“What is going on?” Alison asked, clearly unamused by all of the antics.
“Exactly what I said,” Lane said. “Rebecca has decided to work for the guy who caused her accident, and clearly she has put herself under physical duress doing it.”
“Why?” Alison asked. “Rebecca, do you need money? If you need money, you can ask us. I would much rather give you some. Or, put you to work mixing frosting.”
“I don’t need money,” she said, feeling like a cat that had been backed up against the wall. “There’s a specific thing that I have to work out. And it requires working for him.”
“Could you possibly be more cagey?” Lane asked.
“If I tried,” Rebecca said, her tone deadpan, “I suppose I could be.”
“I just don’t get it.”
“It’s complicated. I owe him money.”
“How do you owe him money?”
“It’s complicated!” A prickling sensation assaulted the back of Rebecca’s neck, and she looked up just in time to see Gage walking through the door of the bar. “Oh, great,” she muttered.
“What?” Alison asked.
“Nothing,” Rebecca responded. She stood up, taking a long drink of the last of her beer. “I need another drink.”
She made her way back over to the bar, too late remembering that everything hurt and walking across the space was an assault. “More beer,” she said to Ace, setting the glass on the countertop.
“What happened?”
She turned around, her heart thundering hard against her chest as her gaze clashed with Gage’s stormy blue eyes. “Nothing,” she bit out.
“Then why are you limping?”
Rage poured down through her like an acid rain. “Oh, I have a little bit of a problem sometimes with my joints. My bones ache. Not because I’m old, mind you. But because I sustained a pretty serious injury to my leg and sometimes after I work, the muscles tighten up and everything goes a little bit nuts.” She gritted her teeth. “I feel like you might know something about that.”
“The work is too much for you,” he said, his voice flat.
Ace came back over to the bar and set the glass down in front of Rebecca.
“Put that on my tab, Ace,” Gage said.
She grabbed hold of the beer, her heart hammering hard. “Don’t do that, Ace.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Gage said.
“I’m going to pay for the beer if you can’t figure it out,” Ace said, turning away from them and going to help another customer.
“I’m trying to work off my debt to you,” she said, “not accrue more.”
“I can’t buy you a beer?”
“I’m confused 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