“Well, I bumped into Trailer Trash on my way into town today. Where the hell does she even live?” His brows clinch, making him look older than his twenty-three years, but the crease disappears just as quickly as it surfaced. It’s a reminder of how much the events of just a few weeks ago have aged him inside—when Jake took a man’s life for the first—and what I hope will be the last—time. “And guess what?” He waggles his eyebrows, eager for me to join in his game, but he isn’t getting anywhere with me. I hate when he messes withher. It was fun to watch the first few times, but now it’s getting old. Only I get to do that. And for the hundredth time, I regret ever saying a word to him.
“I told you to leave her alone,” I remind him through a clenched jaw, balling my hands into fists. A muscle tick starts on my right cheek, pulling at the corner of my eye. Every single conversation involving her riles me up every time.
“The fuck I will,” he grits out with such hatred that my eyes dart to his, and I start to think I need to watch him a little more carefully. What happened with Freya and the shooting took a toll on him, and I’ve noticed he’s becoming more like…me. And I don’t wish that on my brother. “She deserves it!”
“She was just almost burned alive, for fuck’s sake, Jake. Give her a break,” I snap, yanking the dirty rag from my back pocket and wiping my hands on it. The thing looks in dire need of a wash, but I don’t have time. Damn, I need some help around here. I’m way above my head already. Time to hire a receptionist or something and put dry cleaning on their to-do list.
“It’s what she deserves,” he hisses, stepping closer to me.
I straighten to my full height, and he appears shorter by a few inches. I need to be intimidating for him to understand the gravity of my next words. “And who the fuck are you to decide who deserves to live or die, Jake?”
For a moment, I regret my words because for a second—one awful second—I see flash in his eyes the stark reaction of someone who lives with having killed another person, necessary or not. Then he looks to shake himself out of it, returning to our argument even angrier. “You know what she did, and you want me to leave her alone?” He smacks against my chest with his open palms, almost causing me to stumble back.
“What I did, Jake.Idid!” I yell into his face and immediately feel a few curious gazes on me. My people know better than to gossip, so they quickly go about their business. “WhatIdid,” I repeat again, quieting my voice. “She was involved in that clusterfuck, but I’m the one to blame. You got it?Iam.”
“Jus—” he starts, but I cut him off, growling, “You got it?”
After a long, hard moment, he nods and turns to leave, but I stop him with a question. It’s a compulsion—I need to know. “What happened this morning, Jake?”
“She was driving with a broken taillight, and I gave her a ticket.” Then he walks away.
* * *
Jake left an hour ago, and since then, I’ve been thinking about it. Her car’s fucking dying, I’ve heard it around town making the telltale sounds of a rapidly approaching death bed, and I also know she can never get it to start on the first try. I saw her hooking up jumper cables to Marina’s battery a few times. After such a long, harsh winter, I bet her battery is barely alive. If it’s the alternator and it shits the bed while she’s driving… I don’t even want to think about what would happen.What could have already happened.
As I work on Mrs. Jenkins’s car, my mind keeps drifting off to what Jake did. And that's how I find myself driving to her trailer only an hour later. Nestled into a little grove on the other side of the mountain, Kayla doesn’t let anyone know where she lives, but I know. I just want to make sure there will be no more souls weighing on Jake’s conscience. One is already too many. That’s what I tell myself as I drive—I’m just looking out for Jake.
As I predicted, her beat-up Jeep is on the side of the road, and a quick glance confirms she’s inside. I pass her and keep driving.Fuck.Her car is switched off, and I get the feeling she’s been there for a while. It’s likely Jake pulled her over there, she turned off her Jeep and couldn’t get it back on. It's been raining hard this morning, so she’s probably been stuck in there.Fuck!I make a U-turn and drive back, pulling up flush to her front bumper. She’s probably going to need a jump.
I get out of my truck and instantly shiver from the cold, but I mask it with a full-body stretch. Because I’m a man like that.
Once I'm standing next to the driver's side of her car, I can evaluate the seriousness of the situation that Jake had created by making her stop nowhere near help. Her usually plump lips are completely thin and blue, the tip of her nose is red, and she’s sniffling.
When she rolls the window down, I tell her to pop the hood, but she fights me on it, of course. I win in the end, but it feels like losing when I get a look and see everything’s fucking rusted and held together with duct tape. Literally. How the fuck she’s managed to survive driving this old piece of junk around for so long beats me.
There’s an endless list of problems that can prevent the engine from starting, but I’m guessing what’s gotten her stuck on the side of the road today is her battery. I grab a cable from my truck and get her old piece of crap hooked up, then motion for her to turn the key. It rumbles to life on the first try. While I'm at it, I want to check something else quickly, so I take the positive cable off the battery, and the engine dies instantly. Fuck, it’s definitely the alternator. I put the cable back and motion for her to turn the key again. Her eyes are round—she must be thinking it’s dead. Which itis, for fuck’s sake.
You need a new damn car!I gripe mentally as it sputters into another just-barely-functional purr, ignoring her gaze as I pack everything back into my truck.I bet you can afford something better that has four wheels and can drive farther than a ditch and not be the age of a dinosaur.The diner's been doing good since the renovation, and I know for a fact people leave her good tips. I want to tell her all of that, rant at her to take care of herself, but I don’t. She’d only walk away thinking I gave a shit about her.
When I turn to her, she’s sitting in her car sniffling even more; her eyes are red and puffy.Fuck. Just what I need. I can't stand a woman crying; I just can't—a fact that my ex knew too well and used too often.
I walk to her side while wiping my hands on the same dirty-ass rag from my back pocket and address her through her closed window. “You’re good to go, but you need to fix your car if you’re planning on staying alive.” I pour as much hatred into my voice as I can, which honestly isn’t much, considering how it feels like kicking a puppy in her miserable state. “Your alternator is dead. If it goes off while you’re on the road, you’re toast. Everything stops working. Power steering, brakes, everything. If it happens, you muscle the car to the side of the road.” I nod at the wheel. “Carefully. No jerky movements. And pull the brake when it naturally slows down. Do you know where your emergency brake is?”
“Yeah,” she mumbles while staring ahead of her. “Thanks.” I look at her face once again—she looks nearly frozen to death. Besides the blotchy red rimming of her sad eyes, there are purple bags under them. Her usuallytoobright andtoocheerful hazel gaze is dim. The corners of her lips point downward. She just looks… exhausted. Did she always? Or have the recent events at the diner made her lose sleep?
Something pinches in my chest, and it’s annoying as fuck. I scratch on the place where a little ache has formed with my fist, trying to erase the unwanted feeling, but it doesn’t go away.
"Are you okay?" I ask in a gruff voice after an internal battle between my brain and conscience.
She wipes her nose with the heel of her hand and answers without turning to me. “Yeah.” Now that I think about it, I don’t think she’s looked at me even once since I first drove past her. It’s unsettling. I know she had a crush on me—a lot of girls did, so I was used to it—but I always noticed her. So different from the polished type I usually went for. But now, I don’t feel an ounce of interest from her. Not even a little bit. Huh. I don’t know why it bothers me—probably just my ego talking.
I watch her a moment longer, then turn to walk to my truck.
The pinching sensation in my chest is still there, and I need to erase it. I need to remember why I can’t stand her because I refuse to feel something other than hatred toward her. And I just happen to know one way that I can always do it.
ChapterThree
KAYLA
