My jaw locked, but I wouldn’t argue in front of a stranger.
“Thank you, Doctor Strand. I’ll see you in the morning.” Della took my hand, and together, we headed from the strong-smelling room and back to the waiting area.
I settled up, paid yet another small fortune, and accepted a card with a new appointment time for eleven a.m. tomorrow.
By the time we were on the street, thick darkness had fallen and even the restaurants were closed. I doubted we could find a similar cottage like our last one at this time of night. I doubted we could even find something to eat.
Della pointed at a quaint sign up ahead. “Look, it’s a Bed and Breakfast. Let’s crash there and sort out better accommodation tomorrow.”
I froze.
The thought of sleeping in a house with strangers. Of seeing those same people in the morning. Of hearing them through the walls and sharing their showers.
God, no.
I honestly didn’t think I could do it.
My feet actually backed away as everything inside me repelled against the idea.
I would rather sleep on the street. Naked.
But then Della flinched and hissed between her teeth, her face going white and hinting she wasn’t as okay as she pretended.
She was ill.
She was tired.
And it was no longer about me.
It was never about me.
“Okay, Della. Bed and Breakfast it is.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
REN
* * * * * *
2019
I DIDN’T SLEEP.
Of course, I didn’t sleep.
After we’d checked into the last available room in the five-bedroom Bed and Breakfast, I’d paced the small flower-decorated space like a caged rat. Thanks to my idiosyncrasies, I didn’t have a hope in hell of relaxing in this place.
Just as I feared, the sounds of pipes groaning as another guest had a shower and the flush of a toilet a wall away drove me nuts.
I wasn’t claustrophobic, but living so close to other people was past my very limited tolerance when it came to my fellow human race.
I didn’t know how Della stood it, considering we both preferred trees and silence to buildings and chaos. Then again, she’d spent her childhood in noisy school classrooms and busy malls. Her natural habitat included both, while mine was firmly set in wide open fields with only a tractor and wind for company.
Doing my best to stay calm, I pictured emptiness all around me with no threats to listen to and no people to suspect.
But it didn’t work.
I despised being so close.
I hated that we weren’t free to go where we wanted.
I cursed how, even now, even though almost two decades separated me from Mclary, I still had the occasional panic attack that demanded I run.
The day I’d had my first attack—when John Wilson closed the door at Christmas to give me my first pay packet—I’d wondered if I’d outgrow them.
And I had, to a degree.
But my childhood had made me distrustful, and the loner who had run when he was ten was just as happy on his own with Della now that he was twenty-nine as he had been as a boy.
I was simple.
I needed Della.
That was it.
Nothing else required.
And the thought that she could be taken from me by something as idiotic as this?
It made me fucking rage.
It was exactly what I’d feared happening. It was why I never wanted her pregnant in the first place.
I paced again, checking the bathroom for intruders—as if they could climb through the tiny window—doing anything I could to stop my temper from building and latching onto the one person I shouldn’t be angry at but was suddenly insanely furious with.
By the time I entered the bedroom again, my fists were clenched, my heart beating chaotically, and I itched for a fight—anything to expend the sick-fury and never ending need to keep Della safe.
I couldn’t fight her body from hurting her.
But I could fight—
“Ren.” Della noticed my unravelling self-control. How could she not with my pacing and jumpiness and longing looks out the window?
“Ren, come to bed.”
Bed? Lie down? Sleep? Let my guard down when other people slept so close? In the same building as us?
“Can’t.” I flung myself into the high-backed chair with an orchid decorated ottoman, swallowing a cough.
The meagre supplies I’d brought with us meant we’d at least been able to clean our teeth after the landlady kindly brought up some ham sandwiches and a few chocolate cookies as an evening snack.
She seemed nice enough, but so did anyone who wanted to lull you into a false sense of security.
“Ren, the door is locked. We’re safe.”
I narrowed my eyes at the flimsy lock and the flimsy door and its flimsy hinges. If someone wanted to come in, they could. No problem.
Conversation was good, at least. It gave me something else to think about instead of the undying need to scream at Della.
She huffed as if she didn’t quite understand me even though she should. Of all people, she should understand exactly what I was struggling with.