The door opened behind her and footsteps sounded; then everything went silent. Awareness prickled over her skin, and a sudden slice of unexpecte
d, unexplainable loss cut through her gut. Her eyes burned, and her chest hurt.
“Delaney,” he said, his tone a mix of I-didn’t-expect-to-see-you and Oh-shit. “I . . . was going to come find you.”
She forced her shields up before turning to face him.
And he didn’t look any better than she felt. His hair was a sloppy mess as if he’d had his hands in it, and his face bore that tight, exhausted expression of worry and frustration.
Then his gaze drifted to the workbench behind her, and shock snapped through his eyes. A split-second, barely there flash, then it was gone. And so were the soft emotions he’d walked in with.
“What are you—?” He didn’t exactly accuse her, but definite annoyance edged his tone as he came forward. Once he focused on the plans, his eyes slid closed and he ran a hand over his face. “Dammit. I was going to tell you.”
“When? When were you going to tell me? After you’d missed so many appointments I went broke? Or after you’d required so many modifications I gave up and sold you the liquor license?”
“No.” He met her gaze directly. “That was not my plan.”
“The plans, the land, your family, the appointment . . .” She shook her head. “Forgive me for not joining the believers club.”
“I know it looks . . . bad. It’s so complicated.”
She fisted her hands in the bend of her elbows, trying to collect the anger, the betrayal, the hurt. “So you’re telling me you weren’t planning on using my license to open Wildcard Brews.”
“At first, yes. With Joe gone and the bar abandoned, yes, I was sure the license would come available, and I had planned on grabbing it.” He flicked a look at her, then let his gaze skim the plans. “Even after you came back, I was sure you’d just tear the bar down and walk away. By the time I realized you were serious about the renovation, we were . . . involved.”
He pulled in a breath, met her gaze, and stepped closer. “I care about you, Delaney. I know we went into this for a fling, but somewhere along the line it became more for me.”
“Like . . . maybe about the time I dropped the building permit on your desk?”
His brow pulled in a frown. “What? I—I don’t know when, exactly.” He gestured toward the plans, agitated. “But this started long before you came back to town. And it all got so complicated so fast. First my job, then my father, then Austin. Everything drifted out of control and now I feel like it’s a loaded freight train headed downhill with no brakes.”
Anger and disappointment boiled over, smothering the hurt. “That’s a pathetic excuse for not doing the right thing when you should have.” She lifted a hand to stab a rigid finger at him. “You have the breaks. You have all the control, and you know it.
“Do you know how much money your missed appointment cost me today? Hundreds. Maybe thousands. I’m not even sure yet. It depends on how the delay affects my other subcontractors, and the availability of my supplies. And the worst part—you knew you were burning me when you didn’t show up, and you still bailed. That’s what they call premeditation.”
“I was trying to figure out—”
“How best to screw me over again? That is my money, Ethan. My money. Not the invisible cash from some huge corporation. Not a paper trail for some anonymous bank. Not petty cash for some multimillionaire. That is money I earned on a ladder, putting up drywall until two a.m., crawling on my belly under a building to connect plumbing lines, risking heat stroke in an attic laying insulation.”
Her voice grew louder as the memories of all her backbreaking work returned.
“That money is all I have, and you know that. Your missed appointment this morning is stealing cash from my pockets so you can further your goal.”
“I’m not stealing anything, and it’s not just a goal.” He bit out the words, raising his voice to match hers. “It’s not just about me either. Pops invested his entire retirement in this plan. I can’t just snap my fingers and get that back for him now that we hit a wall. This is his dream.” Ethan slapped his hand to the plans. “Our dream. One that’s been in the works nearly my whole life. And I don’t know how long he’s going to be able to continue working the farm. He should have been off that tractor years ago, and it’s my fault he’s not.
“He’s always been there for me. Even when I made that one unforgivable mistake with Ian. When the rest of my family hated me, Pops was there. And because he supported me, they abandoned him. He’s only got two things left in the world—this dream and me.”
Delaney was still back at “that one unforgivable mistake.”
Ian’s death. It would always be between them. She’d always feel a certain measure of guilt over the cause of the fight, over that fight causing this pain in Ethan’s life. And while he may not blame her for the pain he’d suffered, they both knew that if it weren’t for Delaney, Ian might still be alive, and Ethan might still be the apple of his parents’ eye. Hell, he might very well be off inventing some new miracle drug.
And that didn’t even begin to address the bigger issue between them right now: deceit. Deceit she couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t particularly apologetic over.
She’d obviously misjudged him.
Terribly.
She crossed her arms over the ripples of hurt and disappointment rolling through her body. “And I have two sisters who I didn’t support when I should have. Sisters I abandoned because your family was so harsh I couldn’t face staying here. And now I’m all they have.”