Page 26 of The Hometown Legend

“Why is that?”

“You know how people get. They’re very zealous about you.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. That had been true once. And he’d taken it as his due. But he didn’t deserve all that. Not now.

If they knew the real story. That he wasn’t one of the strong ones.

“I don’t want that,” he said. “I didn’t come here for that.”

“Isn’t it nice? That people are happy to see you?”

She took a knife out of the drawer, and cut into the potpie. Then with a big scoop, she got the crust and all the filling out onto a plate.

“Who are they happy to see?” he asked, a strange, bitter feeling churning in his gut. “Me, or this weird fantasy they have of me from when I was a high school football star?”

She handed him the plate, and the fork, her eyes meeting his, something lost and helpless there, and he didn’t do anything to make her feel better.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the plate.

He said it with a finality he hoped might see her out the door.

But she just stared at him. “What’s the issue, you don’t want attention or...?”

“No,” he bit out. “I don’t. I didn’t save anyone, I’m not a hero. I got injured in a bomb blast, there’s no act of heroism there.”

“You survived,” she pointed out.

Part of him had.

And right then it was like something snapped inside him. All the angry and ugly flooded him. Poured out. “Let me tell you something. While people sit around and barbecue and sing ‘God Bless America,’ young men and women are out there dying. There is nothing... aspirational or uplifting about it. There isn’t a music montage. It’s not a damned parade. Not a day of it. It’s a convoy through hell. And everyone wants their heroes to come back as shiny as when they left but...”

She reached out and touched him. Put her fingers on his wrist.

The touch was like getting burned and he jerked his hand away.

Her face went pink, her eyes glittering. “I think... I think people are just happy to see you, Gideon. No one needs you to be something you’re not.”

That fire in his gut turned on the wind, rage transforming into something more dangerous.

Damn he was such a mess.

Letting his rage spill over onto Rory before taking the time to lust after her was evidence enough.

“Don’t pity me, Rory. I mean it. You don’t need to take care of me, and I’m not fragile.” He moved away from her, and took a bite of the pie. “Thank you. For dinner. I’ll see you around.”

He wanted her out of his house. He didn’t like the way she made him feel. He didn’t like that tightness in his gut. He didn’t like that attraction, the beginnings of arousal that he felt.

That was far too strong a reaction to any woman, much less his little sister’s best friend. Much less a girl he’d last seen when she was fourteen, and who even now looked far too freckled and fresh-faced and young.

He didn’t want to feel this angry. He didn’t want to be home.

He was afraid to be anywhere else.

“Oh. Okay. I...”

She looked wounded. It was probably for the best.

“I’ll see you later, kid.”

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