Hard as Rock (The Rock Star's Seduction 3)

Behind me, I heard him wailing, “YOU WALKED OUT ON

ME,

KAITLYN!

YOU

WALKED OUT ON

ME!”

Once inside the house I collapsed, sobbing, facedown on the sofa. At some point I vaguely remember a car door slamming, followed by the rev of a motor. Then the house door closed, and Ryan’s strong hands draped a warm blanket across my soaked, shivering body.

But I was inconsolable, because all I could remember was driving away, with Derek receding in my rearview mirror, and over that image the heartrending words:

You walked out on ME, Kaitlyn!

YOU walked out on ME!

31

Twenty minutes later, I sat at the dining room table in dry clothes and wet hair, a cup of hot tea and brandy in my hands. Ryan sat across from me and recounted what had transpired in the final moments before Derek had left.

There were a few more choice words between the two of them. ‘Traitor’ and ‘backstabber’ got tossed around a little bit more, no matter how many times Ryan insisted that nothing had happened.

Ryan asked him how he found out I was here.

Turns out Riley’s sister Megan had told him.

Derek had called Riley’s cell phone that morning, but she didn’t answer. That was expected, since she was normally drunk off her ass (or tapping somebody else’s). She was legendary for going out of contact for weeks at a time when left to her own devices, which was the whole reason Miles wanted Megan’s phone number before Riley left Vegas.

Derek got Megan’s number from Miles and called around 10AM. Megan answered and said Riley was sleeping.

Could you wake her up?

he’d asked.

I can’t get ahold of my girlfriend Kaitlyn. I’m trying to find out if she’s okay, and I was wondering if Riley knew anything.

Kaitlyn? We just Skyped with her the other day. She’s with Ryan. Out in South Dakota, I think.

The next thing you know, Derek was on a flight to Rapid City.

I sat there with Ryan and tried to puzzle out why in the world Megan would give us up. She’d seemed so nice; why would she

do

something like that?!

But as we went back over the Skype conversation, we realized that Megan had left for her hospital internship before any revelations about me and Derek were made. And if Riley had proved as reliable a communicator as we thought, then Megan had probably heard nothing about it.

That was all confirmed the next morning in a panicked voicemail from Riley.

“Oh shit, Ryan, pick up – pick up, fucker, it’s Riley! …oh, yeah, this is a cell… fuck, call me back when you get this. I think I fucked up… I didn’t tell Megan about Blondie and Derek and you and the whole keeping it on the down-low thing, and she talked to Derek while I was asleep. She didn’t know, Ry, don’t be mad at her, it was my fault! Anyway, I think Derek might be coming out there – fuck, Fuck, FUCK – call me back, man, call me back!”

Anyway, after Derek had revealed how he’d found out about South Dakota, he and Ryan continued to argue out in the rain. Ryan told him he was drunk and that he should go into town, get a hotel room, and sleep it off. We could all talk it out the next morning when he was sober.

Derek’s response was basically ‘Fuck you.’

It was a good thing Mr. MacCruder was there. Mr. Remington was pretty persuasive, and so Derek finally got back in the taxi, which turned around and sloshed its way back through the mud to Deadwood.

I sat there numbly as I listened to the whole thing.

Ryan eyed me carefully. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

“You don’t… seem okay.”

“It’s just… a lot.”

“I know. Do you want to talk about it?”

I sat there for a long time in silence. Finally I said, “I don’t think it’s fair to make you my therapist. Not about this.”

And it was true.

I knew Ryan had feelings for me. Maybe was even in love with me.

It was unfair to make him listen to me pine after Derek.

But he just looked me square in the eyes with that unwavering gaze and said, “If I didn’t want to talk about it with you, Kaitlyn, I wouldn’t have asked.”

I half-sighed, half-sobbed, and finally began to talk.

About how his last words to me –

You walked out on ME, Kaitlyn! YOU walked out on ME!

– had torn my heart in two.

About all my guilt and shame and sadness over leaving him four years ago.

About how I knew he was right.

“He’s not,” Ryan insisted. “He’s

not

right.”

“But I

did

walk out on him.”