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Dazed. His ears rang and his heart throbbed. Not right. This couldn’t be right. He refused to accept it. Sarah took a step back, shaking him from his stunned state. His hands shot out and grasped her upper arms, gentle but firm.
“This isn’t about me, is it?”
She refused to meet his gaze.
“Sarah. Why won’t you look me in the eye? Is it that guy? The one you said was hanging around?”
Her eyes squeezed shut and a tear escaped. That was enough proof for him.
“It is, isn’t it? He broke your heart and now you’re shutting me out. Well, I’m not him. And this? This right here isn’t us. Talk to me.”
Dark brown eyes shot to his, her brows lowered. “Isn’t it? I keep secrets from you. You keep secrets from me. You knew about how my brother died and you didn’t say a single thing. Strong relationships can’t start on lies.”
“It wasn’t alie.” He was quickly losing his footing.
“Yeah? Well, what would you call it?” She threw her hands up and spun around to head back toward the house. “I don’t know what to tell you, Dax,” she called over her shoulder before she turned to face him again. “Even if I didn’t have to go home in two weeks, do you honestly think that it would be easy for me to look at you and not see what happened to my brother?”
Her statement was like a punch to his gut. He’d worked so hard to get through the darker parts of his past. Sarah’s words cut deeper than he had thought possible. His heart stuttered and he couldn’t come up with anything to say to her that wouldn’t sound like an excuse. There were no excuses. He’d knowingly got in that car that night. He’d known better.
Sarah stared at him helplessly. She almost looked as sad as he felt, which triggered even more guilt.
Dax shut his eyes, focused on his breathing and told himself he didn’t need a drink. He didn’t need to block out everything with a bottle. When he opened his eyes, Sarah was gone. He slumped down on a nearby rock, numb and angry. He’d opened up, and this was what happened.
Karma. That’s what this was. His past had a nasty habit of coming back to bite him.
27
Sarah
“Ican’t believe Isaidthat,” Sarah puffed as she scrambled up the stairs toward her room. Her ragged breaths burned her lungs and hot tears stained her cheeks. Dax hated her now. She could see it the second she’d told him she wouldn’t be able to forgive him.
It had hurt more than she thought possible to tell him that. Obviously, Dax wasn’t the same guy he was five years ago. He was a good man, and he had done so much to change. But she had become desperate. She needed something—anything—to help him realize that they weren’t going to work.
She should just call up the sheriff and see if she could leave early. She’d put in enough hours as far as she could tell. Then she could get out of here and not have to see Dax again. The pain in her chest could be due to how fast she took off, but more likely was a reaction to the conversation they’d just had.
Sarah burst into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. She flinched, not expecting it to make such a loud noise. That surely would draw attention from whoever might be in the house. She leaned against the door and slid to the ground.
Every nerve in her body was on fire. There had been a point when she’d believed that they might be able to make it work. But that dream had completely disappeared the second that Kenneth had shown up. She wrapped her arms around her legs.
If Dax had thought that there was anything special about her, he didn’t anymore. She needed to cut her losses and head home at this point.
While Dax’s confession hadn’t exactly been positive, she would have been able to look past it. Sarah let out a huff, rubbing her face against her knees. It was ironic that if she had been willing to tell Dax about her family and about her participation in the string of crimes that had occurred, he might have been willing to look past it, too.
She’d almost considered telling him. But then she reminded herself that Kenneth held two issues over her head. Her family’s reputation and the relationship she had with Dax. There was one thing she knew without a doubt. Dax wouldn’t approve of her giving in to Kenneth. He’d try to find another way to get Kenneth off her back, and then she’d be right back where she started in trying to keep all of this from her parents and out of the news.
Dang it. This was why she had chosen to break up with him. She’d been backed into a corner, and Kenneth had known it from the start.
Sarah let the tears continue to fall until they saturated her pants. By the time she didn’t have any more tears to shed, her head ached and her face was tight. The light in the room had dimmed as the sun shifted toward the horizon. Luckily no one had come to check on her. Otherwise, they would have gotten a show.
She pulled herself to stand and wandered on shaky legs toward her bed to lie down. Sarah curled up on her side and stared numbly at the closed door, her thoughts tumbling. She wasn’t supposed to meet with the sheriff for a few more days, but maybe she’d ask Brielle to take her to town and discuss her options.
Time was lost as she laid there, not moving. The hole she now had in her heart wouldn’t heal anytime soon, but she had no one to blame but herself.
The door opened and shut. The light flicked on. Sarah winced and Brielle gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. She peered at Sarah. “What are you doing in the dark?” She moved across the room, her eyes narrowing. “Have you beencrying?”
Sarah let out a hiccup and covered her face. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Brielle snorted. “No, you’re not. Something’s up. Dax—”
