His expression darkened. “I don’t give a damn what they might have to say. That’s not what this is about.”
“Then please enlighten me. Because I find it extremely ironic that after being with you for a month, you just happen to call my parents on the night we kissed.”
“What I did last night was not fair to you with all you’ve been through.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re still recovering. I should’ve never made a move on you.”
After snatching a pair of my shoes up out of the floor, I spat, “In case you missed it,Iwas the one who made a move onyou.”
Rev exhaled an agonized sigh. “Because you’re confused and mixed up. For Christ’s sake, Annabel, a month ago you were imprisoned and enslaved by a fucking maniac. You don’t get over that shit so quickly. You’ve been through too much to know what you really want.”
Anger and hurt flickered and flashed through me like lightning slicing across a troubled sky. Although I’d been raised to always temper my emotions, I couldn’t hold myself back. With all the strength I had within me, I threw one of the shoes at him.
Rev ducked just before it narrowly missed his head. Closing the gap between us, I demanded, “How dare you tell me what I feel? I’m not crazy when it comes to how I feel about you!”
“I never said you were crazy,” Rev argued softly.
“You’re implying it, which is just as bad.”
“I didn’t want to do anything to hurt you.”
“Too. Fucking. Late,” I spat before I rushed past him and slammed the bedroom door. Hot tears streaked down my cheeks as I went to the closet and grabbed the small suitcase Rev had bought me on the way home from Texas. As I threw my clothes and toiletries inside, I expected Rev to come into the bedroom and continue our argument.
But he didn’t.
It was like he had raised the white flag of defeat when it came to us. He wasn’t going to fight. He was going to do what he thought was the honorable thing and just let me go.
Once I finished packing, I threw open the bedroom door to find Rev standing in front of me. His mouth opened, but then he quickly closed it. When he reached for my suitcase, I jerked itaway from him. “Please, Annabel. You’re still recuperating from surgery. You shouldn’t be carrying that.”
Angrily, I slammed it down at his feet. “Fine then. Since you seem to still have concern for my physical state, you take it. I want to say goodbye to Poe.”
Without another word to him, I turned and fled to the back porch. At the sound of the back door opening, Poe was already standing up and waiting for me in his pen. I stepped off the porch steps and walked around to him. It was amazing how much he had grown since he had moved from the crate to an old dog run that had belonged to one of Rev’s MC brothers.
“Hey, sweet boy,” I said, as I unlocked the latch on his pen. He came out tentatively like he always did, cautiously surveying his surroundings. Tears filled my eyes as I stroked his head. I could never regret my time here with Rev because it meant saving Poe’s life. He had given me a focus and shown me once again there was nothing else on earth I wanted to be more than a veterinarian.
I kissed the top of his nose. “Be a good boy. You’ll be leaving soon. You’ll be big and strong enough to go back to the woods. I know you’re going to do just fine.”
I think I was saying the words more for me than for Poe. In a way, I had just had my own release back into the wild. More than anything, I needed reassurance that everything was going to be all right.
At the sound of Rev approaching behind me, I asked, “You remember what to do for him when it’s time to release him?”
“Yes, I do,” he murmured.
“Good.”
“Annabel, don’t leave like this,” Rev pleaded, his voice thick with anguish.
“You ask me not to leave like this, yet you haven’t once told me to stay.” I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Consideringall of that, how else would you presume I left? You’ve told me I don’t know what I feel, but more than anything, you’ve made me feel that my feelings for you are based on some sort of reverse Stockholm Syndrome.” I shook my head. “I just wish you could see what’s truly in my heart.”
With a resigned sigh, I eased Poe back into his pen. As much as I hated to leave him, I knew without a doubt Rev would take good care of him, even after he was released into the wild. I rose up on my feet and breezed past Rev to the porch steps. After making one last sweep inside the house for anything of mine, I went out the front door and out onto the porch.
As I started down Rev’s front steps, I saw my parents’ limousine had pulled around to the cul de sac. I started walking to the car, but a small voice behind me caused me to stop.
When I turned around, Willow stared up at me with her big, brown eyes. “Belle, are you leaving?”
Fighting back the tears, I nodded. “I wish I could stay longer, but I really have to go back home now.”
