“Are you okay?” he said again, getting closer. He looked like a giant angel. Bathed in the light of his house. But maybe he was a pretty devil, with his demon hellhound.
“Sorry about Roxy. She’s my roommate’s. Do you need help, miss?”
I couldn’t speak. My shoe was still stuck, my body still plastered in the mud that half consumed me.
“Come on up. I’m Shiloh. Let’s go take a look at these cuts. I’m a doctor, to be. Still in my residency, but I can help you.”
Ah. An angel indeed.
Even when he pulled me up like he was Hercules, and scrubbed my shaking body with warm water and soap, I still couldn’t speak. I was in shock. That was likely normal for someone who endured the night I had. I fell asleep at the wheel, ran out of gas, and hugged a tree with my car. I wasn’t fully aware of anything until his roommate’s dog tried to eat me.
“You are pretty banged up. Did you get in an accident or something? Is that where you came from?”
I nodded, not bothering to mention my broken wrist was from my newly ex-boyfriend.
“Damn. Okay. I’ll get you cleaned up and warm as best I can until the ambulance gets here. They take a while since we’re in the sticks. What’s your name?”
I frowned, my throat feeling like razor wire. Instead, I pointed my chipped nail at my bracelet.
Shiloh tenderly held my wrist and read the letters allowed.
“Xanthy? That’s unique. And beautiful.”
Shiloh treated me like royalty. He stitched my cuts, bandaged my wrist, washed the grime from my body, and gave me clean clothes to dress in.
I didn’t want to leave him.
And when the ambulance finally got there, I didn’t.
“Alexandra Harding? What are you doing this far out? Does your family know where you are? There’s a reward for your safe return!”
I ignored the idiot paramedic who was rough and kept trying to stab me with a needle. I missed Shiloh’s soft touch and warm hands.
“Shi—loh.”
My man, who came in shiny sweatpants, held my hand, kept the touchy medical personnel quiet, and even came with me to the hospital. He didn’t seem fazed by my name, and he didn’t treat me differently when my parents showed up in the small hospital demanding that I be helicoptered back home.
“Respectfully, she’s stable and safe here. Kentucky can take care of her.”
No one ever snubbed my dad. Hell, only my brother ever told him no. And even he didn’t do so without consequences. Shiloh telling off my father made me smitten. Maybe it was thedrugs flowing through my veins, or maybe I was just hopeful for the first time in years, but I pulled Shiloh down to my lips and demanded he kiss me.
He was so soft, and when he kissed me back, my world fell apart and was rebuilt with him as my center.
It had always been that way since. Shiloh was my universe, and I kept him grounded.
The memories tastedlike bile in my mouth, and I sighed, tipping back the coffee to wash it away.
He hadn’t said no. He hadn’t said yes either.
The silence he left me with before the stupid hunt had said more than either answer.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember the way things used to be between us. The nights when he held me like I was something he needed, not something he was trying to escape. The mornings when his voice was rough but warm, when he’d kiss the back of my neck before I could fully wake or fucked me out of my dreams into my perfect reality.
Lately, all I’d gotten was distance—a living nightmare for someone like me, who craved attention and belonging.
I told myself it was stress. Maybe he was carrying something he couldn’t talk about since he saw his dad. That if I were patient enough, if I loved him hard enough, he’d come back to me, and tell me when he was ready.
But the longer I waited, the more it felt like trying to hold water in my hands. No matter how tightly I curled my fingers, he was slipping through them little by little.
