Page 43 of The Talk Around Town

“I’ll walk with you.” Gabe raised a hand to rub the pad of his thumb over the traces of her tears, erasing them from her cheek. “Okay?”

Emma jerked back away from him, eyes wide. “No, it’s not okay. I don’t want you anywhere near me. Just go back to The Cow and leave me be.”

Shock drenched him at her words. “Why? Have I done—”

“Did you tell Ryan that you’d knock him into next week if he put you on the list?” she interrupted.

Gabe blinked at the sudden subject change. Why had Ryan told her that?

“Ah… yeah, I did.”

Pain flashed over her features, gone in an instant. “And my house? You didn’t want to help out with it, did you? Your mum asked you to, right?”

An insidious, cold worm of dread began to wind itself around his insides. What was she getting at?

“That’s right. I didn’t—”

Emma cut him off with an impatient slash of her hand. “Don’t. Just don’t. Go back to where you want to be. Where you belong. You’ve done your duty. You can tell Darby and whoever else that you tried. I’m fine from here.”

Confusion at her statements had Gabe reaching for answers. Anything.

“Slow down and tell me what’s going on. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

Emma heaved in a breath and glared at him. “You all feel sorry for me and think I’m pathetic. I didn’t ask for that stinking list. Or anyone’s attention, or lack thereof. You’ve been horrible to me all night. Why?”

Frustrated, Gabe shoved his hair back from his face. “I feel something, but it isn’t sorry. Dammit Emma, this is what I’ve been feeling all night.”

He hauled her to him, his other hand sliding into her hair as his mouth found hers. At the touch of his lips on hers, the park around them fell away.

Taste. Touch.

The soft rasp of her breath and the smooth honey of her lips were everything he’d wanted to avoid, but everything he’d dreamed about since he’d met her. Gabe slid a hand up her arm to cup her face, holding her still for his kiss.

For a moment he tasted heaven. The promise of sweet oblivion. Emma’s mouth moved under his, opening to his questing tongue.

He pulled her pliant body against him. She pressed against his obvious arousal. In the night’s silence around them, Gabe startled himself with his moan at Emma’s surrender. Emma stiffened beneath his hands, his mouth. She jerked back, eyes wide.

“You bastard,” she whispered.

Her hand was so fast he missed seeing it in the gloom. It struck his cheek, slamming against his jaw so hard he stumbled to the side, stunned.

“Feeling like leftovers are we, Gabe? If I can’t trust you or what you say, how can we be friends? If you keep moving the goalposts all the damned time, I don’t think we can be.”

The unexpected sneer in her voice and the hurt in her eyes bewildered him. Heat flamed across his jaw and cheek, burning in response to the attack.

“Leave me alone. I can get home from here.”

She turned and stumbled up the Lakewalk path, her heels tripping her as she tried to run. A loud sob broke free, the sound strangely deadened in the stillness of the night and soft lapping of the water. She stopped, kicked off her shoes, leaving them where they fell, and ran, disappearing under the bridge.

Chapter Eighteen

Emma tripped again,stumbled and fell to her knees. Tears poured down her face, sliding off her chin to land on the cool grass of her lawn. It had only been a short five-minute jog home, but her lungs were screaming that she’d run a marathon.

Home.

The thought brought a strangled sob with her tears. Home. What a joke. Her oasis in the middle of hostile territory. Why had she thought anything could ever be different?

Oh, it mightn’t be fingers pointing at her because of Alex and Sasha, but they were pointing all the same. She rolled onto her back, her chest heaving with the unfairness of it all, and stared at the blazing stars above.

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