Besides, she had no idea where she would go.
As angry as she’d been at Walker and her friends for not believing her, she realized now she’d assumed those rifts would heal over time. She’d wanted to believe in Walker’s love—and in the friendship she’d shared with Riley, Savannah and Nora.
She was such a fool. Always looking for things to turn out when she knew darn well she wasn’t lucky like that.
For the first time, she contemplated a future without Riley and the others. Without Walker.
What would it be like to be on the outside looking in? To hear about life at Base Camp second-hand?
She couldn’t bear to think about it. “I guess you’re right,” she forced herself to say. She loved it here at Base Camp. Knew in her heart that Riley, Savannah and Nora had been tricked. They still cared about her, and she cared about them.
As for Walker, she was going off half-cocked. She hadn’t let him explain.
Didn’t want him to.
She didn’t think she’d ever forget how it felt when Elizabeth had asked, “Are you going to marry me or not?” and Walker hadn’t told her no. It was like someone had torn her in two, pulled out her heart and set it on fire.
This morning, she’d utterly believed he meant to make her his wife.
Now she wasn’t sure. Why had he hesitated? Why not just tell Elizabeth no?
To save them all from a scene? Or because seeing Elizabeth again had changed his mind?
Avery closed her eyes in pain.
If he married Elizabeth, he’d break her heart, but it wasn’t the first time it had been broken, she reminded herself.
She’d always survived.
Would watching him love someone else be better or worse than leaving Base Camp for good and losing everything?
Avery didn’t know.
“Avery—”
“I forgive you.” She opened her eyes again and swallowed at the relief on Riley’s face.
“Really?”
Avery’s heart softened even more. Riley really did love her.
“Of course. You guys thought you saw me take the fan. How could you have known Clem doctored the footage?” she forced herself to say. When it had happened, she’d thought nothing could hurt her the way it did to know all of them believed her capable of such a thing.
Now she knew how much worse things could get.
“We should have known,” Riley said. “You’d never do anything to hurt someone else!”
“But I had been stealing things—as a joke.” Avery sighed. “That’s the messed-up thing, Riley. No matter how much someone else hurts me, I always manage to hurt myself worse.” Like the way she’d accepted Walker’s assertion that he’d marry her before he’d done what it took to clean up his past.
Riley pulled her into a hug. “We’ve all made mistakes this year. All we can do is try to move forward.”
“I guess.” Could she do that if Walker married Elizabeth?
She thought of the way he’d held her hand while Ruth labored this morning. How tender he’d been when she cried with relief and joy after Champ’s birth.
Walker understood her better than anyone else. She’d never felt so loved as she did with him. Was she making too much of what had happened tonight? Should she give him the chance to explain?
Once again she heard Elizabeth’s voice in her head. “Are you going to marry me or not?”
She didn’t need to hear anything from Walker, Avery decided, until he’d answered Elizabeth definitively. Yes or no. It was a simple question.
“It will be so much better if you make an appearance,” Riley said. “People will focus on Win and Angus again. Wash your face. Have a drink of water. No one will know you were upset.”
Avery doubted that was true. She had always been an open book. Everyone knew she loved Walker—
And now they’d know how miserable she would be if he left her behind.
Walker lay on his bedroll in the bunkhouse the following morning, staring through the dark at the ceiling, wondering why he’d woken so early with a sense that something wasn’t right.
Something besides the obvious.
It wasn’t that Elizabeth had arrived in Chance Creek last night and challenged him to marry her, disrupting all his careful plans.
It wasn’t that Avery hadn’t spoken a word to him since she’d run from the ballroom last night, even though he’d tried to take her aside once the reception was over to explain what had happened.
It was something else. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on until a breeze stirred through the room from one of the windows left open last night.
A warm breeze.
Walker sat up. It was mid-April, and not too long ago, snow lay on the ground outside. April could be mild, but that breeze wasn’t chilly at all, and the sun wasn’t even up yet.
He noiselessly got out of his sleeping bag, as Avery turned over in hers across the room. Until recently they’d shared the bunkhouse with Byron, one of the cameramen, and his girlfriend, Leslie, who’d come to Base Camp expecting to marry Angus but had shifted her affection to the younger man. That became uncomfortable as soon as Byron and Leslie hooked up, and even though all the single residents of Base Camp were supposed to sleep here, Walker had given them permission to spend their nights temporarily in the shell of the tiny house that was being built for his use when he was married.
He hadn’t reckoned with how awkward it would be to sleep alone in the bunkhouse with just Avery when he wasn’t allowed to touch her—even more so after Clem pulled his scam. It was torture keeping to his side of the room night after night when he knew Avery wasn’t sleeping well, either. As hard as it had been to keep his distance these past weeks, he was grateful now he had.
He couldn’t believe the ultimatum Elizabeth had given him last night—or the threat she’d uttered. That she’d make his life miserable.
She was already doing that.
Was Avery awake? Walker couldn’t tell.
Last night when the reception was over, she’d gotten ready
