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Van watched as Elisa closed the door to the room Hale was in. Normally they slept in the smaller rooms, the ones he was sure the kids used because it felt weird staying in the primary bedroom with its massive bed. Hale was in there now because Van had convinced him he needed the bigger bed to rest and recover in.
“He’s asleep.” Elisa wore a V-neck sweater that showed off the way her skin glowed and the gentle curve of her breasts. She looked fucking delicious, and everything about her made him a bit mad right now.
It wasn’t her fault. She was practically perfect. She’d handled everything brilliantly, including getting Hale to eat some dinner and take his pain meds. Hale hated anything that made him feel out of control. Van was sure something awful had happened to him in foster care or during the time he’d spent on the streets. But he was sleeping peacefully now, and all because of her, and Van wasn’t going to get to be any part of this.
He could see it now. They would find a cozy cabin and get married and be fucking happy, and he would be that guy they knew once, the kind of pathetic one who could never get his shit together.
He turned and stared out the window of the beautiful cabin that would never be his, looking at that place where the shooter had to have been standing.
The shooter who’d been aiming at him.
“You okay?” Elisa moved in beside him.
“Sure.” He knew he sounded surly, but he wasn’t capable of acting right now. He’d managed to get through it with the sheriff, and he didn’t think Hale had picked up on his shitty mood, but he was reaching the end of his rope.
His past was coming back to haunt them all.
He had no idea how he would have gone on living if that bullet had been true.
“You didn’t eat anything,” she pointed out.
No. He hadn’t wanted to try the soup she’d managed to make out of the crap they had in the house. It was probably delicious, like everything else about her. “Sorry. I’m not hungry. I might go to Trio for a while if you think he’ll sleep.”
“You’re going to a bar while your best friend is laid up with a gunshot wound?”
There had been no small amount of judgment in the question. Well, at least she was starting to figure out who he was. “Sure. Can’t let a little thing like that stop me from drinking. Maybe I can pick up a woman.”
He heard her sigh behind him. “You think this is about you.”
He turned. Maybe it would be good to lay it all out to her before he had to do this with Hale in the morning. “You heard the sheriff. If there’s a lawyer looking for me it’s probably because someone wants to sue me. That particular incident happened in a bar in Oklahoma City where I separated a dude’s shoulder, but it’s one of a dozen incidents over the years. It could be any one of them.”
“Yes, it’s obvious you’re a very bad boy,” she replied with a chuckle. “What did you get into the fight over? Oh, a better question—during these numerous fights, how often were you working versus drinking?”
“I actually don’t drink all that much,” he admitted. “I was almost always working, and I had to deal with some asshole who thought it was okay to harass the waitstaff. The worst fight I ever got in was over a waiter. Nice guy, but it was hard to be out and proud in that particular town. Drunk guy gave him hell, and I ended up breaking drunk guy’s arm. Spent a night in jail over that, too.”
“You have anger issues and maybe a savior complex.” Her hands came up, smoothing his shirt over his chest. “That is in the past, and you shouldn’t borrow trouble. I’m going to look into this, but until I find out otherwise, I think we should trust the doc and the sheriff and view these things as two separate incidents. Now, I would like to talk to you about something.”
What on earth did she want to talk to him about? He felt anxious, and he hated it. It was like his skin was too tight. He’d been taught to live in the now. The past didn’t matter. But it did and it would. “I think I should go.”
“Go where? To Trio? Getting wasted isn’t going to fix the situation. Tell me what’s going through your head.” It was obvious Elisa wasn’t ready to give up on him.
He needed to give her a reason to. “What’s going through my head is I fuck everything up. I fucked up Hale’s relationship with you, and now I almost killed him.”
