I knew she was mean because I recognized the voice as belonging to Chloe Adams, and Chloe Adams would never say a single nice word to me even accidentally. She saidWhat are you doingin the same tone she had saidGet the hell out of here, Stevennot four hours ago at the Aspen Springs Library. She’d followed that with a tirade that had scraped me raw and left me arguing uselessly with her in my brain all these hours later. I’d probably still be searching for a comeback at three a.m.
“There’s a pig in here,” I grunted. “I’m trying to get it out.”
“What a coincidence. There’s a pig out here, too.”
“Oink, oink, baby,” I said sarcastically.
Her laugh ended on an abrupt throat-clearing, like she didn’t want to give me the satisfaction of her amusement. “Is there really a pig in there?”
I blew out an exasperated breath and stretched a little harder. Nope. “Why the hell would I lie about that?”
“Who knows why you do anything, Steven? Maybe you listen to too many angry white men podcasts. Maybe your delicate psyche is too fragile for an equal playing field. Or maybe you just weren’t raised right.” She paused. I gritted my teeth. I still didn’t have a comeback, and that one hit a little too close to home. “I guess I can’t think of a reason why you would lie about a pig, though.”
“Gee, thanks.” I wiggled my body back out of the pipe and found myself staring straight into Chloe’s pretty, bitchy face under the shelter of a red umbrella. “And don’t say shit about my mom. That’s out of bounds.”
Her head tilted consideringly as she stared down her nose at me. The angle was unflattering. It gave her a triple chin and I could see straight up her flaring nostrils. It pissed me right off that even like this, she was still so fucking pretty.
“What’s the problem with the pig?” she asked.
“Some asshole tossed it out of a car. It’s hurt and scared. I tried to pick it up, get it into my truck, and now he wants nothing to do with me.” Frustration seeped into my tone. “And I’m too big for this fucking hole.”
Her lips twitched as the words hung between us. They’d slipped out of my mouth without a damn thought, but I heard the innuendo now, and I knew she did, too. In that quicksilver moment, I imagined what her laugh would have sounded like and felt some kind of way about never finding out.
“Hmm.” When she leaned down to peer into the pipe, her long brown hair brushed my face and I caught the scent of her strawberry shampoo, which only aggravated me more, because of fuckingcourseshe smelled like a sweet summer day. “Oh! Thereisa pig in there!” she exclaimed.
I snorted. She hadn’t really believed me at all. “What are you doing here, Chloe?”
She straightened and met my glare with the barest quirk of her eyebrow. “I saw your truck on the side of the road and figured you might need some help.”
There was something in the way she phrased it, something about the way she hadn’t been especially gentle when she’d kicked my knee, and thewhat are you doing, notare you okaythat put me back a step like the earth had tilted under my feet. “You knew it was me and you stopped anyway? Why?”
She looked at me like I was stupid. “I just told you. I thought you needed help. You were lying down in the rain like you’d had a heart attack or something.”
“But you hate me.”
She twirled her umbrella and regarded me with narrowed green eyes. “Sure do.”
“But you stopped anyway.” I couldn’t wrap my brain around it.
Her eyebrows pushed together like she didn’t understand the connection. After a moment of reflection, her expression cleared. “Oh, I get why you’re confused. See, I’m a good person. I think people owe each other basic human decency.” Her head tilted and her thick hair cascaded down her shoulder. “You still look confused. See,basic human decencymeans?—”
“You’re such a bitch,” I muttered.
Her teeth flashed in a smile. “Only to the deserving. Most people think I’m delightful.”
Once upon a time, I’d been one of them. Chloe had worked at Jo’s, the only coffee shop in our small town of Aspen Springs, Colorado, since before I’d landed a job training rodeo horses at Lodestar Ranch. I didn’t get into town much, but I’d always made a point of grabbing a coffee when I did. I’d looked forward to seeing her. There was something about her wry observations of the most mundane shit that always had me lingering, stretching out my coffee order just a little bit longer than necessary.
All that changed after her best friend, James—who was also the head trainer at Lodestar, so technically my boss—fell off a horse and bruised her ribs, and okay, yes, I’d had something to do with that, but swear to god, I hadn’t hurt her on purpose. I would fuckingnever.
But Chloe clearly didn’t believe that, because the next time I stepped foot in Jo’s, she had kicked me right out again. I’d tried again sporadically for the next couple months, but Chloe held a grudge like an elephant. If it had been directed at anyone else, I might have considered it a virtue.
Directed straight at me, I didn’t like it so much. I liked it even less at the library this morning. Her words were still ringing in my ears like she was screaming them in my face.
I know you. You’re the guy who always comes in second and gets mad about it, because no one deserves first place morethan you. If someone doesn’t laugh at your joke, it’s because they don’t have a sense of humor. Someone gets promoted over you, they must have cheated. A woman turns you down, she’s a bitch. The world never gives you everything you’re owed, and your list of grievances is long. It’s not fair, right? All of that should be yours. Because you’resuch a nice guy. But guess what? No one owes you shit, and you’re trash.
That man she’d described? Yeah, I recognized him. But it wasn’t me. It was my fucking father. The man I swore I wouldn’t become. Hearing her say I was exactly like him, even though she didn’t know she was saying it, felt like a sucker punch to the nuts. I couldn’t catch my breath.
And, fuck, I hated her for it.
