As I move past him, he slides his hands in his pockets, and a sigh of frustration breaks through the uncomfortable silence.
Softly closing the bedroom door, I grab my bag from under the bed and start moving my things from the chest of drawers. I think I hear movement on the other side of the door, and I freeze. I can feel him standing there, the floor creaks slightly, and I hold my breath.
When I hear his bedroom door shut down the hall, I let the tears fall.
I’ll call Mason to come get me in the morning.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
RHYS
SHE’S GONE.
I’m not surprised. When I got up and left for work this morning, there was no walking around the kitchen in her skimpy pajamas to tease me as she sipped her coffee. She stayed locked in her room. I hung around, hoping she would come out - she never did.
But I could feel her in the house. I knew she was close and safe. She may have been avoiding me, but she was there.
Now, this house feels emptier than it ever has. My feelings have gone beyond wanting to keep her safe. Her absence is the biggest fucking disturbance, and it’s spreading into every corner of my life.
I may have physically been at work all day, but my mind sure as fuck wasn’t. She’s a distraction whether she’s with me or not. All I can fucking think about is her.
Her calling me just another threat has played on repeat in my mind all goddamn day. She’s right, I crossed a line and then tried to backpedal. I played with her emotions and her body and then tried to push her away. For all intents and purposes, to her, I am a threat.
No woman has ever made that accusation before. Emotionally unavailable - fuck yeah, more than once. A workaholic - in almost every damn breakup. I was called absent and detached once.
Never a fucking threat. What pisses me off to no end is that I can’t deny it. Guilty as charged.
It’s fucking killing me.
Swan called mid-morning and told me her brother Mason was there to get her and her things, and my heart dropped to my stomach. He asked me if I wanted him to say anything to stop her. But I knew he couldn’t stop her any more than I could. She’s not a prisoner.
If I could make her my prisoner, I would.
I put a unit at the end of her driveway to monitor the ranch with instructions to call me directly if anything seems out of place.
Setting my keys on the shelf by the door, I look around my house at the traces of her for the past week and a half. In such a short amount of time, I’ve become attached enough to her that any shadow of her presence is a balm to the pain of her absence.
Scanning the room, the most glaring thing is that her paint supplies and easels are gone, but my eyes land on the painting she made me. It’s sitting on its edge on one of the dining chairs, between the table and the chair back.
Picking it up, I hold it out in front of me against the area that was her inspiration. Damn, she’s good.
Fuck me. What the fuck was I thinking?
She may never speak to me again. The thought makes myheart feel too big for my chest, and I rub the heel of my palm over my sternum like I can rub the ache away.
Instead of knocking on her bedroom door last night to tell her I don’t want her to leave, instead of trying to fix what I broke, I went to bed and lay there staring at the ceiling until the early hours this morning.
There’s only one person I can think of to help me with this. I’ll go visit him tomorrow. Surely he won’t be teaching any classes on a Saturday.
My dad lives on the University of Tulsa campus in one of the few faculty housing units. He’s been teaching English Literature and Linguistics my entire life, during half of which he made me read as many classics as he could shove in front of me. Until I enlisted and left home.
I’ve never told him this, but I kept the list of books he wanted me to read when I was a teenager, and I sometimes pick a book from the list and read it.
After Mom died, he couldn’t bear to stay in the house she loved so much, so he asked me to take the house, and he moved into faculty housing. He said she would love that I’m living in the house.
Driving to the back of one of the student housing units, I park in the street in front of a quaint little house set back from the road.
As I walk up the sidewalk, I pass the many birdhouses and hummingbird feeders placed around the yard. Dad has always loved bird watching.
