any other. The reason he had made almost every choice he made in the past seventeen years.
And he could see that he was tied up in hers too.
So this could be the end. This could be the clean break. He would be a fool not to take it.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Rebecca. I’m going to be here for as long as it takes. And in that time you can work on my ranch and assist me with other things that might come up as I organize my father’s assets. Then in the end, we’ll draw up an agreement for the building, and I’ll sell it to you, and we will filter all payments through a bank.”
He stuck out his hand, and she just looked at it as though it were a snake. He watched as she curled her fingers into fists, but she did not lift her hand. He let his own drop back to his side.
She tilted her chin up, her dark eyes glittering. “Then, it’s a deal.”
“YOU AGREED TO WHAT?”
Rebecca rolled her eyes and shifted the phone so that she could hold it between her ear and shoulder while she finished spreading jam on a piece of toast. “Calm down, Lane. If I wanted hysterics, I would have told Jonathan.”
The idea of talking to her brother about Gage being back in town—living near her—and enlisting her services to help on his little ranch spread made her cringe. Well, especially because she had enlisted herself, not the other way around.
“I’m not being hysterical, but I am questioning your sanity. This guy rolls back into your life...”
“He did not roll back into my life. That implies that he was part of my life prior to leaving town. He wasn’t. We ran into each other once or twice. Literally, in the most notable case.”
“That’s not funny,” Lane said.
“It’s actually hilarious. Don’t police my humor. But, it’s a whole big complicated situation, and I just wanted to let you know that I was going over to his house to do some work this morning so that in case I went missing you would know that I was finally finished off by the man who started killing me seventeen years ago.”
Lane growled. “Again, not funny.”
“Lighten up,” Rebecca said, lifting her thumb to her lips and licking a bit of errant jam from her skin. “I’m just doing what I have to.”
“Sure. But in a cagey fashion. You haven’t exactly explained to me how all this works.”
She took a bite of her toast. “It just does.”
“Rebecca, I often find your unwillingness to share the details about your life slightly charming. You’re kind of a little lockbox, kind of mysterious and that makes you interesting. However, in this case I’m a little bit frustrated with the fact that you are associating with this man without fully explaining everything.”
She took another bite and spoke around the bread. “I don’t have time to explain this morning. I have to get to work.”
“You don’t have time to do this,” Lane continued, protesting sharply in Rebecca’s ear. “You barely have any time off as it is.”
“I have an overprotective older sibling, Lane. The position is filled, there’s no need for you to apply.”
“Sure,” Lane said, “except you haven’t told Jonathan. So, seeing as your overprotective sibling has not been informed, and is therefore not able to comment...”
“Because his comment would be vulgar at best, potentially homicidal at worst.”
“Because you’re being crazy.”
Rebecca shoved the last piece of her breakfast into her mouth and grabbed her thermos full of coffee off of the counter. “I’m not being crazy. I’m making the most of a bad situation.” Claiming her business for herself, trying to regain some kind of control in this situation.
She hated being out of control. She hated being needy. After the accident she felt like she’d been existing in a period of extended victimhood. Her body hadn’t done what she wanted it to do, she hadn’t had any decision-making power when it had come to submitting herself to another surgery, to another excrutiating recovery.
To being cared for by other people.
And, once their mother left, Jonathan had gone into overprotective older brother mode, and even though all of his decision making came from a good place, it was still overbearing.
“Fine. We’ll discuss this later. See you tonight at Ace’s?”
“Maybe,” Rebecca said, shrugging her jacket on and zipping it up all the way to her throat.
“At least text me so I know you aren’t dead.”
“Promise.”
She hung up the phone before heading out the door. She closed it tightly behind her, not bothering to lock it. Usually, she just kept it locked when she was home. If anyone wanted to steal her crap while she was gone, they were welcome to it.
She was more concerned about somebody assaulting her person while she was in residence.
Curling her fingers tightly around her thermos, she began to walk down her driveway. It would be much faster to drive over to Gage’s place, but she wasn’t exactly in a hurry to get there. Anyway, a little bit of time in her own head before she had to deal with him would be helpful.
She took a deep breath of the morning air, letting it sear her throat. Then, she took a sip of her coffee, letting out a long slow breath that turned into a cloud and drifted past her as she continued to walk quickly down her dirt driveway.
Wind rustled through the pines and the oaks, a few brown leaves fluttering down to the ground in front of her. She stepped on one, satisfied with the slight crunch that it made beneath her boot.
She found a simple kind of clarity in mornings like this. In her surroundings. It was one reason she liked living so far out of town. Too many people, too much noise and her brain ended up feeling cluttered. She had to have time to sweep it all clean again.
She looked up at the gray sky, at the pale yellow shadow of the sun trying to break through. She imagined it would all burn off around noon, treating them to a clear fall day, which was as rare as it was enjoyed by the people in this part of the world.
You had to cultivate a bit of enjoyment for gray and mist if you were going to live on the Oregon coast. Rebecca had always felt like it was part of her blood. She had been born here in Copper Ridge and had never felt the inclination to leave.
She kicked at a pile of leaves as she turned that thought over. She supposed that in some ways her life might have been easier if she had left. She wouldn’t spend her time tripping over as many ghosts. But then, she supposed that all went back to control.
Why should she be the one to go? Why should she run away from her home because some teenage asshole had scarred her for life—more literally than emotionally.
Her conclusion had been that she shouldn’t. And anyway, Gage had been the one to leave.
“But he’s back,” she said quietly, the words floating away on another cloud of her breath.
She reached the main highway and walked on the narrow shoulder, keeping an eye out for any cars that might be driving on the road. She doubted she would see anyone. It was still pretty early and unless people lived here, they didn’t really have a reason to be driving out this way.
She looked down, focusing on the white line painted onto the black asphalt, watching as one boot landed perfectly in the center, then the other, with each footstep.
She paused when she arrived at his driveway, taking another deep breath, relishing the scent of the lake, cool and damp, and the overriding sharp