Page 13 of Rebel
Her throat tightened. “Sorry?” she asked. “What are you sorry for, Jace? Tell me where you are and I’ll come to you. We can work all this out together.”
“I’m sorry for lying to you,” Jace said, seeming to ignore her plea to tell her where he was. “I should have told you about me working for the FBI, and about the Rabbits. I should have told you about how bad things were getting. I just—I didn’t want you to get dragged into all my mess. I thought I was protecting you, but instead, I’ve only landed you in trouble with me.”
Rebel’s fingers clenched around the phone. God, if he only knew the truth of the matter. She wanted to spill it all—to tell him that he hadn’t been the only one hiding things. She wanted to tell him that every dollar she’d pressed into his hand when they were kids came from a place he could never forgive. She wanted to admit that while he thought she was at work down at the local grocery store, she was selling herself to the men who came in after hours at the strip club where she worked. It was all for him—all so he could eat, so the lights would stay on, so he wouldn’t know how bad it really was after their mother had died. But the words stuck in her throat, thick and heavy. If she told him now, everything between them would shatter. It was something that she needed to say to him in person, not on the phone while they were both running from the Dead Rabbits.
“It’s okay, Jace,” she forced out, her voice softer than she meant it to be. “You did what you thought you had to. And the Dead Rabbits coming after you or me isn’t your fault. You were just doing your job, and I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”
There was a pause, then his sigh crackled over the line. “You don’t have to say that, but thanks, Sis. I’ll make it up to you, I swear. Just stay safe, okay? Bolt will take care of you.”
Her chest ached at the way he said it, like he trusted Bolt more than he trusted her to take care of herself. She already knew that Bolt was a good guy, and that made her feel even more guilty about what had happened between the two of them back in Huntsville. Had she pushed Bolt into something that he didn’t truly want? He said that he had no regrets, but was he just telling her that to help ease her guilty conscious? Rebel murmured a goodbye to Jace and ended the call before her voice could betray her or she did something foolish like tell him that she had sex with his best friend, betraying his trust and their loyalty.
Rebel let the phone drop into her lap. She could feel Bolt’s gaze on her. “You wanted to tell him your secret, didn’t you?” he said quietly.
She didn’t bother to look at him for fear that he’d be able to tell that she was lying to him. “No,” she breathed.
He barked out his laugh, letting her know that she wasn’t fooling him with her lies. “You wanted to tell Jace about your past,” Bolt went on, his voice low and unreadable. “But you didn’t. I’m just glad that you want to tell him though—it’s a good thing, Rebel. He won’t judge you the way that you think he will. I know him well enough to know that much is true.”
Her pulse stumbled. She used to know her little brother that well, too, but now, she wondered if they ever really knew each other at all. “You don’t understand—” She started, wanting to explain her side of things to the sexy biker, but she knew that she’d be wasting her breath. He heard her story and didn’t condemn her, and hell, maybe Jace would react the same way, but she just couldn’t risk that not happening. Not now that her entire life had been uprooted the way that it had. No, she’d tellhim when things settled down, and she could work up the nerve to get the words out.
“I do understand,” Bolt insisted. He adjusted his grip on the wheel, knuckles flexing. “I get why you can’t tell him. Some truths—they don’t come with forgiveness.”
She blinked at him, startled by the weight of his words. “Then why do you sound disappointed with me?” Bolt’s jaw ticked; his eyes fixed on the road. He didn’t answer right away, and that silence burned hotter than any argument.
Rebel swallowed hard and looked back out the window, trying to hide her tears. The reflection of her own face staring back at her in the glass showed a woman who had reached the end of her rope and wasn’t sure how to fix the mess that her life had become. For reasons that she couldn’t untangle in her mind, Bolt’s disappointment cut deeper than Jace’s judgment ever could.
Rebel shifted in her seat, hugging her arms around herself as the truck ate up the miles of dark highway. Every time the headlights carved through another stretch of trees, she caught her reflection in the window. Her eyes were hollow, her lips still swollen from Bolt’s kisses back at the bar hours ago. She should’ve been thinking about the danger they were in, or the fact that the Dead Rabbits were out there looking for them and Jace, but all she could think about was the man sitting two feet away.
Bolt hadn’t said another word since that comment, the one that still burned in her chest. She wanted him to understand, to accept the things she couldn’t even tell her own brother. Instead, she’d felt the subtle shift in him, the disappointment he hadn’t bothered to hide. And it mattered. God help her, it mattered more than it should have.
Her fingers tapped nervously on her thigh until his hand landed there, heavy and grounding on top of hers, effectivelystopping her fidgeting. Rebel stiffened and looked over at him. He didn’t glance back at her. His eyes were locked on the road, but his hand stayed right where it was—warm, steady, too heavy for her to bear and not nearly enough to take away the pain in her heart.
The contact sent heat skittering through her body, a reminder of what had already happened between them. It was a reminder of the line they’d crossed and how damn easy it had been to cross it. “You’re not the only one with ghosts,” Bolt said finally, his thumb brushing absently against her jeans. “I’ve got my share too. I just don’t want to see you eaten alive by yours the way that I’ve been by mine.”
Her throat tightened, but she forced herself to look at him. The sharp cut of his jaw in the dim light of evening nearly took her breath away. “My secret has been eating away at me for years. If I told Jace the truth, it would destroy everything between us. You don’t understand that kind of weight.”
Now it was his turn to laugh. Bolt’s hand tightened on her thigh just enough to make her breath catch. “I understand more than you think,” he mumbled under his breath. She hated the way that single sentence made her want to lean closer and bury her face against his chest. But she couldn’t. Because if she gave Bolt that part of herself, she wasn’t sure she’d ever get it back. She had been on her own for so long now, the thought of letting anyone else in was foreign to her.
“You know that you’re not responsible for your friend’s deaths,” she insisted.
“I don’t know that,” he growled. “What if that happened now? What if I was sent undercover with your brother and I allowed him to be killed? Would you still feel that way, Rebel? Would it be so easy for you to forgive me then?” She couldn’t answer that question for him. She wouldn’t be so forgiving then, and her silence let him know that. “I’m betting that thefamilies those men left behind feel the same way about me,” he whispered.
She turned away, eyes burning, pretending to be fascinated with the blur of trees once again. She could almost feel his disappointment. It lingered in the cab like smoke, mixing with the heat that sparked every time his thumb moved over her hand. It wasn’t fair how much she wanted his approval. How much she wanted him. But as the truck carried them north, deeper into the dark forest of Minnesota, Rebel realized she wasn’t just running from the Dead Rabbits anymore. She was running from the truth she couldn’t tell, and the man beside her who had seen right through her anyway. They had both shared their darkest secrets, and now, there would be no taking them back. They knew the worst about the other, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, but she was sure that she was going to find out at some point.
The two-hour drive dragged into a blurred dream. By the time Bolt pulled off the main road onto a gravel road that led back to the cabin, Rebel’s back ached from sitting still for so long. Her nerves were wired so tight she doubted she could sleep even if she tried.
The gravel crunched under the tires as the truck rolled up a narrow lane, the woods pressing in close on either side. The headlights finally caught the outline of the cabin—small, sturdy, and dark against the tree line. Bolt killed the engine, and the sudden silence left Rebel’s ears ringing.
She climbed out of the truck and stretched, noting the way Bolt looked her body over. The air was cooler here, cleaner too, and the night smelled thick with the scent of pine treesand earth. It should have been comforting, but all she felt was exposed and raw.
Bolt came around the front of the truck, his presence looming, steady. He didn’t say anything to her; he just grabbed their bags from the back and started toward the cabin. Rebel followed, the crunch of her boots on the gravel loud in the quiet, her heart felt as though it might beat out of her chest.
Inside, the cabin smelled of cedar and dust. Bolt dropped the bags by the couch and flicked on a lamp. Warm yellow light spilled across wood-paneled walls. A huge stone fireplace took up most of the family room, and a small kitchen was tucked in the corner. It was cozy. Too cozy. It was a place where Rebel might forget that she was just visiting for a short time, because she could get very comfortable there—especially with Bolt.
Rebel lingered by the door, arms crossed over her chest. “How long are we supposed to hide out here?” she asked.
“As long as it takes,” Bolt said, his tone flat. But when his gaze met hers, something flickered there—heat, maybe, or maybe it was just frustration. “You’ll be safe here. I’ll make sure of it.”
Safe—the word sounded foreign to her. She hadn’t felt safe in a long time. Not since Kirk started following her around town. And Bolt—Bolt was supposed to make her feel that way, but he didn’t. Not exactly. With him, she felt raw and exposed, like he could see every secret she’d ever buried. Hell, she had told him her darkest secrets, and that scared the shit out of her.
