“I am not your baby. And I will split as many infinitives as I want to split, right along with your skull! I am not jealous. I do not care that you slept with her. I do not care that you saved Sam’s life or that you bought flowers for your grandmother. I do not care about you at all!” She was yelling now. “I only care that you broke your promise to a child. You have no standards! Because of you he ’as learned never to trust people.”
“Are you about done yelling?” Sean swiped his fingers through his sleek dark hair, sending more droplets showering his shirt. “Because if so, I’d like to say something.”
“I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to hear that she was pretty, that it didn’t mean anything or that you slipped and fell on her or any of that shit men say when they’re making excuses for bad behavior.”
“How about the fact that I didn’t sleep with her. Do you want to hear that?”
“I am not listening to your lies!” She clamped her hands over her ears. “And I don’t care, anyway.”
“Sure you care, but you’re so damned scared you won’t let yourself listen. And after what you told me last night I understand that. But I’m not him, Élise. I won’t let you transfer your feelings for him onto me.”
She paused, her breathing shallow.
Remembering just how much she’d told him made her squirm. “It is not for myself that I care. We have no relationship. We are not together and you don’t owe me anything. It is not at all the same thing as with Pascal because my feelings, they are not engaged.” She stumbled, groping for words, frustrated when they poured out in the wrong order. “I am angry only for little Sam. I don’t care what you do.”
“You don’t care?” Sending her a meaningful look, he squeezed water from his shirt. “Are you sure? You seem pretty wound up for someone who doesn’t care. And because I can see you’re very upset, I’ll say it one more time. I didn’t touch her. I wasn’t with her.”
“I was there, Sean. I was there when she made you that offer and gave you that smile. Merde, I’m surprised she didn’t just drag you into Sam’s bed to save time! I was there.”
“But judging from the fact you just pushed me in the lake and almost dented my skull with a candleholder, you weren’t there when I turned her down.”
“I—” Turned her down?
Her temper, unleashed on full throttle, suddenly screeched to a halt like his sports car at a stop sign. “You turned her down?”
“Yes. And next time you’re wondering where I am, you could pick up the phone or just send me a text. I gave you my number, remember?”
“I would never call you. Or text you. You—you—” Relief mingled with the realization that she’d made a giant fool of herself and Élise subsided. The relief terrified her most of all. She shouldn’t care, should she? She shouldn’t care this much who he kissed or what he did? She shouldn’t care that he hadn’t stayed with Sam. He’d said it to reassure Sam and reassurance was important in a situation like that.
As usual she’d overreacted.
She was tired, that was all.
Stressed after the terrible events of the day and the outpouring of emotions the night before.
“Je suis desolée. I have this terrible temper and I thought, I thought—” her breath caught “—please could you go now.”
He frowned. “Élise—”
“Go. You are right. I am very tired. I need to lie down.”
“We should—”
“No, we shouldn’t.” Even if he hadn’t gone off with the nurse, it didn’t change the fact that he’d broken his promise to Sam. It was the wake-up call she needed. Exactly the wake-up call she needed. “Go. Please. Go right now.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I SAW AN interesting sight last night on my way back from town.” Tyler was crouched in the dirt with Jackson, fixing a new wheel onto Sam’s bike. “Nothing wrong with this as far as I can see. Kid was just unlucky. And unstable. He shouldn’t have been on that trail. It’s clearly marked, so stop beating yourself up and blaming yourself. Hand me that wheel, will you? This is going to be good as new when I’m done.”
The buckled wheel lay on the ground, a distorted reminder of the horror of the day before.
“So this interesting sight—” Jackson focused on the conversation, grateful for anything that stopped him thinking about blood and hospitals. “Blonde or brunette?” He hoped it wasn’t a redhead.
He hoped it wasn’t Janet Carpenter.
“It wasn’t a woman.”
Jackson breathed again. “You notice stuff that isn’t female?”