her voice calm even as the world reeled around her. The Almighty Nathan West wasn’t swimming in money? And her store—her safe haven—was about to be sold out from under her, just like that? “Wait a second. You think you’re qualified to make decisions like this? Where exactly did you get your degree?”
“Some online program. I printed the actual degree out at a Motel 6 in a shit town in Idaho I was passing through a few years ago.”
If it had been someone else under other circumstances, she might have appreciated his quick wit. “Which just serves as reminder that you’ve been gone from Copper Ridge for years. So why exactly do you think you’re qualified to make this decision? A decision that affects me, and the other people who are currently tenants in your father’s little fiefdom here.”
He lifted a shoulder, maddeningly calm, as he had been from the moment he had walked in. “I don’t suppose I could ask you to trust me on that.”
“I don’t suppose you could.”
“That’s too bad, but unfortunately it doesn’t change anything. I’m not here to put you out, but we can’t hold on to any assets that are going to damage the West family finances.”
“But you said that you’re buying the building. Aren’t you the West family and its finances?”
“No,” he said, another infuriatingly opaque answer.
She narrowed her eyes. “If you’re going to hand out an eviction notice, why don’t you do it now? There’s a nice symmetry to it. Just give me one more problem to put on your shoulders, Gage West. I don’t mind. I’m happy to let you carry around my suffering.”
“I don’t want your suffering,” he said, studying her from those impenetrable eyes. “But I would like to give you the building.”
* * *
GAGE HALF EXPECTED her to go for the shotgun now. Not that he could blame her. He couldn’t blame her for any of this. For her anger, for her threats. He deserved every single thing that she lobbed at him. And more. But he had never pretended he wasn’t guilty.
He was guilty. Straight down to the center of his soul, if he even had one left. He wasn’t looking for atonement, wasn’t searching for absolution. It wasn’t to be had.
He simply wanted to fix what he could. It was why he was here.
“Get out.”
That wasn’t the response he had expected. He had at least expected curiosity. But from the moment he had walked into the store, it had been apparent that Rebecca Bear wasn’t quite what he had bargained for.
He hadn’t pictured her being this hard, for one thing. He hadn’t exactly pictured her as a woman either, in spite of the fact that he knew she had been running her own business here on Main Street for the past seven years. He was well aware of that because he had financed it in the first place. Not that she knew that. If she did, she would probably make good on her threats.
Still, it had been a shock to walk through the door and see her standing there, her chestnut hair cascading down past her shoulders, a smooth silky river, the petite but generous figure perfectly designed to draw a man’s eye to all of the relevant dips and swells. Then there were her eyes, dark, sharp.
But what stopped him short was her smooth golden skin. Smooth golden skin that then transformed into a rough landscape midway down one side of her face, extending down her neck and beneath the collar of her shirt.
His most enduring gift to her.
“Not until you hear me out.”
“I’ll call Sheriff Garrett.”
“I own the building. Or, my family does.”
“Eli won’t care.” He could tell by the determined glitter in her eyes that even if she was bluffing, she was prepared to take her chances. Well, so was he. And the threat of having the police called was not exactly a deterrent to a man like him.
“I want to give you the building,” he repeated.
She looked as though she had been slapped. “I don’t want your charity.”
“It isn’t charity. Consider it payment.”
“Payment?” The word was nearly a feral growl. “Compensation for everything that’s behind door number one?” She waved her hand over the left half of her body as she said that. “Thanks, but I’m going to take a hard pass on your blood money.”
He had expected a lot of things. That she would be angry, of course. That she would be justifiably upset at his presence. But he had not