Page 48 of License to Kill

“It’s my house.”

“Well, if you hadn’t locked me in your basement, I wouldn’t be in your house!”

“Because hiding in the woods somewhere is so much better of an alternative?”

I scowled. “Yes.”

Jake sighed. “I don’t want to live in the woods. I’m spoiled.”

“Who said you were invited?”

“I invited myself. It’s a bad habit.”

“Yes, it is. Go back to your own home and stop breaking mine,” Pauline muttered.

Jake shifted his grip on me and stood without setting me down. “Okay.”

“Sit down, James,” his mother snarled.

While under any other circumstance, the idea of watching Jake defy his mother would have provided me with hours of entertainment, I was between the two of them and had no doubts I’d get flattened, squished, bitten, and otherwise broken like a twig if they started an actual fight. “Can you put me down before you start fighting?”

“No.” Jake growled and tightened his hold on me. “They’ll try to take you from me.”

“Maybe the psychologist should be having the appointments with you instead of with me. You can take mine. I don’t mind.”

“Karma.”

“What? I really wouldn’t mind if you take him. He’s basically a paid, legalized stalker, and he won’t leave me alone.”

Jake sighed and sank back onto the couch. While I wiggled in my effort to free myself, I likely would have had better luck escaping from handcuffs. “He won’t leave you alone because you need his help.”

It annoyed me that Jake was right.

“I see him right before your sessions. He dislikes them almost as much as you do. Couple’s therapy will be an interesting endeavor. I’m looking forward to it.”

At least someone was. I scowled. “Couple’s therapy?”

“When a man loves a woman and convinces her to marry him, they become a couple. When a couple experiences difficulties, especially of a manipulative nature, therapy can help resolve those issues.” Dr. Howards shot a glare at Jake’s parents. “In your case, the manipulation came from outside sources.”

I remembered what Jake had said. “Because I don’t stink.”

“Because you don’t stink of my scent,” he corrected.

“I take a bath at least once a day. Of course I don’t stink. Maybe if you took showers that lasted longer than five minutes, you wouldn’t stink.”

“This is the one situation you want to stink, Karma. If we had been carrying each other’s scents, no one would have tried to separate us.”

Had separated us, but I lacked the courage to say so. I averted my gaze to the floor.

Pauline sighed. “And we never should have tried in the first place. For that, I’m sorry.”

Sorry wouldn’t cut it and never would. I wondered what would have changed if one of us had bent, if I had given up on wanting to be pack with a bunch of wolves. A year ago, my answer would have been simple. I would have waited for a while before telling Jake I was tired and wanted to go home.

I no longer had a home. I no longer had a place where I went and found comfort just by being there, surrounded by the evidence of my life, people I wanted to be near, and people who wanted to be near me.

Like everything else, the way Jake held me was a lie, one I refused to believe. Some burned bridges could never be rebuilt. Sometimes, they could be repaired, but they connected to places I no longer wished to go.

A simple sorry would never be enough.