Page 51 of Hard Rain Coming
“I had him put to sleep a few years back. Bad hips, and he had some tumors that were cancerous.”
“I’m sorry.”
He looked at Vivian. “He was a good dog.”
She nodded. “I never meant to?—”
“We don’t need to do this, Viv.” He walked past her and stood in the middle of his living room, body and mind heated with a bunch of pent-up shit that needed to be controlled. This was not the time to let it out.
“I want to talk about things.”
“I don’t,” he bit out, turning to her as that anger in his gut churned. “No good can come of it.”
“Have you ever let anyone in?” she asked, eyes so big, they could have held up the moon.
“I let you in once, and that didn’t exactly end well.”
She moistened her lips. “There’s been no one since me? No woman in your bed?”
His eyebrow shot up at that, and she made a sound, shaking her head. “I know you’ve had your fun, and obviously, there have been a lot of women.”
“Not a lot.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I’ve never been the guy who needs a lot of variety. I like to keep things simple. Too many women means too many complications.”
“But you’ve never been in a relationship since…us.”
“We were too young to know what a relationship was. All we did was argue and have sex.” He skipped a beat. “Great mind-blowing sex. But being physical is all we’ve got.”
She glanced away and whispered. “I guess I remember things differently.”
He heard the hurt in her voice, and damned if it didn’t make him feel like shit. “Hey,” he said quietly. “Why are we rehashing all that stuff? Let’s just go with whatever this is for as long as it works, and then…”
“Then what?”
“We’re not endgame here. We never were. You’re not going to stay in Montana, not when you have a life in Alaska that allows you to live without all these messy ties to your past.”
Her nostrils flared, and he knew she was angry. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dallas had no problem being brutally honest. “You run when shit goes down. You don’t deal with anything, you disappear and hide. You deflect. You blame. You did it before, and you’ll do it again.”
“That’s not fair,” she retorted.
“It might not be fair, but it’s damn well true.”
Her eyes widened even more, and she sputtered, turning away from him and crossing the room so that there was distance. Typical.
“There are things you don’t—” She cut herself off and lowered her eyes. “Things I can’t…” Dallas got the feeling she was wrestling with something big. He took a step forward.
“Just spit it out. Whatever it is that’s hanging over you. Get it off your chest, and maybe you’ll be free.”
She glanced up, making no effort to hide the tears that sat there. They shimmered and made her eyes look like glass.
“Back then, why did you think I left?”
Dallas sighed and ran a hand over his beard, not taking his eyes off her. “All we did was fight, and that last one was ugly.