She didn’t want to share Fox. How did she deal with this? She needed more time.
Aidan gripped her shoulders. “Quit fighting it, Raven. You’re caught in a snare with no way out.”
Oh God, he was right. She was trapped like an animal left to struggle until someone came along and ended it. Suddenly everything was all too much. Her shoulders sagged, and her legs gave out as a sob escaped her.
Aidan helped her to a chair and lowered her onto the torn cushion. “Let me get dressed. Stay right there.”
Raven wiped at the tears trailing down her cheeks, taking rapid breaths, hoping to get herself under control before he returned. With what seemed like mere seconds, Aidan was back fully dressed and slipping into his coat. She watched his movements, noticing the beauty in which he moved. Maybe if she focused on him everything else would fade away.
What was she doing? She wasn’t some weak female. Where was her backbone? Her life had taken a hit, unquestionably, but she’d taken hits before. Granted this one involved her son, and all that she presumed to know about him, but she was his mother. She’d raised him. She could handle this.
What other choice did she have?
“Ready?” Aidan asked.
Raven nodded, stood, and walked out of Earl Harte’s cabin with Aidan at her side, his hand on her elbow as though loaning her strength or staying close in case she crumbled. He guided her to her Suburban and opened the passenger door.
“Get in.”
She didn’t move. “If you have to come, you’ll drive yourself.”
“You’re in no condition to drive.” He tightened his jaw in a no-nonsense action.
“Like you are?” She indicated his head, seeing the lingering pain in his eyes. “You’ve been bashed in the head. I bet it’s pounding like a jackhammer.”
“Yeah, and the longer we stand out here and argue about something you are going to lose, the more it pounds.” He picked her up and tossed her onto the seat as though she weighed nothing. “Put on your seatbelt.” He slammed the door and walked around the front of the vehicle.
The surprise of his actions left her speechless until he got in the driver’s seat and held out his hand for the keys. “How are you going to get back?” She wasn’t driving him back out here. He had another thing coming if he thought he could stay at her place just because they’d had sex.
“Let me worry about that. Now, hand over the keys.”
She stared into his eyes and realized she was being an idiot. Her fear and hurt had transferred itself into anger as a way of surviving. The pain of knowing Fox had been aware of his paternity all this time, and had never talked with her about it, broke her heart. She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out the keys, and dropped them into his hand.
“Thank you,” he said graciously, and started the engine.
She didn’t need him being polite and gentlemanly. Where had his mad gone? An afternoon rolling around in bed couldn’t have snuffed out the anger she knew he still harbored over her lies.
This was getting her nowhere. She needed to concentrate on what she was going to say to Fox, not her situation with Aidan. Nothing mattered right now except her son.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Aidan glanced over at Raven. She sat like a block of ice, gazing out her window as he drove them to her house. She wasn’t seeing the frozen landscape—at least what little could be seen in the darkness. The news about Fox had hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. He doubted she’d caught her breath yet.
Much the way she’d stolen his this afternoon.
He was still angry, yet torn with the need to hold her, tell her everything would be okay, that together they could fix this. But how did he do that when she didn’t want his help and he didn’t know if he could forgive her lies? She didn’t want him in her life even after the incredible lovemaking they’d experienced this afternoon.
He tightened his jaw and then tried to relax the muscles as the action caused his head to pound harder. After they talked to Fox, he needed to find Pike. See if he’d noticed any suspicious characters around town. Someone had upped the ante this afternoon when they’d taken a swing at his head.
Aidan parked the suburban in Raven’s driveway and turned off the engine. He glanced at her and realized that at some point in their journey, she’d pulled it together. No longer did she look as though she’d collapse if another snag presented itself. He couldn’t help wonder, and envy, how she’d done it.
She turned to him, her eyes brimming with hurt, which had his gut clenching. “Since you’re insisting on being here, we need to agree on a plan of action,” she said.