Change of Heart (22 page)

“How did two kittens manage to morph into three dogs?”

“These three are therapy dogs. Jessie agreed they’d be a good asset to the program with the horses, so I brought them home.”

“I’m not so sure about that one.” Gage pointed at Razor.

Leah reached down and rubbed his head. He immediately glanced up at her, his tongue lolling to the side. “The feeling seems mutual.” She met his searching gaze with her own. “Or maybe he’s just picking up on how I’m feeling.”

Gage arched a brow. “Like you want to tear me to shreds?” A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, but she wasn’t going to take the bait.

“Maybe.”

His smile died as quickly as it surfaced. “Leah, I’m sorry.” He ran a hand over his head, looking more frustrated than she’d ever seen him. “I shouldn’t have assumed the worst at the bar, but after what happened before I left, I thought we—”

“I’m not sure I see why you even care who I was with, Gage. You left. You didn’t call. You were the one who walked away.” She took a step toward him, but Razor moved ahead of her, keeping his body between them.

“Is that what you thought? I told you I had to go to San Francisco. You knew I had to go.”

“You couldn’t call while you were there? Not even a text? After the way you left . . . ”

“Leah, can we sit?”

“Tell me why you just walked out.” She wasn’t about to bend. One more time and she would probably break.

G
AGE SAW THE
fire snuffed in her eyes as disappointment filled them. She’d trusted him, believed in him, and he’d let her down.

“I was trying to fix things.”

“So you left?” Her voice caught on the words. “After we . . . I thought . . . ”

She paused, shaking her head and shutting herself off from him, as if she was afraid she would say too much. Gage took a step closer, wanting to soothe the hurt he’d caused her. His hands found her waist, drawing her to him. He needed to touch her, needed her to understand that leaving her had been the only way he could salvage any part of the man he wanted to be for her, and he couldn’t do that with this distance between them.

Leah pushed against his chest, and Gage felt the dogs circling around their legs, moving between them. They weren’t growling now, but the big shepherd whimpered quietly while the Lab pawed at her calf. The third dog pressed its head against her leg. She turned to walk away from him, and he reached out, grasping her fingers in his.

“I can’t.” She half-heartedly tried to pull her hand from his grasp. “Why did you come back? I don’t have anything else for you to take.”

“I only want you, Leah. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted. You know that.”

“How?” She spun on her heel to face him. “I don’t even
know
you.”

It was like a knife to his heart. The distrust he could see in her eyes, the suspicion, the lack of faith in him.

“I thought I did. But then, you tell me about what you planned to do. How could you do that?”

“I didn’t do it, Leah. I couldn’t hurt people that way because of something I’d done.”

Gage pulled her back toward him, letting his hands work their way up her arms and to her shoulders. He felt her shiver and prayed it wasn’t revulsion at his touch.

“I didn’t have a childhood like you did. Sure, my dad was an alcoholic, but I had a mother who loved me and a brother who took care of me. School came easily to me, and Dylan made sure I used it to my advantage. He made sure I was the one to go to college, while he went into the military. He never complained about it, but in my mind, I had to repay that debt to him and my mother, to take care of them. I didn’t take that responsibility lightly and fate has smiled on me. My success hasn’t just been luck, but there was plenty of it. Until recently.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he placed a finger over her lips. “Wait, let me finish.”

Leah licked her lower lip, causing her tongue to barely brush against his finger and making every thought flee from his mind. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, trying to regain control of his senses. Gage let his hands fall to either side of her neck, his fingers delving into the soft waves of her hair.

“I made a mistake with my company, and instead of facing it, taking responsibility the way I usually did, I ran away from it. I was about to make another mistake, to turn my back on who I’d always been and let all of those employees go. Then I met you.”

Her gaze lifted to his, trying to read him, read his soul. “I used to always do what was right, regardless of what it cost me. It was part of who I was, as much a part of me as the blood in my veins. People believed me, believed
in
me, because I didn’t lie; I was someone they could trust. Somewhere along the way, I got bogged down beneath the stress and the demands. When I was here, with you, I wanted to be that man again.”

Her eyes misted, and he could see she wanted to believe him. But he could also see something in her eyes again that he hadn’t seen since the first day they’d met on the side of the road—distrust. He’d worked so hard to be a friend her, to earn that gift, only to throw it away.

“I was stupid, and I should have told you everything before I left, but I had to find a way to go back and fix things first. To show you I
am
the man you think I am.” He lowered his face, wanting nothing more than to taste her lips, to remind her of what they had together, make her see how much he cared, but Leah ducked her head.

“Don’t walk away from this, Leah.”

“What
is
this, Gage?” Her lashes were dark against her cheeks, and when she looked up at him, her eyes shimmered with the pain he’d caused her. “Because I’m not sure what I believe now.”

He could hear the accusation in her voice. “I know, and I let you down. It won’t happen again. I swear.”

Really look at me.

He silently willed her to hear his heart. He knew it wasn’t the right time to say anything aloud, but every beat of his heart, every breath in his lungs was crying out for her to hear the truth he couldn’t quite confess.

Can’t you see I’m falling in love with you?

Leah looked away again, and Gage knew it was too much for her to forgive. She was never going to be able to move past the fact that when she’d finally trusted him, he’d hidden the truth from her. He laid his cheek on the top of her head.

“I should have called you while I was in San Francisco,” he said into her hair. “I should have told you everything from the start and kissed you good-bye that morning. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Leah. If I’d just stepped up, you wouldn’t have thought—”

“No, I shouldn’t have just assumed . . . ”

“You wouldn’t have if I’d just told you how I felt before I left.”

Leah looked up at him, resting her chin on his chest.

“I should have told you that what I feel for you is nothing like I’ve ever felt before.” Gage brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m falling in love with you, Leah.”

L
EAH HOPED THE
shock she felt didn’t register in her face. Her heart felt like it actually stopped for a moment. Her breath caught in her throat and she couldn’t say anything. He must have seen something in her eyes because he cleared his throat quickly.

“I know it’s too soon, and it doesn’t make any sense to me either, but I can’t explain it.”

“Gage,” Leah couldn’t hide the uncertainty in her voice. “You can’t love me.”

He gave her a sad smile and shrugged. “Leah, I can’t help it.”

She turned her back to him in order to avoid seeing too much in his eyes. Leah ran a hand through her messy waves, pulling them to one side, shielding her face from his penetrating scrutiny. His finger traced the curve of her shoulder, trailing over her upper arm. Desire rippled through her, spreading slowly, sapping any resistance she had.
He loved her?

“Leah, because of you, I was able to fix my mistake, without letting go of my company or laying anyone off.” He turned her back toward him. She could feel the heat from his gaze, could almost hear him willing her to look at him. “I was able to secure funding for a foundation for at-risk kids, like Jude, who are tech-savvy but need an outlet. That’s what took so long.”

Her gaze snapped back to him. “You what?”

“When I talked to Jude, and was able to get past his anger and resentment, I realized that if someone just listened and let him use his skills in a safe environment, he’d have been less likely to cause the trouble he did. I want to give kids like him a place to do that, a place where people will listen. Nathan’s helping me, and I convinced the board that Iconics should provide most of the funding for the start-up.”

She’d accused him of being too motivated by money to do the right thing for his employees, when in reality, he’d not only taken care of them, but he was trying to take care of the same kids she wanted to help. She’d completely misjudged him. She could blame it on being disillusioned because of her past, and that was likely true, but Gage had never deserved her doubt. He’d never done anything to cause her to assume he was anything less than generous and kind and giving. He’d already proven it with her.

“Gage.” Tears filled her eyes, choking her, making it impossible to finish what she started to say.

He gave her a half-smile and shrugged. “After talking to Jude, I realized he didn’t have much to look forward to. Maybe something like this would help. It’s not going to be cheap, but with the investors Nathan and I’ve been able to line up, it’ll be great. I told you, I wanted to fix things.”

Leah frowned and shook her head. “Fix things?”

“Him, his life.”

Fix him?
Leah felt an icy shiver fall over her, freezing the blood in her veins. She’d heard those words a million times growing up as she bounced from home to home. People always wanted to fix
her,
not the problem.

“The way you did with me?”

“What?”

“Jude isn’t some
thing
you can fix, Gage. You can’t just throw money at everything and think that will solve the problem.
He
isn’t broken.” She backed away, and the dogs jumped to their feet, immediately rushing to her side, quickly tuning into her agitation.

“That’s not what I meant.” Gage’s gaze hardened.

“I think it is, Gage. You see Jude as a problem to be fixed. You have a hero complex.”

Gage closed his eyes and dropped his head forward, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I did this because of you, Leah. You were the one who made the plight of these kids real to me. Jude just helped me connect it to something
I
could actually do to help.”

“Why me?”

“What do you mean, ‘why you?’ ”

Gage took a step toward her, but the dogs stepped between them. Razor focused on Gage, and a low growl sounded from deep in his throat.

“Back,” she ordered Razor.

The dog quieted immediately but remained vigilant between them, for which she was grateful. She couldn’t let Gage touch her. She’d fall into his arms again if he did. She’d been a victim for far too many years, and she wasn’t about to return to feeling helpless and weak. She’d left that woman behind when she left Bakersfield and swore she’d never go back. The fact that she’d allowed him to fix her car, buy her groceries, and even let him crawl under the house for the kittens, had just eaten away at the independence she’d fought so hard to win over the years.

“Leah, don’t do this. Stop trying to find a reason to push me away.” He ran his hand over his head, the way he did every time he grew frustrated, and her heart ached to comfort him, but the doubts that had been raised by his words refused to flee, even in the face of his denial. He walked around the dog and reached for her hand. “Why do you keep searching for something wrong that doesn’t exist? I told you I’m falling in love with you. We should be excited now, making love again, not arguing about why I’m trying to do something good.”

“Don’t. Don’t touch me, please.” Her voice broke on a sob she couldn’t hold back, and all three dogs would have rushed toward her if she hadn’t signaled them to
stay
. “I’m not broken, not anymore.”

She couldn’t be. To admit she was meant the past still owned her, still controlled her actions, that she was still a victim. But she knew she was lying. She could feel it in the depths of her soul.

“Baby,” Gage whispered, cupping her face between his palms, forcing her to look into his eyes, “it’s okay.” He pressed kisses to her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, as the hot tears she hadn’t realized she’d been holding back, burned a trail down her face. “You’re not broken,” he agreed.

Except she knew he was lying.

She’d known better than to let anyone close. Not only was she broken, but she was about to break him. It was the only way to keep herself safe, to keep any more of her heart from chipping away. She needed to be alone, because if she was alone, no one could hurt her.

“Leave.” Her voice was frigid. The anguish he’d seen written in her face moments ago were gone, replaced by chilly apathy. “And don’t come back.”

“Leah.” He couldn’t believe after what they’d shared, after everything said, this was really what she wanted. “We need to talk about this. You can’t possibly believe that I’m trying to change you.”

“No, you think you can save me from what happened.” She pushed him away. Again. “But you can’t. It happened, and nothing is going to
fix
that.”

She walked into the bedroom and shut the door. “I’m asking you to leave before I come back out,” she said from behind the door. She cleared her throat. “Good-bye Gage. I hope the foundation and your company do well.”

He’d been dismissed, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Gage stared at the closed door, wondering what had just happened, how it had escalated from telling her he loved her to being shut out of her life.

“Leah?” He knocked on the bedroom door, but she didn’t answer. Twisting the knob slightly, he felt the lock catch. “Leah, come out and talk to me, please.”

He wasn’t sure what to do. If he left, it would be admitting she was right, and he didn’t believe that. Not for one second. But to stay and try to force her to talk would only make this situation worse. If there was one thing he’d quickly figured out about Leah, it was that she didn’t respond to force. It would only cause her to shut down. Probably because it reminded her too much of her past.

The Lab came to scratch at the bedroom door, dragging Gage out of his thoughts. He noticed the border collie curled in the hall and both kittens lying on top of him. The shepherd stood at the end of the hallway, watching him warily. He might as well feed the animals and wait for Leah to finally come out.

He wandered around the kitchen, trying to figure out what he’d said or done that had triggered such an emotional reaction. He’d told her he was falling in love with her, and damn it, he meant it. He’d been excited about Apotheo and the good that would come of it, the way they would be able to direct kids away from the criminal activity and help them become more than just hackers. They were already setting up several scholarships, and she had been the inspiration. He’d seen the way she was with the boys, the way they listened to her, the way she was able to help them. Watching her, he realized he wanted to make that kind of difference, to use what money and power he had to do something good.

Gage wanted to do it for her, to be the man she thought he was. He thought she’d be happy about it, too.

His heart crashed, and he suddenly realized why she was so upset, why she accused him of having a hero complex. She thought he wanted to change the kids, not their circumstances, which led her to think he wanted to change
her.
He hurried back to her room, stepping around the three dogs and the kittens trying to pounce on his feet, and knocked on the bedroom door.