Chapter 33
GEMMA
There’s nothing going on between Colt and me.
We’re friends. We’ve always been friends.
Just friends.
Well… that’s not exactly true.
We tried.
When he moved in across the street, we went out on a few dates. Kissed a couple times, but that was all it took for us both to realize that it wasn’t going to work. That what we felt for each other wasn’t a spark. It was the sort of familial closeness you’d feel for a cousin or a brother.
That’s what Colt is to me.
He’s what Riggs never was. What Beck took to California with him and never brought back. What my mother has tried to be but have always fought against. What my father never wanted to be. What I lost when Dent died and left me alone.
Colt is my family.
But I’ll lie down in the middle of the highway and wait for a Greyhound bus before I admit that to Riggs.
I know what Riggs thinks he saw but Colt wasn’t here to stake his claim or mark his territory.
He came by this morning before work because that’s what he does.
He checks on me under the pretense of consuming coffee and baked goods.
When I was working at June’s, he showed up every morning, on his way to the station.
Now that I’m persona non grata, he does his checking here.
Although this morning was a little different.
Tell me what happened last night.
Rather than rolling my eyes and telling him it wasn’t a big deal like I wanted to, I told him the same thing I told Jen last night before he sent me home.
I cut Bret Barnes and a couple of his friends off last night and they got mad. When I went upstairs to fetch Jen a load of ice, Bret followed me and let me know he wasn’t too happy about my refusal to serve him.
It’s not a lie.
That’s what happened.
Mostly.
Sera said he had you cornered in the ice shed, out back. She’s pretty sure that if she hadn’t shown up and scared him away, it would’ve gotten ugly.
Again, no mention of Cade or the fact that he very nearly murdered Bret in front of me last night.
I spoke with Bret this morning and we both agreed that it would be in everyone’s best interests if he cut his visit with his parents short and heads on back to Dallas.
Regardless, he and his friends have been formally trespassed at the Mill so if you see them there, I’d appreciate it if you call it in.
Translation: If you see Bret and his buddies again, let me know so I can use my badge to intervene. That way, I don’t have to arrest my own brother for murder.
I just nodded my head and said okay. Never mind the mind-bending fact that I owe Cade Montgomery a debt of gratitude for saving me last night, Jen made it clear when he hired me that if I caused any trouble in his bar, I’d be fired.
My job at the Mill isn’t something I can afford to lose right now.
Not now that I have an actual, fighting chance at saving Dent’s house from the tax collector.
Churu
Churu
Churu
As soon as the front door snaps closed behind Colt, I put last night away and move.
“I’m getting it,” I tell Janet while I stretch up on my tip toes to reach the cabinet above the sink where I keep her cat crack under lock and key.
Uncomfortably aware that Riggs is sitting in his chair, watching me, I turn the key that’s stuck into the bottom of the padlock and open the cabinet.
Pulling out a tube of Churu Treat, I sit it on the counter while Janet compulsively slaps her button.
Churu
Churu
Churu
Reaching back into the cabinet, I find one of the few blank communication buttons I have left. Closing and relocking the cabinet, I turn the button over and switch it on. Seeing the button, Janet stops slapping, watching me intently for a moment before she chooses a different button.
No
“Yes,” I tell her, my tone letting her know that I’m not going to cave this time.
Pressing the button, I speak into it. “Riggs.” Letting it go, I fish a black permanent marker out of the junk drawer and write his name across the face of the button in bold letters.
Walking it over to him, I hand it to him while Janet watches the exchange.
“Press it,” I instruct him when he takes it from my hand.
When he does what I say, my own recorded voice comes back to me.
Riggs.
Taking the button from him, I set it in front of her. “Riggs.” I say his name before I point at him. “Riggs.”
I press the button.
Riggs
Janet chooses a button of her own.
Bitch
Fighting back a laugh, I sigh instead and try again.
Riggs
She slaps her favorite button.
Abuse
“I’ll give you a Churu and a cinnamon roll,” I tell her, not above bribery to get what I want.
Her response is immediate.
Riggs
“Thank you.” Reaching out, I run my hand over her gigantic head, rubbing my fingers behind her ears while she begins to purr, the rumble of it as loud as a semi.
“One cinnamon roll with a side of cat crack, coming right up.” Standing, I look at Riggs who’s sitting in his chair, a few feet away watching the exchange.
“How about you?” I ask, willing us both to forget the last thirty minutes ever happened. “Would you like a cinnamon roll?”
He stares at me for a few seconds, like he’s trying to figure out what language I’m speaking before he finally answers me. “No.” Jaw set, he shakes his head. “Thank you.” Wedging his coffee cup between his legs, Riggs turns around and wheels himself back into the sunroom.
I leave him alone.
Rather than follow him so I can tell him that his mood swings are giving me whiplash, I let him go because as impossible as this situation is proving to navigate, I need this job.
Fighting with Riggs will only jeopardize that.
Listening to my better angels for once, I set about getting my house in order.
After setting Janet up with her feast, I tidy the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and safeguarding the rest of the cinnamon rolls in a plastic leftover container for when Rigg’s mother stops by.
Snapping the lid closed, I put them in the fridge for good measure before I head upstairs.
There, I strip my bed and gather my weeks’ worth of towels and forks from the bathroom—all the things I meant to do yesterday, but didn’t because I was too busy spiraling about Riggs and checking my phone every five minutes for Reese’s on our way text.
Hauling the load of sheets and towels downstairs, I park the basket on the kitchen table before adding my handful of dirty forks to the dishwasher.
“You’re going to have to be nicer,” I stage whisper at the cat hunched over her paper plate full of booty.
“We need this job, so stop calling him a bitch. You know his name now, so I’d like you to use it, okay? ”
Janet flicks her tail and keeps eating.
Because she’s even more mule-headed than I am.
Sighing, I square my shoulders, preparing myself to take my own advice, before I walk into the sunroom. Riggs still hasn’t moved. He’s still parked in his chair, staring out the wall of windows in front of him, watching the river through the thick band of trees that border it.
Ducking into his bathroom, I gather up the washcloth and towel he used last night. Dropping them on the floor beside the bed, I start to strip it, pulling his sheets loose so I can add them to my load of laundry.
“I didn’t piss the bed, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Riggs informs me from his place in front of the window.
“Oh, no... I didn’t—” Straightening, sheets gathered into a heap in the middle of the mattress, I look up to find that he isn’t even looking at me.
He’s still watching the river. “Habit, I guess. Toward the end, Dent needed his sheets changed multiple times a day.” When I say it, his jaw clenches but he doesn’t answer me.
“Anyway, get used to it—fresh sheets are a part of the package.” Because he doesn’t tell me to fuck off and get out, I decide to press my luck.
Abandoning his sheets, I make my way to the panel of buttons anchored to the wall.
Pushing one of them, I watch his face when the wall of windows in front of him starts to rise, opening the sunroom onto the deck beyond it.
Finally looking at me, Riggs shakes his head. “How’d you pay for all this?”
Anyone else would’ve assumed I asked my rich mother or even my famous brother for the money I’d needed to make this house into a place where my grandfather could live out his life comfortably—but not Riggs. He knows me better than that.
“I sold my car.”
“The Camaro your mom bought you for your seventeenth birthday? Seriously?” He looks at me with a mixture of regret and admiration when I give him a nod. “You loved that car.”
“I loved Dent more.” I tell him with a shrug like it was an easy decision.
Like it was a simple thing to do. In a lot of ways it was.
When faced with the choice of keeping a thing that I wanted or keeping a person that I loved, I chose Dent without hesitation.
But, just because the choice was easy, doesn’t mean it didn’t sting.
“So, I sold it,” I say, my mouth stretching into a wide grin. “And Beck’s truck.”
“Jesus, Gem…” When I confess my sins, Riggs laughs. “Only you.”
“He doesn’t even know.” Bolstered by the familiar sound of it, I take a step toward him. “Probably thinks his precious baby is still sitting here, just waiting for him to come back, like the rest of us.”
The past rears its head, slowly killing the laughter between us. For a long time, neither of us says anything. It’s like we’re afraid to move. Afraid to even breathe until Riggs finally looks up at me. “Colt mentioned you lost your job at June’s.”
“I didn’t lose it,” I say with another shrug. “It’s right where I left it.”
The corner of his mouth lifts in a knowing smirk. “What did you do?”
“Something stupid.” I cock my head before I shake it at him. “You know me—same as always.”
Instead of answering me, Riggs makes a rough noise in the back of his throat. “I didn’t even know you were still working there,” he says quietly, so quietly, I’m almost positive he never meant to say it out loud, but I answer him anyway.
“Why would you?” I ask, a perverse sort of satisfaction filling me when his jaw clenches at my question, the feeling quickly followed by regret because we were doing good.
For a minute, we were working. This was working—at least it felt that way.
“We can go for a walk, if you want,” I offer, trying desperately to get us back there before we venture too far into the past. “There’s a ramp to the backyard and I had a path installed that will take us down to the river. We can?—”
“No.” His refusal cuts me off. Hurts more than it should. Looking away from me, he shakes his head. “I don’t want to go down to the river with you.”
“Oh.” Bobbing my head, I force myself to stand my ground and take it because this one is on me. I’m the one who messed us up this time. I’m the one pulled us into the past and refused to let us crawl back out. “Okay. Would you like some breakfast? I can?—”
“No.” He says it again, this time without qualifiers.
Just no.
“I don’t mind,” I tell him, carefully trying to find my way back. “It’s my job to?—”
“I mind.” He grits it out between clenched teeth. “And I don’t want it to be your job.”
Taking a step back, I shake my head. “What?” Less than twenty-four hours ago, I was standing on my front porch, counting all the ways this was a bad idea.
All the ways that letting Riggs Wheeler back into my life was going to mess me up.
Telling myself to call Reese and tell her that I changed my mind.
That I didn’t want him here. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.
I should have listened.
“I don’t want to be here,” he tells me bluntly, his tone harsh enough to sting.
“I don’t want you taking care of me. I don’t want you stripping my sheets and picking up my dirty towels.
I don’t want you helping me into bed. I don’t want you dressing me and I sure as fuck don’t want you undressing me. ”
That one stings my cheeks with embarrassment because it brings up the memory of me, reaching for the waistband of his jeans. Of what he said when he stopped me before I could make contact.
Raging, Gem. It’s gone from manageable to raging because even if I can’t feel it, I know your pussy is hovering above my thigh and the thought of it is making me so hard it hurts…
“Last night.” Confused, I flip my hand at the bed he let me help him into. “You were okay with it. You were?—”
“I wasn’t.” He shakes his head at me, mouth set it a hard, grim line. “I wasn’t okay with it. I was trying to be, but I’m not. I’m never going to be okay with it.”
Gaze narrowed, my brow crumples in confusion. “What are you saying?”
“I called the rehab in Houston,” he says, holding up his phone. “They don’t have a bed available but there’s a waitlist. I’m on it.”
I feel my throat start to tighten with panic. Real panic. I tell myself it’s because without the money the VA is paying me for taking care of him, I may as well stop fighting because I’ve already lost this place.
It’s not because Riggs is leaving me again.
It’s not.
“Your surgical team is here,” I remind him, trying to sound like it’s logic when what it really is, is me desperately grasping at straws. “You can’t just?—”
“Houston is only a few hours away,” he tells me, his tone flat. Final. “My next check-in with Dr. Ragnar isn’t for another three months—I’ll worry about it then.”
Translation: I’d rather drag myself across Texas with my bare hands than spend another second here, with you.
I stand here and stare at him like an idiot, fighting back tears while they burn and prickle against the corners of my eyes.
Mouth open, I start to say… something. I don’t know if I’m getting ready to apologize or tell him to fuck off but it doesn’t matter.
Before I can mess things up any more than I already have, there’s a knock at the front door.
“Sheriff Colt comin’ back for more coffee?” he asks bitterly, his head cocked toward the living room and foyer beyond it.
“Doubt it.” Dazed, I give him a stiff head shake while I take a step back. “Colt doesn’t knock.”
“Yeah…” Watching me retreat, Riggs gives me a caustic smile. “I noticed.”
The person at the front door knocks again.
And then I remember.
“It’s nine o’clock,” I tell him, taking another step back. “That’s your physical therapist.” Giving him a quick head bob, I turn on my heel and make my escape.