Page 5 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
My feet were still rooted to the spot when they should have been halfway home. Until finally, I came to my senses and took a step back. “I have to go.”
“You need me to walk you—"
“No,” I said quickly. “I’ll be fine.”
He squinted into the distance, maybe trying to figure out where I was headed and what dangers lurked there. I could see my house from here, but I didn’t want him to know where I lived. Or how I lived.
Maybe he sensed that because he nodded slowly, not pushing for more. “Yeah. Okay. See you Monday, Evie Bellamy.” With his hands tucked into his hoodie pockets, he swaggered away. Then he turned to face me and, with a wink, walked backward down the middle of the tracks under the light of a full moon.
I watched him until he grew smaller and disappeared around the next bend before I crossed over the tracks and climbed the hill on the other side.
As I walked across my backyard, I could still feel the warmth of his hand on my arm.
Ridge McCallister. That was his name. He smelled like Christmas. He felt like a dream.
But I knew he was trouble. I’d already seen him in action.
With a wink and a smile, he had most girls at his beck and call.
I wasn’t most girls.
CHAPTERTWO
Ridge
I wokeup to pounding on the door and a jackhammer beating on my skull. With a groan, I pulled the pillow over my head to block out the morning light.
“Ridge!” Brody boomed. “Get your ass out of bed.”
“Fuck off.”
The door burst open and bounced off the wall. Seconds later, Brody ripped the pillow away and tossed it across the room. “Get up. Get dressed. And meet me in the kitchen.”
He grabbed my clothes from the floor and threw them at me.
“It’s Saturday morning,” I muttered. “I need my beauty sleep.”
“Should’ve thought about that before you stole a bottle of tequila and my goddamn truck.”
“Your liquor supply’s running low. You should restock.” Last week I stole a bottle of whiskey for my trek to the junkyard. This week it was tequila.
He pushed his hands through his longish dirty blond hair and held the back of his head, an angry growl erupting from his throat. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
The answer was everything. I had the mother of all hangovers and only a vague recollection of what happened last night. A party. Some weed. Jose Cuervo. A blonde who wanted to ride me like a mechanical bull.
Her words, not mine.
“You think it’s smart to drink and drive? You could have ended up wrapped around a tree. Or worse. You could have killed someone else. You think you could live with that?”
Been there. Done that. Not with a car. But I was just as responsible as if I’d pulled the trigger myself. And no, I couldn’t fucking live with that.
It haunted my dreams and woke me up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding and a freight train running through my head. Sometimes I couldn’t even breathe.
“You need to think about your actions, Ridge.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and rubbed my throbbing temples. “You sound like someone’s father.”
“I am someone’s father.”
