“Don’t tell me how I feel, Cain. I love you. I want you.” She leaned forward, trying to kiss him again, but he pinned her shoulders to the wall, holding her away from him. “I’m offerin’ myself to you. Please don’t turn me away.”
He winced like her words hurt him, really hurt him, then suddenly his eyes grew cold.
“You want the truth?”
“I want you,” she mewled, her voice small and broken.
He continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “Do you know where I go every night, Ginger? I go fuck Mary-Louise Walker. Every night. Three, four, five times a night. At her apartment. On my bike. At the distillery. Against the bathroom wall at O’Halloran’s between shots of Jack Daniel’s.”
Ginger gasped, whimpering her disbelief and fury, and struggling to slap him, as if hitting him would somehow negate the words. But he reached out and held her upper arms in his iron grip, his erection still swollen against her belly, his eyes icy cold.
“More truth? You might be playin’ the role of junior tramp today, offerin’ your flower to a man who’s seen more * than a porn star, but this is not you, princess. You are the sort of girl a man settles down with and marries, and I ain’t the settlin’ or the marryin’ kind.”
Her body slumped against the wall as his words lashed out at her, whipping and stinging, embarrassing her and making her feel foolish. She mustered whatever small reserves of courage she had left. “I’m not askin’ for you to marry me. I just want us to give this . . . this thing between us a chance. You’re leavin’ on Friday, for God’s sake! I’m only askin’ for a handful of days. Why can’t you do that, Cain? Why can’t you be with me? Why can’t you give us a chance?”
“You know why,” he growled.
“I don’t!” she screamed.
“Because my cousin’s in love with you, Ginger,” he bellowed. “Woodman is in love with you!”
“But I’m in love with you,” she sobbed.
He clenched his eyes shut for a moment, his face in pain, his lips tight and grim as he breathed forcefully through his nose. When he opened his eyes, they were mean. When he spoke, his voice was dirty.
“You know, Gin,” he said, grinding against her, “you do a pretty fair imitation of bein’ his goddamned girlfriend, you know that? Writin’ him letters. Kissin’ him when he’s home. Spendin’ every night over there with him when you get off work. You didn’t think I knew about all that? Well, I do. He talks about you every goddamn minute of the fuckin’ day. And here you are comin’ on to me—eyes all dark, lips bright red—like some sort of slut from the distillery. I don’t think you have any idea what the hell you want, princess.”
“I do. I want you. Woodman and I are . . . complicated. But we’re just friends—”
“No, you’re not,” said Cain, finally releasing her roughly and stepping back. He shook his head as he placed his hands on his hips and gave her a dirty look. “Even I can see that you two are more than friends. And if you can’t, you’re blind . . . or a cock-teasin’ bitch.”
“Cain!” She gasped at his vulgarity, grappling for control in a conversation that had long jumped the rails and turned out nothing like she’d hoped when she was lying in her bed this morning. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll make it clear we’re not—”
“Are you fuckin’ crazy?” demanded Cain, taking a furious step toward her, his eyes glacial. “Don’t you dare do that! Do you know how depressed he was? Do you know how badly that injury fucked with his head? You didn’t see him. You weren’t there. He wanted to die, Ginger. He wanted to fuckin’ die! The thought of you—of comin’ home to you—was the only thing that kept him hangin’ on most days. You think I’d take that away from him? You think there’s any way in hell I’d hurt him like that? You think I’d let you hurt him like that? Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter if you love me. Fuck, it wouldn’t even matter if I loved you, Ginger, because I sure as fuck don’t hate him enough to destroy him!”
His words were furious and final, a sucker punch to her gut, that forced the breath from her body in one exhausted, painful whoosh. She sagged against the barn wall in defeat as tears streamed down her face. Cain made a small grunting sound as he stared at her, then swiped at his eyes before dropping his gaze to the floor.
He had rejected her advances completely, and something in her heart—something naive and childish that probably should have died a long time ago—splintered into a million jagged pieces.
“This conversation is over,” he said without looking up at her. “Go home.”
She blinked her eyes so that the last of her tears for him would roll down her cheeks and slip away. Then she lifted her chin and waited until he looked up and met her eyes.
“I know you love me, Cain. I can see it. I can feel it. I know it’s true,” she said, her voice broken and small as the words poured from the shattered place inside her. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. This is the last time you will ever reject and humiliate me. I promise you. The last time.”
Then, with all the dignity she could muster, she pushed away from the wall and walked past him, out of the barn, out of his life.
For good.
Chapter 13
Woodman