I walked back to my bedroom. Leaving was my only alternative. There was no getting around it. Something lived inside Talon, something poisonous, something I might never understand, and as long as he kept himself closed off from me and everyone else, I couldn’t risk being around him.
I refused to lose my heart to someone who was incapable of giving me his.
Chapter Fourteen
Talon
I wanted to go after her. I wanted to with everything in my body and soul. I wanted to grab her, kiss her, make her forget how angry she was.
God… When I saw that man with his hands on her, something in me snapped. Green rage boiled through me. I had to get him off of her, off of my woman.
But she would never be my woman. I had nothing to offer. Nothing but a few midnight kisses and romps, as she called them.
I would still be beating the guy if she hadn’t stopped me. I’d been crazy, unable to stop. I wasn’t even thinking, and my hands and feet were acting of their own accord. A primordial need to pummel him into soup had consumed me, and all logic had fled.
I could’ve done serious damage to him. He deserved it, for humiliating Jade the way he had, but I knew better. Knowing better hadn’t stopped me though. It never did.
Icy chills gripped the back of my neck.
This couldn’t go on.
I wasn’t ready to give up. I wanted to live.
I stood abruptly, grabbed the keys to my truck, went out the back way, and drove over to the ranch office where Jonah would be. I stormed into the office, past the office manager to Joe’s office.
“Talon”—my older brother looked up from some documents he was reading—“what are you doing out here?”
“I’m ready, Joe. I’m ready to get some help.”
* * *
Joe had handed me a business card of a psychologist in Grand Junction, Dr. Melanie Carmichael. He didn’t know much about her other than she was supposed to be tops in her field and that she’d had a lot of success treating patients with histories similar to mine. He had even offered to go with me and to get Ryan and have him go as well. But no, this was something I had to do alone.
I called the number right away, and even though it was a Saturday, Dr. Carmichael agreed to meet me in her office.
I pulled up into the Heritage Medical Group offices and parked my car. She said she’d leave word with the security guard to let me in, since the doors were locked on weekends.
I stood at the door, my palms leaving sweat marks on the glass. Had this been a huge mistake? A security guard sat at his desk inside. I knocked on the door. The man looked up and came to the door.
“Mr. Steel?”
I nodded.
He opened the door and let me in. “Dr. C’s up on five, Suite 524. I’ll have to key in the elevator for you. They’re locked on weekends.”
I nodded again and followed him to the elevator. He keyed in a code.
“Good luck,” he said.
Good luck? I warmed all over. Of course, he knew what field Dr. Carmichael was in. This shouldn’t be a surprise to me. But I wanted to disappear.
As the elevator moved up five floors, I kept thinking of an excuse not to go and see Dr. Carmichael. I could go home and tell Jonah I’d gone. I could make up some kind of psychobabble jargon. He wouldn’t know the difference.
But this woman had been kind enough to come and open her office for me on a Saturday. Standing her up would be rude as hell. If I was truly going to try to change, this was the first step.
When the elevator dinged at the fifth floor, my feet became leaden. I felt like I was walking through sludge as I trudged to room 524. I walked in, but of course, there was no receptionist. It was Saturday. Where was the doctor? As I was looking around, thumbing through the magazines on the coffee table, a tall woman with strikingly light-blond hair and green eyes walked out from an adjacent room.
“You must be Mr. Steel,” she said.