And Faith…Charity’s eyes flooded with tears as she waved her family goodbye and watched them grow smaller and smaller in the rear window. Faith had hugged her fiercely, almost painfully and had whispered, “I’m so fucking angry with you. And Blaine. I’m pissed at everything and everyone right now. And I don’t know how to cope. I love you, you dozy cow. Okay? But I’m just so… mad at you.”
“I know.”
“I shouldn’t be.”
“You should, I’m angry with myself as well. I should have told you. Told someone.”
“You should have trusted us.”
“Yes.”
“I love you. We’ll work it out. And heal. As a family.”
“I know.”
“Go. Enjoy the rest of your shagfest with Mr. Know-It-All over there. But you hurry home. Your life has been on hold for far too long.”
The car took a corner, and when she lost sight of her waving family, Charity promptly burst into tears.
She wasn’t even aware that Miles had pulled over until she felt his arms around her.
“Charity.” His voice was a gruff, pain-filled whisper. “You don’t have to leave. You can stay. I won’t hold it against you. I just…I want you to be happy.”
The thought of staying hadn’t even occurred to her, and his words made her cry harder, because with the offer now on the table, she had to consider it. She could stay. Give up the little time she had left with Miles, and start the healing process with her family.
What was to be gained by returning with Miles? A few weeks more of tormenting herself with something she could not have? There was nothing back there for her. Her future, her life…it was here.
All she had to do was tell him to turn around.
She pushed herself away from him and stared into his harsh face resentfully. Hating that he had offered her this choice.
Why couldn’t he just be selfish for once? Tell her she had to return with him? Be a controlling dick? Why couldn’t he make this easy for her?
In that moment she hated him a little. Hated him intensely for making her love him so much.
Her body curled into a paroxysm of agony as she struggled with this impossible decision. Only it shouldn’t be impossible. It should be easy…
She had once been forced to choose a man over her family. But that hadn’t been a real choice.
This was…and it killed her that it was so hard.
His phone buzzed, providing a welcome diversion to the intensity of the moment, and Charity glanced over to where he had affixed the device to the dashboard. A picture of Stormy floated onto the screen, and Charity hiccoughed, her sobs lessening. She stared at the picture fixedly, gratefully. It was the answer she had been searching for.
This wasn’t just about her and Miles.
“I have to go back to Riversend with you,” she managed to say between lessening sobs.
He did nothing to hide the naked relief in his eyes. But because he was such a good guy, he still warily asked, “Are you sure?”
“I have to say goodbye to George and Amos, and my f-friends…” New friends, people she had only recently allowed into her heart and life. The thought of bidding them farewell was surprisingly hard. But it was the right thing to do. Leaving without so much as a goodbye would be unforgivable. “I have to say g-goodbye to St-St…Stormy.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” she said. Strength and conviction in her voice. “I have to say goodbye to you, Miles. A proper goodbye. My family? Life here? It’s my future. But I’m not quite done with this bit of my past yet.”
Even though she said she wasn’t done with it, it still hurt like hell to already be referred to as part of her past. But still, he’d take it. And be damned grateful for it. Because for a dreadful, heartbreaking, devastating moment there, he had been so certain that this was it for them.
Goodbye.
But it wasn’t. Not yet.
It was a reprieve. A stay of execution. All the more painful because he knew that it was temporary…the last gasp of a dying relationship.
He stared into her tear-drenched face. Her nose was red, her cheeks blotchy, eyes red and swollen…and yet she had never been more beautiful.
This was the beginning of the end for them. And Miles was going to make damned sure their journey to that end followed an iridescent rainbow path toward a glorious technicolor sunset.
“Why do I have to look at these?” Miles glared at the