She did a double take. “Expecting me? Is this a royal command?” She gave a short laugh.
“That doesn’t work with me anymore.”
Troy braced himself. She was not going to be happy with what he had done. “I told him you’d come.”
She dropped a dish in the sink and stared at him. “You did what?”
“I told him you’d come.”
Fury lit her eyes. “Well, you can just untell him.”
Troy stood his ground. “No.”
She blinked. “I think we’re having a communication problem.” She shook her head. “I’m not going to see my father today.”
“I think you should,” he said calmly. “I think he’s really going to try to be reasonable this time.”
“You think I should,” she repeated, looking like a firecracker ready to go off. “You think he’ll be reasonable.” She looked at the glass she was holding as if she wanted to break it. Instead, she set it down, none too gently. “You’ve gone too far this time, Troy. This is none of your business.” She started to walk from the room.
“I did it because I love you.”
She stopped midstride. He watched a dozen emotions come and go in her eyes, surprise and hope, then doubt and suspicion. She took a deep breath and continued into the dining room to pick up the rest of the dishes. “If you’d said that at a different time, I might have been delighted. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that people pull out that little three-word phrase at the darnedest moments, like when they want you to do something you don’t want to do.”
Something inside him splintered. “I told you before, you’ve been hanging around the wrong kind of men.”
“Well one of those men who taught me so well was my father,” she retorted, tossing the plate into the sink with such force that it broke. Sin stared at it and swore under her breath. She sighed and shook her head.
Troy heard the wealth of hurt in her revealing statement. He pushed his hand through his hair in exasperation.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Troy, to wreck your idealistic beliefs. But you can’t fix everything.” She stood in front of him and met his gaze. “You can’t fix my relationship with my father unless we want it fixed. And right now we obviously don’t.”
She took a breath and went on. “You can’t fix my diabetes. It won’t go away. I hate it that I got this. Absolutely hate it. I hate the adjustments I’ve had to make. Hate the needles. Hate the diet. Hate the extra risks and the fact that I’ve got to be careful about things other people don’t have to think twice about. Like stubbing a toe. If I ever get married, my husband will have to deal with the possibilities, and not all of them are pretty. If I ever decide to get pregnant, there will be extra considerations.”
She lifted her hands. Her voice was calm, but her eyes said she’d had it. “You’re a nice guy, Troy, but I’ve got to settle this one on my own, and I don’t have it all taken care of yet. So, until I do, just leave me the hell alone.”
She walked toward her bedroom, calling over her shoulder, “I’m going out for a while.”
Troy stared after her. Within minutes, she was whipping past him with her car keys, then slamming the front door behind her. A heavy sense of dread filled his gut. Sin was right. He’d gone too far, stepped over the line.
It was time to go.
She drove for an hour. It was too hot, but she rolled down the window anyway. She wanted to feel the wind in her hair, and closing the windows trapped her inside her little car with all her big feelings and busy thoughts.
One thing she hated, yet secretly liked about Troy Pendleton, was that he made her face the truth. He didn’t sugarcoat it, didn’t try to paint it a pretty color, but he also didn’t let her evade it.
She hadn’t made any of those statements about diabetes aloud until Troy pushed the issue. It was crazy, but saying them aloud took a big bite out of her fear. She remembered how her dietician had encouraged her to attend the support group meetings, and the light began to dawn. She wondered, for a moment, though, if saying it to someone who loved you made a difference.
Troy Pendleton had stomped into her life and turned it upside down. Before, she’d resented him.
Now, she was grateful.
Stop fooling yourself.
Her heart twisted. She swore. She hadn’t expected this. Was unprepared for her feelings. But she wasn’t just grateful. She was in love.
She was so rattled by the realization that she almost didn’t notice what road she was on. Sin saw the familiar signs and realized her father’s ranch was just beyond the next curve.