Page 60 of Kyle

Melancholy washes over me. “So, it was all for nothing?”

“Don’t say that. We tried our best. There will be other festivals. I’ll make do.” He watches me. “Hey.”

I turn to meet his eyes.

“You’re always the positive one. Don’t go getting depressed on me now.”

I look out the window.

“Sutton?”

“Yes?”

“You okay?”

I nod.

“I mean about that guy. He tried to hurt you. I don’t mean to sound like you don’t have a right to be depressed or sad or pissed off.”

“I’m fine. And thanks for what you did. I should have said it right away.”

He shakes his head. “This isn’t about me. I was wrong to say that to you. I was being an ass.”

“No, you weren’t.” I pluck at a thread on the hem of my shirt. “I just wish this had been a success for you. I hate you lost money.”

“Well, get to work, marketing manager. Post some of those pictures of the lines we had before the storm hit.” He shrugs. “And maybe some of those after.”

He’s right. I have pictures. Lots of pictures. I even managed to take a couple of the line of wet and muddy people, waiting in the rain for a free hot meal.

I pull my phone out and tap a post, picking just the right photo. It’s one I took from the vantage point of the back of the line, showing the truck and the sign Kyle had written.

Maybe it’ll help.

“Sutton?”

“Yes?”

“I feel really guilty about what happened. I should have protected you. I should have taken better care of you. I never should have let you go walking alone.”

“Don’t,” I snap. “You can be sorry about what happened to me, but don’t you dare take on the guilt or responsibility for what that man did.”

His eyes shift to the road. “Is that what I do?”

“You did it with Rafe, didn’t you? I mean, you never told me everything, but—”

“He was shot, and I wasn’t there for him. I let him go out in that alley alone.”

“I’m sure Rafe does a lot of dangerous stuff for the MC. You both do.”

“I guess.”

“If Cole gave you an order, you’d do it.” I can see by the way he shifts in his seat and sucks in a breath, that my words aregetting to him. But he needs to face this and realize the truth, or he and Rafe will never have the relationship they had before the night of the shooting.

“It took Rafe a long time to recover,” Kyle whispers. “Alongtime. You’d maybe never know it now, but he had a rocky road of physical therapy. He had to relearn how to walk, how to talk. It was bad.”

“I hate that for him.”

“He ever tell you any of this?”

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