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Knowing that the Welsh King would come for me.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CLARA
I stopped once at a gas station on the other side of the New Hampshire border. The woman behind the counter stared at me as she rang up my coffee, cheese danish, and ice pack. I offered her a tight smile and she tore her eyes away, clearly not interested in getting involved.
It was pretty clear that I’d been hit and now I was on the run. Only, the story was a lot more complex than that.
By the time I arrived at the house, the sun was just coming up over the horizon. The temperature had dropped. It was chilly and the sky was clear, stars fading into the distance as it grew lighter.
I grabbed my bag and stepped out of the car, acutely aware of being completely alone. It was healing, this stark silence. The air smelled so good, so pure and fresh. In the distance, spring birds twittered and I could hear a stream bubbling. It must have been frozen last time we were here.
I climbed the steep stairs to the front porch. The same place I’d stripped my clothes and made him want me so badly he took my virginity right there. On the living room rug.
I punched in the code and the door flashed green and I pushed it ajar. Someone had clearly been here since we left because the frame he’d knocked from the wall was fixed. Everything smelled clean and the stain on the carpet was gone.
The silence was loud and getting louder, but I welcomed it.
I needed this time before he arrived to think. To sort through everything I was feeling so I could speak honestly with him.
My future depended on it.
His future depended on it.
I couldn’t bring myself to open the door to our shared room, much less sleep in the bed, so I put my bag in the guest bedroom. Then I showered, cleaned myself thoroughly, and put on a clean pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt.
There were non perishable foods in the cupboards. I made myself a cup of espresso and took a pack of salmon and a bag of asparagus out of the freezer to thaw.
I stood there listening to the milk frother whir, feeling like I was living in another person’s body. My hands looked alien as I poured the milk over my espresso and stirred it.
Merrick was on the road, I didn’t doubt that. He would be here before the day ended.
I would see his wounds, his stitches, up close.
My hands were steady as I took two Ibuprofen for my face. It had stopped swelling and the puffiness had gone down a lot over the night. As I’d driven, I kept the cold pack in the passenger seat and applied it every fifteen miles for a few minutes. It had worked wonders.
When I was a little girl, Candice’s cat had hurt its back leg. We’d spent hours pulling it from under the house so we could take it to the vet and the cat had put up a fight. It didn’t want to be inspected and bandaged, it wanted to crawl somewhere where it could be alone and lick its wounds in peace.
I understood that now.
I was doing the same thing. Crawling away to be alone so I could work through the shock quietly.
My feet carried me to the porch. Outside, it was slowly getting warmer and the breeze felt pleasant on my face. I leaned on the railing and sipped my latte and soaked in the view over the pine forest.
Years ago, my father had put that gun to my head and told me he could kill me if he wanted.
He’d told me my life was fragile.
I’d felt the full force of that sentiment in Osian’s hand.
Life was so delicate, full of good people and terrible people, full of darkness and light. The world was a confusing, lethal, but sometimes heartrendingly beautiful place.
My lids closed and the wind tickled my hair.
Every moment in the last six years when I’d been truly happy involved Merrick. He’d taken me out of darkness and into light. He existed as his own kind of ecosystem of safety and happiness. In his arms, I was safe to be who I was, to heal, to thrive.
He adored me.
