Page 77 of Breathless With Her

I reached down for her, but it was too late.

There was a skid of brakes, a loud screech, and as I pushed the dog out of the way of the oncoming vehicle, she bit me gently on the hand, but that didn’t hurt.

No, the car hitting me in the hip hurt.

There was a flash of light, a scream, and shouts.

But I didn’t hear much of it.

No, all I could do was feel the blinding pain on my hip, the gravel along my face and my side, and everything else that came from getting hit by a car.

But the dog?

The dog kept yapping.

So at least Pippy was fine.

Me, on the other hand?

Ouch.

And then, there was nothing. Only darkness.

Chapter 17

Erin

* * *

Baking helped relieve stress.At least that’s what the experts said. And while I loved baking andlovedmy job. Bakingformy job when I was already stressed out about what to do with Devin didn’t really help things.

I wasn’t truly stressed. Not really. Things were going okay at work. The place was back up and running. The roof had been fixed, the flooding damage was gone, and insurance had paid for almost all of it.

I had a healthy savings account, mostly because I tried not to do anything that revolved around a social life, other than things with Devin recently, so I had the money to fix what the insurance didn’t cover.

So, work was good.

It was just everything else that wasn’t great.

After Zoey had left the night before, both of us a little blotchy, and our eyes swollen from watching10 Things I Hate About Youand remembering our dear Heath, I had taken a shower like she asked me to. Something I desperately needed to do. And then I had gone to sleep, knowing I would have to find Devin today and go down to my knees to say I was sorry.

Only I felt like I needed to find a different way to do that.

Not that Iwouldn’tgo down to my knees, and not in a dirty way like my mind kept supplying.

No, I needed to find a way to prove to him that I wasn’t scared. Well, Iwasscared. That was the problem. I was scared that he would leave me. I was scared that I would get hurt.

But acting like I had with him, hurting him and therefore myself in the process, hadn’t worked out.

I had to find trust. I just needed to realize that he was going to be there for me. Because he wanted to.

Because he had never done anything to make me think that he wouldn’t.

My lack of trust was all on me.

And that sucked.

I had just finished putting the last of my cakes in the fridge for the next day so I could go through my tablet and figure out what I needed to do overnight while I was thinking, when my phone rang.

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