A Fire That Burns (7 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Present Day

“I
can’t stop it!”
Tyler exclaimed as he used his hands to shield him from the burst water pipe.
“Shit, Austin!” he cried out again in the hope she would come in before the
room completely flooded. “Help me!”

Running into the room to find Tyler reduced to the floor by water,
Austin had to laugh. The man that was the high school heart throb and
quarterback, who worked out daily and was one of the finest police officers in
the local department. She couldn’t resist laughing at him.

“Don’t laugh! I need you to come and help me,” he tried to get her to
stop but she didn’t, so he moved slightly and moved his hands and got her
soaked immediately. “Now will you help me?”

Gasping at him for the sudden burst of cold water, she looked at him,
“Tyler, you are so dead!”

He smirked and gave her another burst of water, laughing himself now.
“Can you go and turn the water valve off please? I couldn’t get to it while
trying to stop water from ruining the entire room.”

Springing to action, she went under the sink and found the valve.
Pushing it off, she heard the whooshing of water silenced and she pulled back
out to see the soaking wet Tyler looking absolutely exasperated and elated by
the peace.

He laughed again and looked to her. “I’ll go and grab us some dry
cloths,” Tyler remarked as they stood drenched from the water. He watched her
laugh at the sight of the pair of them and then rushed to find cloths to get
them dry and sort out the mess. Coming back, he half expected her to be making
use of the moment to start cleaning up but she hadn’t moved and if he had to
say she looked pale and half asleep. “You look exhausted, Aus,” Tyler commented
as he came back in and found her still sitting on the wet floor, staring at the
flooded flooring.

“My mom still won’t speak to me and is taking it out on the others
that’s
all,” she told him with a smile. “It’s weighing on my
mind and I don’t sleep well when I can’t switch it off.” Her eyes began to
stream tears and she shook her head, “I have no right to cry over this!” She
started berating herself for how easily she cried and it was only since coming
back she had done that. For years she had been an ice queen to strangers, and
she only cried in private.

“Why not?”
Tyler asked as he sat back on the floor with her.

Austin looked up with wide eyes, “I deserve the cold shoulder treatment
and everyone leaving me to get on with it on my own. Everyone should be doing
that.
You
especially.”

“We’ve been over this. I don’t want to hold grudges,” he responded
honestly and he knew he could hate her and loathe the mere sight of her but he
never wanted to lose her from his life again. “Your mom is just adjusting. We
know she doesn’t deal well at the best of time and you coming back,” he laughed
nervously, “It was a shock to the system.”

“You know I like shocking people,” she teased and attempted to pull
herself together and began to stand up. “It’s a forte.”

“Oh yeah, it definitely is,” Tyler commented and shook his head as
memories burst into mind of how she shocked him from even a young age. He
should have known it wouldn’t change. Standing up with her, he decided to get
on with the newest plans of the house now that the kitchen and part of the
dining room were flooded. “We’re going to have to rip
all of
this
up,” he remarked as he looked at the water making its damage
prevalent.

“Minor setback that’s all,” she quipped at him optimistically as she
tried to dry off some and as she looked to Tyler she caught him just staring at
her. “What?” she asked shyly and felt exposed by his gaze.
 

She knew this look; he used to give it to her all the time. It held so
many notes of emotions and it was so full with seduction it made her
immediately turned on. However, they weren’t teenagers in love or youngsters
planning a future together anymore. He had moved on from her and was now making
that life with someone else. She couldn’t get lost in a moment of lust.

Apparently Tyler had other ideas.

“You’re beautiful you know that right?” he asked her as he approached
and pressed his face along her still wet jaw line and forced her to look up at
him. “Even after six years you still have that same smile and a way with words
that renders me a weak man. I can’t deny that it’s always going to be you that
fills
my heart.”

“Ty,” she tried to stop this, her eyes beginning to water heavily. Her
emotions were shot after being confronted with the wild truth of Natasha’s
pregnancy and what she had lost.

“You left me,” he told her and his tone was sad and quiet all at once.
“You were here one day and gone the next. You don’t know how much of me you
took with you. I am not that man you knew back when we were nineteen.”

Austin had to disagree with that statement. “You are still him,” Austin
commented lightly. The man that had been here when she got back to town was
still the man she left.

“I am now,” Tyler stated with an obvious tone. “You coming back brought
me back to me. Even Natasha see’s how you being here has changed me back to the
man I used to be. The man I loved being. I don’t know how, Austin, but you have
both the ability to make and break me and that still scares me. I grew up
knowing that but even now, at twenty-five years old, the power you have over me
terrifies the shit out of me because I know I will only ever love you.”

Austin diverted her eye contact as the tears fell, “I know that
feeling.”

“You know for us to heal completely from everything we need complete
honesty right?” he asked and she began to chew her lip nervously, he watched
her nod at him. “I want you in my life, Austin. I need you in it, but I’m still
in the dark.”

“I know,” she whispered back, nervous that she would be forced to tell
all.

“Okay,” he said reaching for her hand as they sat close to one another.
“Why did you leave then? Please tell me, Austin. Make me understand,” Tyler
tried and knew he wouldn’t force her. He just wanted to see if what he was
feeling was strong enough to take the blow of the past.

He couldn’t deny that he just wanted to take Austin right here, right
now.

“No,” she replied, “Don’t make me. Please.” She didn’t want to relive
this now, not when the moment had been so intimate and perfect. She didn’t want
the nightmare to attack her when she was with Tyler.
 
She didn’t want to have that clawing into her
when she knew Tyler would be going back to Natasha right after.

“Fine,” he said and in the heat of the moment he kissed her with a force
she hadn’t felt in years. Tyler still kissed her the way that made the flame of
their love combust and burn brighter and as the heat prickled across her skin
she didn’t care about the consequences right now. She gave her all to have a
piece of the past back.

Her mother might hate her, some of town might give her accusatory looks,
but Tyler really didn’t hold a grudge and that made her heart flutter with hope
entirely.

Neither thought their actions through as they just began to strip,
allowing their skin to connect and find an alliance like they had years ago.
Throwing her shirt to the side, Tyler began to work Austin’s bra as Austin
unbuckled his belt. Their kissing barely lightening as they dove further into
this forbidden oblivion.

Moving from the soaking wet kitchen, they went into the living room at
the front of the house. Tyler lowered Austin against a pile of unused cloths
that were used to cover the floor when they were painting. He knew it wasn’t
romantic but it was all they had and he wouldn’t be leaving until he had gained
back another part of him before the night was up.

Losing her jeans and ripping her panties from her body, he gave her a
wicked grin as she stared at him with the utmost lust, and she found that he
didn’t lose his eye contact as he thrust into her, penetrating more than just
her body with his penis. She felt full and content by the feel of him inside
her again after over six years and she didn’t want it to end. Her soul felt
complete and her cracked heart was healing.

Feeling him withdraw and then thrust back into her heated core, her back
arched with the absolute pleasure and for the first time since she knew when,
Austin felt like she was home, she was safe, loved, and that the bad memories
were just nightmares.

Both got lost in the power of this love making until they climaxed one
right after the other. Tyler gave his all for this moment of perfection.
Falling beside her, he moved her hair to the side and they just stared at one
another in this state of bliss, neither speaking.

It was like time had left them unchanged. He still felt the same and he could
see from the content grin on Austin’s lips that she did too. Six years on and
their bodies still spoke to one another on more than one level.

However, as the heat sweltered across their skin still, Tyler sat up a
little bit, “We can’t do this more than this one time.” He looked apologetic as
he spoke and he looked exceedingly guilty by it as well and she had to accept
this new warped reality.

Austin had wanted to believe this was them relinquishing an old flame,
but it wasn’t even close to igniting that old fire. This, whatever this was,
was closure. Tyler had let go of every memory he held with Austin and she knew
she had to do the same.

The guilt suddenly became ever so apparent on Tyler’s facial expression
and Austin felt bad for taking advantage of the situation and allowing it to
get this far. Christ, she had just had unprotected sex in a house that everyone
was in and out of while restoring it with a man she had deceived and ran away
from because she got scared and allowed grief to swallow her without so much as
a grasp of help.

“We can’t do that again,” he told her and grabbed his Calvin Klein’s to
put back on. As he pulled them up, he stood to full height and turned to face
Austin as she lay wrapped in the sheets. “I can’t risk Tasha finding out about
this.”

Standing up, she put her back to him; Austin knew she had lost
everything for one moment of lust. She tried to stop the tears that beckoned an
onslaught along her lashes. She would never let him know how much that comment
had hurt her.

“It’s okay, she will never know,” Austin vowed, her voice was low and
broken. She turned back to face the man her heart begged for only breaking
herself more. This was their dirty little secret now and it would stay trapped
in the confines of this house. “I think its best we forget we ever did that.”

“Yeah,” Tyler replied, unhappy by the conclusion to the most amazing
love making he had been given in the last six years. “I better go, I need to go
and meet Natasha. I’ll see you around, Austin.”

Austin remained silent as she stood now wrapped in one of the cloths,
her body pleasantly sore and naked underneath and her heart was doing the
familiar descent towards the floor for another shattering impact.

Watching him leave to go back to Natasha broke her heart far worse than
ever leaving this Godforsaken town had done. Sinking to the floor, Austin felt
dirty for loving a man that was taken by another woman. Her man was no longer
her man. She couldn’t live in that past anymore.

Chapter Fourteen

AUSTIN’S heart hadn’t taken a proper beat since
hearing Natasha’s baby news two days ago. She had been at the house, but Tyler
had dropped
her a
text to say he was spending a few
days alone with Natasha. Again, Austin faltered. She couldn’t stop herself from
wondering
the what
if’s in life. She imagined if Tyler
would have been like that had he known about their baby, and for once, she
realized that hindsight was not an amazing thing. Actually, hindsight was what
was killing her most right now.

She never did text back to Tyler with much emotion. A simple ‘okay’ and
she got on with fixing the house. Now it was more prevalent to her to just get
the house painted and leave town. This wasn’t her home anymore and she was
realizing it. Her mother never spoke to her, her siblings and her father
were
 
torn between her and her mother,
and Tyler, well, he was slipping away from her ever getting a chance at having
him in her life. As for the rest of Point Arena, she was still their biggest
freak show.

“I wished you had never come back,” Natasha said out of the blue after
watching Austin focus on the added plans for the house. She had stood there
hoping Austin would take notice of her presence but, she never did, she just
got on with what she was doing.

So the bitch struck up.

Austin looked up suddenly and with complete shock. She thought she was
in this house on her own, getting on with the new developments and ideas,
hiding
herself
away and keeping her pain out of plain
sight. She had
channeled
herself into some new ideas
and she needed to now run them past Tyler whenever he came back around and she
wanted to impress with him with them. Since they had made love he had pulled
back marginally and had claimed to be busy with work – that old chestnut again,
but since the baby news he had barely bothered with her.

Refusing to be the bullied here, Austin decided to show she had grown
stronger. “Yeah because you haven’t made that abundantly clear once since I’ve
been back,” Austin spoke with sarcasm and got back to her plans ignoring
Natasha. “Sorry, if you think I’m ignoring you, Natasha. I have nothing worth
saying to you.”

Natasha felt the heat bubble in her chest as she realized her comments
didn’t affect Austin in the desired way she had hoped for. None of them had and
that disappointed her. Austin was the girl she had easily taunted, but not
anymore. She wasn’t that girl that went to school and won Tyler over. Taking a
deep breath, she cut her plan in half, and spoke the next part with clarity and
the right level of emotions.

“I lost the baby,” Natasha told Austin and felt a weight lift off her
shoulders as she got rid of her lie with another lie. She then looked down and
begged the tears to build in her eyes and scratch at her throat. The baby might
never have been real, but with a miscarriage she was sure to see Tyler
devastated and give her all of the emotions that Austin never had all those
years ago. It hadn’t taken a genius to work out that Austin lost that baby and
Natasha wasn’t completely stupid. She knew that Austin wouldn’t have
ran
from Tyler with the truth and when she arrived back in
town without a baby, Natasha saw her opportunity. Now she was exacting her plan
regardless of who got hurt.

She needed Tyler to carry on loving her and not go back to Austin ever
again.

Natasha knew it was deceitful, but she would rather not have to lie
about a pregnancy that wasn’t going to actually have any form of output when
the entire nine months were up. So she had thought up a cunning idea, one that
would make her fall into Tyler’s arms and the grief would completely eclipse
Austin’s presence all together. They would be a couple that lost their baby and
Austin would be pushed completely out.

She just had to break the news to Tyler once the seed was planted in
Austin’s mind. Once that was done, and Austin was guilt ridden, Tyler bereaved,
everyone pitying her and her loss, would she really kick Austin in the teeth.

“
Yo
-You lost the baby?” Tyler voice suddenly
broke into the tense air as he asked Natasha. The shock barely being registered
after what he had heard. He had literally just walked through the door to hear
Natasha beating into Austin and now he had overheard this and he felt all
viable air sucked from his lungs.

Natasha spun around shocked that Tyler had heard that. “Tyler,” she
tried to make her eyes water a little more. She went towards him, expecting to
get sympathy and love and condolence, but she didn’t. It didn’t even border
close to those emotions. No, she got hostility thrown at her and distance
thrust between her and him.

“I-I,” Tyler stuttered and averted all eye contact together. “I need to
get out of here.”

He left her completely neglected.

Natasha turned back to Austin and saw her watering eyes and it seemed to
make her snap even more. Her plan against Austin had started to backfire and
now the victim of her scheme was looking more remorseful than her fiancé had.
“This is entirely your fault, Austin!” Natasha blamed Austin as her anger took
on a life of its own. “If you had never come back, Tyler and I would be fine and
happy, and I’d still have his baby to show him that we were meant to be.”

The reaction Natasha was expecting again didn’t surface. Instead the
newer Austin fought back.

“I had every right to come back here,” Austin informed Natasha with a
fierce tone. She wasn’t going to let this new turn of events chase her away and
she certainly wasn’t the bullied girl that Natasha had loved to torment all
through school. Not anymore. She wasn’t the Austin that grew up in this town.
She had died the night she had lost Tyler and their baby.

“You’ll leave like you did before, Austin,” Natasha told Austin with
sheer certainty. “If it’s not by choice, I’m sure you’ll find yourself
forced
out soon.”

Gulping, Austin felt a feeling of foreboding settle upon her but she
tried to shrug it off. She wasn’t leaving this town just yet, that much was
sure, and she couldn’t see anyone pushing her out of the town either. She had
bridges to rebuild and relationships to fight for and even without Tyler’s
love, she couldn’t run again.