Page 118 of This Time Around
Thirty-Seven
Cooper
I couldn’t remember the last time I hurt this much.Every limb, every muscle and joint in my body moved like I hadn’t walked in months.It took all my strength to walk away from Rebecca, mascara smeared down her cheeks, asking me not to.
Doubt flared while I flung my clothes into the suitcases in her closet, a closet I’d made my own a month ago and thought I’d never leave.
Everything about the last twenty-four hours went so completely tits up I still hadn’t pieced together how it fell apart so easily.
I’d told her I didn’t need to hear her say to me she loved me.
I did though, need her to love me, and staying like she asked, while she tried to figure it out didn’t give me hope of anything changing.I’d give her everything, absolutely everything I had, my money, my body, my heart, if I knew it’d be returned, even in a minuscule measure.
The very fact she was so terrified, so willing to let me walk away for months at a time told me enough.
She wanted me.I had no doubt she cared for me more than she verbally admitted.But earlier, in that room, with everything I thought I had so close and so far away, what I saw was a woman too terrified, too far behind a wall I thought I’d scaled, to let me in enough to know I wouldn’t get burned in the end.
Time might get her to a place where she was willing to lower those barriers.Space wouldn’t.
That saying if you love something let it go and if it comes back to you it was always meant to be was complete and utter bullshit.
If you loved something, you tended it and cared for it, you hung on with both hands and your entire heart because the world would work to yank it apart.I’d learned that the hard way, and so had she.The very idea of Rebecca being willing to watch me go, send me half a country away for months at a time, told me she didn’t want to grab hold of anything.
I threw my bathroom items into my last bag and zipped it up.
I’d already called and an Uber would be here in thirty more minutes.
I hadn’t even booked a flight yet, but I’d do it in the car, or once I got to Kansas City.I didn’t bother calling Max.He’d send me a plane, but Rebecca’s uncle was the last person I wanted to talk to at that moment.
Even if I had to spend the night in a hotel, it was better than sleeping so close to a woman who wanted me but couldn’t admit she loved me.
“Shit.”Luggage thrown over my shoulders and two on wheels behind me, it took two trips to haul them outside.
The entire time I packed, I hadn’t seen Rebecca, and even now the house almost groaned with sorrow and silence.
Her truck was parked in the garage, though, so she had to be somewhere close.
But maybe this was better.It’d taken every ounce of strength I possessed earlier to press my lips to her skin and still walk away.
With my bags outside, I headed toward the goats.Crazed urges had taken over my soul if I was worried about saying goodbye to a baby goat almost as much as a woman.
“Hey, Pepper,” I said, rubbing his head while he bumped up against my legs.“I’ll miss you, buddy.”
The rumble of a car coming down the drive, the kicking up of gravel tinking against the sides caught my attention.It wasn’t my Uber like I expected, but instead was a police car, and Ryan was behind the wheel.
“Hey, man,” he said, calling to me, as he climbed out of his car.“Tried calling you to let you know I was on my way.Rebecca around?”
In weeks, we hadn’t heard anything about the cattle shot on her property.Every time I asked Ryan, or Rebecca tried to call for information, we were told the same thing.
They had no information during an open investigation they could give us.Apparently, being the little sister to the best friend of a cop didn’t grant special privileges, and as much as I understood that, it had still frustrated the hell out of me.
“I’m here,” Rebecca said.She walked around the corner of her house, coming from the direction of the back.
I could barely look at her.She’d washed her face, removed her eye makeup, but her eyes were swollen and puffy, bright red and she’d clearly still been crying.
“What’s up, Ryan?”She glanced at me and moved toward him.
My feet carried me several steps behind her, but as we got close, I kept my distance.
