Free Just Give In… by Kathleen O'Reilly Page A

he wouldn’t have been so far off the mark.
    A long time ago, it wouldn’t have hurt so bad.
     
     
    B ROOKE DIDN’T LIKE feeling stupid, she didn’t like feeling small. She didn’t like being broke, and she didn’t like living in her car.
    The front seat was too cramped, she noted, bashing her knees on the steering wheel for the eighteenth time, her goose-feathered duvet smelled like French fries instead of burned scrambled eggs, but the pillow smelled exactly like the Captain.
    She should have been smarter. She should have known better, but all the shoulda s didn’t help.
    Furious with herself, she kicked at the door, tossing this way and that to find a more comfortable position.
    The Captain tapped on the window and she ignored him.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Go away.”
    “Brooke, you can’t sleep in the car.”
    “I belong in the car. Go away.”
    “You don’t belong in the car.”
    “I don’t belong in the house.”
    “I can’t leave you out here like this.”
    “You don’t have to take care of crazy people.”
    “You’re not crazy. Come in the house.”
    “No.”
    “At least talk to me.”
    “I am.”
    “In the house.”
    “No.”
    She heard him try the handle, but the doors were locked. Car doors should always be locked.
    After a few minutes he left, and Brooke was alone. She should be happy that she was alone. She should be happy that the Captain had given up. She was so happy, she kicked at the door. It hurt just as badly as before, but the pain in her foot was better than the pain in her head.
    There was a click and then the back door creaked open, and the Captain climbed in her car.
    “I don’t want you in my car.”
    “Technically, your car is on my property.”
    “I can park somewhere else.”
    “I’m sorry, Brooke. I’m very, very sorry.”
    The sincerity in his voice ripped at her heart, and she knew that was the best and worst thing about the Captain. If he saw a person in a hole, he needed to pull them out, but sometimes a person needed to crawl out of the hole themselves. Brooke didn’t want him to see her as a hole-dweller. She wanted him to see her as a desirable woman, and she knew that some of the time he did.
    Right now, with her feelings so raw, she wanted to hear him say it, wanted him to admit that he wanted her. It wasn’t very nice of her because he would never tell her that, although it meant he could be as silent and therefore as miserable as her at least.
    The silence grew, filling the car until Brooke kicked at the door. “Get out.”
    “You can sleep in the house, or I can sleep out here. You pick.”
    In answer, Brooke kicked the door once again.
     
     
    T HE MORNING SUN HIT Jason in the eyes, and he twisted his neck, a hairbrush stabbing him in the face. Three times he stretched, but the knots in his body remained.
    In a lot of ways, Jason knew the situation was for the best. Brooke should have gone to her brother right away. Idiot.
    From the front seat, he could hear her soft breathing and knew she was still fast asleep. If he closed his good eye he could forget the stack of magazines under his knee, he could forget the duct-taped seat cushion and forget the hurt in her eyes.
    If he closed his good eye, he could see her welcoming him in his bed, remember the way she felt in his arms.
    But sex was a dangerous drug. Brooke was a dangerous drug so Jason opened his one good eye and climbed out of her car, the door creaking like an old woman’s knee. Her breathing caught, and he knew she was awake, but she didn’t say a word, not that he expected her to.
    As he walked toward his house, he didn’t look back. He heard the sound of her engine, the sound of her wheels on the drive and, soon enough, Jason’s life was restored to the same place it’d been before.
     
     
    B ROOKE FOLLOWED the map to the Hart homestead, excitement roiling in her stomach. This was her home, the place where Charlene and Frank Hart had lived together in bitter matrimony. She’d put