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“I didn’t, Cher, you did. But I certainly think about it a lot.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Ford.” She slapped me gently against my good leg and began cleaning up her supplies. I watched her, still as slender yet strong as when I’d left. Wearing a simple black tank top and a pair of tight-fitting cargo pants was still her style. Still as intelligent and commanding. Still my Cherí. Still the woman who’d had me caving to her every whim.

No, my heart wasn’t numb. No, I was determined more than ever to keep her safe. For her to be mine, even if I knew technically I’d never be able to have her again.

“Where did you go?” she asked, pulling my attention away from her movements.

“Huh?” I knitted my brows together.

“When you left, where’d you go?” She paused and glanced back at me, her medical bag packed.

“Everywhere,” I quietly replied and slid my gaze over her shoulders. The back wall was nothing but a blank space where a face I missed flashed in front of me. I’d been able to keep myself preoccupied and busy enough up until now that Duncan wasn’t much of a thought, yet there he was, staring back at me.

“I don’t know why I expected more of an answer. Oh, wait. Maybe because before you left, you used to never shut up around me. Now, I’m suddenly just like every other person in your life who you hardly speak to,” Colette hissed.

I snapped my gaze back to her eyes but remained quiet.

“Really?” She threw her hands in the air and shook her head. “The least you could do is give me some straight, honest answer, instead of just ‘everywhere.’ After fifteen years, you’ve got to have landed somewhere, planted roots. Or what? Have you just been mooching off of people?”

“I gave you the answer I could,” I quietly replied.

“Everywhere? That’s the answer you could give me? So now, you’ve picked up lying on top of giving me the silent treatment?”

“Like you said, it’s been fifteen fucking years, Cher. I’m not lying, and I’m not giving you the silent treatment. I just don’t know what else to tell you.” I leaned forward and placed my palms against my knees, ready to stand.

Her hand shot forward, and she shoved me against my chest. “I can’t believe I ever loved you. I can’t believe I let myself be hurt over you. Some lazy ass who has spent the last fifteen years slumming from one place to another.”

I swallowed stiffly as her first sentence clawed my heart. She was right. When it came to her, the urge to say anything and everything was still there, but the weight that held all words at bay turned into the knife she’d just stabbed into my soul. Slumping back into the chair, I simply looked at her. I wanted to tell her, to argue with her, but the way she’d spoken that first sentence made me hold held my tongue. There was some truth to it.

And I had to accept that.

Her eyes widened, and she crashed back against her heels. “I’m—I didn’t mean it like that,” she whispered.

Slipping my gaze to the wooden floor in front of her, I inhaled deeply and pinched my brows together. “People say shit they don’t mean all the time,” I replied and leaned forward against my elbows. “I get it.”

I heard her slowly gather her things and rise from the floor. Pulling my gaze up to meet hers, I saw something innocent twinkling behind the tears that boiled at the rim of her eyes. “How long are you staying?” she asked.

“Just passing through.”

Lie. I wanted to stay. I wanted nothing more than to finally settle down and have a place of my own. But I lied instead, because I knew that was what she needed. What she wanted.

“Oh,” she quietly said, and her chest expanded with a breath of resignation. Slowly, her lips lifted into a hesitant smile as she locked her gazewith mine again. “Well, uh, keep that wound clean and dry. If you’re still here in a week, let me check it out again.”

Fighting through the pain roaring hot in my heart, I winked. “Looking for an excuse to take my pants off in a week?” I teased and felt the tension slither away like a snake seeking the shade.

Her breath came with a giggle to herself as if lost in a memory that held less pain than this moment did. “You know, the least you could’ve done is gotten ugly or something. Would’ve made it easier to continue to be mad at you,” she grumbled and pursed her lips.

My heart trilled in my chest. “So, you’re saying you forgive me?”

She shook her head as she walked to the entrance. “Absolutely not.” And the door clanged shut behind her.

I grinned to myself and leaned back against the seat.

Determined.

Chapter 3

FORD