Free Last Chance Rebel by Maisey Yates Page B

he was?” Rebecca asked.
    â€œI don’t know. I just didn’t expect...that.”
    Rebecca knew exactly what she meant. The tall, broad-shouldered, hard-bodiedness of him that just didn’t seem to be right or fair.
    â€œIt’s always the handsome ones,” Alison said, her tone decidedly bitter. “If evil men looked like the trolls they were inside, it would be much easier to avoid them.”
    â€œI don’t know if he’s evil,” Rebecca said, not sure why she’d said it. He might as well be. What he’d done had changed her life forever. Ruined her life. If that wasn’t evil, she wasn’t entirely sure what was. Still, he wasn’t evil in the way Alison’s ex-husband was, and she couldn’t even pretend he was. “But, not exactly a nice guy.”
    â€œJust be careful,” Alison said. “I know a little something about getting drawn into unhealthy relationships.”
    â€œWe don’t have a relationship. In fact, that’s why I’m working for him. I told you I owe him money. Apparently, some of the payout that I thought was from insurance came directly from him. I’m not comfortable with it. I want to make sure that I don’t have any kind of debt to him, and he doesn’t feel like he gave anything to me.” She was going to go ahead and leave off the complication of the store and the fact that he wanted to give it to her.
    â€œThat makes sense,” Lane said, frowning as though it absolutely didn’t.
    â€œIt does to me ,” Rebecca said.
    â€œI guess that’s what matters.” Lane looked down at her drink. “You owe me a cherry.”
    Rebecca looked back over at where Gage was, leaning against the wall and brooding. He lifted a bottle of beer to his lips, and she felt the long slow sip inside of her. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why.
    â€œThat’s all that matters,” she said, trying to convince herself.
    She was going to show up at six o’clock tomorrow morning and she was going to work her ass off.
    And nothing Gage West said or did was going to stop her.

CHAPTER SIX
    J UST AS SHE ’ D said she would, Rebecca walked around the side of his house and toward the stable at exactly six in the morning. Gage was already out there, chopping wood and ready to jump into whatever work she thought she was going to do.
    If she insisted on doing this, then she was going to have assistance. Whether she wanted it or not.
    And you think this is the best way to mend fences?
    It didn’t matter. He wasn’t exactly here to mend fences. Just to make the scales balance. Rebecca was never going to like him, and he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over that. There were a lot of people who were never going to like him. He hadn’t earned it.
    â€œGood morning,” he said, swinging the ax down so that the head was resting on the ground and leaning his weight on it.
    Rebecca startled, jerking backward and looking up, her eyes clashing with his. “What are you doing out here?”
    â€œChopping wood.”
    â€œClearly. But, why are you out here now doing it?”
    â€œI’m going to help you with your work.”
    She scowled, her expression turning feral. “The hell you are.” She grabbed hold of her long dark braid and whipped it over her shoulder. “You seem to misunderstand the point of what I’m doing here. This is not leisure time for me, neither is it some kind of therapeutic thing where I put myself in the path of the one person that I can stand the least. I can’t owe you.”
    â€œOr,” he said, taking a step toward her, “you just want to be pissed.”
    â€œYes,” she said, her tone dry, “I live to be angry. And I certainly enjoy investing all of my thought and energy into you.”
    â€œThen why won’t you just take it? I could get out of your life a hell of a lot faster if you would just