Phoenix Read online

  Anne shook her head. “No need to apologize. You’re coming to terms with something life changing. Nobody would blame you for needing a minute to adjust.”

  How did one adjust to this? How did one adjust to the knowledge that one’s entire life could change with one sentence from a doctor’s mouth?

  She was a nurse, for God’s sake. She knew how much worse it could be. There were some people who’d just been given a diagnosis of cancer or a tumor or some other terminal illness who would give anything if their diagnosis were only MS.

  Only MS.

  Yet it was causing Riley’s world to crash in pieces around her.

  Enough already. “I think I’ve used up today’s quota of self-pity and bitchiness. Are you ready to head to the starting line? We can help get the athletes checked in.”

  “Listen. I know you’re throwing yourself into this race so you don’t have to think about the diagnosis or the breakup”—Riley shot Anne a narrowed-eyed look and her friend held a hand out in a gesture of surrender—“and that’s fine. Avoiding short-term is fine. It gives your subconscious a chance to adjust. But long-term, you’re going to have to really deal with this. You need to talk to your friends about what’s going on with you. Wavy or Peyton.”

  “You’re my friend. I’ve talked to you about it.”

  Anne shook her head. “You’ve talked to me, very briefly, about medical specifics only. Concerns about your job, not about how you’re feeling or processing everything happening to you. I’m more than happy to talk to you about that too, but you’ve always been close with Wavy and Peyton. They both would want to help.”

  She scrubbed a hand across her face. Peyton had just reconnected with the love her of life and Wavy had problems of her own. “I know. I will. I just…can’t. Not yet. Not any of it.”

  Anne let out a soft sigh. “And Boy Riley…The MS diagnosis and all that comes with it is hard enough without losing the man you love in the middle of it.”

  She knew. Oh God, she knew. Felt the five-hundred-pound weight of it all on her chest every second. “I think getting all the hard over with at one time might be easier in the long run.”

  “You can’t hide it from him forever, Ry. I know he wasn’t raised in Oak Creek like so many of us, but he considers this home now. He’s going to find out.”

  “I know.” Riley looked down at her hand on the boxes. It was shaking. But once again it had nothing to do with MS. “But I’m not going to trap him with me—guilt him into staying.”

  “You guys have been together for three years. There’s no guilt. He loves you. Honestly, we all thought you would get married.”

  “No. He knows how I feel about marriage. We’ve never even talked about it.”

  Except for once. But then the universe had sent a sign that it wasn’t meant to be. And now it had sent another one. A big-ass one.

  Anne bumped Riley’s hip with her own. “I know your parents’ marriage was bad. I didn’t have the greatest example of marriage growing up either. But it wouldn’t be that way between the two of you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Marriage isn’t in the cards for us.”

  Anne let out a sigh. “Fine. But you’ve got to think about your support system. Alienating yourself from the people who love you is not the way to handle MS.”

  “I know. And I will come up with a plan that doesn’t involve me living like a hermit with two dozen cats and screaming at kids to get off my lawn. But right now, I don’t want to think about MS. I don’t want to think about Riley. I just want to turn my brain off.”

  “Fair enough. As long as you know you’re going to have to think about it, and him, sometime.”

  “Phoenix is in Sri Lanka. He’s not scheduled to come back for another couple of weeks.”

  Actually, why would he come back at all? He might not. He’d texted her repeatedly on the day she’d broken up with him, but by yesterday, it had dwindled down to only a couple of messages.

  Seemed like he was already moving on.

  “I’m just going to worry about all that later. This week, I’m just focusing on the race and keeping everyone alive.”

  Seemed like a much better plan than focusing on the dumpster fire her life had become.

  * * *

  There were a lot of multistage races in the world, races where athletes ran twenty to thirty miles a day over multiple days, carrying their own supplies and equipment. These runs tested the physical endurance and mental toughness of those crazy enough to participate. They were available all over the world. Some took athletes through the hell-like heat of deserts, some took them over miles of unforgiving volcanic lava rock, and some tested athletes’ sanity by pitting them against the vast nothing of the Antarctic.

  Then there were the shorter one-day events that tested athletes’ other skills: agility, marksmanship, situational awareness, orienteering, strength, and outdoor skills.

  The Wild Wyoming Adventure Race was one of the few that combined the best—or worst, depending on how you wanted to look at it—of both types of events.

  It was a grueling, multiday endurance race that required the athletes to not just run and carry their supplies ten to twenty miles each day, but also complete daily challenges in the middle of their miles.

  WAR was considered one of the hardest all-around events outside of military-grade training.

  And no real surprise there, considering it had been developed by the Linear Tactical guys because they’d wanted to see which one of them was the best. Word had gotten out about that quickly, and now WAR had a waiting list each year.

  Anne had gone on to help Zac with registration, and Riley was getting a look at the monstrous obstacle course that would be part of the day-one event.

  She shook her head, staring at the wooden walls, towers, and tunnels around her. “This thing looks brutal.”

  “Do you like my fiendish invention?” Gabriel Collingwood grinned from ear to ear. It made the hugely muscled man seem charming and almost boyish.

  “Looks like you’re going to be sending a lot of business my way. Just when I thought I was going to have a week off to enjoy myself.”

  Gabe rubbed his hands together, and Riley thought he might start jumping up and down any second. “This course has some of the most savage elements of my BUD/S training. I can’t wait until they come at this thing all gung ho.”

  Unlike most of the Linear Tactical guys, Gabe had been a Navy SEAL. Their training was legendary.

  And the WAR athletes would be hitting this obstacle course after a five-mile running loop and half-mile swim in water that would make polar bears think twice.

  Yeah, Riley would definitely be getting some extra patients due to Gabe’s fiendish obstacle course. “Do you wish you were competing?”

  “I won’t lie: a little. But when Zac asked me to design this obstacle course, I had to choose between that or participating. I decided I’d rather spend the week with my gorgeous fiancée.”

  “Wise choice. Jordan is definitely more beautiful than any obstacle course.”

  “More beautiful than anything,” he murmured as he turned to tighten a rope.

  Riley hid her smile. Gabe would just be embarrassed if she teased him, and besides, after what Jordan had been through, Riley was glad the other woman had her own personal guardian angel now.

  “Maybe next year.” She nudged him with her elbow.

  “Oh hell yes. It’s about damn time these army guys stop getting all the badassery credit.”

  “Well, I’m sure the racers will be cursing your name tomorrow when they get to some of these obstacles.”

  Gabe waggled his eyebrows. “If they don’t, I haven’t done my job right. We have a good group this year. Zac was saying the contenders to win are best-in-the-world elite athletes. Do you think Boy Riley will take the title again?”

  She forced herself to ignore the fissure in her heart at the sound of his name. There was no Boy Riley and Girl Riley anymore, or soon there wouldn’t be, once word go
t out about the breakup. There would just be Riley Wilde and Riley Harrison.

  And soon America’s adventure sport hero and the nurse with MS.

  She studied the particularly wicked-looking rope climb. She could just picture Boy Riley scrambling up it at full speed to ring the bell at the top.

  You couldn’t pay her enough to try something like that—even if she had the upper-body strength to make it—but Phoenix loved this sort of stuff. The bigger the challenge, the better.

  No wonder he’d been at this race three years ago. That’s where she’d met him.

  He’d won it. And won her heart at the same time.

  “I’m 100 percent sure Phoenix won’t win this year.”

  Gabe chuckled. “Damn, Wilde. Betting against your man? If you don’t think he’s going to win, who do you have your money on? A couple of weeks ago, the guys were saying Bo Gonzales was the one to beat. Evidently he’s having a good year at everything.”

  She knew Bo. Even at his absolute best, he’d never beat Riley. “It’s not that I think Phoenix couldn’t win, it’s just that he’s in Sri Lanka, so that would make it a little too difficult, even for him.”

  Gabe’s dark brows pulled together. “That’s not what—”

  “Nope, Wildfire.” Riley froze at the sound of the familiar voice behind her. “Sri Lanka had to wait. I decided I needed to make a detour.”

  Chapter 4

  She’d gone with red for her hair, an almost purple color. It suited her.

  He wondered what had made her change her mind about the blue.

  Not nearly as much as he wondered why she’d ended their relationship with no real explanation, but he still wondered. Because today, like every single day since the day he’d met her, he wanted to know everything there was to know about Riley Wilde.

  She stiffened at the sound of his voice and spun around.

  “Uh, I’ll leave you two to say hello,” Gabe said slowly.

  Riley glanced over at Gabe for just a second. “Good to see you, man. Looks like you built a beast for us.”

  “Sure as hell have. I’ll catch you later.”

  Riley nodded as Gabe walked away, his gaze falling back on Wildfire.

  Her beautiful hazel eyes were trained on him. Not narrowed, but carefully neutral. It was her poker face. It didn’t give anything away. His girl was tough, and she didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve, so he was used to seeing that guarded look on her face.

  He just wasn’t used to it being directed at him.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

  Something in his gut clenched. She really didn’t want him here.

  He’d been traveling nonstop for more than twenty-two hours to get back to Oak Creek, convincing himself the entire way that the breakup hadn’t really meant that she’d wanted their relationship to end. That it was some kind of message on her part.

  Maybe she’d been trying to tell him that she needed more from him—more face time, more calls, more something—but didn’t want to come across as clingy or needy. That would definitely be something Wildfire would do.

  They’d always agreed to tell each other if the distance was becoming too much, that they would figure out a new plan if needed, where his schedule wouldn’t be such a weight. They’d been committed to each other from the beginning, to making it work no matter what.

  He’d flown her out to places to stay with him when she could. They’d met for romantic weekends all over the world when her own nursing career had made an extended stay too difficult. He showed up in Oak Creek every chance he got. They had video chatting and sexting down to a science—every single day, without fail, for three years they’d talked to each other in some way.

  He refused to accept that what they’d built together could just fall apart without any warning at all.

  He’d hoped beyond all hope that when he arrived here she would be happy to see him.

  She wasn’t.

  “I’m racing. That’s why I’m here.” That hadn’t been the plan, but it could become the plan now.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said again. “You’re not on the registration list. The race filled up three months ago, and I know you haven’t registered.”

  He let his backpack drop from his hand to the ground and narrowed his eyes. Now he was starting to get a little irritated.

  “I don’t have to be on any list. It’s one of the perks of being a past winner. You can show up for the race any year and you’re guaranteed entry.”

  Now her eyes narrowed. No doubt she’d be checking to see if that rule was actually true.

  Let her check; it was.

  “What about Sri Lanka? I thought you weren’t coming back for another few weeks or…at all.”

  “Like I said, I made a detour.”

  People were starting to come out to get a look at Gabe’s devious obstacle course. The Linear Tactical office was handling athlete check-in, so it made sense for them to see it before heading off to where they’d camp tonight.

  But he didn’t pay attention to them at all. His eyes stayed pinned to Riley’s.

  All he wanted to do was cross over to her and yank her to him. Shake her. Kiss her. Both.

  Get her to tell him what the hell was going on and demand she explain how she could cut him out of her life with such surgical precision.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You shouldn’t have come here, Riley.”

  Goddammit. He was getting fucking sick of her saying that. “I don’t need your permission to do anything anymore, now do I, Riley?” He spat out her name the way she had his.

  More and more people were starting to mill around the roped-off obstacle course. Some of them were competitors, but some of them were their friends from Linear Tactical. The fact that the two of them were having a standoff was going to be pretty obvious to everyone.

  She stepped closer. He knew it was for privacy rather than a desire to be close to him, but his body didn’t care. His body responded to hers the way it had from the very beginning: with complete awareness.

  “I want you to leave,” she hissed out.

  “Too fucking bad, Wildfire. I’m not going anywhere. Now do you want to finish this conversation out here in public, or do you want to find somewhere private where we can talk? Because we are going to talk.”

  Her teeth gritted, but she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t bluffing. If she wanted to fight out here, he would do it.

  But he was going to get some answers.

  She jerked her thumb toward the huge warehouse to her right. “Linear training facility. I’ll give you ten minutes. And then you’ve got to go.”

  She looked almost scared.

  Screw the Linear training building. Screw all the people around. He needed to know what was going on. Now.

  He took a step toward her, but she sidestepped him before he could touch her.

  “Hey, Phoenix,” Bo Gonzales called out from a few yards over. “Didn’t think you were going to make it this year.”

  He glanced over at the other man. “Never a hardship to show up and beat you, Bo.”

  Bo’s lips pressed together as the other people around chuckled.

  “Inside,” Wildfire whispered as she slid past him. His body tightened in a primal way at her very scent. It took everything he had not to grab her and pull her to him.

  He let her go.

  But he wouldn’t for long.

  * * *

  Riley rushed away without looking back at him, heart pounding in her chest. What the hell was he doing here?

  Her hands shook and her legs felt weak, but it had nothing to do with MS.

  And everything to do with how Boy Riley had always affected her.

  She’d had to physically stop herself from touching him when he’d come close. God, all she’d wanted to do was reach out and touch the back of his head, run her thumb across his temple. That was how they’d greeted each other for years now, since sometimes more overt public displays of affe
ction weren’t appropriate.

  The “hey, you,” they called it.

  She looked down at the fingers that had so wanted to touch him. The same fingers that had first given her the indication that she had some sort of problem a few months ago. The tingling and numbness were early signs of MS. She’d ignored them for as long as she could, her brain refusing to accept what could be happening, until other symptoms had also appeared.

  She beelined it to the training warehouse. Nothing had changed in the situation with Riley. She had to convince him to leave, and she didn’t want to do that in front of an audience, especially since she was afraid she might have a complete breakdown while doing it.

  She walked inside the huge, empty building. Nobody would be using it today as everyone prepared for the race. The Linear guys used this space for all sorts of training, and Riley had been in here numerous times, so she knew where the lighting switches were. She flipped on the bare minimum, keeping the warehouse dim.

  She and Riley wouldn’t be in here long enough to need more than that.

  She needed to be calm, but firm. Just convince him to go, not stick around for the race. He didn’t really want to be a part of Wild Wyoming—hadn’t ever talked about racing it again.

  He was here because of her.

  She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying to calm herself as much as possible. She just needed to convince him it was in both of their best interests to move along.

  “Is there somebody else? Is that what this is all about?”

  Her calming breath flew back out of her lips as she spun to face him. He came inside and closed the door behind him.

  “I think I have a right to know,” he continued. “If you’ve found someone else, you should’ve told me right away.”

  The emergency lights cast an orange haze more than they actually lit the space. She couldn’t really make out his features. “There’s nobody else.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized she’d made a strategic error. She should’ve lied. She should’ve told him she’d met someone else—it would’ve been the easiest way to make sure he didn’t keep searching for the truth.