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He rolled the window down.
“Howdy,” he said, his expression as mean as she’d ever seen it.
And she could see her posse blanch. She looked at them, and then looked at Gus. If they didn’t know him, she could see how he was startling. But she could no longer see what other people saw when they looked at his face.
Because she saw him. And he was...he was beautiful. This strong man that had been through so much. And she was irked that they were looking at him like that.
“What are you doing here?”
“Came to get beer,” he said.
He got out of his truck and walked over to her into the men. Then he wrapped his arm around her. Possessive, and pulled her up against him. “Thanks for helping my wife out,” he said.
“No problem, sir,” one of them said, practically saluting before turning around, and Alaina could swear she heard one of them mutter something aboutdaddy issuesas they wandered off.
“What the hell was that?” Gus asked, practically snarling.
“Look,” Alaina said. “Who doesn’t have daddy issues?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and I think you know that.”
“They offered to help with my things. And I said yes. Because while I’m not a shrinking violet, I also don’t believe in expending energy that I don’t have to expend. It was nice.”
“You were flirting.”
She blinked. “So what, Gus?”
“Look, I’m willing to take on this baby, but you go get yourself pregnant with someone else’s kid, and we may be having a different conversation altogether.”
And that hurt. Stabbed her through the heart. Because... Hedidthink that about her. He did. And he could say whatever he wanted about not judging her. But he did.
She felt everything in her shrink. Wilt.
“This can’t work,” she whispered.
“What?”
“It’s not going to work if that’s what you think about me, Gus.”
“I rolled up and you’re standing there flirting shamelessly. What am I supposed to think?”
“You could maybe stop short of accusing me of wanting to sleep with any random guy that talks to me. How about that?”
“It’s a ground rule. It’s fair enough.”
“Youare going to go off and have sex,” she said. “You already said it yourself. That you weren’t going to stay chaste or anything like that, and you said you didn’t want me, Gus. I asked. And if you don’t want me, then why shouldn’t I find someone who does?”
“I didn’t say I didn’twantyou, Alaina. I said that I wasn’t going to have sex with you.”
And she couldn’t quite process that, because everything hurt. Everything.
“I can’t deal with being around you if this is what you think of me. If you think that I... If you’re judging me because I had sex with someone else. Withone person, Gus. How many women have you been with?”
He winced.
“I’m not. I’m sorry. That isn’t what I meant.” He looked so contrite she almost felt bad for him. But he was being an idiot. So that really mitigated her pity.
“Right. It’s just I had sex once and I happened to get pregnant, even though we did use a condom. I don’t know why that happened to me. But I am not any worse than anyone else and even if I were, what does it mean? How many people has Hunter been with?”
