Tracking the Bear (Blue Ridge Bears Book 1)(18)

“None of your beeswax,” I snapped.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw tension go out of his arms, which had been rigid all day as he clutched the steering wheel with even greater force. A pang shot through my chest as I realized, for the first time that day, how antagonistic and hurtful my silence must have been for him. I wasn’t exactly being Miss Congeniality, but I was at least talking, which was what he’d been trying to get at all day. I scowled. He could have just apologized.

“Please tell me?”

“Why do you want to know?” I grumbled. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“It has everything to do with me. I want to know everything about you, Lucy.”

Damn it, now I felt guilty. I wasn’t exactly sure what Chance was to me at this point, or why the hell I liked him so much, but he was being sincere. I supposed I could give him the abridged version of events.

“I got in a car crash,” I said.

“When?”

“In high school. My senior year. We were on our way back from my…” I stumbled over the words soccer game. I shouldn’t have. It was a practiced lie, one I’d told over and over again until it had begun to feel like truth, even to me. “Party. I was drunk. I crashed the car.”

“Liar,” He said, scowling at me.

“I’m not lying.”

“You are. There’s a specific aural quality when humans lie. I can hear it. What really happened?”

“None of your beeswax,” I snapped again.

“Who was actually driving the car when you were injured?”

He took a sharp turn into the parking lot of a nearby hotel. He maneuvered into a spot near the door and put the car in park so quickly, my head actually snapped forward. He caught me before I could pitch forward and slam my head into the dashboard.

“Drop it, Chance.” I unbuckled my seatbelt and got out of the car, slamming the door behind me. My bag was in the backseat and Chance beat me to it, snatching it up before I could even open the back-passenger’s door to reach inside. He rounded the car, glowering at me.

“Who was driving? Was it Luke?”

“No. Give me my bag.”

“Lying again,” he muttered. “So it was Luke.”

My vision flashed red for a moment and I hauled back without much thought and slapped him. I couldn’t reach his face very well, and ended up mostly slapping his jaw. I was pretty sure I hurt my hand more than his face.

“Don’t you dare breathe a word,” I hissed. “As far as everyone is concerned, I was driving that car. It’s going to stay that way.”

I snatched my bag from his fingers, which had gone limp from the shock of my slap. I tried to compose myself on the way to the door. I didn’t want us to look like that couple. The angry spitfire wife and the henpecked husband dutifully following her.

Chance looked unruffled when he entered the lobby behind me. He booked a room with the seemingly endless amount of cash he seemed to have on hand, and we took the elevator up to the sixth floor.

“How do you keep paying for all this?” I muttered. “I barely have enough in my bank account to cover a weekend at one of these places.”

“I have a dangerous job,” he said with a shrug. “I get paid well for it.”

The irrational anger drained away a few minutes later as we walked to the room, and I just felt weary, and more than a little guilty for what I’d done.

“I’m sorry I slapped you.”

“I understand. Mother bears react with hostility when you target a cub.”

“I’m not a mother. He isn’t my son. I’m only a few minutes older than he is.”

“But you protect him. Even from his own stupidity, it seems.” He slotted the key card into the reader and it flashed green and chirped once.

I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed by the presence of a second bed in the suite. I walked further inside, setting my bag down by the nightstand.

I sat down on the bed closest to the window. I sank a few inches into the mattress. “It was a stupid mistake,” I muttered. “I wasn’t going to let my baby brother lose his future because of one mistake.”

“So you decided to sacrifice yours instead. That hardly seems fair.”

“You don’t know the story,” I argued. “It’s more complicated that you make it sound.”

“Fine then, tell me the story.” He sat across from me on the other bed. He’d removed his shirt, leaving his chest delightfully bare. It took me a minute to register he’d said something, because I was resisting the strong urge to throw myself into his arms. It had been a long, emotionally charged day and even though the antagonism was of my own making, I still wanted to be held for some inexplicable reason.

He was looking at me expectantly, waiting for my answer. An answer I was completely unwilling to give him. The story was personal, and I didn’t owe him my life’s story, no matter how nice he was being. So I ignored him, getting up to rifle through my bag. I found the tight black tank top and matching sleep shorts at the bottom of my bag, untouched as I’d slept in Chance’s overlarge T-shirt the night before.

“Are you going to answer?” he asked finally.

“No,” I said, and stripped off my shirt. It did succeed in finally pulling his eyes from my face. I flushed as he gave the black lace bra an appraising look. They matched the black panties he’d dug out of my bag after the impromptu bath we’d shared. Trying to be above it all, I stripped my jeans off as well and turned away.