Fight Like You've Never Lost (Summer Lake #14) - S.J. McCoy Page 0,40

they’d still be together. He hadn’t been able to make her believe him when they still loved each other; he was hardly going to convince her now.

They sat in silence for a good fifteen minutes before she turned to him again. He braced himself. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep his mouth shut a second time.

“I’m sorry.”

He turned to her.

She shrugged.

He knew he should take the olive branch she’d offered. She was right that if they could bury the hatchet life would be easier for everyone—most importantly, for Dan. “I’m sorry, too.” He was hardly going to tell her she was right. That was asking more than he was capable of! “I can be a polite stranger if that’s what you want.”

Even as he said it, his heart clenched in his chest. How many times back in the early days had he pulled her up for speaking to him like a polite stranger? It was her way to keep him out. Back then he’d worked on taking down her walls until she let him in. She was right. It was better for her—and for him—if they each remained behind their walls. And fortified them, too.

He looked up when the driver reached back and slid open the window in the partition. “Everything okay back there?”

“Fine, thanks,” said Ryan.

“I wouldn’t mind taking a bathroom break when you get the chance,” Leanne said.

Ryan glanced at her. He needed to check whether she realized what she’d said—at least, what it would remind him of. She’d just asked him to close the door on their past and here she was taking him back into it.

She shot him a quick glance before looking away again. He may not have known her for years, but he knew her well enough to know that it was intentional. Was she trying to make him remember the good times? And if so, why?

~ ~ ~

Leanne cursed herself as she got out of the car and hurried toward the gas station. Why had she said that? She didn’t need to use the bathroom. Sure, escaping the car—escaping from Ryan for a few minutes would do her good. But that wasn’t why she’d said it. It wasn’t why she’d used those particular words. Nope. She’d said that because, even though she’d just asked Ryan if they could close the door on the past and everything that they’d shared, her mind was still caught up in it.

The first few weeks that they’d been together had been amazing. He’d been so sweet, so attentive, so kind to her. They’d spent most of their time together. He’d slept at her apartment pretty much every night he was in town. He went out of town often. For work. She still hadn’t known what his work really was, but she’d told herself that she was fine with that. And she was, mostly.

He’d taken her back to the cabin in Big Sur a couple of weekends. She’d loved it there. They’d gone down into Carmel for lunch and walked the beach. Gone wine tasting in Carmel Valley; it’d been one of the best times of her life.

And every time, on the way back to San Francisco, she’d asked him to stop. It wasn’t that she had a weak bladder. It was because whenever they stopped, he held her hand as they walked across the parking lot. It was dumb. She’d known it was then. She knew it was even dumber to think about it now. But that little gesture had given her a sense of belonging that she hadn’t had in her life before—or since.

She froze when she reached the door and his big, muscular arm reached past her to pull it open. All the little hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She hadn’t even known he was behind her. But she shouldn’t be surprised. She used to call him the master of stealth, until she’d learned that, in fact, he was just a sneaky bastard.

“Thanks.” She darted through the door and headed for the ladies’ room. When she came out, he was standing there, arms folded across his chest.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Is the men’s room out of order?”

“No. I was waiting for you.”

Her heart jumped into her mouth. She’d forgotten that part. He’d always waited for her. Something about him being the big man who needed to protect his little lady. She used to love it. Now … now, she didn’t want to remember just how much she’d loved