Page 145 of Protecting What's Mine

“When I called him ten minutes ago to ask if he’d heard anything from you,” he snapped.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“He said you flew home unexpectedly, and he dropped you off at your house last night.” She knew Russell hadn’t completely ratted her out by the fact that Linc wasn’t in her bedroom yelling at her and demanding to see her injuries.

“I’m fine.”

“I’m coming over.”

“No. You’re not, Linc,” she said, rocketing out of bed. She reached for a sweatshirt and sweatpants. Anything to hide the evidence of what she came from.

“Why the hell not?”

“I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to come over. I don’t want to talk about anything. I just want to be left alone.”

There was silence on his end of the call. Part of her hoped, prayed, that he wouldn’t listen. That any second now, she’d hear his knock, his demand to be let in. But then he’d see her, and he’d know.

“So that’s how you want it?” he asked bitterly.

“Yes,” she said desperately. “I need some…time.”

“So it’s over? Just like that?”

Mack hurried downstairs. She saw him standing there in the dim light of morning on her deck, his phone pressed to his ear. Shoulders slumped, a scowl on his beautiful face.

Sunshine was behind him, tail wagging in the morning mist.

“I didn’t say that,” she said.

He looked up, spotting her through the glass.

“Let me in, Mack,” he said softly.

“No. I need to take care of some things myself.”

“Let me in, Mack, or this ends now,” he said.

No. That wasn’t what she wanted. Why should she have to choose? When would she stop losing things to her family?

She shook her head, but she couldn’t get the words out.

She couldn’t do anything but stand there and watch him hang up and walk away from her.

Sunshine stood there on the deck for a beat. Looking back and forth between her humans before wandering off after Linc.

Another knife to her already wounded heart.

This was stupid. So fucking stupid. She’d just explain…vaguely. In a way that didn’t make him pity her or realize how damaged she was.

He’d have to listen. To let her back in.

And then she thought about the old fire station. About Karen. About the hurt that had radiated off him at the rejection of the woman he cared about.

The shame, the guilt, took her out at the knees, and she sank to the kitchen floor.

48

Linc entered the station under a dark cloud. Sunshine, not a fan of Dark Linc, scurried off in search of friendlier people.