Page 29 of Fighting His Fate
She snorted. “I’ll bet you are. It’s all that practice you’ve had with women in bars, judging who you can get the pants off most quickly.”
“You follow the rules, maybe too much. You believe in being responsible and trustworthy and honest.”
She shrugged. “The same can be said for most people.”
“No, it can’t, though it’s interesting as hell that you think it can. Given all that, I don’t understand why you’re willing to lie to your boyfriend to help me.”
She cocked her head. “What makes you think I’m lying to him?”
“Because he likes me even less than you do, and I can’t imagine he’d be happy with his woman missing the biggest church event of the year so you can hang out with me—no matter how cute those kids are.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “The church picnic.”
He nodded. “See? I pay attention. I saw the banner over Main Street.”
She looked away. In all the excitement of the last few days, she’d completely forgotten about the picnic. As soon as he realized she wasn’t hurt and hadn’t been taken against her will or abducted by aliens, John must have been livid about her missing the picnic, and that was before she broke up with him.
She was a dirty sock slung over the bottom rung of the relationship ladder, a joy-sucking leech on the structure of male-female dynamics. “I’m not his woman anymore.”
“Since when?”
She shouldn’t be telling him this, shouldn’t be letting him move even closer. But she needed to talk about it, needed to admit what she’d done. “Since about an hour ago.”
“Want me to set him straight? You’re just helping me out.”
“He didn’t dump me, Brett.”
He turned his head to look at her. “You dumped him?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t use those words, but yes.”
“Weren’t you going to marry this guy?”
“It was a mistake. He’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think he’s a great guy for me.”
“And you realized this now, between babysitting, being held at gunpoint, and getting very little sleep.”
“I got plenty of sleep, thank you very much.”
“You can’t make huge, life-altering decisions in the state you’re in.”
He was questioning the choice that had been difficult enough for her to make without his input, just as John had done, and she immediately went on the defensive. “What do you care? It’s my life, and I’m nobody to you. Like you said yourself, I’m just helping you out.”
“That’s right. That’s all it is, just you and me, getting these boys to their new home. Nothing else.”
“What are you implying?” She knew the answer, but she wanted him to say it so she could shove the words back down his throat. He was lighting her insecurities on fire, and in that moment, she hated him for it.
“It means I don’t want you doing something crazy just because we have some chemistry. You can’t piss your future away over a little physical attraction. We didn’t even kiss, for God’s sake.”
If her cheeks were flushed before, now they were crimson. “Screw you, Champion. You don’t have anything to do with my decision.”
“Just calm down and listen to me. You didn’t do anything wrong. All of this can be fixed. I’ll tell the preacher it was all my fault, which it was, anyway. He’ll understand. He’s a good guy, right?” He pulled abruptly into the right lane and put his turn signal on.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m taking you home.”
They were passing the area in which they lived en route to Rochester, the exit that led toward their apartment coming up in less than a mile. “He loves you. He’d do anything for you. He’ll understand.”
