Love At Peace (Hometown Heartstrings #3)

Chapter 3

Heather

T ears never helped anyone. They didn’t help me when David sedated me and kept me in “our” apartment because he thought I was trying to look at another man. They didn’t change anything when David withheld food from me and shamed me at the offices for being a fat snackaholic.

Crying didn’t solve a damn thing. They never had. When I was younger and frustrated with the judgments, name-calling, and lack of ever fitting in, tears were a weakness that irritated my parents. It was then that I learned to keep a fine, girding lock on my emotions to avoid letting anyone see how upset I could be. Because no one gave a shit.

The hot tears that streaked down my face now couldn’t be stopped though. I’d made myself clear. I told Roarke, in no uncertain terms, that I was mad and frustrated.

But to cry?

He heard me.

He saw me.

It wasn’t vanity that had me rushing inside to hide from him. I simply couldn’t face him any longer. Tears or not.

I despised that I could be moved to tears from this fight with Roarke. And he was right, on so many counts, where we were concerned. It was our first fight. We were more of a couple than two strangers. And I’d be damned if I admitted either of those to him.

Eventually, I wiped my cheeks and cleared my throat, willing this stupid bout of tears to fade. It was anger, more than a general state of being upset, that pushed me to break like that. Furious and feeling stuck in that argument, I just wanted to vent. To scream. To let out some of the pent-up pressure in my chest, and I had done so with pathetic tears.

At least he’s gone now.

He’d lingered. I knew he had. He’d stepped toward the front door that I’d slammed in his face. His boots crunched on the gravel of the path as he neared the cabin, but I was grateful those sounds now indicated that he was walking away.

I didn’t have the energy to go another round with him.

I couldn’t handle fighting him when I had to be defensive in every other way in my life.

Against David being here. Against the issue at work. Against Nevaeh stirring up trouble however she planned to.

“I’m not na?ve, dammit,” I said aloud as I stood then washed my face.

Or weak.

Or stupid.

He could take those opinions and shove them. If he actually thought those things of me, he didn’t know me at all.

But wasn’t that his point? That he doesn’t know me?

I was secretive. I hadn’t told him—or anyone—about what I ran from in Chicago, but his attitude wasn’t encouraging me to open up now.

I stared at my reflection in the small mirror for another minute and shook my head.

Enough wallowing. Enough second-guessing myself. I supposed in a small way that I should feel glad that he fought with me instead of reverting to some kind of a twisted mind game. He didn’t employ the same mental warfare that David did. Roarke was patient, if frustrated. Roarke listened, even if he was too confused to connect the dots like I had.

Because they’re not the same.

Roarke is not David.

Still, that distinction wasn’t enough to make me change my mind about him. So long as he’d oppose me about this situation, I didn’t need him making anything worse.

I left the bathroom and realized that I hadn’t brought my lunch bag in from my car. Spotting Roarke at my front door had put me in combat mode so quickly that other smaller details fell from my mind.

My routine was to clear out that bag and put the ice containers in the freezer as soon as possible, so after checking out the window that Roarke was gone like I thought he was, I headed out to my car.

I wasn’t alone though.

Another vehicle was parked nearby. At the next cabin over, the closest one to mine, was Todd’s old beat-up truck. It wasn’t there when I pulled up to mine. Maybe he’d arrived while Roarke and I were arguing. I hadn’t been paying attention to anything else while we got into that sort of shouting match.

Regardless of when the older man had arrived, he was still out there. His thick Carhart moved as he dug, seeming to poke along a line near the water meter at that cabin.

I unlocked my car, and at the click of the fob on the locks, he glanced up. Then again, as I walked toward the driver’s door and opened it, he lifted his head for a moment and looked at me. Once more, after I got my bag out and shut the door, he peeked at me.

“You all right, hunny?” he asked, keeping his face down as he poked the shovel at the dirt. His hun ya drawl was the same as it was every other time. Casual and nonthreatening. He wasn’t talking down to me, nor was he being cunning and overly sweet.

He was just Todd. A slight busybody with mild curiosity.

And there was no chance he was asking that for the hell of it.

I huffed a laugh and walked toward him. “Let me guess. You heard all of...that?” I jerked my thumb toward my front door, indicating where Roarke and I had argued.

“My hearing ain’t what it used to be,” he replied, leaving the spade in the dirt as he faced me. He set his hand on the top of the handle and leaned on it. “But I reckon I heard ’nough.”

I sighed, shaking my head and lowering my gaze as I continued to approach him. I hadn’t changed my mind on wanting to be left alone. Seeking him out here and willingly walking toward him went against that plan. But this was Todd. He’d scared David off, and since then, I couldn’t help but view him as a source of support. He was a background person in my life, but even as that, he was a comforting presence.

“You all right?” he asked again.

I shrugged, but stopped the motion and shook my head. “No, I’m not. But that’s nothing new. I wasn’t ‘all right’ from the moment I left Chicago.”

“Hmmm.” He cocked his head to the side as he moved his chew to the other cheek. “Don’t mind me or my observations, hunny, but it sure seemed that before today, you were gettin’ along fine around Roarke there.”

I shot him a withering glare. “Oh, really?”

Roarke and I were new, so new that I doubted gossip could be spreading about us hooking up. No one in town could be talking about us being together, and somehow, deep down, I knew Roarke wasn’t the kind of man to kiss and tell. He couldn’t be so stupid to talk about me with his buddies when I’d told him again and again to butt out of my life.

“Hmm-mmm.” He nodded. “When I pulled up that day when your big-city man—”

“David is not my man,” I corrected quickly.

He nodded some more. “Right. Right. I caught on to that bit. But when he was here makin’ you look all mad and scared and nervous, I saw how Roarke was there. Standin’ up for you.”

I had nothing to say. I wouldn’t argue that. Roarke defending me from David was an implication that something was going on between us.

“And then when them damn water pipes busted...” He grimaced, picking up the shovel once and pushing it back down to the dirt a little so it’d stick. “Well, I saw you two at his place.” His bushy white brows lifted high. “And I ain’t born yesterday, hunny. A woman’s only at a man’s place like that at night if she’s borrowing a cup of sugar or giving some sugar.”

A laugh escaped me. It started as a single burst of humor but quickly carried into more.

He chuckled along with me, infected by the moment.

“Sugar? That’s what you used to call it back in the old days?”

“Old days?” He pretended to swat at me. “Ah, you git outta here. Who you callin’ old?”

I laughed more, almost as if I needed this release, to vent like this, too. And it felt good.

“Sugar. Sweets. Same old thing.”

As sex? I eased up, giggling as my laughter faded.

“And he ain’t the sorta man who’s gonna have actual sugar sittin’ in his kitchen. You know what I mean.”

I nodded. “I... I do. I do, Todd.”

“Anyway. What you and Roarke do ain’t my business. It ain’t anyone’s business. But I saw him sweet on you. Treatin’ you well. And unless my eyes and ears are deceivin’ me now, you were sweet on him, too. Why else would ya let him stay at your cabin when his was flooded?”

I sighed and wrapped my arms around myself. “I know. I know.”

“I saw and heard your lil’ tiff over there. But I also saw you two gettin’ along before it.” He shook his head slowly. “He ain’t the kinda man who’s gonna change his colors like that on ya, hunny. Everybody fights sometime. My late wife and I were always squabbling. She’d bitch and I’d complain. That’s life.”

“Sometimes.”

He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

I licked my lips, surprised that I felt so free and unburdened to share this much with him. “Couples can fight. I agree with that. But in Chicago...” I lifted my hand to rub near my throat, hating the tightening there, the emotions clogged there. “In Chicago, it wasn’t just sometimes.”

“That big-city asshole fought with ya a lot?” he guessed, his tone hard and cold.

I nodded. “Not... Not like that.”

“How?” He scowled.

“Not with his fists.” I swallowed hard. “He wasn’t a beater.” Not often. “But he messed with me here.” I tapped my temple.

“Hmmm. Don’t shock me none, hunny. I could tell from the get-go he was a lousy one.”

Too bad I couldn’t tell from the get-go that I should avoid him.

But I couldn’t have. David met me when I’d needed help, when I needed a rescue from a good Samaritan, and he’d used that to his advantage so expertly that I was trapped before I could realize what had happened.

“Not everything is as it seems,” he advised.

“You can say that again,” I replied dryly, thinking of David and how he’d stared his control over me.

“I’m talkin’ ’bout Roarke. He’s a good man. You don’t have to worry if he’s gonna turn out like that bastard from the city. I’ve known Roarke since he came here, and you got my word he’s a good man. I’ve been alive on this earth too long to be wrong about him like that. I can tell the difference between the good ones and the bad ones, hunny, and he’s a good man.”

“I think so too,” I said, “but I think his intentions might be conflicted.”

He frowned. “How so?”

“It’s not a matter of Roarke wanting to be a good man toward me. It’s not a matter of knowing I could count on him to stand up to my ex with me. It’s a matter of him being related to her . His connection to his niece.”

Todd dismissed me with a wave. “Eh. He’d never stand by and let that girl hurt ya none.”

What if he already has? I simply couldn’t trust her hooking up with David. I had to be cautious about who I let into my life as I tried to get my grounding again. If she was allying with my enemy, I had to be careful with him, too.

“He’ll always feel guilty about her. He’ll help family because he thinks he has to,” I explained.

That bond by blood would always be stronger than anything he could claim he wanted to have with me.

I won’t risk it.

I couldn’t.