The Tourist Attraction (Moose Springs, Alaska #1)(95)
The angry little bit pulled herself up to every inch of height she had, so furious she was shaking. “Oh, trust me, I’m going to. You’re not the center of the world. You’re not the ultimately wounded, the epically maltreated. You’re people, living in a town, surrounded by mountains pretty enough that other people come to see them. And as funny as it is to watch you bitch and moan about it, the result of your shitty-ass attitude is you still take the money they put in your tip jar while spitting in their faces.”
Well. That was fun to hear.
“Zoey, you’ve seen—”
“Both sides, Graham. I’ve seen both sides. And no, I’m not comfortable around rich people either. I never know what they’re talking about, and it makes me feel small and foolish. And what happened to Ulysses was wrong. I’m sorry about him, I truly am, but what happened to Lana is so far out of control, I’m ready to skin everyone in this town alive. What is wrong with you? Everyone else I’ve met in Alaska has been warm and kind and inviting, but this toxic little town is its own undoing.”
“You want me to call Jonah? Fine. He can have whatever’s left of these idiots when I’m done. You want me to apologize to L? Sure. But I’m not going to stand here and listen to you rip up something that matters to me.”
“You’ve done that to me since the moment we met! You’ve shredded every experience I’ve had here, but it matters to me. This was what mattered to me.”
“It’s a vacation,” Graham drawled, hearing and hating the sarcasm in his voice.
He saw her flinch, and his heart was screaming at him to stop, to shut his mouth and take a step back. Maybe if he wasn’t so angry because he damn well knew he’d been inflaming his town over the condos as they set off fireworks by the lake, Graham might have held back. Instead, like the fool he was, his mouth kept going.
“This is your vacation, but it’s my life. You’re getting on a plane, and you’re leaving me. So no, none of this is real to any of you. It’s only real to us. What do you want from me?”
“All I wanted from you was not to be a coward.”
This time, he flinched. “You know what, Zoey? I think this thing has run its course. Why don’t we save ourselves some heartache and call time of death?”
As he headed for the door, he could hear her choked voice say after him, “For the record, Graham, right now, you’re the one walking away. Again.”
The moment the door slammed shut between them, he heard her burst into tears. Graham stopped in the hall, shaking with anger and the desire to turn around, to go back in and fix this. He didn’t want to fight with her, but it was clear Zoey didn’t understand. And as much as he cared about her, this vacation romance had to end sometime. If walking away and ending this pain for both of them made him an alphahole, then so be it. In the meantime, Graham had something he needed to do.
He had to see some men about a girl with a scratch on her arm.
Chapter 16
There was a certain amount of visceral satisfaction in taking a really big chainsaw and attacking an even bigger stump of wood with it. Graham didn’t know what he was carving or if he was simply hacking out chunks at random, but for once, he didn’t care. Tired of standing around, unwilling to take chances, Graham was ready to do this or be done.
The irony of that train of thought wasn’t lost on him, but it sure did piss him off.
Wood chips were flying when a pickup pulled into the drive and a massive figure stepped out of it. Graham ignored his visitor in favor of a vertical cut along the grain of the wood in front of him. If it split, he didn’t care about that either.
It was only eight o’clock in the morning, but Easton had a six-pack in his hand. Dropping the beer on the ground next to his boot, Easton settled down in a lawn chair, cracking open a beer, content to wait in silence.
The log had been reduced by more than half its size before the chainsaw sputtered to a stop, gas tank empty.
Graham had been carving so long, his hands had grown numb from the vibrations. Flexing them to regain feeling, he set the chainsaw on the ground next to the stump.
“You all right?” Easton nodded toward Graham’s hands.
“Getting arthritis in my old age.”
Easton snorted, stretching an arm out with a beer, waggling the bottle at him. “If I wanted to drink alone, I would have stayed at home and watched a game.”
“It isn’t even noon.” Graham declined the offer, not caring how surly he sounded. “With Ash and your dad there, you’re never alone.”
“Dad went to visit Grandma in the home. And Ash has a date today, some guy from Whittier.”
Dropping down into a second chair, Graham sighed. “Well, that’s disturbing.”
“The date or the Whittier part?”
“The idea she’s capable of having the kinds of romantic emotions that lead to her actually going on a date. Want to go kill him?”
Raising an eyebrow at Graham’s tone, Easton drained his beer and opened another. “Like you killed those guys last night?”
Graham grunted sourly. He hadn’t killed anyone, but between the two of them, Easton and Graham had put some very serious regret into the people who had messed with Lana. In his frustration, Graham’d had difficulty restraining himself. Easton, however, had been the epitome of cool, calm collectedness.