Her words sliced right to his gut, reinforcing everything he’d been thinking since they left Maura’s. She was right, damn it. Claire didn’t need him. She had a life here she loved. He would only complicate that for her.
He had to stop this. He couldn’t trust himself around Claire obviously. Every time he told himself he could keep their relationship on a friendly level, he ended up sharing another of those mind-blowing kisses with her.
He turned his back on Mrs. Redmond and strode back to Claire. After releasing the brake on the wheelchair, he pushed her back the short distance to her house.
“I’m sorry about Mrs. Redmond,” she said when they reached her driveway and that was all it took for his frustration to explode.
“Will you stop apologizing for the whole damn town, Claire? First your mother, now Mrs. Redmond. Give it a rest. We reap what we sow, right? Isn’t that what Father Joe was always cramming down our throats? I made some lousy choices when I was a kid. Now I have to deal with those.”
“You shouldn’t have them thrown back in your face every moment.”
“I was crazy to think I could come back and have any hope of functioning competently in my job, with all this latent hostility that’s been simmering for years.”
He hadn’t meant to say that, but the words were out and he couldn’t take them back.
“People here have long memories, but don’t underestimate the people of Hope’s Crossing. They’re capable of moving on and behaving with civility, even if they can’t forget. Look at your mom and Harry Lange.”
He blinked a little at that non sequitur. “What about my mom and Harry Lange?”
In the light from her porch, he saw her eyebrows rise in surprise. “They loathe each other. Didn’t you know?”
He scoffed. “My mother doesn’t hate anyone. I don’t even think she holds a grudge against my father, for Pete’s sake, after everything he did to her.”
“Harry must be the exception, then. She can’t stand him and I’ve heard her say as much. I get the feeling he feels the same.”
“Why?”
“No idea. Mary Ella won’t say. They’re always polite when I’ve seen them together.”
He just couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of his calm, even-tempered mother having a feud with anyone. If he had to pick someone, though, it would probably be Harry Lange. The guy was a lightning rod for resentment and anger. People in town either revered him or despised him. When he gathered the original investors together and sold his own large chunk of property in Silver Strike Canyon for what would later become the ski resort, people either seemed to think he saved Hope’s Crossing from eventual extinction or ruined the small-town bucolic lifestyle forever.
“You just need to give the town a chance,” Claire went on. “Once they see the good job you’re doing as police chief, once they have a little more time to get to know you, people will come around.”
She looked so sweet and earnest in the moonlight that his chest ached. “It’s a nice theory, Claire, but don’t you think I ruined any chance of that when I caused an accident that killed my own niece?”
“Riley—”
He cut her off, not eager to tug any harder on this particular thread of conversation.
“Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
“You don’t have to carry me up. If you could just bring the crutches down, I can show you how much better I’m doing on the stairs.”
With that, all the myriad emotions he’d been trying to keep capped and controlled burst out, a geyser of frustration. “Shut up. Just shut up, will you? I’m really not in the mood right now to listen to someone else tell me all the frigging reasons they don’t want my help.”
Eyes wide, she opened her mouth but closed it again when he scooped her out of the wheelchair and stalked up the stairs and through the door, the dog bounding ahead of them.
“Where do you want me to put you?”
“Um, the family room, I guess,” she said, her voice low and he felt like a world-class jerk all over again for taking his sudden bad mood out on her.
He set her on the sofa she favored in her warm, cozy family room. “I’ll bring in your crutches and the wheelchair and take Chester off the leash. Give me a minute.”
With guilt riding him hard, he lifted the wheelchair inside, setting it in the kitchen, then carried in her crutches. The hard metal retained the cold from being left outside and he appreciated the reminder. He had already done enough to hurt her physically, right? He didn’t need to make things worse.
He walked into the family room and set the crutches where she could reach them. “Can you handle things by yourself from here?”
“I... Yes. Thank you.”
“Good night, then. Thank you for the walk,” he said, his voice more curt than he intended. He turned to go, but her words stopped him.
“Why are you mad at me, Riley?” She didn’t sound angry, only confused and maybe a little forlorn.