“Where the hell are you going?” he demanded.
Her boots snapped on the pavement with each furious stride, but she only made it about ten feet before she stopped abruptly, as if realizing his lightning-fast speed had managed to put at least a mile or two between them and the outlaws he’d left behind.
She whirled around, advancing on him like a ferocious animal. “What the fuck was that, Connor? Good luck?” Her gray eyes blazed, dark as thunderclouds and just as ominous. “You sent them on their way like they were garbage to you!”
His temper exploded, ripping a frustrated growl from his throat. “What did you want me to do? Pile four people onto a goddamn motorcycle? We couldn’t have taken them with us even if we wanted to. The only thing to do was send them to Lennox’s.”
“Twenty miles!” she shouted. “Lennox is twenty miles away! It’ll take them hours to walk there.” Her breathing quickened. “I could have waited with the boy while you took the father to Lennox’s, or you and I could have gone there ourselves and borrowed a car from someone – Beckett! Beckett has a car, and I’m sure he would have driven out here to get them. We didn’t have to abandon them, Connor.”
It took a serious amount of effort to get his temper under control. He breathed deeply, counted to five in his head, and didn’t open his mouth until he was sure that something counterproductive wouldn’t come out of it.
“There are bandits in the area, Hudson,” he said flatly. “The kid and his pop got jumped not too far from here, which means we can’t afford to be standing around arguing on the side of the road right now. You can yell at me when we get back to camp, sweetheart.”
“Don’t you fucking sweetheart me!” A helpless wobble shook her voice. “I could have at least looked at his arm! I could have checked his injuries and —”
“He was fine.”
“He got jumped! You just said so yourself!” She sucked in a breath, shaking her head as she stared at him in disbelief. “What’s the matter with you? People need your help out here. How could you not give a damn?”
His jaw tightened. “I took you in, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, and I’m sure it was your idea, right? Of course it wasn’t! Kade probably convinced you to turn around. Or maybe it was Rylan. Either way, you would’ve been perfectly fine leaving me to fend for myself. You probably wouldn’t have lost a second of sleep over it.”
Impatience surged through him. “We don’t have time for this right now. We have a long drive ahead of us.”
She gaped at him as if she’d never seen him before. Then she went silent. So eerily silent and for so long that he was actually considering throwing her over his shoulder and tying her to the bike.
“I’m calling it,” she finally said.
Connor frowned. “What?”
“You said that when one of us was done with… this… we should let the other one know.” Her features went taut with unhappiness. “Well, I’m calling it. I’m done, Connor.”
He couldn’t explain the burst of pain that stabbed into him. The way his stomach twisted and his throat burned. “Why? Because I don’t want to risk our necks for strangers? Lennox will take care of them, damn it.” His harsh voice made her flinch, and he took a breath, softening his tone before he spoke again. “Those people have nothing to do with us. With our…” He faltered. “Relationship.”
“You’re right. They don’t. But you do.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I’m done trying to figure out who you are.”
She looked so upset he almost moved closer and pulled her into his arms, but he was afraid she’d slap him if he did.
“This isn’t about sex for me anymore,” she admitted. “I’m not like you, okay? I can’t separate emotions from sex, at least not when it comes to you. It’s different with Rylan. I know where he stands. I know who he is. I can mess around with him and not get attached, because it’s just sex, just two people getting off, but… he doesn’t make me feel things.” Misery clung to her tone. “I feel something for you.”
His breathing grew shallow.
“You’re going to hurt me.” Her quiet, emphatic voice sent another shooting pain to his heart. “I can see that now. I kept telling myself that you weren’t a heartless bastard, that deep down you must care. About me, and the guys, and other people. But you don’t, do you? You truly don’t give a damn about anyone, do you?”
He tried speaking past the lump in his throat. “Hudson —”
“Do you even know what it’s like to feel something for another person? To care about whether they live or die? To want to reach out and help someone, even if it means putting your own life at risk? Do you know what it’s like to love someone?”