The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,41
danger.
And neither one said a blasted word about any of it.
She’d been clamped onto a runaway horse that she had no way to control since the second Wes had arrived at Gruggin Manor with Morton’s body and she was good and well sick of it.
She clanked her glass onto the rough rectangular wood table, so hard the scarlet liquid sloshed over the edge. She looked to Rune, then to Wes. “That is all you are going to say to each other?”
Wes looked to her. Rune did not.
“What?” Wes’s voice was low, soft. Admonishing.
Her hand flew up at the side of her. “After everything that has happened today, you aren’t going to speak a word of it?”
“We don’t need to,” Wes said. “We understand each other.”
Rune’s gaze shifted to Wes for a split second, then continued to scan the room. Wes looked to the bar across the way.
Her hand slapped onto the table, making the tankards and glass jump. “Well, I don’t understand a single blasted thing that is going on.”
“You are making more of this than is necessary, Laney.”
“No—I am making the perfect amount of fuss. I never agreed to any of this—you just grabbed my arm and started dragging me around London and then out to the middle of the countryside.”
Wes’s dark eyes pinned her. “I don’t need you to agree to anything.”
“What?” Her eyes went wide, fury sweeping along her back and spiking the hairs on her neck. Her voice dipped low, deadly. “What in the hell did you just say to me?”
Rune shoved his chair back and stood. His knuckles rapped onto the table. “I’ll be checking on our food.” He moved from the table, weaving his way through the other diners in the wide room.
Wes’s mouth twisted to the side as he looked at her, meeting her glare. “I was getting you out of London whether you liked it or not. Your blessed silence on the matter today—for a change—made it easier.”
“My blessed silence is over. Tell me where we’re going and why.”
Wes heaved a sigh, his fingers running across his forehead. “The why is to keep you safe. The where is not something I’m going to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“The more you know, the more it interferes with keeping you safe.”
She leaned forward, her hand curling into a fist and thumping onto the table. “That is bloody backward logic. If I know where I’m going and why, then I can keep myself safe.”
“Can you?” His eyebrows lifted high. Too high.
Pompous ass.
“What if I get separated from you?” Her voice fell into a hiss. “How would I know where to go?”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“No? You don’t know that.” Her head shook. “There’s going to be a moment when you are not right next to me. And who knows what can happen in that moment? I know I can protect myself—I’ve lived on my own, taken care of myself for a very long time and if I get separated from you, don’t you think I should know where to go?”
His bottom jaw shifted back and forth. “You’re not getting separated from me.”
“You can’t control everything, Wes.” Her hand pulled back from the table and she crossed her arms over her ribcage, her gaze going to the junction between the stone fireplace and the charred heavy beam that ran alongside the top of it. “That was always your way when we were younger—you had to control everything—and look where it got you.” Her look dropped to him. “When you couldn’t control everything around you, you got lost—you disappeared. You didn’t know what to do.”
His mouth pulled back into a terse line. “Don’t push me, Laney.”
“Even now you’re doing it.” She jumped to her feet, her hands slamming down on the table as she leaned toward him, her glare meeting his. “You can’t control me. You never could and that has always been at the crux of your anger at me. Did I ruin you? Yes—I did something you couldn’t control and that alone was the worst of the betrayal. The whole reason you hate me so.”
“Laney—” The growl in his voice was unmistakable. She ignored it.
“No. I am done. I am done apologizing.” Her nails scraped along the table as she pushed herself away from him. “Done feeling so guilty seven years later that I let you drag me into the middle of the bloody countryside for heaven knows why. Morty died, I was almost tossed into the river, and now Mr. Filmore is dead.