“It’s like you said,” he said slowly. “When you haven’t experienced things before, sometimes you don’t know all there is left to learn. You have more to learn than me, Jamie. That’s just a fact. I’ve lived more. That’s not me insulting you, or using your inexperience against you. It’s just how it is. It’s how it is, honey, and I’m not trying to be a dick about it. But it’s life.”

“Don’t you dare,” she said, her voice shaking. “Don’t you dare lecture me. You...you coward.”

She was firing on all cylinders now, and she could feel it.

Could feel the old her rising up inside like granite, but this version of her was different still. She was full of sharp edges and pain, and she wanted to use those edges to hurt him back.

Because she was Jamie Dodge, and she didn’t want to cry for a man, not one she’d cried for so many times already. She had given him every damn thing.

Everything.

And he was just going to stand there and stare at her with those blue eyes. He was just going to stand there and let her brother be right. About the fact that she was just going to get her heart broken. And she was going to have to face the fact that at the end of the day, she was vulnerable to it just like everyone else, and she hated it. She hated it, and she didn’t want to let it be true.

“You don’t know what you’re doing right now, any more than you knew how to handle Gus when I first showed up at the ranch. You’re being...you’re being an absolute ass!” she shouted, her heart thundering, her hand shaking. “You’re afraid to make a damn choice. Because then it might be your fault if you fail. It was easier to go into the rodeo to piss off your old man, and then blame him for all the success that’s been thrust on you over the years. Poor you, Gabe. Poor fucking you.”

She could feel her emotions completely spinning out of control, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop them. He was protecting himself, and so she wanted to hurt him. Wanted to hurt him the way he was hurting her.

“Both your parents are involved in your lives, and they’re not perfect, but you could talk to them, and you could deal with it,” she continued. “My mom is dead. And that’s it. There’s nothing I can do about that. There’s no way that I can have that back. I think of it every time the anniversary comes around.” He looked stricken by the mention of it. “There’s no way I can have it at all. And you can have me. You could. But you won’t, because you’re too damn scared. And you’re hiding again. Behind all these excuses. You’re a big, tough guy. Big Mr. Alpha, out riding the rodeo and banging groupies and starting a ranch for troubled boys. Help your damn self. You’re the most troubled boy around here.”