Make Me Yours (Bellamy Creek #2) - Melanie Harlow Page 0,105
the fourth.”
“Maybe.” He hesitated. “But I’ll be pretty busy with the house.”
“Oh, that’s true.” I took a breath. “So we haven’t really talked about this yet, but when do you want me to move in?”
“I was thinking of waiting a little bit on that.”
Something about the way he said it made me stiffen up. “Waiting a little bit?”
“Yes. Just maybe a couple months or so. You know.”
I sat up and looked at him. “A couple months?”
“Well, yeah.” He shrugged and met my eyes only briefly. “I thought it might be best to give Mariah some time to adjust to the new place. On our own.”
“Oh.” Hurt had taken root in my chest. “And that will take months?”
“Hard to say.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. I couldn’t help it.
“Hey, I don’t want you to worry, okay?” He took my hand. “I love you. You know I do. I want to be with you.”
“So why don’t you want us to live together?”
“I do want that. I’m just making sure we’re not rushing it.” His eyes dropped to our hands. “I’m—I’m worried about Mariah. See, she’s been having nightmares.”
A chill moved up my spine. Something was way, way off. “Mariah has been having nightmares?”
“Yes.” Letting go of my hand, he crossed his arms over his chest.
“What kind of nightmares?”
“She says . . . she says they’re about a monster in the dark. She’s terrified of it, even though it’s just there in the dark with her. Because she knows at any minute, it might attack.”
“Something she can’t see coming,” I said.
“Right,” he said, oblivious that I’d just used his own words. “She’s obviously frightened by something that feels unsafe or—or unpredictable to her. She senses danger and doesn’t know how to protect herself. So I think we’d better just give her some more time to feel, you know, safe.”
“More time . . . so Mariah feels safe.” It was all making sense to me now. Blair had been right—Cole did have some things to work through. But he wasn’t working through them, he was burying them even deeper.
And he was lying to me about it.
“Yes. I love you, Cheyenne. And I want to be with you all the time. But my first priority has to be my daughter. You understand, right?”
I closed my eyes as more tears fell, and swallowed hard. “Yes. I understand.”
“Good.” He reached for me but I stood up. “This isn’t going to work for me, Cole.”
“Huh?”
“You’re not being honest.”
He looked indignant. “Yes, I am.”
I shook my head. “You’re not. You’re scared of what’s happening between us. You’re afraid that what we have can’t last.”
“That’s not it at all!” Cole jumped up from the couch and glanced toward the stairs. We had to keep our voices down, but it was hard, because we were both worked up. “I’m only concerned about—”
I held up one hand. “Don’t say Mariah, Cole, because I know the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Mariah isn’t the one having the nightmares, you are. Mariah isn’t the one frightened about something she can’t see coming, you are. Mariah isn’t the one lying to me about how she feels, you are.” I started to cry for real. “She told me, Cole. Tonight, we were talking earlier, and she told me about your bad dreams and how she gave you a stuffed animal to scare the monster away. And even if she hadn’t, your mother mentioned them to my mother.”
“Jesus Christ,” he snapped, his chest inflating with anger. “This is why I need my own house.”
“And that’s fine.” I put up my hands. “That’s fine, Cole. Move into your own house. I’ll be staying in mine.”
“Cheyenne, please.” His expression was furious, his tone heated. “I told you from the beginning that this wasn’t going to be easy for me.”
“I never expected it to be easy. But I did expect you to let me in.”
“I did let you in! I let you get closer to me than anyone!” he whispered frantically. “You’re the one saying it’s not enough.”
“Because it isn’t, Cole.” Tears continued to fall, and I slashed at them angrily. “Yes, you let me get close to you. But now you’re pushing me away. And I have this feeling that you’re going to keep pushing.”
“That’s ridiculous.” He crossed his arms again.
“Is it? I can deal with you wanting more time until we move in together. But that’s not what this is about.”
“Huh?”
“This is about you saying you’re fine and you’re not. This is about you looking for reasons to keep yourself from being