’t leave,” she said quietly, meeting his gaze. “Not if you really meant what you said on the phone. I can take whatever people want to throw at me. I don’t need your protection or you falling on a sword for me. I’m not sure if you noticed, but I’m pretty fucking tough all on my own.”
Tough? They’d need to come up with a stronger word than that to describe this woman.