Page 12 of Breaking Bristol

“Bristol.”

Her head tilted at the sound of her name, and the faintest of smiles formed on her full pink lips. “The little storage shed, where I keep a few extra boxes of stuff? The, um, the motion light isn’t working anymore.”

“All right. Do you want to be here when I fix all this stuff, or would you rather be gone?”

“Oh, I don’t care,” she replied. “Whatever’s easier for you.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

She crossed an arm over her chest and covered her bare shoulder with her hand, tapping her fingers anxiously as she shifted on her feet. “I’m sorry.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t need to apologize. I’m only asking because I want to know what you’re more comfortable with. I can have my aunt and uncle be here, or they can hire someone, or—”

“How do you know what to say?”

“About what?”

“Everything. You should have terrified me in the parking lot, but I wasn’t scared. New Year’s Eve, any other man leaning against my car like that, and I would have run. And now… you, you show up, and I let you inside where I live, and…” She shook her head. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t let you know, it’s…not smart of me.”

I couldn’t forget what she’d just told me. I knew it hadn’t been easy for her to admit all that, and I wanted so desperately to wrap my arms around her and tell her that she was safe with me, but that wasn’t what she needed from me right now. “I don’t know why… I’m a doctor, Bristol. An ER doc. I’ve studied, trained, and I’ve seen a lot. Maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe there’s just something about me that you trust. But my guess is that I’m just giving you options, so any move I make is your choice.”

“Except when you showed up at the bar.”

“I was there before you. I didn’t want to scare you in front of a bunch of people, so I left,” I admitted gruffly, looking her straight in the eye. “But when I passed your car, I decided to hang around because I didn’t like the idea of you walking to it alone after midnight.”

“Why’d you have that piece of paper with your number on it still? That’s like, stalker material.”

I smirked. “I shoved it in my pocket that night, then it ended up in my wallet.”

“Why?” she asked softly.

“Don’t know. I guess I was worried about your stitches and thought if I ran into you that I’d make sure you had it.”

“You take your job rather seriously.”

I nodded. “I do.”

“Just so you know, if it wasn’t for you being Lou and Heidi’s nephew, you wouldn’t be in my house right now.”

“I understand,” I told her.

She leaned on the counter and crossed her arms. I had to force my eyes to stay on hers and not look at her tits that she was pushing up. “To answer your question, I’d like to be here when you fix stuff, so if it ever breaks again, I know what to do.”

“All right. I work the next three days. Will Saturday be okay?”

“Sure,” she murmured.

“See you then.”

CHAPTER 4

Matthew

The rest of the week had come and gone, and on Saturday morning, I went to the hardware store to get everything I needed for the cabin. I hadn’t told Uncle Lou about it yet, and I wouldn’t admit it to myself, but I think the reason was because I wanted to be the one to help Bristol. It felt good to have a woman rely on me for something even though she wasn’t mine.

I was fixing some things for her, but she didn’t know that she was helping to mend my own wounds.

A part of me was damaged after finding out my wife had been sleeping with another man the entire time I was gone. Although I shouldn’t have been surprised.

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