Page 50 of Wrecked By You

I laughed, feeling confused. Then I thought of McCrae. “You didn’t answer me. What did McCrae say?”

Damon kept his eyes on the road. “Nothing. He was just updating me on a police thing.”

“Are you sure?”

Damon reached across and patted my leg. “I’m sure. It was just some parade cleanup that wasn’t being done.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed him, but I could tell he didn’t want to talk about whatever it was.

Damon slowed us down, and he paused in front of a new house. “This is Noah’s new house.”

I was amazed. “Wow. This is awesome.”

He nodded, putting the car in drive again. “He has land out here and doesn’t care if we shoot on it. And there’s no one around. So I thought we’d come.”

My fingers prodded at the guns. “I’ve never shot a gun before. Of course, Kyle always had his gun, but we never went shooting.”

Damon turned to me, looking interested. “Did you want to go shooting?”

“I don’t know.” I thought about it for a little bit. “The truth is, I was too busy trying to just make ends meet and make sure I wasn’t ticking off Kyle. I didn’t really think about that.”

Damon’s jaw tightened. “Why did you stay with Kyle so long?”

“What was I supposed to do, Damon? I didn’t have a home to come home to. My dad was in prison. My mom is … terrible; working in the bar and drunk most of the time.” I threw up a hand, getting more upset. “You saw her at the carnival the other night. She’s never been a mother.”

He reached out and took my hand. “I’m sorry. You’re right. There’s so much I wish I could change. So many things I wish I could do differently.”

I stared at this beautiful man. His blond hair was tumbling down his face, and worry marks were etched around the edges of his eyes. I thought about all that he’d been through. I wanted to know more. “Tell me more about Missy.”

He shook his head. “Finish what you’re telling me about Kyle. He pushed you around. In the last two years, he left dead animals on your porch.”

I winced. “I should’ve left sooner. I kept convincing myself I could work these jobs at little grocery stores or waitress and make enough money to cover my expenses and go to college. But something would come up. I would need new tires, or I would have to go to the doctor or a million other things.” I bit my lip and tried not to cry. “Ultimately—I’m not going lie to you—I saw a post on Instagram that McCrae put up. He said something about how he was really proud of his brother for being police chief. I decided to stalk you a little bit and realized that you weren’t married anymore. I told myself that it didn’t matter. But then, when he left that dead dog on my porch, it was like I was just on autopilot and I came here. To Refuge Falls. Back to you, in a way. I guess I was coming back to you. Even though I didn’t really admit that to myself.”

Damon squeezed my hand. “I’m glad you did.”

I nodded. “Tell me more about when Missy left.”

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Like I told you, she always did community theater, and then she would spend hours at the gym and put our kids in daycare. Which is fine, but it was like she really didn’t want to be a mom. Honestly, when she told me that she was leaving and she had the divorce papers for me, I felt like I was on autopilot. I just signed the papers.I honestly didn’t feel anything. Maybe that’s sad, but that’s the truth.”

I’d met Missy, so I could see how she was like that. It made me sad for him. “I’m sorry.”

He gave me a little smile. “It’s okay. Maybe we had to go through all we went through to get back to each other.”

Warmth flooded me, and I wanted to say so many things to this man. “Like we had to get wrecked to find our way back to each other.”

He pulled up to the land and parked. “I think so.”

We got out of the vehicle. I could see what looked like a put-together gun range. Some cans were set up on rocks. I was nervous to be holding the guns.

Damon seemed to sense that I was nervous, so he took the guns and put one in the back of his pants, then showed me the gun he was still holding. “This is a pistol thirty-eight revolver. When you shoot, I want you to hold it up in your dominant hand. That’s your right hand. And then you can look through either your left eye or your right eye and line those up—” He pointed to the end of the gun. “—and then find your target line. There are some cans set up. Let’s see if we can hit those.”

I gestured to him. “Show me.”

He held up the pistol, squinted, and fired, hitting the can. Then he hit the next can, and the one after that.

I laughed. “Of course you can do that on the first try.”

Damon grinned at me. “I’ve been doing this a long time. Let’s get you started. Take the gun.”