Collide (26 page)

“That’s bullshit.”

Her head snapped up and anger heated her
cheeks. “What?”

Betty glared at her. “That’s bullshit. If
Shane Gallagher wanted to go to college he would have fucking gone
to college. He wouldn’t have had to rely on his daddy’s money to
get him there either. Shane’s a smart boy. He would have figured it
out. If he wanted to do anything other than what he did, which was
get his ass tossed into jail for three years, he would have. Do you
think Shane Gallagher is the kind of man to do anything other than
what he wants to do?”

“You’re not making any sense,” Bobbi shouted,
suddenly so angry she began to shake. “Who the hell wants to lose
everything? Who wants to get sent to jail because of it?”

“I’m not saying he wanted it. I’m saying he
needed
it. He needed to get his ass kicked. He needed to
lose everything. I think Shane needed to see the darkest part of
his soul before he could even begin to think about moving
forward.”

For the longest time the two girls stared at
each other. And then Bobbi cleared her throat. “Are we talking
about Shane or are we talking about you?”

Betty was standing now. “You bet your ass
we’re talking about, Shane. You two were bad for each other. Not
because you couldn’t be good for each at some point, but because
your feelings were way ahead of the curve. You guys were kids,” she
paused. “Especially you. Your feelings were volatile and all over
the place and Shane, well, he obviously had issues of his own. The
loss of his mother…and eventually the loss of you.”

Bobbi watched her sister pace the floor.

“I remember how he used to look at you. As if
he needed you to breathe…as if he needed you to live and you were
no different than Shane. When the two of you were together there
was no one else in the world. Nothing existed except you and him.
But that kind of bubble doesn’t survive the real world. And shit
happened and it burst. But Jesus Christ Bobbi, don’t sit there and
take all the blame for it.”

Betty’s face was pale and she sat down once
more, her hands curved around her mug though she made no effort to
drink it.

“I’m sorry,” Betty said eventually. “Not for
what I said, because every single thing I told you is true. I’m
sorry I yelled.” She gazed at Bobbi over her mug as she raised it
to her lips. “It’s too early to yell. Hell, it’s not even
seven.”

Bobbi blew out a long breath and stretched
her legs out, crossing them at the ankles. She stared down at her
pink fuzzy socks for so long they blurred. “You’re right,” she said
softly.

“Of course I’m right.” Betty’s brow furled
and she cocked her head to the side. “What part exactly are you
talking about?”

A smile lifted Bobbi’s lips. “All of it.”

“Betty, are you going to be alright?” She
asked, her smile fading, because there was something personal in
her sister’s rant. Something painful. And for the first time in
forever she’d caught a glimpse of the old Betty, but it was gone
just as quick. And the new version had cracks. The new version was
paper thin.

“Sure. I’m always alright, why?”

“Because you’re not always, alright?”

Betty laughed a soft, sad, sound. “Well,
there is that, but if you don’t mind I’d rather not talk about the
sad state of my life. I’d rather talk about Billie.”

“Wow. That’s a good deflection. I thought you
didn’t give a rat’s ass about, Billie.”

“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy
talking about her.”

Bobbi pushed up from the table. “I don’t want
to talk about Billie with you.” She gave her sister a hug, bent
down and whispered. “Whatever it is between the two of you…this
thing that’s sort of broken, you guys need to fix it, okay?”

“Sure,” Betty mumbled. “I’ll get right on
that.”

Bobbi tossed her mug in the dishwasher and
glanced out the window. “Holy shit!”

“What?”

Betty was beside in her in instant and the
two girls stared out onto the stone pathway that led to the back
garden. It looked as if a carrot tree had exploded everywhere. The
path was literally covered in small, rounded, peeled carrots.

“Shit,” Bobbi murmured. “I needed those for
the turnip.”

Movement caught her eyes and she grabbed
Betty, pointing toward the far end of the path, right where it met
the garden. A garden that was bare, brown and muddy, with parts
along the edges covered in the stubborn snow that hadn’t yet
melted.

A small, brown rabbit was edging closer to
the carrots, its nose twitching nervously as it hopped closer and
paused, still as a soldier. When it reached its prize and hunkered
down to feed, Bobbi giggled.

“I guess Dad thinks we still believe in the
Easter Bunny.”

Betty nodded in agreement. “Well, that’s
because last night he was talking as if it was 1998.”

“I know.” Bobbi glanced at her sister. “I
hope he has a good day.”

Betty pushed off from the sink and reached
for the back door. “I’ll get rid of the carrots because I’m sure
he’ll obsess over them if they’re there when he wakes up. And
Bobbi?”

“Yeah?”

“I hope we all have a good day. It’s been a
while.”

Bobbi watched her sister walk out the door
and clutched her hands tight to her chest. The ever present tears
she felt at the back of her eyes were there, just waiting for the
chance to fall. But she couldn’t let them.

She
wouldn’t
let them.

With a quick nod of her head she glanced
around and made a mental listt of the things she still needed to
do. It was Easter Sunday and though they might not be a religious
family, the Barker’s sure loved a good meal. Logan and Billie were
coming over and she’d gone ahead and invited Shane’s family.
Surprisingly, James and Celia had accepted.

It was too early in the morning to think
about all the different ways this day could end. Instead, she
decided to focus on the now and maybe when it was time for her to
face the past, she’d be ready.

Maybe
, this time, she would win.

By ten a.m. Shane was in a foul mood and for
the tenth time in as many minutes he pulled out his cell phone and
glanced down at Bobbi’s text message.

Hey. I’m tired. Gonna crash here. C U
tomorrow around 4. B
.

Tired? What the hell.

Bobbi was never tired. The girl had more
energy than she knew what to do with. Shit, just last week he
caught her organizing his tools because she had an extra ten
minutes before going to work. She couldn’t spend a half an hour
reading a book without fidgeting or chewing on her fingernails, or
tapping her feet like she was an Irish dancer.

Bobbi Jo Barker didn’t get tired and she
especially didn’t get tired on a Saturday night when she should
have been home with him. In his bed. In his arms.

He thought about their conversation the day
before and ran his hands through the mess of hair on his head. It
was a goddamn mess because he’d slept like shit.

Pia whined and he glanced down at her. “She
told me she loved me, you know.” It should be enough.

But it wasn’t. And though he refused to be
that guy—the pussy-whipped asshole who couldn’t function without
his woman around—he needed to find out what the hell was going on
without calling Bobbi like a pathetic loser.

Absently rubbing Pia, he decided to do what
any other sane adult would do.

Shane grabbed his leather jacket from the
table where he’d flung the night before and pulled it on. He shoved
his bare feet into his work boots and took the stairs two at a
time, hitting the pavement running once he was outside.

The sun was shining, the temperature on the
warm side—which was a good thing considering he was half naked.
Birds chirped in the trees around him, buds were beginning to
spring forward and damned if a robin didn’t fly into the huge oak
tree behind the carriage house.

He ignored all of it and marched through
melting snow and mud, toward Logan’s house, which was about a fifty
feet straight ahead, just beyond the garage. An old home, it had
been built by a rich landowner back in the eighteenth century and
Logan was slowly restoring it to its former glory.

Shane hopped up onto the porch and without
hesitating rang the doorbell. It chimed. Loud and clear.

He waited a few moments. He rolled his
shoulders and peered into the window to his right.

He rang the doorbell again. And still he
waited. This time with his jaw clenched tightly and his brows so
low he looked like a fucking Neanderthal.

That heavy feeling in his gut churned and he
winced, his frown deepening just as the door flew open. Billie,
clad in a pair of pink track pants and a T-shirt that was not only
backwards, but inside out, stared up at him in surprise. She moved
an inch and glanced around him, her gaze slowly returning to his
face and then down to the bottom of his boots.

Her hair was mussed, her lips swollen like
they’d just been kissed, and Shane groaned inwardly. Shit.

“I’m sorry, Billie. I didn’t mean to bother
you.”

“Really? You rang the doorbell for nearly
five minutes.”

God, he felt like an idiot. He
was
the
pathetic guy that he swore he would never be. The one who mooned
over a woman. The one who all of a sudden couldn’t sleep by himself
anymore. When the hell had that happened?

Shane went to shove his hands into the
pockets of his jeans and…fuck, he wasn’t wearing any. Instead, his
fisted hands hung stiffly at his side.

“Do you want to come in?” Billie shivered and
stepped back. “Logan is putting on a pot of coffee.”

He wasn’t sure what he should do. Christ, he
wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

“Or you could stand on the porch in your
boxers. I don’t care.”

Shane glanced down, a half-hearted smile on
his face. “I ran out of the house without, ah, getting
dressed.”

“I see that,” Billie said softly. “It’s okay.
I’m not complaining. That tattoos are really hot.”

“What tattoo’s? Who’s complaining?” Logan
slipped his arms around Billie from behind, and looked over her
head at Shane as if Shane had lost his mind. “What the hell is
going on, Gallagher? And where the hell are your clothes?”

“He seems to have forgotten them,” Billie
said, wriggling out of Logan’s arms. “Are you coming in or
what?”

Shane glanced at Logan and shrugged. Why the
hell not? It wasn’t as if he had anyone waiting for him back at his
place.

He followed them inside, shucked his boots,
though he kept his jacket on, and headed toward the kitchen. He had
just grabbed a coffee and sat at the kitchen table, when Billie
slid down across from him.

“Did you and Bobbi have a fight?”

“What?” He shook his head. “No.” He frowned.
“At least I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Logan cracked another
egg into a large red bowl. “How can you not know if you’ve had a
fight? Shit, I look at Billie the wrong way and I hear about it
instantly.”

“Excuse me,” Billie glanced over her
shoulder. “It’s my duty as the girlfriend to let you know when
you’re wrong.”

Logan cracked another egg. “Babe, I’m never
wrong.”

“Really,” Billie said dryly, a slight smile
on her face as she stared down into her mug. “So yesterday when you
said that Easter Sunday was next week and I told you that no, it
was in fact today, you weren’t wrong?”

“I was wrong on purpose.”

Billie rolled her eyes. “Wrong on
purpose.”

“Yep.” Logan threw some cheese into the bowl
and grabbed the milk off the counter, though his eyes kept straying
to the woman across from Shane. “Wrong. On. Purpose.”

Billie’s face split into a soft smile. “And
why would you want to be wrong on purpose?”

Logan began to whisk the eggs, his grin as
wide as the Grand Canyon. “Why else? Make up sex is the best, don’t
you think?”

Billie glanced back at Logan, and Shane
looked away, his gaze on the window. On the blue sky and bright
sunlight. On anything other than the two of them.

Billie hopped off her chair—he saw the
reflection in the window—and crossed the kitchen until she stood
behind Logan and rested her cheek against his back.

Logan continued to make their breakfast and
the two of them continued to talk, their voices low and
intimate.

Something so powerful stirred inside him,
that Shane dropped his head into his hands and stared down into his
coffee mug. What was it exactly? Want? Need? Jealousy?

He realized in that moment that he and Bobbi
couldn’t go on with the way things had been over the last month or
so. How could they? He loved the woman more now, than he had
before, and when she decided not to come home because she was
tired, it was a goddamn problem.

A problem that he needed to fix.

“So, Shane, are you going to tell us what’s
going on?” Billie was still attached to Logan, her grin crazy silly
as she snuggled into his back.

“Bobbi didn’t come home last night.” He said
the words without thinking and grimaced when Logan laughed—a loud
chuckle that he was sure half of New Waterford heard.

“Christ, are you in trouble, Gallagher,”
Logan managed to get out between the loud chuckling.

“She was cleaning up the kitchen when I left
so maybe she was just tired and slept over?” Billie said
hopefully.

“That’s what she said.”

“Oh, okay, so you’ve talked to her.” Billie
took a step toward him. “You’re not fighting.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Shane said roughly, his
mood once again dark. “She sent me a text message. I hate fucking
text messages. They’re for goddamn teenagers.”

“Oh,” Billie said, her hand moving to her
nose.

“Damn, are you in trouble,” Logan
interjected, unaware that Billie had turned ten shades of pale.