“I’m not scared of you.” A horrible, obvious lie. Of course he was scared of her. Terrified. Because she had the power to hurt him in ways no one else ever had. Because she’d worked her way past his defenses with those letters, with her persistence, with the way she looked at him like he was someone worth knowing.
“Then prove it. Stay. Talk to me.”
He shook his head, words failing him as they so often did. “I… can’t…”
“Can’t what?” Her voice softened, the anger draining away. “Can’t be loved? Can’t love back? Can’t trust that I mean it when I say your scars don’t disgust me?”
Yes. All of that. He was broken in ways that went beyond the physical scars. Damaged in places no one could see. The kind of man who’d only drag her down with him.
“You deserve better,” he finally managed.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I deserve.” The fire was back in her voice and blazing in her eyes. “I’m a grown woman who knows her own mind. I choose you, Anson. Scars and all.”
For a moment, he wavered. Tempted by the promise of her words, by the possibility that maybe, just maybe, she was right.
“I’m sorry.” He grabbed his coat and shoved his feet into his boots. “I just... I need some air.”
twenty-six
The door slammed shut like a period at the end of a goddamn sentence. Maggie stared at it, half expecting it to open again, for Anson to come back with an apology, an explanation, anything. But the cabin remained silent except for her ragged breathing. She pressed her palms against her eyes, willing back the hot tears threatening to spill. Every time she thought they were getting somewhere, he did this—retreated like she was fire and he was afraid of getting burned.
She replayed the last five minutes again and again, as if searching for an alternate ending.
Had she come on too strong?
Said the wrong thing?
Or was it always going to be this—her chasing, him running, a constant orbit of almost and never?
“Fuck!” She grabbed a pillow from the bed and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall with an unsatisfying thump and slid to the floor. Not nearly dramatic enough for the storm churning inside her.
She wrapped her arms around herself, his flannel still hanging open over her bare skin. The cloth still smelled like him.She should tear it off and throw it after him. Instead, she pulled it tighter, as pathetic and contradictory as that felt.
This push-pull was killing her. For years, his letters had been her anchor. The one constant in a life that had spiraled out of control. When everything with Landry had gone to hell, when the tabloids had painted her as unstable, when her own show had started to feel like a prison, Anson’s letters had been there. Steady. Real. Each envelope had been a lifeline pulling her back to solid ground.
But now that she finally had the real man, flesh and blood and scars, he couldn’t even look her in the eye when she told him she was falling in love with him.
She let out a laugh that was uncomfortably close to a sob.
First, Landry, with his obsessive need to possess her.
Now Anson, with his maddening self-loathing and inability to accept that she might actually want him, scars and all.
She really knew how to pick them, didn’t she?
A sound at the door had her heart leaping before her brain could catch up.
Anson!
He’d come back.
She jumped up and flung the door open without bothering to button the flannel.
Bramble stood on the porch alone with his mournful eyes, his shaggy head tilted to one side. Between his jaws, he held a folded piece of paper.
“Oh.” The disappointment was like a tidal wave. Dragging her under, drowning her. “Hey, boy.”
He padded past her into the cabin, moving to the center of the room before settling on his haunches. He set the paper down gently and nudged it toward her with his nose.
