He’s wrong.What I did wasn’t about me and I don’t care what he thinks.Big surprise, he’s another man too proud to accept a helping hand.But the deep ache inside me says that’s not the whole truth.Not even close.
Hartley climbs into his truck, and the engine revs, a low growl in the silence, but he doesn’t drive off.He stays idling across the lot, his silhouette dark against the glow of the dashboard.He’s staring—no, glaring—at me.
Why isn’t he leaving?Then it clicks.He’s waiting for me.
Oh, no.He’ll tear strips off me, slice me open with his pride, and yet he refuses to leave me standing alone in a dark parking lot.
He’s a jerk.A stubborn, wounded jerk, and he doesn’t get to be a gentleman.Not after that.I don’t want his chivalry, and I certainly don’t need it.
My fiery stubbornness is a living thing, urging me to stay planted here to make him sit in his truck all night.But the cold is winning, seeping through my clothes and into my joints, and I give in, my legs heavy as I jog to the rental.
Inside the car, the air feels like blocks of ice in my lungs, and my breath fogs the windshield in quick, jagged bursts.I hit the start button, and the engine turns over with a reluctant groan.
My headlights carve a sharp tunnel through the dark, and the second my lights hit the asphalt, he pulls out.His red taillights flare once, a final warning, then vanish as he reaches the main road.
Back in my room at the bed and breakfast, the quiet is deafening.I sit on the bed, phone gripped in my hand, thumb hovering over Toby’s name.The urge to call, to quit, to break down—it all pulses in my throat at once.
I pull my laptop onto my lap and rub at my chest, trying to shake the unease lodged there.This isn’t professional frustration.It’s personal in a way I don’t yet understand, and the realization scares me more than being stranded on a dark highway.
Distance from the parking lot clears the fog in my head.Hartley wasn’t angry at me.He was angry at himself and the weight of the situation.At the idea of needing anyone else to fix what he considers his responsibility.
And the worst part?I understand that impulse far too well.
I stare at the floral wallpaper, and my reporter’s instinct—the one I thought had been stifled by this exile—begins to hum.This isn’t the Trintol investigation, but my gut tells me there’s a story here I can sink my teeth into.Something real, buried under the pride and that thick, small-town protective shell.If I’m going to be stuck here, I’m going to make this exile worth my while.
No longer filled with the foolish need to call Toby or cry, my fingers move over the keys with a sudden, sharp purpose.
Self-reliance is easy to confuse with strength when needing help is seen as a failure of character.
I read it back and consider deleting it.The sentence is too piercing, too honest—too much like it might apply to more than Maddox Hartley—but I click save anyway.I’m going to peel back his layers, one jagged piece of pride at a time, whether Maddox Hartley likes it or not.
Chapter8
Maddox
My truck idles in the driveway, but I don’t kill the engine.Amy Crandall’s voice still rings in the cab—Coach Hartley is accountable—and it punches deeper than it should.It’s a familiar weight, a reminder of the thin line between having things under control and letting them slip through your fingers.
One damn moment of being unprepared—not bothering to program the numbers pinned on my office bulletin board into my phone—and Grace stepped in like it was nothing.
I should be relieved, but the gratitude sits sharp in my throat, tangled with an embarrassment I can’t quite swallow.I’ve spent years trying to be the man who doesn’t falter, who doesn’t need a hand, never wanting to be the careless, selfish boy I once was.
And yet, tonight, standing by that dead bus, I felt the old cracks start to show, the doubt that maybe I haven’t changed at all.The failures I usually keep buried—my dad’s accident, the mess that forced me off the racetrack, and the fallout of my relationship with Erica—they all feel a little closer to the surface than I’d like.
Closing my eyes, I lean my head back against the seat as if it were that easy to erase this night.
I can still see Buchanan in the parking lot, blowing on her hands to keep them warm.Her eyes were so bright in the dark, and that citrus scent of hers was everywhere, threading through the cold air.Warm, grounding, and too easy to breathe in.
I can’t shake the look she gave me when I told her I didn’t need help.It wasn’t anger; it was hurt—or maybe recognition.Seeing me in a way I didn’t want anyone to.Maybe that’s what rattles me most.
And she didn’t even make a show of saving the night when others would have.Buchanan saw what needed doing and did it, steady in a way that pulls a thread inside me loose.
Fuck, and her standing there during Amy’s reprimand, checking on me without saying a word, sparks heat low in my gut.It’s hot enough to make me fidget.I shouldn’t feel this.I shouldn’t want to gravitate toward her when she’s nothing but trouble wrapped in soft curls and stubborn resolve.
Dangerous.
But I do.And that realization bands around my chest, tight and unyielding.And instead of thanking her or keeping my mouth shut, I lashed out and pushed her away for doing the right thing.
“Shit,” I mutter to the empty truck.