Page 125 of False Start

I huffed out a breath. It was either that or the pressure building from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair were going to launch straight out of the top of my head and singe a hole in my lucky bandana. “What do you expect me to say?”

“Shit,” he bit out. “I don’t know.”

“So, I’m giving you a few minutes to freak out. You’re welcome.”

He scrubbed his hand down his face and sighed. “See, that already sounds more like you. Now get your ass in my truck.”

“And that already sounds more like you. By the way, you’re getting way too comfortable ordering me around,” I said even as I climbed into the cab and gave him one more piece of proof that his authoritarian voice earned compliance.

The cop in him must love that shit.

He didn’t say another word as he fired up the engine, cranked the heat, and pulled out of the parking lot. As the lights from town faded away, darkness concealed him in deep shadows. Under the obscurity, he finally spoke.

“Just say it,” he said, hitting the gas the minute the speed limit sign came into view. His shoulders rigid, he kept flicking glances in the rearview.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever you’re thinking.”

“I’m not sure now’s the time to waste my colorful personality. Not when you seem like you’re ready to burst into a million pieces over there, all growly and shit. Kind of takes the fun out of it.”

“I don’t like being under a microscope.”

But he needed to be on trial. And now he wouldn’t be.

At least not from anyone but himself.

That’s what this was. Him poking me until maybe I stumbled upon what he couldn’t bring himself to say. “Apparently, but I don’t think that’s all this is.”

“Okay, so give it to me. What is it?”

“You covered for her for a long time.” A decade giving up everything he loved. How many times had he come back here and run into her parents? Heard the whispers? Pretended he didn’t see the glares?

Because he definitely came back. A man didn’t take care of Lana the way he had without coming back and making sure she was okay.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“All this time, you ate the shit people in this town dished out to keep her secret.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think you know what to do with yourself if you’re not protecting somebody—if you’re not protecting her.”

His jaw ticked; tortured sorrow etched in the skin bracketing his mouth because although controversy surrounding Lana and her injury were a huge factor, I’d bet there was something else lurking behind it. The protection that scrutiny gave him hid whatever was eating away at him underneath.

I wanted to touch him. To smooth my fingers over the tension there until he finally relaxed. But I had to know… “Were you in love with her?”

“Jesus, no—” He turned to me, piercing me with a hard stare. “No.”

“Then why?”

“She’s never going to walk again. She was suffering enough.”

“And the rest? The money, the house, college…”

“I should have caught it,” he said, his voice low and full of frustration.

The man wanted to rewrite history.

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