“You don’t need anyone to protect you,” Gemma stated firmly. “I get why he’d do it, but you’re a grown man. You can fight your own battles.”
Exactly.Which was why I was so upset now.
“His intentions were good, but he went about it wrong. You need a partner, not a shield,” Fern concluded.
“Can you go now?” I asked quietly.
Fern got up and put my chair back, then squeezed my ankle on her way out.
Gemma came over to the couch and tugged at my arm until I lifted enough so she could hug me.
“It’ll be okay,” she whispered.
Then she let go and followed Fern.
Maybe it would be. It probably would be, eventually. I hoped. But I wasn’t sure how to talk to Carter about this. I wasn’t sure there was anything more to say.
Did I want an apology? Maybe.
Was I completely sure I should get one? Yeah.
I threw myself into my work the next day. I rarely looked at my phone, because I had no immediate need to contact any of the owners of the horses I was working with.
I kept Carter out of my mind as much as I could, with very little success.
Then, Bodhi waited for me at the end of the day before dinnertime.
“Hey,” I greeted him, unsure about what to say.
“Hey.” He fell into step with me, knowing how much I liked the walk between the house and the barn, whichever way I was going.
It took him a few minutes to gather his words. “I hope you’re not mad at me.”
That wasn’t what I’d been expecting, and it made me stop in my tracks. I grabbed his arm to halt him, too.
In the barely lit evening, I looked at him. “Bodhi. no. I’m not mad at you. I assume you went into protection mode because you saw Carter do it.” He nodded, so I continued. “The man who hurt me in the past? That was Richard Buchanan.”
His expression darkened. “I gathered as much.”
“Yeah. So I appreciate the thought, but it wasn’t Carter’s call to make. You see that, right?”
“Sure.” There was something in his tone I couldn’t quite place, but I thought he might still think I was upset with him.
I smiled at him. “I’m not mad at you. You did what you thought was right in the situation you were presented with while not having the information needed.”
He huffed, sounding annoyed. “I’m kind of glad I didn’t know who he was in the moment.”
“Me too. You don’t need an assault charge.” I had no doubt he would’ve clocked Richard if he’d known, especially if he’d had any real details on what he’d done.
“So why is it different with Carter? You haven’t contacted him yet, right?”
I continued to walk and thought about how to express everything in a way Bodhi would understand.
After a minute or so, I went simply with, “He made me feel worse than seeing Richard again would’ve. Because I’m a different person than I was five years ago and can hold my own.”
“But he did it because he cares.”
“Right. But he took the choice away from me in a way that felt similar to how Richard took some choices away from me back then.”
