She wanted to defend herself. Wanted to scream and shout and berate the lot of them. Wanted to hurl the truth back in their faces. But what was the point?
Every single time; every single situation - no matter what she did - they always got thebetterof her.
How could she say anything now, without it sounding like she was merely bitching and making up stories to get back at them?
Sometimes you just had to know when you were defeated and withdraw with your dignity intact.
That was the course of action Ellie chose right now.
She knew when she was beaten.
Chapter Nine
Ellie walked out of the room with her head held high, even though she was sure she could feel six pairs of eyes boring into her back as she retreated.
She made it to the attic before the tearsoverwhelmedherdefences.
She brushed them away, angry at the weakness. They weren’t worth her tears. But they fell all the same.
Tears of anger and sadness; of betrayal and unfairness and despair. Tears for what she had found and now lost. Tears at having to leave this place where she thought she might have found a home. Tears at the thought of having to start again. Tears of self-pity and fear and heartache and, most surprisingly, tears at leaving behind the three men who made her heart beat faster and her mind conjure completely inappropriate scenarios which played out in her dreams.
Damn it, you would have thought this would have at least cured the stupid attraction she felt for all three of the brothers, but no. Instead her heart felt like it was breaking at the thought of leaving them. She wanted to hate them all, but the fascination and desire she felt towards each brother instead left her feeling like she was battling some kind of internal tug of war. Because deep in her heart she knew that they’d been duped and manipulated, just as surely as she’d been manipulated and set up.
They’d still believed it though, she thought bitterly to herself as she packed, in an effort to make herself feel better; feel less.
They’d overlooked the incident of her getting locked in a potentially dangerous situation, but gotten all bent out of shape about her being in their office for a legitimate purpose.
If she could generate enough anger and resentment towards them, maybe that would douse the desire she felt, or at least work towards numbing the pain she felt at leaving. It had barely been a week, damn it. That surely wasn’t enough time to become as hopelessly attached to them as she was feeling.
“It’s just because you have nowhere to go,” she told herself determinedly, hoping that saying the words out loud would strengthen her resolve.
“It’s not them you’re going to miss. It’s having a soft, warm bed at night, and three square meals a day.” But no matter how hard she tried, there was still a small corner of her mind calling her a liar.
Jeez! What was wrong with her! She’d allowed herself to become far too reliant on these men and this place. Now all she was going to get for her efforts was a boatload of hurt.
“Anyway, it’s not just them. I’m going to miss Tono too,” she told herself in an attempt to mitigate the Carson’s importance. Except the thought just brought her up short as the reality of that sentiment set in. Shewasgoing to miss Tono, he had quickly become her closest friend.
“Yeah, and how sad is it that your only friend is a vet you’ve helped a couple of times,” she muttered, darkly. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she immediately felt bad. That wasn’t fair to Tono. He was a good man, who had been prepared to accept and befriend a stranger at face value. It wasn’t right to belittle his friendship, and it truly meant more to her than that. He’d become like a father figure to her, she realized sadly. And he was yet another person who she was going to lose from her life.
Well, she’d learn from this whole fiasco, she decided stoically. She always tried to learn from whatever experiences life threw her way. She might not like them a lot, but she figured each and every one of them taught her something constructive. She might not appreciate it right now, but this would be a valuable lesson on how not to be taken advantage of in the future. Maybe at some point in her life she would also learn to accept the loneliness that seemed to be her constant companion and not to need anyone else in her life. It sure as heck would be easierthangetting attached and then losing them all, and that was the only thing that ever seemed to happen. First her parents, when they had died, then her school friends when she’d had to move away from the ranch she had loved. Then Gran, who had drifted away from her piece by tiny piece during her illness before finally there was nothing left at all, taking the home she had grown to love with it. Maybe a life alone just drifting from place to place, never putting down roots, never relying on anyone but herself was the way to avoid this kind of loss, since loss seemed to be the only constant in her life.
Besides, it wasn’t like the Carson brothers were hers and it was surely a sin to be lusting after another woman’s man, “Isn’t that right Gran?” She addressed the ether with self-deprecating humor.
All the sisters had sure as hell set their sights on one of the men and had each dug their claws in. That was what all of this was about, after all. They’d staked their claims and were protecting their catch, and Cody, Syrus, and Ezra seemed happy enough to go along with that. She should take some comfortfromknowing they were out of bounds. No way she would ever poach on someone else’s relationship. That was a hard NO to where her limits lay. Although those decisions hadn’t seemed all that firm - maybe even non-existent - during each of those precious pockets of time and intimacy she had shared with each of them. Then, it had felt like maybe the attraction she felt was reciprocated.
‘Seems to me, you should let them boys make up their own minds about that. Just because those minxes got their greedy littlesightsset on one or other of them, don’t mean the feeling’s mutual.’
Harrumph! Ellie snorted indelicately. “Whose side are you on anyway, Gran? I’m trying to make myself feel better here, you could at least agree!”
‘They responded to you, didn’t they? Might have gone further if it hadn’t been for the interruptions.’
Great, now she was talking to a ghost. Scrap that, not even a ghost. That would actually make more sense… she was just talking out loud to a memory. Probably even more crazy than talking to herself!
And yet, strangely, the conversation had made her feel better and helped to pull herself together.
“And just what does that make me Gran? According to that kind of logic, then I’ve led all three of them on. That’s surely got to be a sin in somebody’s book.”
If Gran wanted an argument, then that one should shut her up. The thought was almost enough to put a smile back on Ellie’s face - even if it was a rather wry one.