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Chapter 20
Liam
The trees surroundingtown came into view.Then the houses on the edge of town.The golf course and the country club.I turned down the street that would take us to Kenny’s house.
I tried not to let Bruce’s call bother me.I tried, and I failed.
Bruce wasn’t an idiot.If she had told him she’d been with me for three days, he’d have read between the lines.And no, the phone wasn’t the right time to tell him.
But it was hard to get Grandma Gin’s words out of my head.We’d spent three sex-filled days together where I’d had to hold back the wordsI love youa hundred times.I wasn’t telling her when she had no escape.Telling her right after she’d lied about being in Dickinson with Laney didn’t exactly settle right in my heart either.
As I rounded the turn, she sat up.Another pickup was parked in front of her house.
Kenny shot forward so fast her seat belt snapped tight.“What’s Bruce doing here?”
The lawn mower sitting in the middle of the front yard answered the question.He might not have a key to the house, but he could still get into an unlocked garage.
“Maybe we should—”
Bruce crossed the lawn to the mower and spotted us.His head cocked and his eyes narrowed.
Had she been about to tell me to keep driving?Acid burned its way up my throat.Maybe it was the talk with Grandma Gin.Maybe it was spending the weekend days together.Three days.But I could no longer do this.There was the point where it was about Kenny’s healing, and then there was crossing the line into being a shameful secret.We might be on opposite sides of that line.
I parked behind Bruce’s pickup.
“I’ll handle him,” she murmured.“You don’t need to deal with it.”
I wasn’t dumping Kenny and running, leaving her with the mess to explain.Nor did I feel like hearing about how she’d spun a story about how I met Laney and gave her a ride the rest of the way or some shit.
“I ain’t going nowhere, Kenny.”I got out and lifted her bag out of the back.
She slid out of the pickup.I didn’t miss the tremble in her voice when she said, “Bruce.”
She didn’t move toward her house.I set her bag behind her and stood next to her.
Bruce’s gaze jumped between us.“I thought you were with Laney.”
“She took me to Dickinson, yes.But I was with Liam in Williston,” she finished quietly.
Not exactly a grand announcement, but it was further than I thought she’d get.Now, we just had to endure the storm of Bruce’s emotions.Then he’d tell Cameron, and I could probably expect another visit about staying away from Kenny.
Red infused Bruce’s face.His confusion and upset bloomed into rage as his face flushed deeper.He shook his head, like he was hearing incorrectly, but then his gaze landed on her luggage.He shifted his glare to me.
“You don’t think about anyone else, do you?”He shoved his hands on his hips, his mouth an angry slash.“I had to deal with you when it came to Derek, and he’s gone.Why the hell am I still dealing with you?”
“What are you talking about?”I knew what he meant, but the sheer fury directed at me didn’t make sense.
He shoved a finger in my direction, very much like my father had, only Bruce wasn’t close enough to touch me.“When it came to my son, you were behind all the trouble.Now you want to do that to her?”He stepped closer.“Every time I see you, every time I hear your voice, and every time I worry about Kennedy and what she’s doing, and you’re behind it, it’s like I’m reminded…” Grief rippled over his face.His jaw clenched, and he looked away.
Dread ghosted across my shoulders.“It’s like being reminded of what, Bruce?”I asked quietly.I didn’t want the answer, but I had to hear it.I had to have him say it.I had to have it laid out there.What I’d felt my entire life.
“Say it, Bruce.What do you think when you talk to me?That I shouldn’t have been born?”
His hard hazel gaze swirled back to me, and his upper lip twitched.He was a man destroyed.A man holding on to his pain.It had nowhere to go.
Until me.Until I pushed him.
He took another step forward, his voice shaking, loss and pain pouring from his gaze.“I’m reminded that you’re here and my son isn’t and that it doesn’t make a damn lick of sense.It’s unfair on so many levels, I can’t stand it.Just like I can’t stand you.”
