Page 27 of The Outpost (Jamison Valley 4)
His arms banded around my back and he hauled me off the cot.
Hell no. I did not like to be hauled around, not even for sex.
“Put me down!” I shrieked into his face.
“No.”
I started squirming and kicking but he was too strong. “Beau, I mean it. Put me down.”
His response was a growl and a tighter grip. He carried me into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
“You need to wallow? Do that in here.” He set me down, fully clothed, under the cold spray.
“It’s cold!” I screamed but he ignored me, closing the shower curtain, stomping out of the bathroom and slamming the bathroom door behind him.
“I cannot believe he did that.” With gritted teeth, I stripped off my drenched clothes as the water started to warm up. I took out my frustration on my hair and skin, scrubbing and lathering with vengeance.
I was in the middle of my second shampoo when the bathroom door clicked open and then closed again. When I stepped out of the shower, clean laundry and a hair dryer were sitting on the counter.
Curses. It was going to be really tough to stay mad when he’d brought me the one beauty tool I coveted more than any other.
I got dressed, dried my hair, and by the time I emerged from the steamy bathroom, my temper had fizzled. Four days had been much too long without a shower and I was glad Beau had forced me to get up. Something I would never admit out loud, obviously, but I would apologize for yelling at him.
“Hey. Sorry I was a bi—” I stopped short when I
saw what he was doing in the kitchen. “You brought me a coffee machine?”
He shrugged. “A couch was too big.”
And with that, all residual anger vanished. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”
He grinned. “Don’t worry about it. Sorry for throwing you in the shower.”
“I needed one.” So much for keeping that tidbit to myself.
“So, are you done pouting?”
“What? I wasn’t pouting,” I said defensively. “Sometimes I just get sad and it takes a while to work itself out.”
“You were pouting, Sabrina. Just like that first week we were here and you were avoiding me.”
“I think I’m more qualified to evaluate my mental state than you are, Beau.”
“Oh, I’m plenty qualified. I told you already, I’ve got a damn accurate read on you. You were moping around. I’m not saying you haven’t been through some shit, but last week you were perfectly content. I leave and you go back to pouting.”
“I have gone through some ‘shit,’ ” I snapped. “So let me deal with it in whatever way I need. If that means ‘moping around,’ then that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Stop with the air quotes and calm the hell down.”
My blood pressure skyrocketed again, but before I could open my mouth to kick his ass back to Prescott, he picked me up and set me on the kitchen counter.
“I’ve had quite enough of your manhandling.” My pointed finger didn’t faze him a bit.
He just pulled it down and trapped it on the counter under his big mitt. “Do you think Maisy wasn’t depressed after all that shit went down with Coby’s dad?” His question stunned me into silence. “She went through a really difficult period and we all took care to respect the way she needed to come to grips with it all. She needed to be handled gently. You don’t.”
That hurt. My situation wasn’t nearly as difficult as Maisy’s must have been but that didn’t mean I wasn’t reeling from all of the sudden changes to my life.
