Take a Chance (Chance, #1; Rosemary Beach #7)(16)

Grant

Ihad started for my truck when I noticed Rush’s Range Rover. He was here. I turned around and headed back inside while calling him to find out exactly where he was.

“Yeah,” Rush said.

“I see your truck. Where are you?”

“Inside. Are you outside?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait out there. I’ll come outside.”

Then he hung up. What the hell? He had been in the dining room. I could hear familiar sounds in the background. Why was he leaving to come see me? Unless . . . Harlow was in there. What did he think I was going to do? Make a scene? Hell, I’d already done that on the tennis court. I needed a game plan. Not another train wreck.

I waited on him. He was there fast. Rush walked out the door and glanced over at me with a concerned look on his face.

“Did I beat you here?” he asked, as if he weren’t at all suspicious.

I decided to ease his mind. “I know Harlow’s in town. I know she’s living with Nan and we’ve already had our first encounter . . . and second, actually.”

Rush let out a relieved sigh. “Good. After your last drunk-ass rant I was worried this was going to be an issue.”

“My only issue is she won’t let me explain. She hates me. I need advice, man. I f**ked up. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. But I think . . . I think I may need to talk to Blaire.”

Rush’s eyebrows drew together. “How’d you f**k up? Kiro was keeping her from you. That was it. Harlow is a sweet girl. I can’t imagine her hating anyone.”

“There’s more to it than that,” I said, running my hand through my hair. I didn’t want to tell Rush that I’d been sleeping with Nan again. She was his sister, and even though she was selfish and mean as a snake, he loved her. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to me using her.

“What more is there?”

I thought about that. I wished he would just let me talk to Blaire. I didn’t need help from him.

“Tell me you didn’t screw around with Nan,” he said with an exasperated sigh.

He knew. He always figured shit out. “Yeah, some.”

Rush shook his head and let out a hard laugh. “You’re f**ked. I said Harlow doesn’t hate people, but Nan is as close as it gets for her. You need to let the Harlow thing go and move on. Ain’t no way you’re fixing that shit.”

I wanted her to understand. I wanted her forgiveness, and I wanted her to know I cherished what she had given me. No one or nothing would ever be that special for me again. I would never forget it. Maybe it was best for both of us if that was all she was willing to do. That night when I had been inside of her, I had been shown something much deeper than I ever imagined. It scared the hell out of me.

To love someone the way Rush loved Blaire . . . that was intense. It was controlling and it had the power to destroy you. I had seen so much heartache and pain in my life. My father had been in love more than once, and each time it had ended painfully, not only for him but for me. Love forever wasn’t something I believed in. Harlow was dangerous for me. She was the first person I had ever allowed myself to picture forever with. What if she stopped loving me one day . . . or what if I lost her? I saw the vacant look in Bethy’s eyes. The pain deep inside her. She had to wake up every day and live with it.

“I just want her to listen to me. I don’t want anything else. I want her to know . . . that . . . that she was special. That night was special. That’s all. Nothing else. I’m not asking for a second chance. I can’t do that. I just want her forgiveness. And I can’t live with myself if she believes I took her innocence as a game. It was never a game.”

Rush stood there staring at me as if I were speaking a different language. I was rambling. I wasn’t making sense. At least not to him. I needed to talk to Blaire, dammit.

“You just want her to know that your f**king her meant something? Is that what I’m understanding? You don’t want anything else?”

I flinched at his description but nodded.

“Can I ask why?”

The image of Bethy doubled over wailing as they lowered Jace’s body into the ground was etched in my brain. “I can’t love someone the way you love Blaire.”

Rush cocked one of his eyebrows. “Why is that?”

“Because it scares the hell out of me. I’m not going to be that vulnerable. I don’t want to be.”

Rush didn’t look as if he understood, but he finally nodded his head toward his Rover. “I’m headed home. If you want Blaire’s advice then meet me there and you can tell her this crazy shit. But she isn’t going to take your side in this. I’m warning you now.”

I didn’t expect her to. “I know.”

“When you tell her you slept with Nan after taking Harlow’s virginity then I’d duck, because the gun will come out, and this time I’m pretty damn sure she’ll pull the trigger,” he said with an amused grin before walking out toward his truck without looking back at me.

He was right. Blaire was going to chew my ass out. But once she got over it she’d help me, if only because she would understand that Harlow deserved it.

?

Thirty minutes later, Blaire was glaring at me. Her face had gone from horrified to completely pissed off. Nate had luckily crawled into her lap, otherwise I was pretty sure she’d have taken a swing at me.