Page 5 of A Little More Forgiveness

“Shit,” I cursed. “That went well.” The look Leo threw my way should have skewered me to the nearest pine tree.

Way to fucking go, Sanchez, I admonished myself. I’d always been proud of my negotiation skills and the ability to handle any situation at any time with tact and decorum so was at a loss as to how I’d fucked this up so badly. I possibly shouldn’t have mentioned his brother signing over his half of the cabin until I’d had a chance to go over my proposal in more detail, show him how beneficial the deal could be for him. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut and let him vent.

Maybe.

I’d dealt with all sorts of people in the past. People way more savvy, conniving, and dishonest than Mitchell Houghton, so what the hell was going on? Perhaps that’s the problem. I’d gotten so used to people being underhanded, expecting them to be cautious and on guard, trying any angle to get the deal they thought they deserved, when finally confronted by someone who acted the complete opposite, I didn’t know how to handle the situation. Whatever the reason, I’d analyze my unsuccessful approach later at my beach house to figure out how to proceed for next time. One thing, for sure, I’d completely screwed up and misread the signals today, and I couldn’t afford to make the same mistake in any future negotiations.

Leaving the porch, Leo strode past me. “Get in the car,” he ordered, and with a heavy sigh, I turned around. The day was not turning out how I imagined at all. Deflated and pissed at myself, I did as he demanded and climbed in the vehicle as the engine revved to life and we took off down the narrow road.

The car heater pumped out hot air at full blast, but the atmosphere inside the cab felt a hundred degrees colder than outside. Leo didn’t speak, didn’t even acknowledge my presence, and his blatant dismissal grated on my nerves. It didn’t help he traveled a lot faster on the route back as his anger got the better of him.

I turned to look at him. His brow deeply furrowed, jaw clenched, chin thrust forward, body rigid, hands gripping the wheel so hard his fingers had lost all their color. “Do you want to slow down some?” I suggested mildly, not wanting to anger him any further and risk him driving us into the bank.

“Don’t,” he snapped. “You don’t get to speak.” He glanced over at me, his eyes glittering ice, as his gaze dropped to my lips for a split second before he went back to concentrating on the road. “Your mouth has done more than enough damage for one day.”

“Look,” I began.

“What part of don’t speak do you not understa—” His eyes went as wide as saucers, and I snapped my head forward to see why. “Shit,” he shouted as he jammed on the brakes, his right arm swinging out instinctively across my chest to protect me as the vehicle came to a sliding halt a few feet from the edge of empty space. Where the bridge we’d crossed on the way in should have been, there was now only open air in front of us for the next fifteen or so feet where a chunk had disappeared. Remnants of its splintered wood littered the snow in front of us, along with debris from a huge pine tree that lay half in the water. What surprised me most was that, despite the amount of damage sustained, the remaining two thirds of the structure hadn’t gone with it—the rest intact and more solidly built than I’d given it credit for.

We both sat there silently staring across the gap, breathing heavily for a couple of minutes as the initial shock wore off. The low idle of the engine and the noisy blast of the heaters were the only sounds.

“You okay?” Leo eventually asked, his voice shaky.

“I think I almost had a coronary,” I croaked out, my body shaking like a leaf.

He huffed out a sigh of relief. “Okay. Good. We’re fine.”

I stared at him like he’d lost the plot. “We are not fucking good, and we are not fucking fine. We almost drove into the stream, for fuck’s sake. And how the hell are we meant to get over there,” I jabbed a finger at the other side of the bank. “With part of the damn bridge gone?”

Leo roughly scrubbed at his face and leaned his head against the headrest. “But we’re not hurt. Are you hurt?”

I shook my head.

“Then we’re okay, yes?”

I grudgingly agreed. I hated being scared and right now with the blood pumping hard in my veins, I was fucking petrified. I’d nearly fallen off the scaffold of one of our construction sites once. Cold fear shocked me immobile. Heart trying to punch its way out of my ribs as adrenaline kicked in, my life flashed in front of my eyes in scarily vivid detail. If I’d not been wearing the harness and not saved by Ty’s lightening reflexes, I wouldn’t be here today.

This felt exactly the same. The same fear. The same pounding of my heart, but this time around, Leo had been the one to protect me, as futile as his gesture would’ve been had we not stopped in time and driven right over the edge. But I appreciated his attempt all the same, more so since I wasn't in his good books at the moment.

We exited the vehicle and carefully made our way to the edge. The foundations of the bridge on this side still looked pretty intact, so that was something, I guess. Leo pulled out his phone and took a few photos while I stared out longingly at the other side to my escape route. We’d been so damn close.

“Christ, this sucks.” My brows knitted together as the severity of our situation gradually sank in. “How exactly are we going to get across to the other side?” I asked. “There must be another way, right?” I watched as a pitying smile appeared on Leo’s face. At any other time, I would have appreciated how cute his dimples were. This, however, wasn't any other time. “Please tell me there’s another way,” I asked, a sinking feeling growing in my stomach.

The slight shake of his head gave me my answer.

“So what happens next? I mean we can’t stay here, right? Where are we gonna go?”

His low laugh echoed around the trees, and he gave another shake of his head. “For someone who’s supposedly some smartass businessman, you can be pretty clueless.”

“Hey.” My indignant response made him snort. “What’s so fucking funny?”

“That you still haven’t worked it out.”

“Worked what out?” I had no idea what the hell he was trying to convey.

“If we can’t go forward…”

He left his sentence hanging, waiting for the penny to finally drop.

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