Page 87 of Turn Up The Heat

Bellamy’s lips popped open in surprise. “Yes, I’m sure. Why would I want to do something as stupid as that?”

“Because I think you’re in love with him, and I’d hate to see you lose a chance to be with the guy if he loves you, too.”

“Whoa,” Holly whispered, giving Bellamy a chance to pick her jaw up off the floor.

“Clearly, he doesn’t love me, since he couldn’t even be bothered to tell me the truth about who he really is.” Bellamy’s voice was more wooden than she’d have liked, but at least she’d been able to speak.

Of course Shane didn’tloveher. After all, he was the one who’d said they should just spend the week together. She’d been the one to jump in feet-first, following her foolish heart instead of facing facts.

“Come on, B. He spent all that time with you, and he even asked you to stay with him for the week when he could’ve kept his distance. Don’t you think that counts for something?” Holly asked with a sheepish glance.

The ridiculous tremor in Bellamy’s chest started up again, as if to agree. But she shook her head. She needed a clean break, and that meant no waffling.

“Another chance at what? Lying to me some more? Look, the reality is this. No matter how I feel about it, what Shane and I had is over. All the maybes in the world aren’t going to change that.”

As if on cue, Bellamy’s cell phone began to ring.

* * *

“You look like hell.”Shane’s father stood in the entryway to the tiny hospital waiting room, his perfectly pressed dress pants and cashmere sweater making him look only casually imposing instead of all-out intimidating.

Shane glanced down at his own attire, pushing aside the hollow thud in his chest. Funny, he’d heard that once already today, and that was before he’d taken a shower and changed into clean jeans.

“Thanks.” Shane’s tone suggested how little he meant it. The last thing he was in the mood for after being heartbroken by a girl who hated his guts enough to leave without saying goodbye was another tangle with his father.

“Is Grady settled in his new room?” His father tipped his dark head toward the hallway, and Shane noticed he was more gray at the temples than he had been last year.

He shrugged. “Yeah. They took him for another ECG, and the doctor’s in with him now. I figured I’d give them some privacy.” Shane crossed his arms over his chest, adrenaline perking at what was sure to become an argument.

“I see.” His father sat down across from him, leaning his forearms on his thighs. “You and I are long overdue for a conversation, don’t you think?”

The older man’s gray stare pierced Shane’s dark one, and for a moment, neither of them moved.

“If your version of a conversation involves telling me what to do with my own life, I’m not really interested. You’ll get your money soon enough. I never planned to skip out on my debt. But I’m not coming back to the city to work for you.”

His father’s mouth was drawn into a humorless smile, a network of worry lines creasing around his eyes. “You really think I care about the money?”

Shane pulled up in shock. “Uh, yeah.”

Wasn’t that kind of the point of his father trying to drag him back to Philadelphia in the first place? For fuck sake, he’d gone so far as to pay off Shane’s loan just to back him into a corner.

“You don’t even know what you don’t know,” his father muttered with a shake of his head.

“What did you just say?” Shock prickled through Shane, and he stared, wide-eyed, at his father.Boy, you don’t even know what you don’t know.Grady’s gravelly voice rumbled through Shane’s mind.

His father frowned, and he brushed off the question. “I don’t care about the money, Shane. I paid the loan off because I knew you were struggling. I thought…” He broke off for a breath, steepling his fingers together over his knees. “I thought it would be a wake-up call for you to come home. Clearly, you don’t want to leave.”

A flicker of some unnamed emotion crossed his features, one that his father was quick to erase, but Shane caught it nonetheless.

It looked like remorse.

“No, I don’t. Pine Mountain is where I belong.” Shane had meant to deliver the words with a sting in his voice, but they’d simply arrived as the truth.

“I suppose it might help you to know why this is difficult for me.” His father drew in a breath while Shane did a terrible job of keeping the shock from his face.

“People who are raised in small towns either love them or can’t wait to leave them. There’s really no middle ground. Your grandfather’s a lifer.” A small, wry smile crossed his father’s lips, but it didn’t last. “But I never was. The old man never quite understood why I wanted to leave Pine Mountain for the city. He’s a man of a simpler life, but I wanted more. At the time, and for a long time, I thought what I wanted was a better life. So, the minute after I graduated high school, I left. My mother recognized that I just wasn’t cut out to stay here, but your grandfather could never quite come to grips with the whole thing.

“So, when she died, I felt there was nothing left here for me. My father disapproved of my choices, and I wasn’t interested in defending myself. I was an adult, with a career I’d worked hard for and loved, but to him, it never made sense. So, I stayed resentful and kept my distance. But I was foolish.”

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