Wild Kisses (Wildwood 2)

Avery covered her mouth, stifling a sob.

“Fuck.” Trace bit out the word and put his hands on his hips. And while he was staring at the mess in the back of the truck, blood was seeping through his T-shirt.

“Not too bad . . . ,” she heard Ethan say, but his voice faded in and out. “Everything looks intact . . .”

But she couldn’t follow the conversation as blood created a dot-and-blotch pattern on Trace’s back. Her head went light. A ring started low in her ears and built as her vision dimmed.

“Whoa, Avery?” Delaney’s voice brought Avery back when she was halfway to the floor. With Delaney’s help, Avery caught herself before she fainted and straightened, but Delaney looked scared.

Trace turned, his frown so dark, his face so bruised, so cut, she saw a whole different man there. “Avery?”

He closed the distance with his brow pulled tight. Her gaze caught on his hand rising to her face, his fingers in a gentle curl, the way they were when he cupped her face. But she caught the sight of his knuckles, raw and red and still bleeding.

Avery saw her father’s knuckles from all his drunken brawls, the knuckles he’d raised to her and Delaney and Chloe so many times. And she flinched and shrank away.

Trace’s hand froze; his gaze dropped to his hand and held. And something happened behind his

eyes. Something she didn’t recognize.

He dropped his hand, and the combination of resignation and pain on his face tore at Avery’s heart. “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“No. It’s okay.” He nodded. And when his head finally lifted, he looked like an empty shell. “It’s . . . right. It’s the way it should be.”

She shook her head. “What?”

He put his hands at his hips again and kept his focus on the ground. “I’ll call a buddy of mine who lives nearby. He just had a job fall through. I’ll have him come and finish up.”

She stepped out of Delaney’s hold with a new lick of fear and pain twining inside her. “What?”

“The only way you’re going to save any face on this, the only way your business is going to survive for your opening, is if I walk away and you tell everyone you fired me.” He met her gaze, but it was in a guarded, distant, businesslike way. “I’ll call my friend, have him over here in the morning. He’s good, and he’s got a crew. I’ll work out the payment with him. He’ll have you up and running in two days. You’ll make your opening.”

An icy shaft speared her right down the middle. “You’re walking away from me?”

“Avery,” Delaney’s voice interjected softly. “You need to think about your business right now. I think Trace has a smart idea.”

“Fuck smart ideas,” she said, but she said it to Trace, not to Delaney. “You promised you’d have this ready for my opening day.”

Even as she said it, she realized how stupid she’d been to believe another damn promise. When would she learn?

He remained cool and distant. “It will be ready for your—”

“No, you promised.” She closed the distance between them and jabbed his chest. “You promised me, Trace.”

“If I stay and finish this job,” he said deliberately, “you won’t have a business to open.”

Avery wanted to scream that she’d rather have him than the business. But she’d been here before. She’d tried to tell David she’d rather have a husband who was gone as much as he was gone than to end their marriage. And look where that had gotten her.

She couldn’t force Trace to love her now any more than she’d been able to force David to fall back in love with her then. And she couldn’t even force Trace to let her love him. She’d held on to David six years too long. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

“I’m not going to keep you where you don’t want to be.” She pushed the words out, but she was breaking inside. “So if you don’t want to be here, go. But I’ll find my own way to finish the job. Tell your friend to find other work.”

To keep herself from watching another man she loved walk out of her life—she was two for two, quite a record—Avery turned and walked away first.

EIGHTEEN

Trace wanted to die.

He lay sprawled on his bed, belly down, head turned so his good cheek pressed against the pillow. The right side of his face, where he’d taken most of JT’s punches, was swollen, and his back had scabbed over. Mostly. He’d needed nine stitches to close various deeper cuts on his face and hand.