Despite my best efforts yesterday to hold onto the truth, I’d let Lucas’s sweet words worm into my brain. I knew I was too demanding, wanted too much, but I’d let myself believe that Lucas was different. That maybe he liked me enough to overlook how moody I could be.
His final words before we drifted off to sleep last night had cracked open the cage around my heart. It had burst out, wild and free.
I wanted so badly to believe I could be chosen, that Lucas would want me in the same way I wanted him.
But it wasn’t true.
He must have woken this morning and realised he couldn’t bear to live with me. He must have fled to a member of our pack, had probably escaped back into the mountains, rather than try to extract himself from my clutches when I was awake. Aster would appear at my door soon, demanding Lucas’s stuff be packed up so that he didn’t have to spend another moment in my presence.
My tears soaked through my pyjama bottoms to my knees. I’d been so buoyed by Lucas’s enjoyment of our time together that I’d forgotten that people didn’t choose me. They enjoyed my body for a short while, but all the baggage that came with it was too much.
Lucas was my friend. I’d expected different from him. I thought he meant it when he said I was it for him.
Everything everyone said during sex was a lie. Horrible lies that battered and bruised my heart.
I jolted at a soft touch to my elbow. Lifting my head, I stared at Kat. She nudged her way under my arm and demanded via a combination of biting, scratching, and firm head nudges that I fold my legs and make a space for her to curl up. Her purring vibrated through my thighs.
‘I must be pathetic if you’re willing to cuddle to me,’ I murmured.
Kat opened one eye to glare at me, apparently annoyed I was putting energy into anything other than being a seat warmer.
I wrapped my arms around myself and hid my face in my scarf. I couldn’t believe I’d taken it off around Lucas, that I’d made myself so vulnerable. I’d shown him all my soft parts, and he’d left them naked and exposed like it was nothing.
‘Never again,’ I promised myself.
I didn’t want to be alone, but that felt a whole lot better than this. And this was the only outcome I could expect after having sex with someone. If I couldn’t have something that lasted with Lucas, I wouldn’t be able to manage it with anyone else.
I needed to stop hoping for an outcome that again and again had been proven to be something I couldn’t have.
No one wanted me. No one chose me. I needed to stop dreaming of that and live my life as it was. I had good friends, a good pack. Maybe Lucas could even be my friend after I’d proven I wouldn’t chase after him like a lovesick puppy.
I had a bookshop I loved. I would put all my energy into that from now on. With Hamish gone, there would be more than enough work to distract me.
I would make my life about work and friends, and nothing more. I would be fine without someone special in my life.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I whispered.
Tears soaked into my scarf. My pitiful status was confirmed when I stroked a shaking hand along Kat’s back and she didn’t immediately attack me.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
LUCAS
Unusually but thankfully left alone by pygmy goats in need of a cuddle, I made it all the way to the loch in the middle of the island before I realised space from Kit might be a helpful step toward clearing my mind of the almost undeniable need to be close to him, but space alone wouldn’t be enough. To unpick the tangle of my mind, I needed something else at the forefront. The one aspect of my life that actually made me feel like a capable adult.
I veered away from the glittering water and towards Oscar’s farm. This would be an unscheduled visit and I didn’t have my kit with me, but after weeks of absence, surely he would be happy to see me. Regardless of whether I arrived panting and wild eyed.
I needed the distraction of caring for animals to give my mind space to figure out what I had to do to prove to Kit that I could be a normal partner and not some sex-crazed loon. Aster said I did my best non-thinking while working. Most of my brain would be focused on the animals, but the bit left over whirred along on its own.
Oscar was at his gate when I arrived, a hammer in one hand and a box of nails in the other. He’d laid down a sheet of wood across the cattlegrid to provide a stable base while he worked. Two of his Labradors laid beside him, their eyes fixed on me. The pack of pygmy goats who’d been watching him from the other side of the gate scattered at my approach. Oscar’s head snapped up and his thick blond eyebrows lowered when he spotted me.
‘I guess you’re alright then?’ He straightened, leaning the head of his hammer on the gate.
I slowed to a gentle stroll for the last few steps, leaving an arm plus a hammer’s distance between us. Oscar wasn’t a jolly guy, but he’d always been friendly enough before. My becoming a mystical beast was apparently not the only thing that had changed.
‘I’m fine. Thanks.’ I tried for a smile that was very much not returned. Hopefully, even if Oscar was mad at me for some random reason, he would let me run around his farm caring for his animals.
‘Nice of someone to let me know you made it through the storm unharmed,’ Oscar grumbled.
