Page 26 of Don't Make Me Fall
Nothing.
I wasn’t irritated. Not untilthatfucking comment. That’s what the grumpy, pain-in-my-ass man thinks this whole this was?Nothing? Well, fine.
I collect my clothes which are still scattered around the house from last night’s sex frenzy. My heart feels a little like it’s cracking right in two, probably at the hands of that fucking axe he was wielding when I showed up. He’s not the only one experiencing that whiplash. I get he’s frustrated, but dammit, I am too. Still, I’ll be damned if I let him see me cry. Which is why I cling to my anger instead.
“Have a nice life,” I say before slamming the front door behind me.
Chapter Twelve
Hudson
“What the hell happened to you?” Dash Sullivan calls out to me when he spots me in line at the Cinnamon Creek Bakery.
“Nothing happened to me. Why are you…smiling?”
He laughs at my accusation, and I’m starting to wonder if I lost that battle with the mountain lion after all. Maybe hit my head on a rock. That’s the only thing that would explain this alternate reality I’m currently experiencing. Dash is one of Mason’s longtime friends. He’s a local, and a recluse. He typically hides out at the fire lookout all season, then at his remote cabin most of the winter. It’s rare to see him in town. Even rarer to see him smiling.
“You already close up for the season?” I ask him, confused by his presence almost as much as I am by his chipper demeanor.
“Nah, still got a couple weeks left yet.”
The line moves forward, closer to the door. The Cinnamon Creek Bakery is the most popular spot in town for breakfast pastries. I’d come here even if Mason’s wife didn’t own the place.Sweets have always been my vice when my life turns to shit.Better than cocaine.
“Seriously, man. You okay?”
“I’ll live.”
“It’s about a woman, isn’t it?”
My head snaps to attention before I can think better of it, which only gives Dash ammunition he didn’t fucking need.
“Do you love her?”
“Doesn’t matter if I do.”
“Yeah, I told myself that lie too.”
I’m not in the mood for gossip, unlike several locals in line. Fuck me, I bet half the town will be discussing my love life after this little exchange. They’ll be relentless until they figure out who the woman was that got away. So much for thisnotgetting back to Reid.
“I thought you were done with all that,” I say, hoping to focus the conversation on Dash instead of me.
“I was.”
“And?”
“Now I’m not an idiot anymore.”
“You’re calling me an idiot?”
“I think you just called yourself one,” Agnes Collins chimes in from the line in front of us.
“I’m not?—”
“Then what are you doing here?” Ivy asks as I step up to the counter.
“Ordering a cinnamon roll. Is that a crime?”
“If stupidity was a crime, you’d be in serious trouble,” Agnes says.
