The rest of the day crawls by. I go through the motions of my job, but my thoughts keep circling back to Bryan. To the weight of everything unspoken between us. To the question I’ve been afraid to ask because I’m not sure I can survive the answer.
By the time my shift ends, the sun has already dipped below the tree line. I take the long way back to the cabin and let the cool evening air clear my head. The forest is quiet around me, settled into that peaceful hush that comes with twilight. Somewhere in the distance, an owl calls out to its mate.
The cabin comes into view through the trees, and I slow my steps when I spot Bryan.
He’s sitting on the porch with his back against one of the support posts, and his legs stretched out in front of him. His attention is fixed on the dark forest beyond the clearing, and something about his posture makes my stomach flip. He looks like a man waiting for something to emerge from the shadows. Like a soldier who never quite learned how to stop watching for threats, even when he’s supposed to be home.
I stand at the edge of the tree line, hidden by the gathering darkness, and watch him.
He spent ten years doing God knows what, and now he sits on our porch like he’s expecting the past to come crashing through the trees at any moment. What did those years do to him? What did he see, what did he survive, that left him so unable to let his guard down even here?
The mate bond tugs at me and urges me forward. It begs me to sit beside him and finally ask the questions that have been burning in my throat since the night he came back.
But my feet stay rooted to the ground.
Chapter 13 - Bryan
She’s been standing at the tree line for almost five minutes.
I spotted her the moment she emerged from the trail, half-hidden by the gathering darkness. She thinks I can’t see her there, watching me from the shadows like she’s trying to decide whether to approach or turn around and disappear back into the forest.
I know what she wants. I can see it in the way she keeps transferring her weight from foot to foot, in the way her hands clench and unclench at her sides. She wants answers. The same answers she’s been demanding since the night I walked back into Silvercreek, the same ones I’ve been too much of a coward to give her.
Maybe it’s time I stopped being a coward.
“You can come out,” I call without turning my head. “I know you’re there.”
A pause. Then footsteps, soft against the fallen leaves, growing closer until she rounds the corner of the cabin and stops at the bottom of the porch steps. The last glow of evening catches the angles of her face, and something in my chest aches at the sight of her.
“How long have you known I was there?”
“Long enough.”
She climbs the steps slowly, like she’s approaching a wild animal that might bolt at any sudden movement. When she reaches the top, she doesn’t sit beside me. She just stands there with her arms crossed over her chest, looking down at me with those dark eyes.
“We need to talk,” she states. “About last night. About everything.”
“I figured as much.”
She makes a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. “Is that all you’re going to say?”
I finally turn to look at her. She’s tired. I can see it in the shadows under her eyes and in the slight droop of her shoulders. She’s been carrying this weight all day, trying to make sense of what happened between us, and I’m the one who put it there.
“Sit down, Skylar.”
For a moment, I think she’ll refuse out of pure stubbornness. But then she walks to the opposite end of the porch and sinks down against the railing, putting as much distance between us as the small space allows. She draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them like a shield.
“I talked to Ruby today,” she says. “She gave me some insight as to what happened between her and James. The misunderstanding about her cat.”
“I heard that story.”
“She said secrets rot relationships from the inside. She said I deserve to know the truth about why you left, even if it’s not what I want to hear.”
“She’s right.”
“Then tell me.” She meets my eyes, and the pain I see there makes something catch in my throat. “I’ve spent ten years wondering what I did wrong. Trying to figure out why I wasn’t enough to make you stay. I need to know, Bryan. Even if it destroys me. I need to know.”
The words sit heavy in my chest. I’ve rehearsed this conversation a thousand times over the years, practicing what I’d say if I ever got the chance to explain. But now that the moment is here, all those careful speeches dissolve into nothing.
