His eyes scanned me from head to toe, and then he shook his head in disappointment. “Fucking pathetic, Liam. I never took you for a coward.”
He turned to leave, but I wasn’t through with him yet. “That’s it? You’re just walking away after I fucked another woman?”
“Is that what this is about?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. “You want someone to punish you?”
Desperately. If he kicked my ass, I might feel just a little like I got what was coming to me.
“You came here to defend her honor, but you’re not even taking a swing.”
“She wouldn’t want me to.” Then his eyes locked on my arm still in the sling. “And it’s not worth it to break a man who’s already broken. I hope you know what you’re doing, Liam.”
An angry retort was on the tip of my tongue, but I never let it fly. There was no point. He was right. I was broken, and the whole fucking town knew it. Only an asshole would throw away a woman like Bailey.
“Well, that didn’t go as you planned,” Jeff said from behind me. “Ibet you thought he’d come in here and kick your ass, make you forget about your misery for just a few minutes. Hell, maybe he’d even put you in a coma. That would really end the pain, right?”
Grinning, he hoisted his tool bag up on the table with a thud.
“Did you fix the steps at cabin 3?”
“You know, I got you wanting to run her off. It made sense. Kiss another woman and she’ll be so pissed, she won’t want to be around you. But sleeping with another woman…” He shook his head. “I gotta hand it to you, when you try to destroy your life, you do a fantastic job. I never saw that one coming.”
“You know why I had to do it.”
“I know why youwantedto do it, which isn’t the same thing. With a little time, you might have figured something out.”
“It would have been too late by then.”
“Right. You were so sure he would leave her alone,” Jeff chuckled. “But you didn’t take into consideration that Austin’s crazy.”
I almost turned and walked out.
Almost.
“What do you mean…I was so sure he would leave her alone?”
“A little birdie in town told me that Austin cornered her at the shop today. That little birdie is our sister, by the way. Yep, Bailey came into The Beaver and told her all about how Austin grabbed her by the hair and dragged her against him. She slammed a wrench into his face, which I guess did the trick.” His eyes met mine. “For now.”
Fuck.
I bent over, dragging in a shattered breath as I thought of him putting his hands on her. Cornering her.
“Where the fuck was Wyatt?”
“Oh, he showed up, but apparently, he blamed Bailey for it. Yep, said something about how she was supposed to be working. Can’t imagine he would have her back if Austin ever really tried something. That family sticks together, you know.”
So, it was all for nothing. I had hurt her and that fucker was still going after her.
“Then I’ll take his eyes off the prize,” I snarled. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t even fucking think about going after her again.”
“Yeah? And how are you gonna do that, big brother? You have exactly one good arm. How the hell do you plan on making sure he doesn’t do anything else to her?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“What’s that?” he jested.
“I said, I’ll figure it out!”
“Right, like you did last time. I really liked that. The whole performance was fucking amazing at the bar. But this morning…I gotta hand it to you. Fucking brilliant.”
