Page 82 of Welcome Home, Katie Gallagher
“But I have feet.” I picked up the catalogs and opened the front door. “Lock the back on your way out.” I didn’t look at him, couldn’t look at him, as I locked the front door. Who the hell did he think he was? Rushing in, looking all hot and fierce, and then giving me his don’t-hate-me-because-I-dumped-you sad eyes.
When we started walking up the street, I realized we were missing something. “Your leash was in the car! Damn it. Even when Justin’s not here, he sucks.” I tapped my leg and said “Heel,” bringing in Chaucer close to my side. How many miles away was Gran’s house?
A few minutes later, Aiden’s truck pulled up next to us, keeping pace. The window rolled down. “Katie, are you really going to walk the two miles home?”
P’fft. Two miles. “That’s nothing. Right, buddy?” Chaucer watched Aiden but kept pace by my side.
“Most of it uphill.”
Sighing, continuing to stare straight ahead, I stopped. “How steep?”
“Very. You’ll probably need climbing ropes, crampons, a harness.”
Bland look engaged, I turned to the open window. “Really?” I needed a special bat backpack, so I’d have it at all times.
“Yes, really. And as I’m headed that direction, anyway...” He leaned over and threw open the passenger door.
Chaucer started for the truck. I hissed and he sat, looking back and forth between us. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and tapped the screen. “Hey, you busy?...Awesome...Chaucer and I are walking up Main. Could you give us a lift home?...Great! I’ll explain on the ride.” I glanced over at an annoyed Aiden. “And could you hurry? I’ve got a creeper lurking.”
“Please let me drive you home. I need to talk to you.” He sounded hurt, the self-centered jerk. I was the injured party, not him.
“I need a lot of things, too, Aiden. First and foremost, people in my life who like me, who make me feel good about myself—like the guy who’s racing over here to take me home. What I don’t need is a man who makes me feel like crap on a regular basis. One who pulls me close and holds me tight, who waits until I begin to trust and start to feel steady, and then shoves me away again.”
I grabbed the open door and looked him in the eye. “I’m not here to fulfill your secret adolescent dreams. And I’m not the proxy for every woman who’s ever done you wrong, either. We all get our hearts broken. Grow up!” I slammed the door and continued walking up Main, Chaucer by my side. Bear would find us.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aiden
I drove around town, down along the water, up through Acadia National Park, my thoughts cycling. She was right. I had the greatest woman in the world, and I’d dumped her. With extreme prejudice.
I parked by a river and pulled out my phone to look at that stupid pity mug shot for the hundredth time. Those big green eyes, so lost, that fiery hair she’d tried to tame, that adorable look of outrage on her face; it killed me. She killed me.
When the sky turned pink in its setting, I was no closer to a way to win her back than I had been when she’d walked away from me on Main. I was a jackass. A doomed, heartsick jackass. There were a few things I could do, though, and it was long past time I manned up and did them.
I pulled up to Katie’s house an hour later. I didn’t go to her door, instead walking around back to the woodpile. I’d made a promise I’d neglected to keep. That needed to stop. A lot of things needed to stop.
Chaucer’s huge head watched from the window, but he had yet to alert Katie to my presence. Interesting. I’d chopped three logs into quarters before I heard the back door open.
“Please, leave me alone. Stop doing this kind of thing.” Katie stepped to the edge of the porch, her arms crossed.
“I promised to chop your wood over a month ago. I’m sorry I’m late.”
She sighed. “Is this some kind of weird Maine tradition? In California, when we don’t like someone, so much so that we feel the need to humiliate them in public, we just stop all contact with that person. We definitely don’t trespass on their property to make kindling.”
“Can you turn on the light?”
Mumbling something about a bat, she leaned in the back door. The porch light flashed on. She grabbed a coat from just inside the door and put it on.
“You should have those things on motion sensors. It’s safer,” I said. Chop, chop, chop.
She peered into the dark beyond our circle of light and shivered. “Whatever. Listen, can you just leave?”
She and Chaucer stood side by side and watched me chop four more logs. When I picked up an armload of quartered pieces and carried it to her wood box, her eyes followed me, brows furrowed.
“Can I ask you a question, Katie?” I put another log on the chopping block.
She hugged herself. “Is it why haven’t I pulled out my granddaddy’s shotgun yet?”
