Jackson’s attention? She wanted it. All of it. And that’s exactly what she would get.
Before she managed to make her escape, Greta hollered to her. “Wait up!”
Ryn swallowed back the nervous lump in her throat. Greta had no idea Ryn just left the Knight’s house looking like ground zero.
“Hi, Greta.” She lifted her shoulders and flipped up the collar to her red wool coat, protecting her ears from the biting wind.
“Just checking to see if you received your uh … toys from my party.” Greta’s black, full-length down coat with a faux-fur trimmed hood covered nearly every inch of exposed skin. Ryn dressed for the low forties, Greta dressed for the arctic.
Ryn smiled. “I did. UPS delivered it last week.”
“Swell, just swell.” Greta looked around before meeting Ryn’s eyes again. “Have you tried any of them out?”
The lump inched back up her throat as the rumble of a motorcycle drew near. “Uh, not yet.”
Greta winked. “Clearly you don’t need them when you have him.”
They watched Jackson speed into the garage. He climbed off the Harley and shut the garage door without a single glance back, leaving a dust cloud of anger suffocating Ryn.
“I’d better go.” Ryn squeezed her car key to steady her shaking hands. She needed out of there before Jackson’s anger blew the roof off the joint.
“Do you want to come over and warm up with a cup of coffee or—”
“No. Sorry, I don’t have time.” She slipped into the driver’s seat, just as Jackson stormed back outside.
“There’s my handsome neighbor,” Greta said. “How’s Jillian? We sure have been thinking of her.”
Ryn cowered under his narrow-eyed glare fixed solely on her.
“She’s fine. Taking some time for herself,” Jackson answered calmly, never shifting his eyes from Ryn’s.
“That’s good. She needs it. Well, nice to see you again, sweetie. I’ve got to get my caboose inside before it freezes right off.”
Ryn shot Greta a pleading look. Silently begging her not to leave. She needed a distraction to get away. No such luck.
“Okay … bye.” Ryn’s voice wavered.
“Too-da-loo,” Greta sang crossing the street.
“Get out,” Jackson growled. The chilly afternoon felt like a tropical island compared to the icy intonation of his voice.
Ryn’s heart stopped in self-preservation like an animal waiting for its predator to pass by. The impulsiveness of her destructive behavior began to lose its justification the longer Jackson towered over her, his anger multiplying with each passing second.
“If you touch me, I’ll scream.”
Jackson recoiled. His anger replaced with a look of shock, maybe even pain. The resentment hung between them as thick as the cloud of condensation from their breaths.
Ryn would always be the skittish dog, no matter how hard she tried to put on a brave front. At some point, Preston’s physical abuse ingrained that reaction into her.
“I’m sorry—”
He shook his head as he turned, retreating back toward the house. “Go home, Ryn.”
A mishmash of emotions warred in her mind and her heart. Sliding out of her car, she slammed the door and pounded ten steps on the driveway toward Jackson’s front door. Then she spun around and retraced those same steps back down to her car, repeating it two more times until her nerves gained enough momentum to make it all the way to his door.
In the middle of her incessant knocks, Jackson opened the door, holding an amber bottle of beer. He said nothing and neither did his expression.
“I trashed your place.” She hugged herself. The heat of her anger enveloped the onset of shivering nerves.
He took a long pull, unaffected by the cold and appearing bored with her stating the obvious.
“You trashed my heart. You and your relentless pursuit of me have completely wrecked this life I’ve fought so hard to get back. I didn’t want to love you, but I did. I didn’t want you to promise me forever, but you did, and then you took it back. Now I’m left with what? What’s left when someone takes back forever?”
“Don’t cry.” His brow furrowed.
“I’m not crying!” She wiped her cheek. “Dammit,” she whispered to herself, making haste to dissolve the rest of the evidence. Her frayed nerves and uncooperative hormones deserved reprimanding with a full bottle of wine as soon as she got home.
The lines on his forehead deepened with her outburst.
“For God’s sake.” She fisted her hands at her side, her voice escalating despite her effort to stay calm. “You asked me to marry you. I said yes. I. Said. Yes!”
He took another pull of his beer, leaning his back against the door to keep it open.
“You’re supposed to fight for me. You’re supposed to get down on your knees and beg for my forgiveness because you were a complete jerk. Instead, you seem hell-bent on teaching me some lesson about not letting men step all over me, as if having the shit beat out of me for years wasn’t enough of a lesson. And that crap about you acting like the only thing you’re good at is fucking random women … that hurt! What is wrong with you? Why …”