You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(137)

“Stop, Dean. Stop. No one else knows the area like I do. No one else knows the players.”

“Right. The players being our parents. The land the small acreage they fought over for years. The same stupid piece of rock that drove them apart. And you’re going to tell me this isn’t your chance to come back and screw your dad once and for all? Make sure he notices you the way he never did?”

“So what if it is?” she asked, shaking. “So what if this is my chance to hurt him like he hurt me? Like he hurt my mom.” Tears burned behind her eyes, so much anger. She’d thought she had this under control. She’d believed that, that she could come back here, do the job, relish slightly any discomfort it might give her father. But this. This was hot. And it hurt.

“Right,” he said. He pushed his hands through his hair and paced the small room as she tried to get her breath back. Calm down her fury. “I need to tell you, that job I got last spring—it’s for your dad.”

Trina reeled back and tripped over the edge of the bed. She caught herself before she fell, but she was unbearably unbalanced. “You’re working for my dad?”

“He’s got the largest working spread in the area. And I know you haven’t kept in touch, but he needs help.”

“Don’t you for one minute pretend that you’re not taking this job for any reason except you want to f*ck with your father.”

Dean stepped back, his arms spread out wide. “So what if I did?”

“How’s it working out for you?” she asked.

“Great!” he cried.

“Oh my God, this is why you didn’t ask me why I was home last night. Because you didn’t want to tell me why you were home.”

“Right. Because if I told you, last night would have never happened.”

“Oh well, thank God we both got laid before the truth came out.”

“You’ve never been reasonable about your dad.”

She gasped. “Oh! And you are?”

“My dad’s a manipulative bastard.”

“And mine is a drunk who ignored me my entire life. Why are we playing who had it worse? Look.” She took a deep breath. “This isn’t about our dads. It’s business. This is the pipeline.”

“Right. Sure. Who cares who you screw as long as you get to save the world?”

“Yeah? And who cares who you screw as long as you get back at your dad?” She gasped, her eyes going wide, the implications of what she’d said hitting a bull’s-eye in her chest.

Oh God.

Oh God, she’d never expected this. It hurt. It hurt so bad.

“No,” he said as if he’d read her mind. “Last night had nothing to do with getting back at my dad.”

She took a deep breath. Another one. But the pain didn’t go away.

“It sure is convenient, isn’t it?”

“Nothing about you has ever been convenient. Ever. I’m not doing this to hurt you.”

All this time she’d been so worried about betraying him, but a wound had opened in her stomach. Her heart.

She turned, searching for her coat. Her hat. Purse. Her dignity. Her heart. The last of her self-respect.

“You can work for whoever you want, screw whoever you want, but it won’t ever get you what you want.” She pulled out the longest, sharpest weapon she had to use against him.

“Don’t, Trina,” he breathed, but she ignored him.

“You still won’t be good enough. Not for him. Not ever.” He went white. Even his lips were colorless, because she’d hurt him. She’d hurt him so bad. And the guilt and the remorse was just as bad as her anger. Her own hurt.

“You think your dad is finally going to realize he loves you when he finds out you’re working for my father?” he asked, wounding her with his own swords, impossibly sharp with his knowledge of her. Of her relationship with her dad.

They both looked away, the words like some awful violent act happening right in front of them. They couldn’t go back from it. The night, their friendship, it was all shattered and broken, and if they moved or breathed too deep, they’d bleed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. But it was useless. They’d said too much. Way too much.

She grabbed all of her things in her arms. One of her boots. Her purse and coat. She wrapped her scarf around her neck, her eyes stinging with tears.

“Trina, don’t leave like this.”

“How am I supposed to leave?”

“We could talk.”

“I think we’ve said enough, don’t you?”

His silence pounded, and the air between them vibrated. Her ears ached from the pressure.

“Wait,” he said from directly over her shoulder. She stopped, but she didn’t turn around. “Do you have someplace to go?”

He was worried about her. After everything they’d just said to each other, he was still worried about her.

Don’t be touched. Don’t be moved.

And in the end, it was easy not to be. It was what she was good at, after all. Keeping herself removed. Alone.

“I have a house in Durande,” she said. It was a town a few miles away. Forty miles from her father’s house. She’d looked it up on a map, stared at the distance between the dots, wondering if it was far enough away.