scales balance. Rebecca was never going to like him, and he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over that. There were a lot of people who were never going to like him. He hadn’t earned it.
“Good morning,” he said, swinging the ax down so that the head was resting on the ground and leaning his weight on it.
Rebecca startled, jerking backward and looking up, her eyes clashing with his. “What are you doing out here?”
“Chopping wood.”
“Clearly. But, why are you out here now doing it?”
“I’m going to help you with your work.”
She scowled, her expression turning feral. “The hell you are.” She grabbed hold of her long dark braid and whipped it over her shoulder. “You seem to misunderstand the point of what I’m doing here. This is not leisure time for me, neither is it some kind of therapeutic thing where I put myself in the path of the one person that I can stand the least. I can’t owe you.”
“Or,” he said, taking a step toward her, “you just want to be pissed.”
“Yes,” she said, her tone dry, “I live to be angry. And I certainly enjoy investing all of my thought and energy into you.”
“Then why won’t you just take it? I could get out of your life a hell of a lot faster if you would just accept my help.”
“I’m not going to,” she said, breezing past him and heading toward the stable.
“Are you always this stubborn?”
“Yes,” she said without turning around.
“Why is that?”
“It may surprise you to learn that I have dealt with a little bit of adversity in my life.”
“I’d like to ease that.”
She stopped, whipping around. “Not your privilege.”
“Does standing on principle ever get uncomfortable?”
“Standing in general is uncomfortable, asshole. Why is that?” She turned away again, her words hitting their target even as she continued on toward hers.
She disappeared into the stable, and by the time he entered behind her she was already holding a pitchfork.
“Are you going to stab me with that or are you going to start cleaning stalls?”
“It’s up for debate.”
He grabbed a hold of his own pitchfork, heading to a stall at the opposite end. “I’m still going to help. You have to get to work, and so do I. This is my property, and if you’re going to work for me, then you’re going to help me in a way that makes sense to me.”
She nodded once, her expression fierce. She seemed much more able to take orders than she was able to take charity. Even though, in his estimation, it would never be charity.
How could it be?
“Does Ace know?”
The sound of her voice on the other side of the stall surprised him. He pushed the pitchfork down into the shavings. “Does he know what?”
“Does he know that you caused my accident?”
“Nobody does.” The words fell flat in the mostly quiet room. The only sound was the horses swishing and flicking their tails and nickering softly.
That response made him feel...well, more ashamed than he had imagined it could. Everyone knew what she’d been through, more or less. She wore the evidence of that time all those years ago on her skin. He didn’t. And sure, he had left town, had left his family, but if he didn’t want anyone to know, then they wouldn’t know.
Rebecca didn’t have that luxury.
Her response surprised him more than his own did. “Good.”
“What you mean?”
“I don’t like to talk about it. I don’t really want anyone knowing my business. At first, I didn’t talk about it because of the hush money your dad paid. But, at this point, I’m just more comfortable with people not knowing the particulars.”
“Why is that?” He was genuinely curious. Curious as to what she got out of hiding the details. She could point at him, scream at him and have him strung up in the town square if she wanted to. And yet, she seemed to have no interest in it.
Well, she seemed to have an interest in screaming at him, but mostly in private.
“Maybe I don’t have a choice about whether or not people know I was in an accident. It’s pretty obvious. But I don’t need people to know everything about me. I don’t need them all up in that.”
“Distance,” he said. “I get that.”
“It’s hard to get privacy in this damn town.”
“Why are you here then?” He looked up, his eyes connecting with the wall that separated them.
“Because it’s my home. Why should I leave just because people are difficult? Or because you made