“But I know it’s not fair to you, and—”
“Darlin’,” Wyatt started with a mirthless laugh. “I was alone for thirteen years. If I survived that long, a few days surely ain’t gonna hurt me. Let’s get clean and go to sleep. Tomorrow’s a new day, right?”
Tabitha nodded, still feeling distant. “Right.”
“Jules and Tino got into an ice-cream fight. I think I’m still sticky from it, and I washed up twice at her place.” Wyatt turned around and grabbed the soap. “I swear that bed rest has pushed her round the bend. Can you imagine what having twins is gonna do to her? She thinks she’s stressed out now. Jesus, she must’ve forgotten what pains in the ass we were as kids, and I can only imagine what we were like as toddlers.”
Tabitha giggled at the thought of Wyatt and Jules as toddlers. “Your poor father.”
“That ain’t a lie.” Wyatt laughed with her.
By the time they got out of the shower, Tabitha was feeling so much lighter. Wyatt had that way about him. It was one of the things she’d missed most profoundly during their long separation. That easy charm that smoothed over even the most agonizing hurts.
Needing it desperately, just to prove to herself that Vaughn hadn’t taken it from her by showing up in that hardware store, Tabitha crawled over Wyatt. He was lying over the sheets, a towel still wrapped around his waist, and anyone with eyes would want to take advantage of what a beautiful image he presented.
“Let’s do it like this.” Tabitha pulled off her towel and tossed it aside. “Does that work?”
Wyatt shifted under her and laced his hands behind his head as his hot gaze ran over her naked body. “Works for me. I like looking at you too.”
Tabitha smiled and leaned down to kiss him. Wyatt parted for her, letting Tabitha take the lead, which was exactly what she needed. He was almost too accommodating, which scared her a little when she considered him using those keen sheriff senses to figure out what her real issue with sex was.
But she pushed it to the back of her mind.
Things had been beautiful for four months. She had already proven to herself she could still love like any other woman when she had feared for years that had been taken from her forever.
Kissing like they were, it didn’t take Wyatt long to get hard. He’d always been very responsive, and Tabitha seized the moment rather than drag it out. She shifted over him and reached down to put him in her because Wyatt still had his hands laced behind his head.
When she slid down on him, Wyatt closed his eyes and groaned. “Fuck, you feel good, Tabby.”
“You do too,” she whispered.
And he did. He felt amazing in her, stretching her with his thick cock that made pleasure dance over her skin with every subtle movement. She fell forward and grabbed the headboard, using it as leverage to arch into him, forcing him deeper.
Wyatt finally reached out for her, running his hands up her rib cage. “Is this okay?”
“Mmm,” she agreed as she started moving over him, slowly, as she allowed herself to savor being with him.
Wyatt started moving with her, matching her easy pace until they were both breathless and sweaty. He didn’t force her to go faster. He didn’t roll them over and start fucking her hard the way he was apt to do before the hardware store. Wyatt just let Tabitha take from him, and it was exactly what she needed.
He pulled her down, forcing her to fall over him, and then he licked and kissed at Tabitha’s neck. His breath was warm against her ear as he whispered, “Love you.”
“I love you too.” She tilted her head, giving him better access. “So much.”
“I won’t let you leave again.” He wrapped his big arms around her, forcing their bodies tightly together. “You hear me, pretty girl?”
She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “I hear you.”
Wyatt moaned. He tossed his head back against the pillow as he thrust his hips up, making Tabitha moan with him. The buildup was slow, but the climax was powerful. Tabitha stiffened first, and she clung to Wyatt when the pleasure slammed into her. It shook her entire body, spreading out into her limbs in warm waves that made sharp gasps of ecstasy burst out of her.
She wasn’t surprised when Wyatt came with her. It had been almost a week since they’d done this. She liked the sounds he made, low grunts of masculine pleasure that washed over her soul like a balm. Then they lay there in companionable silence as Wyatt caressed her bare back, and she fought to catch her breath with her face buried in the curve of his neck.
When they did pull apart and crawl under the sheets, Wyatt didn’t want to let her go. Instead he wrapped his arms around her, spooning her from behind, and clung to her tighter than usual. She was safe. She kept reminding herself of it as she closed her eyes and finally gave in to the exhaustion hoping that Wyatt would be able to chase away the demons in her dreams too.
* * * *
Wyatt didn’t go to sleep.
He just lay there, his body tense, waiting.
Every other night this week, he’d been dead asleep by the time Tabitha jerked awake next to him, sweaty and shaking. He knew he heard things before then, fragments of sentences that filtered in past his hazy consciousness, but he was always too dazed to decipher them. By then, Tabitha would recover and tell him it was just a bad dream. She’d brush off his concern and then fall back against the pillow, snuggling up against him as if nothing was wrong, but he knew she didn’t go back to sleep.
He didn’t either.
The two of them would just lie there with the demons choking the air out of the room, pretending to be asleep for each other, when it was clear they were both haunted.
He was done with the demons.
Tonight just proved he needed to yank open all the closet doors and then deal with the consequences, because he couldn’t take this shit anymore. As he lay there in the darkness, Wyatt finally forced himself to acknowledge what he’d known since the day he’d opened that letter.
Something had happened to Tabitha.
A part of him had always known. At twenty-one he hadn’t been able to face it. But he wasn’t twenty-one anymore, and he sure as shit wasn’t going to let these demons, whatever they were, eat Tabitha alive like they’d been doing.
He knew his girl. She was hurting, and he’d rather cut out his own heart than let her hurt just to protect him from whatever it was she thought he couldn’t take.
He was waiting for it, but he still jerked in shock when Tabitha screamed. He held her tighter, and she fought his embrace rather than wake up.
“
Wyatt
!”
That one cry was so raw and terrified it caused an icy wave of horror to hit him square in the chest. He couldn’t resist the call for help, even if it was just a dream and likely his only way to find out what was causing this.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Wyatt shook her as his heartbeat throbbed in his ears. “I’m here!”
“No, you’re not! Make him stop!”
“Oh Jesus.” Wyatt shook her hard, realizing he
couldn’t
take this. “Wake up, Tab. It’s a dream.”
Tabitha jerked out of his arms with core strength driven by pure adrenaline he knew well. Her breathing was hard and labored, and she looked around the room in a wild daze, as if still disorientated.
“It was a dream,” he told her again as he sat up next to her and wrapped an arm around her bare shoulders. “Just a dream.”
“It was?” She turned to him, her brown eyes wide in the night.
“I’m here, darlin’.” He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “You don’t got a thing to be scared of.”
She nodded frantically, her breathing still harsh. “You didn’t leave me?”
“No.” The lie was choked with emotion, and he hoped to God she was still too disoriented to notice the shake in his arm. “I would never leave you.”
“But you did.” Tabitha pulled away from him and fell back against the bed. She pulled the covers over her and then whispered, “We let the villains win. They beat both of us. There are no happy endings.”
Wyatt stared down at her, realizing she hadn’t fully woken up. He could hear the haze of dreaming in her voice. Her wild imagination was vibrant in the night, letting him see the inner workings of a mind that was genius enough to turn a truly terrible childhood into stories that made children believe in the impossible.
He knew he shouldn’t do it.
It was a horrible violation of her privacy, but Wyatt had spent too much of his life digging into things people wanted kept secret to stop himself from lying down next to her and then wrapping her up in his arms. “Who are the villains? The
real
villains.”
“Brett’s a villain. He sold me. That was real,” she whispered.
“Sold you to
who
?”
“Shh.” She shifted as if fighting to fall deeper back to sleep. “Protect Wyatt.”
Wyatt’s face scrunched up as that soft, broken plea ripped at his soul in a way that stole his breath and made his heart stutter as if it was trying to give out and stop beating under the weight of agony.
“I love you, Tabby,” he whispered as he pressed a kiss against her temple. “Do you know that?”
“I know.” She sounded unbendingly confident of that if nothing else.
He held her, his arms shaking, his chest hurting as tears he couldn’t fight rolled down his cheeks. He tried to stop the hot, irrational rush of fury that throbbed in his ears for Tabitha’s sake. He honestly did. He was older, he was wiser, but he had also hurt for thirteen long years over whatever happened to Tabitha.
He almost won too.
If it had just been his suffering, he might have dropped it and let the villains win, but then he considered what Tabitha had gone through. He thought of her at twenty-one, alone, hurt, and scared in New York, and all because she had a tragic case of codependency that forced her to take care of everyone else but herself.
He already knew who it was. She’d been fine until that day in the hardware store.
“Was it Vaughn?” he whispered into the darkness.
“You
can’t
tell Wyatt ’bout Vaughn.” She sounded terrified, as if saying Vaughn’s name made her ill.
“Tabby, listen to me.” Wyatt rolled her onto her back and grabbed her face, making Tabitha blink up at him. He cupped her cheek and stared into her eyes, hoping she remembered this. “The villains aren’t supposed to win. I would
never
let them win. Do you hear me, pretty girl? They don’t get that. I’ll fucking die before I let that happen.”
“What?” She was still blinking at him in confusion, but he could see clarity filtering into her eyes.
“I just want you to know I would do anything for you.” He stroked her face and ran a thumb over her lips. “
Anything
.”
“That’s sweet. I’d do anything for you too.” Her eyes closed, and she turned in his arms again, making it obvious the absolute exhaustion after a full week of stress had taken its toll. “Love you.”
Wyatt held Tabitha until her breathing fell into the slow, steady rhythm of deep sleep once more. He kissed her forehead and slipped his arm out from under her as carefully as possible. Then he rolled out of bed.
Then he turned and walked to his closet. He considered putting on his uniform and relieving Deputy Cowden of duty for the night. Then he thought better of it and put on jeans instead. He didn’t feel like being a cop. he decided right then he was going to be a vigilante instead.
The villains didn’t get to win. They had thirteen years longer than they were supposed to have, but Wyatt had watched enough movies and read enough books to know they always lost in the end.
Tonight was the end.
Part Eight
The End
Oh, there’s nothing more dangerous in life
at getting hurt at than love itself. People are
hurt in love affairs and never recover,
more than a boxing match.
—George Foreman
Chapter Thirty-One
Tabitha rolled over, reaching out for Wyatt, but found herself grasping at a cold pillow instead. She frowned in confusion as she fought to wake up more fully. She expected sunlight, so it confused her when it was still dark.
It was Wednesday, wasn’t it?
Wyatt was off Tuesdays and Wednesdays. She looked at the clock, expecting it to be that new-morning hour when the sun was hiding right behind the horizon. Sometimes Wyatt left before light to go workout at the Cellar with Clay.
2:19
Wyatt got up early, but not
that
early.
She glanced at the bathroom, expecting to see the shine of light under the door, but it was dark too. She got out of bed, wondering if he’d gotten up and got a late-night snack. She pulled one of Wyatt’s T-shirts from his drawer and tugged it on as she walked out of the bedroom.
She padded barefoot downstairs and called out, “Wyatt?”
She stopped on the bottom step, waiting for him to answer, but eerie silence greeted her instead.
“Wyatt!” she shouted, this time louder, the sound of it echoing off the old walls of the house.
She ran to the front door and unlocked it. Then she jerked it open and looked into the night for his sheriff SUV, but her car was lonely in the driveway. It had started snowing sometimes during the night, and she blinked past the first featherlight snow of the season, seeing the flakes dance in the moonlight.
What if something happened to Jules?
The thought entered into her mind, but then just as quickly she remembered his insistence over dinner that he wanted her at the hospital with him. He would have woken her if Jules had gone into labor.
As she stood there in the cold, something else struck her—Wyatt’s voice filtering into her dreams in a way it hadn’t before tonight. She remembered talking to him, but for the life of her, she couldn’t recall what was said.
She slammed the door and ran back up the stairs as her heart started thumping hard in fear. She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and dialed his number. Her breathing started to fall shallow when it rang and rang, and he didn’t answer.
She called him four times.
She texted him twice.
He
always
answered when she called. Now suddenly the lifeline had gone dead as if she’d never gotten a second chance at it to begin with.