Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 21482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 107(@200wpm)___ 86(@250wpm)___ 72(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 107(@200wpm)___ 86(@250wpm)___ 72(@300wpm)
“I kept them to remind me,” I whisper hoarsely. “Never fucking again.”
He’s rigid for a long minute. Then he says, “All right. But since I made the marks, I get to decide what they mean.”
“What will they mean?”
“Oh, it’s still ‘never fucking again.’” Holding me close, he strides into my room. “But it’s ‘never fucking again will I leave.’”
4
BRANDON
She’d been so lonely.
Samantha isn’t smelling of loneliness now but the house is just steeped in how she was feeling this past year. The hurt, I recognize. But to know how lonely she was, too, is just another agonizing wound across my heart.
I know she wouldn’t have been entirely alone. Alicia would have been there for her. They likely met up often. Probably met up with some other friends, too, even after her trouble at work. But this house is telling me that Samantha then came home by herself and felt every inch of emptiness in this house.
Never fucking again.
Those claw marks are telling me how bad I misread her. Because Sam told me she was difficult. Told me that was why she wouldn’t risk being more than friends. But I couldn’t see out what the hell she was talking about. There wasn’t a damn thing about her wasn’t perfect in my eyes. There still isn’t.
So I figured the real issue was that Samantha hadn’t yet decided whether I was worthy of her. Something was holding her back. I figured it was me.
And looking at those marks, I remember that real well. I did leave because I feared I was pushing to hard. But also because of what I couldn’t stop myself from becoming that night. Not afraid I’d hurt her—even lost to rage, I could never hurt her—but that she’d take one look and decide she didn’t want me, after all. I was running away from a rejection that never happened.
Not a rejection from Samantha, anyway. Though I was so fucking certain that she would, too.
I haven’t worked through all of that yet, though. Not when it’s all still so new, hearing her list out all of what she saw as reasons I’d never stick around.
But I’ll get there. And try to explain it to her, too.
Until then, there’s plenty to be done around the farm.
When I lived here before, we had the whole back-and-forth about me cooking meals and sharing with her, and her saying that I didn’t need to, and me pointing out that I eat much more than any human ever could and it made no sense for me to cook enormous dinners and leave her to make a little one for herself.
There’s no repeat of that tonight. She seems a little hesitant when she first comes downstairs in her uniform, which is not something Samantha usually is. But that uncertainty vanishes quick and she’s noping me while I’m stuffing myself full of chicken and rice.
I pack up some for her to take for her lunch, kiss the hell out of her at the door, then head out to the barn and change into a bear.
There’s two ways to be a bear—shallow and deep. Shallow, like I am now, my head stays up top, along with my thoughts and concerns. Deep, not so much. That’s more like letting the troubles and worries in my head float away, and just being the bear.
But I’m in shallow, and aware of exactly what I’m doing as I head out after her. Partially because I’ve done this before. Last year, I wasn’t tagging along after Samantha expecting any trouble—I just liked being with her. Even if she didn’t know I was.
Travis did. He noted my scent all along the highway. Made certain to give me a whole bunch of brotherly hell over it.
Now, though, my purpose is more focused.
Pierce.
I know plenty of fuckers just like him. All bullies who go crying the second the tables turn. Not real surprising that Samantha was the one who took him out. She’s been knocking down bullies since high school.
But some bullies don’t stay down. This one…he’s coming back for more.
She told me about Pierce baiting her. But around two a.m. I watch as he starts throwing chum in the water instead. He pulls out onto the two-lane highway as she rolls by a side road, passing her patrol car then throttling down real slow.
I’ve been keeping my distance but I move in closer then, keeping to the shadows on the side of the highway—and considering charging Pierce from the side and splattering him into roadkill.
Then I hear Samantha radioing it in, making sure she’s got a second car on the way before hitting her lights.
The satisfaction coming off Pierce when she pulls him over gets my hackles high. And Samantha, she’s uneasy as hell even as she makes a big, confident show of adjusting her cameras before approaching him.