Page 24 of Oops, I Fell For The Town Bad Boy!

“Do you want the ride or not?” Kane asked her.

“Yes, please.” She just couldn’t believe he was willing to give it.

Kane nodded. “Get what you need, and I’ll be out in just a moment.”

Was he going to get the big sunglasses that would safeguard him against being identified by anybody in town? A part of her hoped so, because she knew she would feel deeply guilty if he lost his anonymity in town due to the fact that he had done her a favor.

Taylor wasn’t sure how she felt about the fact that he had been keeping his presence here a secret. Her younger self would have known exactly what to say — to be honest, she would have been confident in her assessment of the situation as little as a few weeks ago. She would have said that now that Kane was back, he had a responsibility to face up to the things he had done and not keep running.

But seeing him, spending time with him, had given her a different perspective on the whole thing. He hadn’t escaped unscathed the way she’d thought he had. The Chesterfield fire had been on his mind since it had happened — it had shaped who he was as a person. He might have run away physically, but he hadn’t ever been able to forget about it.

She grabbed her supplies from the car and turned toward Kane’s car in time to see him walking back toward it. He hadn’t gotten the sunglasses, it turned out. Instead he had just filled a travel mug with coffee, and he had Toby on his leash.

“He’s coming too?” Taylor asked.

“If I’m getting out of the house, he might as well. Toby loves car rides,” Kane explained. “He’s a little fiend about them, actually. Sometimes, in Detroit, I put him in the car and drive out of the city, just circle around on the county roads for hours while he sticks his head out the window. He loves that.”

Sure enough, as they pulled away from the house, Kane opened the back-seat window enough to allow Toby to stick his head out.

There was nothing he could have done to draw more attention to them than driving through town with a beautiful but unknown dog. Taylor could see people on the sidewalks turning toward the unfamiliar car, squinting at the windows, trying to figure out who was inside.

“Everyone’s noticing Toby today,” she said.

Kane hummed noncommittally.

“I don’t quite understand why you’d do this,” Taylor said. “Drive me through town like this, I mean.”

“You needed to get to work,” he said simply. “I could see how upset you were getting about it. Like I told you before, I’m not a monster. I’m not going to just turn around and go back in the house while you’re standing there freaking out with no way of solving the problem on your own. Not when it’s so easy for me to help.”

“I don’t think it is easy for you,” she said quietly. “I think this might be one of the hardest things you’ve done since you’ve been back. Maybe that’s why you brought Toby. For moral support.”

Kane set his jaw, again saying nothing, but she noticed that his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. So she was right. He was struggling with this exactly as much as she had thought he was.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “It means a lot to me that you’re willing to do this. You’re right. I was starting to panic about it, and I don’t know what I would have done if not for you. You came to the rescue in a big way today.”

He nodded.

“And I don’t think you’re a monster,” Taylor added. “I never thought that, Kane. We were friends. I remember that. We may not know each other well anymore, but I know who you were back then.”

“A guy who set a farm on fire.”

“No,” she said. “You were more than the worst thing that ever happened to you.” She hesitated. “It did happen to you, Kane. It’s not like you went out there to burn the farm down. It’s not like you attacked the Chesterfields on purpose, for no reason. It was a tragedy. You acted irresponsibly, yes, but it was an accident, and it was tragic for you just like it was for them. I get that.”

His eyes were on the road, so he wasn’t looking at her, but she saw him swallow very hard before he spoke.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “Thank you, Taylor. I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before.”

He pulled the car to a stop, and Taylor saw that they had arrived. She wanted to linger for a moment, to say more to him, but she was already late and there wasn’t any time.

“Can you pick me up at four?” she asked.

He nodded. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be here.”

CHAPTER 13

KANE

“Ineed to stop at the grocery store on the way home,” Taylor said.

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