“Great.”He jerked open his car door and tossed in the container, before hefting himself up in the driver’s side.
Jill didn’t know what else to do but move so he couldn’t close the door just yet.“I just didn’t want you to be blindsided.I wanted to keep you in the loop so that—”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t… don’t what?”
He looked down at her, looking incredibly pissed off in the dome light of his car.Pissed off enough she took a step away from the car door, because she wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t try to close it on her.
“Don’t keep me in the loop,” he said sharply.“Don’t mention it.Do whatever the hell you want.”
“Oh.Well, I’m… sorry.”
“If I wanted yoursorry,I would have told you not to do it last year.You’rethe one making it a thing, andyou’rethe one making it weird.So don’t.”
Then, because she was out of the way now, he slammed the door shut in her face.
Which wasn’t exactly the behavior of someone whowasn’tmaking things weird.
But if anyone had a right, she supposed it was Cal.
Chapter Six
The Harrington Cabin
Cal sat inhis car looking at the Harrington cabin.It was tiny—even for only two women.Rough-hewn.Old.Cal had no doubt some long-dead ancestor of Glenda’s long-dead husband had chopped down the trees and built it themselves.All pioneer spirit and know-how.
He didn’t want to be here.He didn’t want todothis.
But he’d been an asshole last night, and the problem with coming home andstayingwas he didn’t get to run away from being an asshole.It just sat on his gut like an uncomfortable weight because, soon enough, he’d have to see Jill again.
And Glenda.
It wasn’t fair to blame Glenda for his behavior last night.He was in charge of his damn self.But her eerie light-green eyes had followed him around, and it had made him more and more andmoretense as dinner went on.
Glenda Harrington left an itch between his shoulder blades.Glendarepresented something he could not seem to fully understand.Glendamight always be a fucking ghost that haunted him, no matter how long she lived.
“Not right to take it out on her damn granddaughter,” he muttered to himself, still sitting in his truck.
Jill thought it was about the book.He really didn’t give a shit about the book.Maybe it made him alittleuncomfortable, but he’d been uncomfortable his whole damn life.He believed Jill when she said she wasn’t writing some kind of creepy fictionalized biography.She was just using hiscondition.
Not his life.
It wasn’t thebook.It was her damn grandmother.And whatever secrets still sat hidden in his own mind.And if therewasn’tstill anything hidden in histraumatic amnesia… then it was almost worse, because it meant this feeling might dog him for the rest of his life.
Cal inhaled.Exhaled.Breathing exerciseshis therapist had given him.Because feelings weren’t facts.They weren’t something to be pushed aside and ignored either.
Apparently, he had tofeelthem, and infeelingthem, he didn’t like how he’d treated Jill last night.
So he got out of his truck.It was late morning, the sun was climbing and though the snow up here was higher and more frozen than down in town, there was still a give to it as he walked across the yard and up to the front door.Spring.Warmth.Rebirth.Renewal.
He didn’t think he had those things in him, but somehow, he found himself walking toward them again and again.
On a heavy sigh, he knocked on the door.When he had to wait for a while, he started seriously considering leaving.He couldtexthis apology.He had Jill’s number.Her email.A formal email apology would be fi—
The door swung open to Glenda.
Fuck.
