Page 38 of Oops, I Fell For The Town Bad Boy!

She deserves better. She deserves someone who won’t be an anchor around her neck.

Kane had been dreading the day he would have to leave town. But now, to his own surprise and dismay, he found that he was looking forward to it. Being here was just too hard. There were too many things that needed to be faced — and none of them were things he could fix.

He hurried out of the hardware store and was already in his car before he realized that he had forgotten to get the paint. But he couldn’t bring himself to go back. Not now that he knew what people really thought of him — and knew, too, that they were almost certainly right to think it.

He would just have to send Taylor to the store for him.

It would be the first of many ways in which he knew he was about to let her down.

CHAPTER 20

TAYLOR

Something had definitely happened at the hardware store — it was impossible to miss. Taylor waited for Kane to explain what it was. He hadn’t said anything when he’d come home and told her she would need to go back for the paint — he’d gone to his bedroom and taken refuge, and even when she had brought the paint home and come knocking on his door to check in, he hadn’t said anything about it. He hadn’t even answered her.

She’d decided to let it lie, assuming they would discuss it over dinner. But now the stir fry was ready and the drinks were poured, and he still hadn’t come out of his room.

There was no way he didn’t know. They ate dinner at the same time every evening. And besides, the house was full of the smell of stir fry. He couldn’t have missed it.

Taylor was frustrated. It was beginning to seem as though he was deliberately avoiding her. If there was a problem, she would have expected him to say something, especially given how close they had gotten over the past few weeks. It was beginning to feel as though they could talk to one another about anything — so what was behind this sudden distance? She didn’t know how to explain it.

Well, she wasn’t going to let him get away with lingering in his room and refusing to speak to her. They were better than that. She went to the door and knocked.

At first, there was no answer, and she believed that he might actually refuse to see her altogether. It made her feel as if the floor had dropped out from underneath her. What could she possibly have done to warrant that sort of treatment? She’d been nothing but warm to him, and she knew perfectly well she hadn’t needed to be.

She was about to knock on the door again, to simply demand that he get over his nonsense and talk to her about whatever this was, when she heard his voice. “Come in,” he said.

She opened the door. Kane was sitting on his bed, looking at his hands. He didn’t look up at her when she came in, and the smile he’d worn for the last few weeks was gone. Something had happened, all right.

“Dinner’s ready,” she told him. “Are you coming?”

“I’m not very hungry.”

“Did you eat already?”

Now he looked up at her. “Don’t worry about it, Taylor,” he said. “I can handle myself.”

“I’m aware of that,” she said, feeling stung.

“You’re always trying to take care of me. Always worrying about me, trying to help me…”

“That offends you?”

“You don’t need to do it, that’s all. Maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.”

Was he feeling unworthy of her help? She took a step into the room and held out a hand. “Come to dinner,” she said gently. “It’s stir fry.”

“I know what it is. I can smell it.”

“Even if you’re not hungry, we can hang out and talk,” she suggested. “I got a lot done today — I don’t know about you. And maybe when dinner is over we could watch a movie or something…” She allowed a suggestive note to creep into her voice.

But he shook his head. “I don’t think we should do that anymore.”

“Do what? Watch movies?”

He sighed. “We’ve gotten too close to each other, Taylor.”

“What do you mean?”

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