Be With Me(74)

Shit. She hadn’t expected things to be resolved this quickly. She’d wanted time with them to figure out if this was something that would ever work. Now she was faced with a decision she wasn’t sure she was ready to make.

“I don’t know,” she said in frustration. “It’s not like you made it sound. I only meant that it was okay for me to go back and pick up the pieces. My house is trashed. I don’t have a car. I’m out of a job temporarily. My entire life is fal ing apart around me, so you’l have to forgive me if I sounded a little eager to get al that back on track. It wasn’t personal. I know I made it look like it was al too easy for me to have a one-night stand then go on my merry way, but I’m not that cal ous. I wouldn’t just leave and pretend nothing has happened. Not this time.”

She bal ed up her fingers into fists then shoved her way past both Cam and Hutch.

“Reggie, baby, wait,” Hutch cal ed.

She ignored him and kept walking. She heard Cam cal him back. Yeah, he’d see the wisdom in giving her space right now before she went postal. It was another way in which she and Sawyer were so much alike. Calm and centered they weren’t.

She flung open the door to the patio and stepped outside then slammed it shut behind her.

Chapter 27

Cam watched as Reggie thrust her hand into her hair, pulled it out then dug back in. Her other hand was bal ed tightly at her side, and she paced back and forth. He could see her lips moving as she muttered to herself.

Yeah, she was agitated.

He wanted to go out there and just hold her, tel her it would be al right, but hel , who was he kidding? He didn’t know if it would. That scared him shitless.

“What the f**k are we going to do, Cam?” Hutch asked.

Cam glanced sideways at him then turned away from the door that Reggie had stormed out of.

“Christ, I don’t know, Hutch. Give her some space?”

“We tried that. Didn’t work.”

“Pushing her won’t help. We know that.”

“I don’t want her to go back to that goddamn job,” Hutch said tersely.

Cam sighed and went over to the couch. No sign of Sawyer, but then he’d have to calm down before he reappeared. He’d looked to be close to bursting a blood vessel.

“I don’t want her to either, man. But that’s not our cal . It can’t be.” He glanced up at Hutch, who’d walked around to flop into the recliner. “Just like we knew we’d never ask her to choose between us, we can’t ask her to now choose between us and her job.”

“What if she walks away again?”

There was a healthy dose of fear in Hutch’s voice.

It was the same fear that was close to gutting Cam.

“We can’t make her stay with us,” Cam said quietly. “Al we can do is show her how much we love her and try and convince her that it’l work. We knew it wouldn’t be easy.”

Hutch threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t get her wanting to be a cop.

Sometimes I think . . . sometimes I think she did it just to get back at her old man, you know? And if that’s the case, it’s not where she needs to be. How happy could it make her?”

Cam leaned forward. “Are you happy with your life, Hutch? Are you happy with our business? Reggie aside, are you satisfied?”

Hutch rocked his head forward to look at Cam.

“You know I am.”

“You can’t tel me you didn’t set out to make something of yourself to piss off al the people who thought we wouldn’t amount to shit. Reggie’s old man being one of them. Does that make you any less happy with the results because of the motivation behind your actions?”

Hutch screwed his face in annoyance. “Good grief, Cam, cut the analytical bul shit out. I swear you give me a headache with al your philosophizing.” Cam chuckled. “You know I’m right. Regardless of why Reggie chose the profession she did, she’s happy. She’s tough. She can handle it. Do I like it?

Hel no. In a perfect world, she wouldn’t work at al .

She’d stay home. In our home. And we’d take care of her. But can you honestly ever see Reggie going for that? She’d make eunuchs of us al .”

Hutch’s face eased into a grin. “Yeah, I hear you.” His gaze skirted toward the door. “So what do we do?”

Cam fol owed his stare to see Reggie stil pacing out on the patio. “We chil . Let her work this out herself. And we don’t issue ultimatums or even make it look like we’re handing her one.”

“But she’s pissed.”

“Yeah, so? How many times have we pissed her off over the years?”

“Yeah, but a lot more is at stake this time,” Hutch said.

“I won’t argue that, but Hutch, we’re not entering utopia here. There’s going to be arguments. Hel , with Sawyer and Reggie in the same house? You’re talking two bul dogs who don’t know the meaning of the words ‘back down.’ You can’t let it get to you.” He leaned further toward Hutch. “And I’l tel you something else. You can’t worry about my relationship with Reggie or Sawyer’s with Reggie.

You can’t make it right for the rest of us. We’l f**k up, but you can’t go around picking up the pieces of other people’s mistakes.”