Rowdy (Marked Men #5)(62)
I hugged her tighter and repeated one of Rome’s favorite phrases: “Atta girl.”
I was going to ask her how she knew for a fact that Salem had always wanted me when I heard a dog bark and the door behind me opened up.
“I was worried about you two, so I thought I would poke my head in and see how it was going.”
Jimbo ran in excited circles around my living room as I saw Salem’s eyes go from black to something even darker when she saw that I holding on to her sister. I let my arms drop and took a step back, knowing it probably didn’t look all that great as Poppy hiccuped a little and rubbed her tearstained cheeks.
“It’s better now.” Poppy’s voice was surprisingly clear but Salem looked like she had just tasted something foul and was refusing to meet my gaze.
“Yeah, there was grime knocked off the past and it looks a lot clearer to me now.” I was hoping she would pick up on the subtle undercurrent of my words but she just sucked her bottom lip in between her teeth and twisted the ends of her hair around her finger like she did when she was agitated.
“All right. I need to take Jimbo back home and head downtown.”
Poppy stepped around me after she reached for my hand and gave it one last squeeze. “I’ll take him. I’m still exhausted and I feel like every weight I ever had on my chest is now gone.” She smiled at me lopsided and whistled for the hyper puppy. “It was really good to see you again, Rowdy. I missed you.”
Well, shit. That was the worst thing to say when Salem already looked like she wanted to skin me alive or pack a suitcase and hit the nearest airport. I could see her ready to bolt out the door and possibly my life, so I caught her arm and pulled her to me before she could do anything rash or permanent.
“She was crying and I felt bad for her. I just gave her a hug . . . that’s all.”
“Good. She probably needs as many hugs as she can get.” Her words said one thing but her stiff body language and the way she wouldn’t look at me said another.
“Salem . . .” I put a finger under her chin and forced her to look up at me. “She isn’t you. No one is you and no one has ever been you, so don’t get any crazy ideas, okay?”
She didn’t answer and shook off the hold I had on her arm. “I need to go and so do you. Don’t be late for work, Rowdy.”
“Salem,” She looked at me over her shoulder because she was already out the door. “Don’t leave me again.”
She didn’t say anything and I didn’t call her back as she made her way down the hallway and disappeared.
Like I always said, if it wasn’t for bad luck . . . Of course she would’ve had to show up just when I had my arms around Poppy even if it was totally innocent. I was just going to have to take Asa’s advice and make sure she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was only her. She might not be my first love but she would always be my last love and I understood what that meant now.
CHAPTER 14
Salem
I WASN’T GOING TO leave him—at least not physically—but my mind was a million miles away, and I hated the places it was visiting.
I wasn’t so insecure that I didn’t realize my sister needed all the kindness and love she could get, but that didn’t change the fact that walking in and seeing Rowdy holding her like she was something precious and rare unhinged something inside my heart. I was confident, I was sure that coming after him had been the right choice, but there was fear, gaping and wide in the center of me that there was still a part of him that was going to see Poppy as the safer choice. Plus there were undoubtedly the protective instincts that had to fire up in him at seeing my sister all broken and battered, and I wasn’t absolutely sure that those wouldn’t guide him back to the feelings he may have had in the past. I wanted to be more secure in the relationship we had been developing, wanted the doubt to seem foolish and misplaced, but I just couldn’t get a handle on all of it, and as a result I took the coward’s way out and avoided Rowdy because I just didn’t know what to say to him.
Luckily no one questioned me when I called in sick on Wednesday when we were supposed to be at the new shop together. I knew he was mad because he left me a voice mail telling me so. I made sure I had plans to go out with the girls after work on Thursday so I could avoid him showing up at my place to talk to me, which I was sure he was going to do because he sent me a text threatening to. I even called Sayer to see if she wanted to grab dinner on Friday after work to avoid him even further. I just didn’t know what to say that didn’t make me sound jealous and petty. I also couldn’t even begin to fathom what I would do if those fears were realized and he admitted he still loved my sister and what we had was just a fling.
Cora and the girls knew something was majorly off, but I couldn’t seem to get the words out to explain everything that was racing around inside my head and clattering around in my heart. I just told them that my sister had shown up unexpectedly and that her husband had been hurting her, so I was stressed out about the situation. They were all smart women and I’m sure they could read between the lines, but they were all kind enough to just let me have a night out and not force me into spilling my guts over a situation that was eating me alive.
I needed a minute to think, some time to figure out what I was doing and how I was going to handle being in love with someone that might very well never be able to love me back, but it was hard because I missed him. I didn’t like not talking to him. I hated going to bed alone and I felt like a real ass**le because my poor dog kept looking at the door wondering where his playmate was. No one had ever said relationships were easy, but somehow I didn’t think they would be this hard or this heartbreaking either.