Page 41 of Direct Action

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “It was nice of you to drop everything and drive me. I’m being uncool, and I know it. And I don’t think I thanked you for helping me with my car. That was uncool too.”

“You’re having a shitty day, baby.”

Letting me off the hook and making excuses for me made me feel worse.

“You don’t know the half of it,” I mumbled. “You’re gonna make the next left.”

He again switched lanes.

“I’d like to know,” he softly told me.

In a perfect world—read: ten months ago—if he’d spoken to me in that gentle voice, my heart would’ve swooned, like seriously pitter-pattered, and I would’ve spilled my guts. Not that I had anything to spill about ten months ago, but still I would’ve told him anything he’d wanted to know.

Now . . .

Now it felt like my life wasn’t my own. Everything was dark and messy and full of emotional turmoil. No one wanted to be saddled with that.

So instead of telling him, I decided to stick to the plan—minus being a snappy bitch, because really he didn’t deserve it and it was exhausting trying to stay pissed at a man who’d folded my laundry.

“Make a right. Leisure Village will be at the end of the road.”

Mutely, Ryan made the turn and drove us to my hell on earth.

Purgatory might’ve been a better description. Either that or hell sold rooms for seven grand a month and was clean and inviting.

But still, screw this place that kept my father safe and comfortable. He was nothing more than a hostage to a disease. And my mother and I were nothing more than slaves to the grief of watching him slowly fade away.

Chapter Fourteen

Well fuck.

An attractive sign declared Leisure Village was an assisted living facility. The large building looked more like a nice hotel then a nursing home where old people went to live out the rest of their days in dingy white rooms. No, people who needed help lived there and were afforded dignity, if not a touch of luxury, while they recuperated or lived out their lives.

This explained Chloe’s panic, if someone she loved lived here, but not why she’d refused to tell me where we were going even if, at the end of the journey, I’d obviously see for myself.

“Chloe—”

“You can drop me at the front,” she interrupted. “And . . . um . . . thanks for the ride.”

That wasn’t happening.

I ignored her directive and hooked a left into the parking lot.

“Ryan!” she snapped, but softer, uncertain. In a voice laced with pain and a good amount of suffering, she whispered, “Please.”

I pulled into a spot, shut my truck down, and shifted so I could look at her.

Defeated.

And that was one look I’d never witnessed Chloe wearing.

“Is there a reason you don’t want me walking you in?”

Her brows winged up, which drew my attention to her eyes. They weren’t flashing their normal fire. They were vacant. One of the many things I dug about Chloe was her eyes; not only were they gorgeous, but they were expressive. They changed color with her moods. Shades of green, blue, and brown deepened, depending on what she was feeling. But right then they were flat—no spark, no fire. I liked that less than I liked the way she was slumped in her seat. And I didn’t like that shit one bit.

“Maybe because I don’t want you in my personal business?” She framed it as a question when it absolutely was not. She also said it with less heat than she’d tossed my way when I told her to cancel her Uber and she argued. I didn’t like that shit either.

Chloe Baughman was no pushover. She didn’t cow. She didn’t make herself small. And she certainly did not sit at my side and make herself those things.