“Stop,” Kasey snapped back, the heat in his voice enough to make her look at him again. “I can only imagine what losing a woman like you did to him—” She opened her mouth to protest, but he shushed her, continuing roughly, “—but that’s on him; not you. Whatever mistakes he made to lose you are his own, and he has to learn to live with that. Blaming yourself for how he’s living his life will do you absolutely no good.”
“Zoey told me he’s still drinking. That he refused rehab a few months ago.”
“And that is in no way your fault,” Kasey insisted, cupping the side of her neck in his palm. The heat of his hand against her skin was like an inferno in the rapidly cooling cab of the truck without the heat to battle against the January cold. His fingers stroked the back of her neck, and she leaned into his touch, closing her eyes. “What did he do, Shaun?”
She shook her head, letting her chin drop down. “Putting it into words now makes it sound so stupid, Kasey. It makes me sound ungrateful and petty.”
“Your feelings about what happened are not invalidated now because of how your brain is telling you to feel about it through your misplaced guilt,” he said gently, and tears sprang to her eyes. Blinking rapidly to whisk them away before they could fall, she turned to look out the windshield again. “What happened? Please, darlin’. Talk to me.”
Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly, squeezing her eyes shut. “I don’t know if you know the whole story, about what happened to Zoey two years ago. She was drugged and raped by a college kid in one of her classes, and she had her daughter Verity because of it. She struggled with severe PTSD afterward, and then their mom died right before Verity was born. Thom, their dad who you just met, checked out emotionally from themafter her death, and taking care of Zoey and Verity fell to Tommy, who was also grieving. He started drinking more often, drinking more heavily. He just… changed. And I know that grief can change people, and I wanted to be there for him and for Zoey and Verity. I love them all so much.”
When she paused, he nodded for her to continue, so she took another breath in and said, “That’s when Chase moved home. He and Tommy were best friends for as long as I can remember. He moved home for a job at the local sheriff’s department, and needed a place to stay, so Tommy and Zoey offered him their spare bedroom. Well, Zoey had one of her panic attacks one night, and apparently Tommy concocted this scheme, this deal with Chase. He wanted Zoey safe, taken care of, and Chase was the ideal candidate.”
“Candidate for what?” Kasey asked gently.
“To marry his sister. To take care of her, and Verity.”
She felt more than saw the shock as it processed through Kasey. His hand stilled in its strumming along the back of her neck, and she nodded.
“Yeah. Well, what we didn’t know was that Chase and Zoey had already started falling for each other, and the next thing we know we’re planning a whirlwind wedding. It wasn’t until after the wedding, at the reception, that Zoey found out about the deal her brother had made with her new husband. She didn’t know if Chase had married her because Tommy had asked him to, or if he’d done it because he wanted to, because he loved her.”
“But they just had a baby, so things are better now?” he asked.
“Yes, things are better now. They’re honestly perfect for each other. Chase says that even if Tommy hadn’t asked him to marry her, they would have ended up there anyway. But, she felt incredibly betrayed by the two of them. Everything up until then had been shoved on her without her consent; she wasunderstandably upset by the two of them choosing something for her without her fully in on the decision.” She glanced over at him then, looking him in the eye through the dark as she said, “I was furious with Tommy. He knew how betrayed she would feel, and he did it anyway, because he felt it was his job to do whatever necessary to protect her. He told me he would do the same for me if he felt it was needed.” Kasey’s hand tightened around the back of her neck, and she saw his jaw clench. “I told him he wouldn’t have the chance. I refused to marry someone I couldn’t trust, and it was painfully obvious that I couldn’t trust him anymore. So, I gave him the ring back and broke off our engagement. It killed me and destroyed him.”
“Are you still in love with him?” he asked through the darkness.
Dropping her gaze to her lap, she said quietly, “No. I realized that we can’t be what the other one needs. He needs someone that needs him to protect her, someone that wants and needs him to take care of her. I’m not a damsel in distress and I don’t need anyone to take care of me; that’s just how I am. And I don’t want or need anyone that’s going to make decisions for me because they think they know better than I do. I don’t need saving.”
“Is this a newer revelation?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I’ve always been more independent. It drove my parents crazy as a teenager, I’m sure. I love my family, and my parents are wonderful, but I moved out into my own apartment as soon as I turned eighteen, right after graduation. I just knew that I wanted my own space, my freedom to be my own person. My dad’s name is big in the area, but I didn’t want to ride on his coattails. I applied to trade schools and have several certificates in different areas, and I busted my ass to make it all happen. I live in a small apartment, just me and my cat, and I love it. Tommy asked me probably a hundred times tomove in with him, or to let him move in here. I like my freedom too much, I think. I didn’t want to share my space with anyone, even my fiancé.”
“Do you like your freedom too much, or did you just know somewhere that it wasn’t going to last?”
“I didn’t self-sabotage my relationship with Tommy, Kasey,” she snapped, attempting to pull away from his hand, but his fingers tightened just the slightest, and she stayed put.
“That wasn’t my question, and you know it,” he growled. “Stop getting prickly.”
“I’m not prickly,” she retorted sharply, and gasped when his fingers tightened again, making her belly flutter.Oh.
“I told you the first time we met that I could tell there was no chemistry between you two. Not the right kind, anyway. I think somewhere inside that pretty head of yours you knew he wasn’t right for you. You were forcing it,” he murmured low, his voice husky.
“I loved him,” she countered quietly.
He was quiet for a long moment, before whispering, “I don’t doubt that you did, Shaun. But did you love him the way Jodi loves Free? The way your mom loves your dad? Or did you love him because he’s your best friend’s brother, and because it was easy to pretend that was what you wanted, because it was comfortable?”
“I swear you and Roxy are the same person,” she grumbled, turning her eyes down to her lap. “She asked the same thing. I thought you put her up to it.”
He laughed lightly and resumed strumming the back of her neck, making her shiver. “Roxy has a way of seeing past people’s bullshit. I think it’s the red hair: it’s like a superpower. But don’t change the subject.”
She huffed out a heavy sigh and shrugged her shoulders. It was getting steadily colder in the cab of the truck, the windshieldslowly beginning to frost over as they sat. She watched as the diamond crystals formed one by one, creeping almost unnoticed up the glass. “If you’d asked me six or eight months ago, I would have adamantly said yes, I did love him that way. Now… I’m not so sure.”
“Why’s that?” he asked, leaning closer.
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
