Clearing my throat, I take a calming breath and keep my eyes trained on the beer from the tap filling mugs. “I don’t think anything.”
Lifting her nose in the air, she lets out a soft snort. “Yeah, you do. I can see it written all over your gullible face. You thinkyou’re special and he’s gonna carry you off into the sunset.” She huffs a mean laugh and doesn’t even try to keep her voice down. “I got news for you sweetheart, that’s not gonna happen. He’s got a playbook, and you’re just on page one.”
It’s at that moment that my patience hits its limit. I’m so tired of being taken for granted and underestimated. Because I’m quiet and polite, people think they can walk over me, and I won’t fight back. Grams always used to tell me my backbone needed a little extra grit. As I straighten my spine and turn to Trudy, I make my resolution to put a stop to it right now.
For years, Matt took advantage of my nature and stomped on my heart time and again. The resentment I keep a lid on, so I won’t see the world and everyone in it as just another nightmare about to happen, erupts.
My anger is spuming, and I let it fly. Her eyes flare as she finally looks in my direction. My heart is beating hard enough to vibrate all the way to the tips of my fingers. “It’s insulting to me that you think I will be as stupid or as easy as you. Don’t project your deluded thoughts and poor decisions onto me. I don’t expect anyone to carry me anywhere. I’m fully capable of taking care of myself.”
As Stony turns to me, his eyebrows down because I’m making a scene in his pub, a powerful arm wraps around my waist, pulling me against a hard body, and lifts me away from Trudy. I didn’t realize that I had stepped so close to her, and my palms hurt from my fingernails digging into the skin.
In opposition to what I just said, Tuck lifts my back against his muscular front and turns to carry me down the short hall to the break room. My fingers are wrapped around his iron forearm, which is across my front. “Put me down right now.”
He sets me on my feet, and I step away and turn on him. My chest is rising and falling quickly as all the hurt and anger of the past couple of years stings my eyes.
“Is it true? Will you use me for sex and toss me away? Are you just another asshole in a melting pot of assholes who crawl out of the shadows when they get a sniff of someone nice to take advantage of?” I do something I’ve never done to another person before in my life, I lift my hand and shove his shoulder, which doesn’t budge an inch. It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would. In fact, I feel like an ass for taking my wrath out on him and putting an angry hand on him.
Standing across from me, his hands hanging at his sides, his expression doesn’t change. His gaze moves over my face as I take a breath, not letting him answer the question.
“Because if you are, just go away and leave me alone. I don’t need or want to go through that again.” I don’t realize tears are streaming down my face until I feel the cool tickle under my chin, and I angrily bat them away, not wanting to show weakness right now. “I’ve had enough. No more!” I slice my hand through the air in front of me for good measure.
My chest is heaving, and I’m trying to hold back the tears that are falling regardless of my efforts to put up a strong front. I choke back a small sob and wipe my cheeks with shaking fingers. I’m not really a crier, so twice in one day reflects the proverbial end of my rope.
Tuck’s face is soft as he watches me. His hazel eyes are more gold right now, and he gives me a moment to compose myself. “You done?”
The question catches me off-guard, and some of my anger drains away as I realize I lost control. Lowering my eyes to his chest, embarrassment turns my face red because I made a horrible spectacle of myself. Wiping my nose and my cheeks again, I nod my head.
He takes a step closer to me, lifting his hands in front of his chest in surrender, making me look up at him again. His eyebrows move up in question as he moves his palms next to myface and lets them hang in the air for a second to see if I’m going to pull away.
When I don’t, his rough palms gently cup my cheeks, and he bends his knees to bring himself to my height as he tilts his head and takes a breath through his nose. “No, I’m not going to take advantage of you. It’s true, I used to say I wasn’t the settling type; everybody knows that about me. But I’ve never felt this way before, Nora, or been this far.
“Now, I understand that you’re having a little trouble in the trust department, with good reason. But I can’t prove that I want to get to know all of you, good and bad, if you don’t let me.”
All my anger drains away, and I feel like shit. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’ve never pushed another person before in my life.”
His tender eyes are locked on mine. “Sugar, you can take it all out on me if you want to. I’m here for it if you let me. I’ll do anything for you.”
My eyes volley between his. “Then ask me to go to lunch with you again.”
His lips tip up in a small smile, and he slides his thumbs under my eyes. The pads are a little rough, but he does it gently. “I’ll do you one better. Nora, sugar, will you go out with me Saturday night? I heard there is a festival that you might be interested in, and I would like to take you.”
He must have heard all the people talking to me about it through the evening. “But I have to work Saturday night.”
“Let me worry about that. Would you like to go?”
I nod. “I would like to go with you.”
He brushes his lips against mine and smiles. “Good. It’s a date.”
22
TUCK
RYDER’S GARAGEis on the outskirts of town, close to the turnpike, on a few acres of land. Next to the garage is a fenced yard full of cars with orange stickers on their windows. When cars break down on any of the highways in and out of town, as well as the turnpike, he is the one the city calls to pick them up, so he has a fenced yard specifically for those next to his garage.
If the cars aren’t claimed, he takes possession and fixes, sells, or piece-mills them out. It’s a pretty lucrative business.
Two bay doors of the large 3-bay garage are open. The gravel crunches under my tires as I pull up to the front, close to the office, and park. I can see the back of Nora’s car, and the license plate, through the glass of the bay door that’s closed.
