Last Chance Rebel (26 page)

She didn't believe that Gage was beyond redemption. She didn't believe that he was cruel. Most of all, she didn't believe that this was the end.

She couldn't.

“This is all I've got. You don't want me to uncover the rest.”

“I do. That's what scares you.”

“I'm not the one who should be afraid.”

She took a step toward him. “Is this the part where you try to prove to me that you're a monster? Because I've been waiting for that.”

Suddenly, she found herself being hauled up against his chest, his mouth hot and firm over hers. If it had happened at any other moment, she would have called it a kiss of possession. But now, she had a feeling it was just goodbye.

So she gave it everything. All of her rage, all of her tears. All of the love that she had inside of her body for Gage West. The love that overflowed her, filled her, replaced every ounce of hatred she had ever thought she possessed for this man, transformed into the kind of love that could never be simple, could never be quiet or tame.

It was the only kind of love people like them would ever be able to have. Because she wasn't quiet, because she wasn't tame. And neither was he.

It was the kind of love that would never allow distance, the kind of love that wouldn't allow them to hide behind walls they built up to keep other people out. She was ready to do it. Ready to open herself up and take this.

Her kiss was a plea for him to do the same.

She kissed him deep, because if this was his last chance, their last chance, then she wasn't giving him any excuse not to take it.

When they parted, he was breathing hard, and so was she. But he just stood there, looking at her like he was a wild animal, ready to attack or run if she took another step toward him.

“Don't you understand? I would use you like this. All the time. Without giving a damn that it was costing you. That it was killing you. I would take from you until there was nothing left. And you would let me. Because you think that's love. So don't cry when I leave you, Rebecca. I'm doing you a kindness, even if you can't see it.”

“No. Don't do that. Don't you dare. From the moment you came back to Copper Ridge this is what you've been doing. Telling me what's good for me, telling me what I should think about you, what I should think about myself. I'm done with that. You can walk away, Gage West. Walk off into the sunset if that's what you need to do. I'm never going to be able to keep you here if you don't want to stay. But by God, do not tell me that I'm better off. Don't tell me what I should feel. Don't tell me what I should think. And do not tell me that you're doing it for me when we both know you're doing it for you. Stop it. Stop making me a victim so that you can feel benevolent. If you think you're a monster, then you own it. Then you walk away knowing that you hurt me. That you destroyed this. That we had something you refused to let us keep.”

“Does that make it better for you? Then all right. This is for me. I'm leaving because I want to. Goodbye, Rebecca. I think it would be better if we didn't see each other after this.”

“But what about...” She looked around the room, scanning to see if she could find her clothes. They were there, evidence of just how much she had changed because of him. That she didn't feel the need to grab them now. That she was angry she would have to get dressed, and pretend none of this had ever happened. That they would have to go back to being something different than they were before. That she was going to have to hide again. “What about the store?”

“It's yours. That's how it was always going to end.”

“With you getting exactly what you wanted me getting—nothing?”

“You are the one who decided that maybe I could be Prince Charming, Rebecca. I never pretended to be anything of the sort. Anyway, you're getting the store. You aren't getting nothing.”

“Wow,” she said, deadpan, collecting her top and her pants. “Lucky me.”

“I want to tell you something,” she said, pulling on her clothes, tugging her shirt over her head.

“Go right ahead,” he said.

“I love you. And when you're wandering the earth again, self-flagellating, pretending that you're beyond redemption, I want you to know that somebody back here in Copper Ridge loves you. And she would have given you a chance. You are the one who wouldn't take it. You're the reason you can't have love. Nothing else. Just your choices. If you made a different one... Your whole life could be different but you won't. Because you're afraid.”

“Only an idiot isn't afraid of something that can destroy them.”

“I guess I'm an idiot.”

And then Rebecca walked out of his bedroom, taking the stairs down to the entryway two at a time. She flung open the door, taking a deep breath of sharp, night air, not caring that she had forgotten her coat, that she had nothing to protect her against the elements.

She was raw and exposed anyway, it might as well extend to this.

She wrapped her arms around herself, walking down Gage's driveway and heading back toward her house. It felt like a lifetime had passed since this morning. Since she had first come to his door and asked him to help her with her mother.

She felt like an entirely different person.

She looked up at the sky, uncharacteristically clear, blue velvet and shot through with fragments of light. Too many to number.

She supposed that was a good reminder. That even now, in the middle of the darkness, there was hope. That there was light.

Right now though, all she could focus on was the darkness.

She couldn't remember anything hurting this bad since she was a child. Since her mother had abandoned her. This was what she had been protecting herself from. It made sense. She couldn't call herself a coward, not when this pain felt terminal.

She had been smart to protect herself.

She huffed out a laugh, her breath visible in the frigid air.

The sad truth was she simply had let herself care enough about anything to feel this kind of pain. This was the other side of joy. The other side of happiness. Of love. You couldn't have the beauty without the pain.

Couldn't have the stars without the darkness.

And she had stars.

She had Lane and Alison and Cassie. She had Jonathan. She had this town, this wonderful, beautiful town and her shop that was like the home she had always wanted.

But Gage... Gage was the one who had shown her the way.

She swallowed hard, fighting back tears, fighting against the terrible, overwhelming pain that was threatening to swamp her. She looked up at the sky again, at the smattering of lights in the darkness.

She tried very hard not to think about how she feared that, while her sky had any number of beautiful stars, her north star was gone.

And without him, she might not be able to find the way forward.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

G
AGE
W
EST
STARED
out at the lake, his hands resting on the deck railing, the chill from the wood biting into his skin. He didn't care. If he could change anything, it was that it would hurt worse.

That it would be something other than this dragging, yawning ache inside of him that was threatening to undo him completely. This was too familiar. This was too much like what he had left behind in the first place.

She was right.

He was running, but not from what he had told himself he was running from for all of these years. He was running, but not from becoming his father.

He was running from how much he loved his father. From how much he wanted to be accepted by him. From the fact that his love had never been returned no matter what he did—right or wrong.

A deep, dark pit that was there long before he had met Rebecca. Exposed now. Deepened.

Running and running, because he knew that there would never be an end to it. Because he had seen it. He had seen it every day in his mother's eyes.

He was the same. He knew he was.

Had known it for certain from the moment he had found out about Jack, his half brother. His father had told him. Because, it had been essential that Gage know, since he was going to eventually take over the West empire. There could be no secrets.

I've made mistakes, Gage
, his father had said.
But the important thing is that I've handled them. So that you and your siblings, your mother, will never feel the consequences of those actions.

His words had echoed through Gage as he had wandered the halls of the house, sixteen years old and the keeper of his father's darkest secrets. He had a half brother. One that was his younger brother Colton's age. A brother who was not allowed to be a part of the family because Nathan West needed so badly to protect the West name.

Does he know?

Not who I am, no. But I imagine there will come a time when I'll have to deal with that too.

He's your son
, Gage had said, feeling both loyalty and jealousy in that moment directed at a boy he didn't even know.

But not like you are. Not like Colton.

Why?

Because he isn't legitimate.

Not because he loved them.

That matters?

It matters to our reputation, and reputation is everything. I'm trusting you with mine, Gage. And someday you'll likely trust me with yours. I hope you'll remember this when you do. We look out for each other, the Wests do. Because we must protect each other. We must protect our name.

He had been reeling, dazed. And then he had run into his mother.

Did you have a good talk with your father?
As always, she seemed brittle. She smelled faintly of expensive floral perfume and alcohol.

Yes
, he had said. Lying.

He could sense something then. That she might know. That she suspected he knew something he wasn't telling her. And he wondered what his responsibility was. But he felt destroyed inside, finding out that his idol was nothing like what he had imagined he was. And he couldn't bear to expose him further. It had nothing to do with protecting his mother's feelings. And everything to do with the fact that he didn't want to expose his father. That man who he had wanted so badly to pattern himself after.

She had known he was lying. He could tell. Could tell in the way her shoulders had folded in slightly. In the way her lips pinched tight. And yet, she didn't say anything either. Both of them protecting a man who didn't deserve it. Out of love. Out of loyalty.

But he hadn't reached out to help her. And she had not reached out to him. To do so would be a betrayal of Nathan. And neither of them would do it.

They were too desperate to do the right thing. To earn the love of the man who withheld it with such ease.

He had always seen his mother as being a faded figure. She had never been deeply involved in her children's lives. Everything she had ever done had been in the service of her husband. Gage had always felt a little bit disconnected from her. Had seen her as weak and frail if anything. But suddenly, in that moment, he had realized that the two of them had a lot more in common than he had seen before.

It had been something he was unable to shake.

It had lingered with him, even as he had continued to do everything his father asked him to do, continued on the path to become the son his father needed him to be. He had managed to twist it all inside of him. To believe his father's version of the truth. That being a West, that protecting that name was the most important thing.

They were pillars of the community, after all. Those pillars had to be upheld, no matter what.

Deeper, though, something about that interaction with his father had shaken him to his core. And he had felt the need to push back. To create a situation in which his father would have to prove that loyalty he'd spoken of. And he had. He had done it, and he had swept Rebecca up in it too.

When he had stood before his father, the reality of what had happened laid out before them, he had waited for something. Some warmth. Some sign that his father did any of this out of love. And he realized then that the older man didn't.

That was when it had all become clear to him. He wasn't his father. He was his mother. The two of them would destroy themselves for love. For people who would never love them in return. And it wasn't only themselves they would destroy, it was everyone around them.

That night was the first night he had dared to ask her about it directly. Dared to broach the subject, to even imply that Nathan West was anything short of perfect. He was bruised, he was broken inside and out. There was a girl in the hospital because of him, his father offering to make it go away, not out of love, but of loyalty.

“Why does he do it? Does it have anything to do with loving us?”

She had looked at him, and right in that moment Gage had realized how infrequently she did that. “He has too many things to care for to worry about loving people too much. That's why he needs us to support him. But,” she said, her expression changing, sympathy in her pale blue eyes. “You have to be careful. Because people like you and me, we'll give and give until it takes everything from us. We care more than other people, Gage. And it's the kind of weakness that can ruin a person. And then when there's nothing left in us, it starts taking from the people around us.”

He realized that that was exactly what he was doing. Already. The revelation about Jack had caused his rebellion, had caused him to act out the way that he did. And he had already started hurting people.

Rebecca had been the first casualty. All for what? To gain the attention of his father? To gain love that very likely wasn't there?

He saw in his mother that endless forgiveness, that endless ability to put up with anything, and he saw how destructive it was. Because there was no end. His father could never satisfy her, she could never be satisfied. Anyone who was with him would end up in the same position.

And he was an unholy mix of the two of them. His destruction was bigger than his mother's could ever be. He had all the selfishness, all the inclination to protect himself that his father had. And all of that need that came from his mother.

The terrible thing was, he had run to avoid doing more damage. That much was true.

But he had done more this way. So it hadn't been the only reason. It hadn't been for them. It had been for himself.

If I'm not the victim, where does that leave you?

A coward. He was left facing the fact that he was a coward.

It was why her forgiveness had been more of a burden than a relief. Why he had felt stripped down afterward.

In some ways, he could understand why her mother had been so desperate to deny that same forgiveness. It was just like she'd said to him earlier. He was walking away. He was the one leaving when someone was waiting for him with open arms.

Leaving was so much easier when you could leave with a cloud of sulfur behind you. Knowing that everyone hated you. That you had broken things beyond repair.

That you at least deserved to not be loved now.

That was what he'd done. That was why he was so dedicated to believing he was a villain. Because maybe if he didn't deserve love he wouldn't...crave it so much anymore.

But Rebecca wasn't allowing that. Wasn't allowing him to burn the bridge. She was making sure he knew it was still there. And he liked to burn bridges. It was the only way he knew to manage that yawning canyon inside of him. To make sure he placed it between himself and the person he needed to escape from.

Rebecca didn't do that. She was brave. She faced down everyone. Her mother, him. She had stood between himself and Jonathan, defending him. She hadn't hidden. That woman didn't have an ounce of skittish in her.

No, he was the one on the run.

And now that all of his excuses had been taken away, it was impossible to justify.

He took a deep breath, squinting out toward the lake at the full moon reflecting across the surface. Rebecca's house was there. Rebecca was there. He ached for her, to hold her in his arms. He ached with the need that wouldn't end, he knew it wouldn't. Because that was how he loved.

Deep, destructive. He didn't know another way. He was still too broken to drag her down into it. Into him.

How could he ask for a love like that? When his own mother looked through him and his own father had barely ever seen him.

He was too broken for such a thing.

“So, fix yourself.” He said those words out loud, his breath visible in the dark air.

He knew what he had to do. He knew it wasn't because he was too busy that he had been avoiding his father. Knew it wasn't because he had been caught up in everything else. No, he was avoiding his father because that was what he did.

In that, Rebecca was right. Initially, he had been using her. To put distance between himself and his family. Because she had never been the reason he left. It had always been them, always been him.

He laughed, the sound swallowed up by the thick pine trees and the dense night. He had come back to town bound and determined to fix Rebecca Bear, and he had found that she wasn't broken. Instead, she had shown him the million different ways he was splintered into unfixable pieces.

Maybe it was time he went and fixed one. He didn't know if he could ever be what she needed. Didn't know if he could ever justify trying to make a future with her.

Hell, he didn't know if he had the balls to give himself over to the kind of love he felt like he could have for that woman.

But he did know that if she could stand on her own two feet and face all of her monsters, then he could damn well go face a few of his own.

* * *

R
EBECCA
WOKE
UP
to pounding on her door. Her heart slammed against her chest, mimicking the rhythm. She scrambled out of bed, padding down the hall and wrenching the door open, her heart freezing completely when, for one moment, she thought it might be Gage.

But no, it was Jonathan. His arms were crossed across his broad chest, his expression matching the steel-gray clouds outside. “Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she mumbled, taking a step back and gesturing for him to come inside.

“It's ten thirty. I didn't think you would still be asleep.”

“I had a rough night.”

“Did you go see her?” Jonathan looked like he hadn't slept last night. It was strange to see him looking like this. Careworn and concerned, when normally he was impenetrable, at least from her point of view.

It took her a moment to realize that he was concerned about their mother, not about anything to do with Gage. Of course. Then, yesterday came back into focus. The fact that she had gone to see her mother. That Gage had gone with her. And then...

Well, she didn't want to think about the rest.

“Yes,” she said.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said. “She lives in a trailer park, but I imagine you knew that, since you knew the address. Obviously she didn't manage that money very well after she took off.”

“I know. I make sure that she doesn't go hungry.”

“How? She didn't seem like she wanted any help from me.”

“Oh, I get it to her in a variety of ways. But, she doesn't know it's from me.” He looked around, his expression stern. “Is he here?”

“The milkman?”

“It's not 1950, so no, that isn't what I meant. I meant West.”

“No,” she said, battling against the sharp slice of pain that went through her when she gave him that answer. She wondered how long it would be before it stopped hurting.

“Okay,” he said, clearly not quite sure what to do. She wondered if he had been intent on dragging Gage out of her bed and giving him a pummeling.

He turned as if he were going to go. “Jonathan,” she said, her voice stopping him in his tracks. “Can I ask you something?”

He turned back toward her. “Sure. It doesn't mean I'll answer it.”

She smiled. She could always count on Jonathan to be a little bit taciturn. “Have you ever wanted to rebuild things with Mom?”

“No,” he said. The word was so firm, so sure. It surprised her. Because she didn't really know what she wanted from her mother. Hadn't until she had gone to that house and realized that she didn't need anything from the older woman, she only needed to change something in herself.

“Not at all?”

“Rebecca,” he said, his voice rough. “She left you when you needed her most. I'm never going to forgive her for that. I'm never going to want to rebuild that bridge. And if she tried I would be the first one to light it on fire so that she couldn't cross it.”