Bury the Hatchet (21 page)

THE GARAGE DOOR
was already opening, and I had yet to come up with a plan as to what I would—or wouldn’t—say to Hunter. He was home, and I was still nuttier than a five-pound fruitcake following my afternoon visit with Kade.

Trying to sort out my thoughts and keep my emotions on an even keel, I slipped on my oven mitts and removed the aluminum takeout containers from the oven. Then I placed them on trivets so they wouldn’t burn his brand-spanking-new countertops. I was taking out some dinner plates from the cabinet overhead when he came in.

He stopped on the other side of the bar, dropping his keys there and raising a brow in question. “I guess we’re staying in tonight, then.”

“I didn’t feel like going out. I need a break.”

“It’s all right,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I’m not upset by the idea. I’d actually like having a night in, too.”

Had I bitten off the words or something? I must not have done a very good job of calming myself down before he’d come in.

What I’d said wasn’t the
whole
truth, but it was one hundred percent true, what there was of it. I couldn’t keep up this charade we were putting on for the world every time I turned around. All the nights we’d spent out groping each other in public had long since started taking a toll on me in countless ways.

But the bigger issue right now was Kade. Or maybe it was all the things Kade had revealed to me about Hunter.

I wasn’t even sure I could put my finger on what, exactly, was bothering me so badly at the moment. I just knew I couldn’t handle a night out acting like Hunter could possibly be in love with me. Not now that I knew about Carrie.

Kade had called them
fuck buddies
,
but I doubted that was entirely accurate. The better explanation, as far as I could see, was that Hunter was in love with her. It would explain a lot, actually—why he wouldn’t take things further with me and why he was so determined to keep me separate from the important things in his life, like his family and the team he was playing for. It could explain everything I’d had such a difficult time understanding in the last few weeks.

The way that Kade had laid it out for me was obviously meant to hurt. I got that. He might have thought that I was getting too close—I
had
been pushing him to reveal things that Hunter had been keeping under wraps—and so he’d struck back at me with deadly accurate aim. Just when I’d started to realize I might be falling for Hunter, his brother had made it clear Hunter would never be able to return those feelings.

Yeah, I definitely needed a night or two of staying in, away from all the media and the people who would gossip about us. In fact, I might need more than just a night or two.

I wasn’t sure I could keep going with this at all. We’d said it would be for a year, and we were only about six weeks in at this point. How could I get through another ten months of this? I should have tried harder to keep my heart out of things, but it had proved to be too difficult. Damn Hunter for being so good at our game that he’d even fooled me.

“Well,” Hunter said when I remained silent, stewing in my own thoughts, “it smells great.” He came around and took a plate from me, brushing his knuckles against my hand in the exchange.

I refrained from flinching, but barely.

“Did you have a good day today?” he asked, spooning out a serving of lasagna for himself.

I opened a bottle of wine. I hadn’t had much to drink since we’d returned from Hawaii, remembering all too well the humiliation my overindulgence had led to, but tonight called for it. “It was fine.”

He opened the plastic container of salad and filled two bowls. “So what did you do today? Doesn’t look like you tried cooking again.” He winked at me and chuckled.

I didn’t follow suit.

He hadn’t laughed much lately. I should enjoy the sound of it, but I didn’t. Right now, I doubted it was possible. Ever since leaving Horizons, I’d been examining and reexamining everything I’d thought about Hunter, all the things I felt in relation to him.

Kade’s revelation about Carrie wasn’t the only thing bothering me.

There was Kade’s claim that Hunter wished his brother was dead. Had Hunter truly said something like that? It was a definite possibility. In all the time we’d been married, Hunter had done everything possible to avoid speaking of his brother at all. He hadn’t wanted to even go to the hospital, let alone go into the room to visit with his brother and be sure he was all right. At the wedding, he’d tried to stop me from helping Kade, saying he wasn’t worth it. Hunter had put Kade in treatment and come back with bloody knuckles and a broken nose.

Their relationship was far from loving, but was it so bad that one brother would wish the other dead? I wasn’t positive anymore, and I didn’t want to be in a relationship with a man who could be so cold and callous about someone who was part of his family. But I was. And there was a big part of me that wanted to deepen that relationship, despite these developments.

But it was Carrie who really had my head spinning. Part of the problem? I was jealous, and that could only mean one thing. I was falling a lot faster and a lot harder than I’d been prepared for.
Fuck buddies
. I kept coming back to that turn of phrase. Only, the more Kade had said about her, the more he’d made it seem as though Carrie and Hunter were far more than just friends with benefits. They’d dated in high school. It was only after Kade and Chantel—who had apparently been Carrie’s twin sister—had been deep in their addictions that Hunter and Carrie had broken up.

It wasn’t too hard to imagine the stress their siblings’ addictions would have put on their relationship. I got it. I did. But they kept getting back together even all these years later, so they had to still love each other. None of it made sense, otherwise. And if Hunter loved Carrie but had been forced into marrying me…

I didn’t want to think about it anymore, because it only made my heart hurt. But I’d be damned if I could stop the thoughts from running rampant through my head. I took a long swallow from my wineglass, nearly finishing the whole thing in a single gulp. Then I refilled it, forcing back the tears that threatened to fall. I wasn’t going to start crying about this. He didn’t need to know that I was a wreck because I’d done the unthinkable and let myself care too much.

I was so lost in my own head that I stopped paying attention to what I was doing. I picked up a spoon in my right hand to portion out some lasagna, and without thinking, I grabbed hold of the aluminum pan with the left to hold it steady. I screamed in pain and let go immediately, allowing the spoon to clatter to the floor. Bits of pasta and meat sauce flew everywhere.

“Shit. Are you all right?” In an instant, Hunter flipped on the cold faucet and led me to it, putting my burned hand under the flow of water. He positioned himself behind me, cradling me against his frame, one hand wrapped snug around my waist. I felt his cheek, his jaw, resting on the top of my head.

It was too intimate, and I was too deep in shock to answer. I needed to step away from him, from the headiness that captured me when he was so close. I needed to put some space between us before I fell deeper into the trap of falling for him.

“Better?” he asked, his voice muffled in my hair.

It still hurt like the dickens, but I nodded, not trusting my voice. I tried to ease out of his grip, but he held me closer to him and shut off the water. He picked up a towel and put it over my injured hand. I jerked it away from him, the pain too intense still to bear even the gentlest touch.

He turned me around, scowling as he lifted the towel away and looked down at it. “Not better,” he murmured. He drew my hand up closer, holding tight to my wrist so I couldn’t snatch it away from him and angling it toward the light, his eyes narrowed as he examined my palm. “No blisters. I don’t think we need to go to the ER, but we should put some burn cream and a wrap on it.”

I chewed on my lower lip and nodded, once more attempting to tug my hand free.

His heated gaze shot up to meet mine. “Stay right here. I’ll go—”

“I can do it myself,” I forced out. “It’s not too bad.” I couldn’t bear to let him take care of me right now. I couldn’t handle his touch. Not while my gut was churning so much. One too many tender caresses would be all it took to send me over the edge, and then there would be no one to catch my fall.

It took a minute, but he let out a grunting sound and backed away, releasing my wrist at last. I hurried off to bandage my hand in private.

When I returned, he’d cleaned up the mess I’d made in the kitchen and had set two plates on the dining room table. I took a seat, fighting tears that wanted to burst free partially due to the physical pain of the burn and partially due to the deep ache that was filling my whole chest.

At least it was my left hand that I’d burned, not my right. I picked up my fork and attempted to eat, struggling against the roiling in my stomach. Hunter didn’t seem to have any such qualms. He plowed through his meal, only occasionally slowing down to look across at me with a curious expression. After a bit, he pushed his plate away and sat back, crossing his arms in front of him.

“All right, so when are you going to tell me what’s going on? What did I do wrong? What happened? How do I fix it?”

“Why do you think something’s wrong?”

“Because you’re hardly looking at me, you’re answering with two- and three-word sentences if you’re answering at all, you’re jumpy, and you’re generally not acting like yourself.”

“This is me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Even though he’d completely nailed me with that, I didn’t feel like playing along. “I told you, I’m fine.” I toyed with my food some more, shifting it around on my plate before giving in and shoving it all away from me.

“If you’re sick or something like that, just say so and I’ll leave you alone.”

“I’m not sick.”

He scowled. “Then tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.”

I reached for my wine. “What makes you think it’s something you can fix?”

Hunter couldn’t fix the fact that he was in love with another woman any more than I could fix the fact that I was falling for him.

He dragged a hand through his hair and down his face. “Tallie…” He said my name like a plea.

I pushed my chair back and picked up my plate.

“I’ll clean up,” he said, coming around the table.

“I’ve got it.”

He took the plate from my hand. “You’re hurt.”

I huffed in frustration. “Hurt but not broken. I’ll manage.”

“You don’t have to. I can do this.”

“I’m perfectly capable—”

“I never said you weren’t capable.” He tossed both our plates in the sink with enough force to make a racket but not enough to break them. “You’re capable of a hell of a lot. Maybe even more than you think. No one’s questioning that. I’m just trying to help you out because something’s clearly—”

“Nothing’s wrong!” Despite myself, I actually stamped my foot on the ground just like Mama would always do whenever Daddy didn’t let her have her way on something, which was almost never. He always gave in because he didn’t want to have to deal with her temper tantrums, like the one I could feel myself gearing up to launch into. I was becoming my mother. I shuddered with horror, deciding instantly to make a change. I would do whatever it took to avoid falling into that trap. I had to. The thought that I might one day have a child and that I might treat that child in the ways she had treated me for twenty-one years… I couldn’t let that happen. I closed my eyes tight, crossing my arms while I tried to slow my pulse.

When I opened them again, Hunter was staring at me, a mix of impatience and frustration evident in the crease of his brow.

I’d put it there, the same as Mama had caused Daddy so much aggravation over the years. I had to put an end to it now, and there was only one way I knew to do it. I took a breath, then another. “I went to see Kade today,” I said slowly, watching Hunter’s expression change from frustrated to angry to concerned in the blink of an eye. But I couldn’t stop there. “He told me about Carrie.”

With those few words, Hunter’s face went completely blank.