Last Chance Rebel. Maisey Yates

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СКАЧАТЬ about why you’re talking to me.”

      “I don’t like you limping like this. I don’t like that the work hurt you.”

      “I didn’t ask for your charity.” She scowled. “In fact, I think I’ve made it pretty clear I want to blot your charity from the record.”

      “You’re not doing the work anymore. That’s it. Not going to have you limping around town because you’re trying to repay something I didn’t want you to pay for in the first place.”

      He was just so large, hard and imposing, looming over her, his face a whole thunderstorm. He made her feel small and vulnerable. Like she was out of control. And she hated it.

      “It isn’t your decision,” she said, her voice hard. “I have some say.”

      He shook his head, and she found her eyes drawn to the grim line of his mouth. She was fascinated by it. By the deep grooves around it that proved this firm, uncompromising set was the typical expression for him. She wondered what he had to be uncompromising about.

      She shouldn’t wonder. She shouldn’t wonder any damn thing about him.

      “Sorry to say,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, “But you don’t.”

      “I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” she said, keeping her voice low. The last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to them. They probably already were drawing attention. Pathetic, scarred-up Rebecca Bear talking to the tallest, hottest guy in the room. People were probably pitying her. Or wondering if he was asking for directions.

      Heat washed over her skin, leaving a prickling sensation behind. Humiliation. Anger.

      “You don’t think I feel bad about this? Do you think you’re the only person who lost sleep over it?”

      “Well, I know I lost sleep. Recovery is a bitch.”

      “I want to fix it. I want to make it right.”

      “You can see the way that I’m walking today, can’t you? There is no making it right, Gage. There’s no fixing it. You can’t just make it like it didn’t happen. I’m not something you can just walk into town and put back together. I’m broken. That’s the beginning and end of it. And it’s my burden to bear, it isn’t yours. It isn’t fair. To wander around acting like you’ve been shouldering some of this for the past seventeen years when you just haven’t been.”

      “The hell I haven’t,” he said, reaching out, wrapping his fingers around her arm and drawing her in closer to him.

      His touch burned her, scorched her from the inside out. Her mind was blank, except for one thought. How long had it been since a man touched her? Anyone? She couldn’t remember.

      “You can’t buy me,” she said, her voice low, shaking. And she wasn’t really sure if it was from rage, or because of the way he touched her. So firm and sure and completely unexpected. “You can’t throw money at this and expect it to go away.”

      “Hey.” Rebecca turned and saw Ace standing behind the counter right next to them, his expression hard. “Is he bothering you?”

      Of course Ace knew who Gage was. Ace was his brother-in-law. She wasn’t sure if anyone else in town recognized Gage West yet. And even if they did, they didn’t know the connection she had with him.

      She doubted Ace knew either. But then, she couldn’t really be sure of what Gage had told his family, and what he hadn’t.

      She pulled away from Gage, taking a step back. “It’s fine,” she said. She treated Ace to a hard look that expressed her to desire to have him go away.

      She didn’t want him white knighting. She didn’t want anyone else enmeshed in this at all.

      When he was out of earshot, Gage turned to her, leaning in slightly. “I’ve lived with it for the past seventeen years too,” he said. “Whether you want to listen to that or not, it’s true. Whether you think it’s fair or not, it’s true.”

      “So, it sounds like you’re a big fan of being punished for your mistakes, then. Enjoy me withholding forgiveness.”

      She didn’t even know what this fight was. Hating him for caring. Hating him for feeling some kind of responsibility for it. She shouldn’t know any of it, that was the problem. What she’d said to him earlier was the God’s honest truth.

      She didn’t want to know his life. She didn’t want to know if guilt kept him awake. Didn’t want to know if he felt good, bad or indifferent.

      This belonged to her. It was her pain. Her own personal tragedy. It had shaped everything she was, had disrupted her entire life in ways no one knew. In ways Gage West certainly couldn’t know.

      Him feeling guilty...well, that seemed selfish. He wasn’t scarred up. His body was beautiful. Women didn’t look at him with pitying glances the way men looked at her. He didn’t have to deal with a terrible limp after a long day of physical labor. What right did he have to co-opt any of the suffering?

      She should probably tell Jonathan what was going on. At least he could tell Gage to back the hell off. Except, she knew that she wouldn’t. Mostly because she wanted to handle all of this herself. It felt unwieldy and more than a little out of control, but she still didn’t want anyone else getting involved. Because her feelings were too raw. Too confusing. She didn’t know what to do with them.

      She didn’t want to talk to Lane. She didn’t want to talk to Alison. She didn’t want to talk to anybody. She wanted to pick up a chair and break it over the back of Gage’s head.

      Except she was too sore to do that. Because of him. Which made her want to hit him even more.

      “I’ll be at your place tomorrow,” she said. “By six. Because I have to go in and work at the store afterward.”

      “You damn well won’t be there.”

      “I damn well will be, and if you stiff me out of my pay, I’ll make your life hell.”

      “We haven’t even settled on a wage.”

      “Make it a fair one!” She turned on her heel and hobbled back to her table, her heart pounding hard. She had no idea where all that had come from. All of that anger, all of that effortless rage. She wanted to stand there and scream at him forever.

      She remembered her dreams then. She’d had all kinds of dreams after the accident. Some of them were about pain, and about more surgery. But then, after those dreams had faded had come the other dreams. Dreams of standing in an empty room, in front of a man whose face was hidden in shadow. And she would scream at him. Yell at him and hit him until all of her anger had quieted.

      She would shout every detail of everything he had done to her. Emptying all of the toxic pain from her chest and pouring it into him.

      She wasn’t going to do that in Ace’s bar. But she had a feeling she had it in her.

      “Who was that?” Lane asked when Rebecca sat back down at the table. She had sort of forgotten that her friends were an audience for that encounter.

      “That was him,” СКАЧАТЬ