Page 51 of Brazen

I shook my head, looking away. Oh my God. I wasn’t scared. I was pissed.

I’d been so stupid! How had I missed the signs?

Sam was crazy strong, just like Ted. He had that same cocky swagger I’d assumed was because he’d ridden on the back of a bronc and survived. It was no wonder how he’d done that now. He’d climbed up the rafters to sit beside JT. He hadn’t been the least bit afraid, just like JT. That wasn’t normal!

“Hey.” Sam kept his voice soft. He hadn’t moved, as if he were afraid one slight twitch, and I’d freak even more.

I felt like puking. Like running. Like he’d tricked me.

I pointed toward the door. “I want you out. I…I don’t…I’m not doing this again. Never again.”

Sam’s brows lowered. “Did he hurt you?” There was a sharpness in his tone that told me he would make Ted pay if he had.

The question knocked the wind out of me. My frenzy to get rid of him and the panic in my body vanished in an instant, replaced by a wall of grief that crashed into me, nearly knocking me down.

It was heavy, bending me at the waist, so I had to put my hands on my thighs for support.

Yes, Ted had hurt me. But not the way Sam thought.

“Did. He. Hurt. You?”

At his even sharper tone, I glanced up.

Sam’s still had that ice blue glow. He was ready to rip another wolf’s throat out for me. His anger on my behalf calmed me a little more.

Somehow, it drew a line of separation between him and Ted, even though they were both wolves.

I shook my head. “No. Not like you think. He ripped my heart out, but he didn’t physically hurt me.”

Sam’s expression shuttered. “Do you still love him?”

I felt strangled for a moment. Did I? Was that what all this grief represented? Love that I’d run from and missed?

I remembered how it felt to have Sam jump in and have my back tonight at the fall festival. When he’d grabbed dinner for us, I didn’t have to think of it. Him with all the kids. With me. I felt supported, like he was trying to be a partner. Something I never–ever–felt with Ted.

Did I wish Ted were around to co-parent JT with me?

I let that question settle. I didn’t need more than a second to know the answer. No. No, I didn’t.

Ted was all about Ted. He’d always been about himself. The driver. The one with all the glory while everyone worked their asses off behind the scenes to make his car run at optimal performance, so he could win. Sure, he was an amazing driver, but no one won if his Indy car chugged along like a ride-on mower.

I’d been convenient for him because I was part of his pit crew. I was the only woman around. I’d literally been right in front of him. He hadn’t had to hunt me down. Try hard. He knew exactly where to find me. When he was ready for a pit stop, I serviced him.

Okay, that was a pretty crude image of what our relationship had been, but it was true.

When I became inconvenient, he broke things off. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he wasn’t good either. He wasn’t like Sam. He didn’t do anything that didn’t benefit him. He never truly had my back because he knew I, along with the rest of the pit crew, always had his.

That’s what the grief I felt was about, over me choosing a guy who threw me away like dirt when I had given everything. It had been my job to get him to win. I was back up. Support. I’d chosen a guy who thought I was a lesser species.

Choosing a guy whose family–I meant, pack–would never ever accept me because I was different from them.

That was the real reason I wanted Sam to leave. I didn’t want to go through that heartbreak again.

“No. I’m long past that.”

Some of the tension left Sam’s face. I needed to try to explain it to him. I owed him that much. Whether or not this thing with him would work out, I needed to try to be honest.

Besides, Sam was the first person I could talk to about this stuff. Because Ted had sworn me to secrecy about wolf shifters, and I hadn’t met one since. His pack didn’t know that I knew what he was, and if they found out, they’d somehow have my memory wiped.