Page 4 of The Chase
Wild grief had him cursing as he grabbed his car keys.
He turned in time to see her flinch again. She had always done that the few times he’d cursed in her presence. He had never bothered to ask her why; he had just stopped cursing around her. Now he wished he had asked.
Wished he had spent tonight talking, instead of…
What the hell had he done tonight?
He could have...should have…just held her. Made sure she was okay, and that he hadn’t hurt her. They could have slept curled up around each other in his bed, all night long. He could have loved her awake in the morning, then held her all over again.
Then…he could have slowly broken things off after a little while. So that he didn’t hurt her. That was his biggest regret, his stupidest mistake.
He didn’t have to hurt her the way he had. If he had just kept his damned mouth shut, not said the first thing to come flying out in his bedroom, he could have done thisbetter.
But…there was no future for them together. He’d always known that. She was a Hiller. And the Hillers had taken all the family he had away from him.
He was going to fix that. As soon as he had the proof he needed. Gene Hiller would pay for what he had done. Kurt had been planning that for a long time.
Kurt just hadn’t intended for the man’s baby sister to be a part of that price. Kurt had far more honor than that.
He never would have hurt her to get back at her brother.
He drove her home.
He tried to get her to talk to him. To let him apologize to her. To tell her the truth—that she was far too good for a man like him. That…she would find a better man than him some day.
That…she would forget him and what he had done to her. She agreed withthat.
Then she just stopped talking to him at all.
Someday, she would find a man worthy of loving her. Who would teach her what good lovemaking was all about. Who would appreciate her for the gift she was, and treat like the the queen she deserved to be.
It was not going to be him.
Kurt watched her as she unlocked the door to her apartment and hurried inside before he pulled out. He wanted to stay there. He couldn’t deny that.
He wanted that woman so damned much his bones ached. He would want her forever. And…he had ruined everything tonight. He would never be able to fix it.
She was a Hiller—and there was no future between them because of that.
Still, she was better off without him. He wasn’t good enough to be the man she needed. Not in this life, anyway. There really wasn’t anything he could do to change that.
It was probably best if he just let her go forever.Hewas the last kind of man she would ever need.
4
Nothing had ever hurther more than what Kurtland Tyson the Toad Chase had done. It took Greer a few days to even be able tothinkabout that night. Mostly, she’d just tried to block things out and had focused on her family. Especially her sister.
Genny had been going through some problems at work with Gene’s ex-girlfriend Mandy Kirby. Greer had focused on listening to her sister vent and taking Genny and their friend Chantal to the Barratt Finley Creek as a distraction. They’d even managed to get her oldest sister Giavonna to join them.
But now…she was back in her apartment. And thinking about things she didn’t want to think about.
Namely, Kurtland Tyson Chase. That rat.
She still had his sweatshirt in her things. He’d let her wear it when he’d taken her on a short walk around his ranch one night at midnight, to see the stars. He’d kissed her out there, under the moon. And she’d thought…believed…
She should have seen through him. She was smarter than that. She had five big brothers who had made certain that she knew what guys were like.
And…Gene had mentioned his dislike of Kurt before. So many times. So had Grady. Even Guthrie had told her and Genny and Gia to stay away from Kurt a few times. Guthrie practically got along with everyone—except possibly Genny’s bestie Aubrey. For some reason Guthrie had some sort of problem with her. Genny had mentioned it to Greer, since Aubrey’s baby sister Ayla was one of Greer’s two closest friends in the world. Neither of them understood it—Aubrey was one of the kindest women Greer had ever met. She did happen to look like Guthrie’s ex—Genny thought maybe that was it.
