Make sure the prenup’s well worth it.God!
So, I remained silent, took the hairgrip from my shorts pocket, and fastened my corkscrew hair into a topknot, to give my hands something to do.
Once he parked the truck in the garage, I shouldered my tote and opened the door to scramble out, but he was faster this time. He grasped my waist and helped me down. My shirt lifted, and his hands slipped under, causing prickles to race across my skin. My heart thudded, and my breath lodged in my lungs at the contact.
I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to show how much he affected me. And trapped as I was between his body and the truck, I couldn’t escape him—I couldn’t even move past him.
More, I hated that I still wanted him, despite everything.
“Are you going to give me the silent treatment the entire day?” he asked in a clipped voice.
My hands fisted the straps of my tote. “We should get some work done before it rains.”
“Fuck the rain!” he snapped, his expression darkening. “Nothing happened between your mother and me! She left and moved on to another. She didn’t want me specifically.”
Oh, God, why?
“How is that any better?” I yelled, humiliation splintering the hairline cracks in my armor, shame scalding my face. “I hated her at times, but she’s still my mother! To hear you say that—”
“What the hell do you want me to say?” he countered. “I told youshekissed me—a tipsy one if you want the specifics, and you shut me out. I tried to explain to you I wasn’t interested in her or selected exclusively and that she’d just moved to another teammate, and now I’m somehow being disparaging?”
I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.
This was all my fault. I should never have stayed with her on my return from Europe, not even when she begged me or said she missed me. But after two years away, I’d hoped, at least in this part of my life, things would be better—be different—since she was getting over her fifth divorce. But it had all been a lie.
“You don’t know anything,” I whispered. “You play hockey. You have people worshiping you. I have my mother.” Head lowered, I slipped past him, and as I grabbed the tools I needed from the shelf, his soft voice drifted to me, “Yes, my life’s fucking wonderful.”
I froze. My gaze rushed to him, but he was already walking away.
Frowning at those cryptic words, I followed him through the mudroom into the kitchen. He pulled on his gardening gloves, grabbed his tools, skirted around me to open the door, and headed to the far side of the yard.
Inhaling a trembling breath, I dropped my tote on the table and made my way to where I had stopped weeding yesterday. I got out my cell, stuck my earbuds in, slid to the music list I wanted, and as Lady Antebellum’sHurtplayed out, I pushed the device in my pocket and started on the pests.
For the first time in hours, my own troubles took second place, my mind on War’s cryptic comment.Yes, my life’s fucking wonderful.
What did he mean?
I glanced back and watched as he hacked at the overhanging branches of the trees edging the property, a project that would need days of work to tame the wildness.
It struck me then that I didn’t know anything else about him, except for him being best friends with Max and Jack, and that he played professional hockey. I assumed he was a year or two older than my twenty-five, and a Leo judging by the demonic star sign tatt among the other inkwork on his chest.
Yes, he projected the epitome of a badboy, tough, needing no one. So what had happened for those bitter words to break free?
Frowning, I snagged a knot of crawling broadleaves determined to stay rooted and yanked hard. It gave way, and I fell on my numb ass. Ugh. I tossed the weeds on the growing pile.
The first cool drops hit my arm, startling me out of my thoughts. Dense, dark clouds had gathered above. More rain splattered me and grew heavier, cooling the heat and chaos inside me. As if my eyes had a mind of their own, I snuck a quick look to where War still worked at the edge of the massive yard, trimming the shrubs.
He rolled his left shoulder as if it hurt him, and then he went back to clipping.
His gray t-shirt sported damp patches from the falling rain and stuck to his back as he switched tools and started to saw the thicker branches with brute strength, his biceps flexing with every move.
My mind slipped back to last night, remembering how he’d taken me to his home and tended to me when I was hurting. Heck, he’d even washed and dried my clothes—okay, the machine had done so—buthe’dfolded them even after everything fell apart.
I inhaled a shaky breath, knowing I shouldn’t push him away because of what had occurred. He wasn’t at fault for what my mother did. But no matter how much I did want him, I was too scared of another heartbreak. And War didn’t have the best reputation when it came to women. Once he got the itch for me scratched, he’d move on, and then I’d have to see him whenever our friends got together.
God, I tugged listlessly at a weed, my head a churning mess.
A crash sounded. My gaze snapped to him, terrified I’d find a branch had fallen on him. Instead, a heavy bough had dropped to the ground. He grabbed one of its leafy limbs and dragged it to others piled there, then straightened, lifting the hem of his rapidly dampening t-shirt and wiping his face, giving me a glimpse of his washboard abs. No, the wet tee didn’t help with the job. For some reason, War frowning at his shirt, as if he couldn’t understand how it got wet, had a smile tugging my mouth.
