“Goddammit.” I yanked my jacket off, wrapped it around her, and held it together so she couldn’t shrug it off. “I’ll walk you home. Which way?”
She tried to yank away from me. “I don’t need you to walk me home; I need you to train us on your track.”
I curled my fists tighter into the soft leather, shaking her with every bit of resentment coursing through me, making her rock on her heels before holding her steady. “No.”
“Why not?”
“You damn well know why not.” I growled. There’s no way she didn’t know.
And the fact that she did made it damn near impossible to look her in the eye at times.
“You didn’t do it,” she said quietly. “What they say about you. You didn’t do it.”
The calm confidence of her words only fueled a dormant rage, now burgeoning inside me again since waking up the minute I rolled into Galloway Bay. I wouldn’t stand here while she looked at me with softness, caring, the hushed tone of her voice reverent, like I was some kind of hero.
Not when all I had was a legacy of mistakes that brought others pain.
I tugged her against me. “You don’t know a damn thing about what I did or didn’t do,” I said, seething with the fine edge of anguish cutting through me. “What I’ve cost the people I love.”
My gaze dropped to her full pink lips and I closed my eyes. Her mouth wasn’t mine to taste, should never be mine to taste, and if I took, it would only prove what a selfish bastard I really was. “You’d do good to trust your instincts about me, Mayhem.”
She turned her face up to mine. Unflinching, she stared me straight in the eye without so much as a blink. Full of stubbornness and ready for confrontation, she took me head-on. “The funny thing is, I do,” she said with quiet finality. “I know who I saw on that rink today. That wasn’t a man who’d put an underage girl at risk just to win.”
Her eyes dropped to my mouth and I fought the urge to waver. I hung my head and turned away from her, away from temptation.
How many more times would I scour my soul and find scraps of shredded honor before I ran out completely?
“You didn’t do it. I don’t know why you don’t shout it from the damn rooftops. I don’t know why you didn’t defend yourself, maybe it’s time to—”
I pierced her with a scowl. “Leave it alone,” I bit out the words in harsh warning. Fury pounded in time with the ripple of my beating heart.
“If that’s really what you want, I won’t speak of it again…if you train us.”
I dragged a hand down my face. She shivered even with my jacket around her; meanwhile, I was all but positive steam billowed off my shoulders.
“You’re freezing.”
“I’m fine.”
“Which way?” I asked, the first stirrings that I might waver trying to take hold.
She yanked away from me and hopped onto the threshold of the door leading to the small second-floor apartment over Banked Track. “There. You walked me home. Happy?”
“Hardly. Now go inside.”
She leaned her shoulder against the doorframe like she planned to settle in for a while. “Train us.”
“No.”
“I won’t leave you alone until you agree.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, doing anything I could to keep myself from reaching for her. I still didn’t know if I put my hands on her if I’d throttle her or kiss her. I was equally worried about both. “You haven’t left me alone for a single second since I saw you on that track a week ago.”
“I need you to train us. Please,” she said, the plea in her voice softer, more desperate.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“My sister always dreamed of living here. Raising her family at the farm. If this goes bad, they pay the price.”
“What if it doesn’t go bad? Did you ever think about that?”
“It always goes bad. If you knew me, you’d know that. But you don’t know me, Mayhem. One afternoon at a roller rink doesn’t change that.”
Fire snapped in her eyes. “So, what about that? What about the kids you met today? My family,” she said, jabbing a thumb into her chest. “What happens to them when they lose the one safe place they have? How are you going to feel when that happens and you had the power to help them, but you were too damn scared to do anything about it?” Every word grew more and more raw until her voice broke.
“I’m not scared.”
“The fuck you’re not,” she snapped.
The last of my control fractured and I stepped into her, my hand cupping her jaw, forcing her to look up at me. “You and that foul mouth. Someone should have done something about that a long time ago.”
How the hell was I supposed to say no to her? To this woman who loved those kids.
A woman who couldn’t bear to throw away a frayed green shoelace because it was the last connection she had to her mother.
She raised her chin even more, defiance flaming in her blue eyes. “Show me someone strong enough to.”
She fucked with my head.
She fucked with my heart.
She fucked with everything I believed about myself.
Everything I needed to believe about myself.
She turned the new normal I’d found upside down and threatened everyone and everything I worked so hard to protect.
I turned the knob to the door and backed her into the dark landing at the foot of the stairs to the second floor. I pictured her apartment up there, a tiny space I’d helped Patti clean up almost twenty years ago now.
This girl, the one who clung to nostalgia so fiercely she kept a broken lace in an old skate would have turned it into her own utopia. She’d
