you push me away in the first place?” God, that day had been months ago, yet it was still so crystal clear in her mind. You need to go back, he had said. Go.
“I … can’t explain it exactly.”
A pained look flashed across his face, and for a brief second, her gut clenched. “Can’t? Or won’t?” she spat. When he didn’t answer, she laughed bitterly. “I thought so.”
“You don’t have to … what I mean is.” He took a step forward. “Does it hurt?”
“Hurt?”
He took another step. “Does it hurt you? When I come closer?”
He was about three feet away from her now. She didn’t even realize that he’d been inching toward her. “I … no.” Her fox eyed him warily, yes, but it didn’t claw at her.
He let out a relieved breath. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Can I come closer?”
She bit her lip. Her fox shook its head. “No.”
“But you’re not hurting?”
“I said I wasn’t,” she snapped. “Please, can we just get on with this? What do you want, John?”
“It’s my fault you’re like this. That you’re not healing. And you can’t see color. And everything … everything you said … I know it now.”
“Know what?”
“What I did. I broke you. I broke us.”
The pang in her heart came unexpectedly. “There is no us.”
“I know, and that’s my fault.” His expression softened, then turned to determination. “And I’m going fix you.”
Was he serious? Her jaw went slack. He sure sounded and looked serious. “I don’t know if you can.”
“I’m going to do it, Dutchy.” His hands curled into fists at his sides. “I don’t care how long it takes or what I have to do.”
“I—”
He moved so quickly; he was practically a blur. She thought he’d disappeared, but she could feel his presence behind her. “I swear to you,” he whispered as he leaned down close, though he didn’t touch her. “I’m going to fix us.”
And with that, he was gone, leaving her heart pounding in her chest.
“Miss?” Muriel asked as she rushed to her side and placed a hand on her forehead. “Are you all right? You look pale. Should I call the doctor?”
She spied Angela’s Ford Focus rounding the corner. “No.” She didn’t want to go back into the hospital. And if she were honest, her racing pulse had nothing to do with feeling sick.
I’m going to fix us.
Hope threatened to flower in her chest, but she didn’t dare nurture it. When he’d first left her that day, she’d daydreamed of something like this. But now, months later, she didn’t want to get her hopes up again. He’d already crushed her hopes once and she’d paid for it. She wouldn’t be able to survive it a second time.
Chapter Nine
A few more days had passed since Krieger saw Dutchy leaving the hospital. While he was glad she was out of there, seeing her looking so frail and vulnerable only drove him and his bear to the brink. He tried to stay away from her initially because he’d been so afraid of hurting her, but found he couldn’t, so he went back. Her aunts, however, forbade him from getting near her room, so he waited outside, getting news from Anna Victoria when she came to visit and hoping to catch Dutchy when she was finally discharged
Her fox … he’d only felt that animosity from his worst enemies. He knew the pain of a broken animal, how his own bear ripped him up from the inside, and he didn’t want that happening to her.
It didn’t matter that he had worked on himself all these months so he could be good enough for her. He hadn’t considered how his actions would affect her. Did he really think that he could just walk away without explanation, then stroll back into her life like nothing had changed? That time had stopped for her, and she would just be waiting in the wings until he was finished making changes to himself?
And he knew, he knew he had to fix her. It was his fault she was broken, so he had to be the one to do it. He fixed himself, so why couldn’t he do it for her?
Failure was not an option.
He had to fix her.
But he still didn’t know how he was going to go about it.
The knock on the door made him start. “Come in,” he said. Not that the person on the other side needed an invitation. After all, only one person came to visit him up here in his cabin.