Some of the tension drains from my body, but I still ask, “Are you sure?” Part of me wonders if she is only saying it so I will not attack him.
“Yes,” she says with a small, tired smile. “When I said he hurt me, I meant emotionally. Never physically.”
“Oh.” I do not know what else to say. She sighs and slips her hand from mine, although her eyes hold a trace of gratitude.
She rises, brushing dirt and leaves from her clothes, wiping the last of her tears. She turns to me. “Thank you for defending me. But I should stop bothering you now. This whole scene is humiliating.” She turns her glare on Reid. “I will go back to the room, but not with you. I will not stay longer than I have to.”
With that, she storms off.
CHAPTER 5
Sierra
Ihear Luke coming up behind me, but he does not speak. Good, because I have no idea what to say to him either.
This has been a bizarre few hours. It has not even been an hour yet. Not even close. Damn.
In the last fifteen minutes alone, everything has gone sideways—my car breaking down, meeting a handsome cowboy chef, running into my ex-situationship, and crying in the arms of a strange giant who looks like a groundskeeper but acts like a knight in shining armor.
The whole thing has been infuriating, embarrassing, and extremely humiliating. I am not even sure what to say to myself right now.
I do not know what excuse I can offer for my ridiculous breakdown, only that I am physically and mentally exhausted, and I want to go to sleep so that it can be morning and I can leave this accursed retreat and forget the whole sorry episode ever happened.
When we finally reach my room, I walk in and close the door, expecting that to be the end of it.
But before I can even throw myself onto the bed, the door opens again.
I sigh.
I know who it is without turning around.
When I do turn, I give Luke an annoyed look.
“I am really not in the mood for conversation right now,” I say.
“I bet.” He still does not leave. Instead, he walks over and runs a finger gently down my cheek. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I am fine.” I bite out the words and turn my head so that his finger falls away. “I just want to be alone.”
“No, you don’t,” he says.
“Excuse me?”
“You do not want to be alone. I think you hate being alone.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Are you telling me how I feel right now?”
“Yeah. I do that a lot.” He shrugs. “I’m good at reading people.”
I gape at him in disbelief. The audacity of this man.
“For example,” he continues, “if you truly wanted to be alone, you would have stayed in your room and locked the door, or gone into the bathroom for a good cry. But you went out in the open because you wanted to be seen. Because you wanted help.”
“I don’t…” I shake my head, denying words that hit uncomfortably close to home. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just having a panic attack.”
“Then why did you run?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think that far.”