Page 118 of The Defiant Curse

At his words, she considered it.

“Later, after we shop and meet with Gabby, I’d really like to just take a walk alone. I need to be with my thoughts and to think everything through. I know I just said I was alone, but that’s when I can focus best on healing.”

Well, he understood that.

Sometimes, you needed silence and to be with your own person to work through what was going on in your head.

“Can we make that happen?” she asked.

He wasn’t sure why she was asking that.

Of course, they could.

“Elizabeth, the grounds are safe. You don’t have to ask permission to move around. If you want a walk alone, you can just do that.”

She stared at him in the rearview mirror, and when their eyes met, it took him a second, but he eventually got it.

“Ohhhh. Yeah. You’re never allowed to do that, are you?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“No, I’m not. My life is all about permission. It’s all about carefully made steps, and lack of freedom because it’s dangerous. I can’t tell you the last time I took a run or walked by myself. That’s why I need to find me.”

Michael got it.

They’d taken her freedom in order to keep her safe, and that, too, was weighing on her emotional well-being.

That had to stop while she was here.

“Okay, after breakfast and shopping, we’ll go inside, and you can do whatever you want. A walk will do you good,” he admitted. “Maybe a horseback ride.”

That sounded wonderful.

“Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate your trust that I’ll be okay against anything that tries to eat me, like a goat,” she said, trying to joke.

But her heart wasn’t in it.

Hearing the tone, Graham stayed in contact with her leg. As someone who had emotional pain and trauma from losing D’Artangnan all of those years ago, he knew what she was carrying.

“You can talk about whatever it is you’re keeping in for our benefit, and maybe yours.”

She needed to do that. Elizabeth was smart enough to know that she needed to vent in order to heal. Other than the husband situation, there was a big pink elephant following her around, weighing her down.

“I killed him,” she said. “I did more than kill him. I made his last moments absolutely torture, and I paid him back for Jet, for Uriel’s girlfriend, and Vivian. Hell! I paid him back for Lance RunningWolf as I crossed all kinds of lines. That’s what I’m trying to figure out, too. When is it too far?” she asked. “And now that I’ve done it, can I pick the badge back up again?”

Michael knew how difficult this was for her. Elizabeth balanced between two worlds.

Justice.

And.

Vengeance.

Like an Archangel, she was the hand of God, too—for the President of the United States.

So, he reassured her.

Duty always came first, and she’d done her job. Now, she had to realize that.