He stopped, shook his head. He seemed to be talking more to himself than to her. “And now I can’t go even if I wanted to, because of you.”
Somehow that felt like the final blow.
“Zach, I absolve you of responsibility for me. I am an adult. I knew the risks when I accused a police officer of murder. I don’t even understand why you think it’s your job to protect me. I don’t live or work in your jurisdiction, so it’s not your job.”
“You’re a woman alone.”
“By choice.” She had to get through this. She could fall apart when she actually was alone. “Zach, you need to leave.”
He stopped, shock transforming his face. “What are you talking about?”
“You heard me. I want you to pack and go.” She’d managed to say all that without a tremor in her voice, which was reason to be proud. “You’re off the hook.”
“I’m not leaving you by yourself.”
“Yes. You are.” Show no weakness. “I was willing to accept your help when it felt as if we were in this together. When I thought—” Tess swallowed, unable to finish, after all.
“Thought?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Let me repeat. You need to go.”
How could he look so stunned when he’d been such a jerk? No—that was understating his behavior. He’d been purposely hurtful. Hoping she’d react exactly as she had and set him free?
Maybe.
“Tess.”
She said nothing and didn’t let her gaze waver.
“God.” He shook his head, bewildered. “Yeah. Okay. I guess I was asking for it.”
You think?
His usual athletic grace missing, he stumbled out of the room. Rigid, Tess listened to him go down the hall. The wait seemed longer than it probably was.
He reappeared with his black duffel bag slung over his shoulder and paused in the kitchen doorway. “If I left anything...”
She nodded. She couldn’t even look at him now, but her peripheral vision told her he hadn’t moved.
“I didn’t mean the things I said.” His voice was husky, strained. “I’ve been...panicking.”
Obviously.
“Goddamn it, Tess!”
“Please go.” How many times did she have to say this?
He went. The door into the garage opened. A moment later she heard the deep rumble of his pickup starting and her garage door rising.
When it went back down, she realized she should have asked for the remote back so he wouldn’t have access to her house.
But really, did it matter? She didn’t need it and he wouldn’t use it. Why would he, when he’d gotten what he’d secretly wanted? Because, yes, he’d be plagued with guilt. She knew him that well. But beneath it would be relief. Tess had no doubt at all that within a day he’d have worked his way around to blaming her for tonight’s blow-up. So, okay, maybe he should have been more tactful, but she was the unreasonable one.
On her head be it, he’d think, frustrated and mad.
And he was right. The decision had been hers. He’d have stayed if she’d allowed him to, because he was a man of conscience who took what he perceived as his responsibilities seriously. Look at his utter determination to find justice for his little sister.
The first tears blurred Tess’s vision. She’d never in her life felt so alone.
* * *
ZACH PARKED IN his garage but didn’t get far when he emerged into the chill night. He mumbled an obscenity. With shocking suddenness, he felt all his uncertainty, fear, passion and rage escaping, as if he’d pulled a cork from a bottle. The duffel thudded to the ground and he flattened both hands on the rough side wall of the garage, bent his head and kept swearing. And, shit, he was crying. Everything he’d felt, too much, poured out of him. His knees gave way. His hands slid down the wall, stinging, until he knelt on the grass, sobbing for the first time since he was a child.
What did I do?
Exactly what he had meant to do, on some primitive level he didn’t even pretend to understand. He loved her, and that terrified him, so he’d made her push him away. Because then it wasn’t his fault?
But it was. All of it.
He heard her soft, ragged voice. I suppose I...hoped.