And it made less sense than anything.
But he didn’t have the strength to make her leave.
But it was all right. Because one thing he knew. She would be leaving.
Because that was how it always went.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THENEXTMORNINGViolet felt shaky, and she knew that she looked as exhausted as she felt. They needed to go back to Four Corners today, because she had to deal with Wolf on their turf and their terms. She’d said that she loved him. And he had said nothing. She would have been happier if he’d saidsomething, even if it was something she didn’t want to hear.
It was the nothing that was killing her.
“You know,” Alison said while helping make sandwiches for them to take on the road. “If you are going to creep into your fiancé’s room, in an attempt at blatant sneakiness, you might not leaveyourbedroom door open all night where I could see that you were not in it.”
Her face got hot, especially remembering what had happened last night.
She cleared her throat. “Noted.”
“I don’t think your dad noticed. Or if he did, he is really pretending he didn’t, and never wants to speak of it.”
“Well, you know I’m attracted to Wolf,” Violet bit out.
“I know,” Alison said. “But you know, it’s just things like that your dad doesn’t need haunting his nightmares.” Alison tilted her head. “You seem sad.”
And it all crashed in on her. The way she’d told him she loved him. The way he’d been with her after. So rough and dark and desperate. It didn’t scare her; it wasn’t that. It was just the divide felt so big, the chasm between them, and she didn’t know how they would ever...
She didn’t know if they could ever cross it, and it terrified her.
“I don’t know if I can love him through it,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know how to reach him.”
Alison’s brows crinkled. “You know you can stay here. You don’t have to go back. You don’t have to marry him.”
“I have to go back,” Violet said, sucking in a sharp breath, swallowing a sob. “I have to. Because I have to be brave. But it’s really hard.”
Alison put her hand on Violet’s cheek. “The people that have been hurt the worst resist the hardest. I know. Because that was me. Learning to trust when you’ve been hurt badly is so difficult. But you’re strong, Violet. You have so much of your dad in you.”
A glow burned in the center of Violet’s chest. “I do?”
“You are steady and faithful and hardheaded. And you care so much about doing the right thing. You love the people in your life so much.”
“I like being like him,” Violet said. “But I hope that I can be like you, too.”
“Like me?”
“Because you’re brave, Alison. You’re really brave. And that is what I need right now.”
She and Wolf drove separately going back to Four Corners, so at least now she had her car. But of course it gave him an easier time avoiding her.
They were welcomed back happily by his family that night. And he was... He was as cold and aloof as he’d ever been. Honestly, it was like a study in being a distant asshole.
He was abrupt to his family. He didn’t even sit next to her at dinner.
“So Copper Ridge was good?” Evelyn asked quietly after dinner.
“Yeah,” she said. “It was good. I had my first doctor appointment.”
“And?”