Grumbling to himself, he continued whacking away at the nasty intruders while he replayed his quarrel with Rachel. She was wrong. There was no way around it. She should’ve kept an eye on those kids even if they weren’t her students. He couldn’t let that go. It was his responsibility to oversee the Arts Center. If he didn’t, his business as well as his friends’ would suffer. But he shouldn’t have come on so strong. He didn’t need to blow her out of the water just to make his point. Why hadn’t he stopped when her face turned ghostly pale and her warm brown eyes hardened to cool slate? Pitching another weed on the pile, he huffed. If he hadn’t been so hardheaded maybe she wouldn’t have run away from him with that painful look of betrayal in her eyes. He’d wounded her with his words, and that was much worse than any damage those kids had done. Kneeling, he grabbed an obstinate weed and tugged it out of the ground. If only he could uproot his own selfishness and pride.
