Page 26 of Unstoppable Love

“We need to talk.” His hands reached up and wrapped around my wrists, still at his chest, still feeling the rhythmic thump of his racing heart.

I shook my head as tears formed in my eyes. “You’re kidding me.”

“Please, Ava. Let’s go somewhere and talk.” His hands squeezed mine.

I had to get him to stop touching me. I shoved again. Tears were forming in my eyes, and I refused to let him see. “Step back. I need to go.”

“We’ll talk, Ava. Promise me we’ll talk.” If I wasn’t mistaken, there was panic in his voice. “I shouldn’t have done it. Not now. But there are things you need to know. Things I need to say.”

“I need to go.”

My chin was wobbling, and there was no way he didn’t see I was seconds from falling apart.

His thumb brushed my chin, and I flinched at the softness of it as he tugged me in his direction and met my gaze with his. “Promise me you’ll let me talk.”

“Okay.” He stepped back, and I ran. I shoved through the small Saturday night crowd, straight past my table with Lydia, and I didn’t even think to look at her.

I didn’t inhale a breath until I was outside, the warm summer night air doing nothing to cool the absolute storm raging inside of me.

What in the hell? What in the fuck had he just done? What in the hell had just happened?

A car pulled into the lot, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Before Isaiah was even out of his door, I was at the passenger side.

“What the fuck?”

He gaped at me. Saw the tears.

“Who do I have to kill?”

I fell into the passenger seat. “Take me home, Isaiah. Please just take me home.”

I was crying. I hated crying. Isaiah won the best big brother of the year award, pressed his lips together, and put the car in reverse.

And I got the hell away from Tom’s Saloon, town, and Cameron Kelley.

Where I would ensure, this time, I stayed far away.

Chapter 8

Cameron

I messed that up. Fuck, I messed that up. I lost my absolute mind when I saw Jimmy blocking her in. Fuck. I shouldn’t have done any of that.

“Shit.” I stormed into the bathroom, where I’d been headed. Minding my own damn business. Saying hello to folks I knew, which was almost everyone, on the way. But as soon as I’d hit the hall and seen Jimmy crowding in on a woman? And then realized that woman was Ava?

Good thing Isaiah wasn’t there yet. He’d have broken more laws than I would have, and he would have done it armed.

“Shit.” I screwed that up. Seriously screwed that up. Ava was the last person I’d want to make cry, even if I’d probably done it a lot over the years.

But I’d taken one look at her face, the fear swirling there. The determination. And I’d lost it.

I still tasted her on my lips in a way I knew I’d never forget.

“I’ll talk to her,” I told my reflection.

So I screwed that up. So I admitted I remembered at least something, at the worst possible time and in the worst possible place. This was Ava. She’d listen. I was her ride back to Denver. And, hell, she was staying at my place. I had weeks to make this right. To explain about how I’d panicked that first day, then followed Grams’s advice that wasn’t altogether wrong. To apologize profusely, on my knees if I had to.

Even still, it’d take work. Work I was willing to put in because my reasons wouldn’t explain or excuse everything. “She’s going to hate me.”

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