Page 74 of Sheltering Instinct

And there they were.

Time passed in silence.

Someone needed to start talking so he took this approach, “I remember this, the meditation of sitting in silence, looking into your eyes. On particularly hard nights in Afghanistan, I’d recall those times, and it settled me. It's how I fell asleep.”

She pressed her lips together and looked down to rub the edge of a blanket between her fingertips.

“Knowing your heart like I did, I can't imagine the weight you've borne. It occurred to me from time to time that it was a kind of compliment that you thought I was strong enough and resilient enough to take on the burden of your decision.”

“Did you doubt my feelings for you?” she whispered.

“That no, never. Which might have made it harder in some ways. I knew there was a damn good reason.” Did he want to go there with this conversation? Yeah, he did. “When we went to Momma Ya's funeral, and I met the Ya family, the ties were palpable. But you know, at that time, Abraham was married with a third child on the way. I liked him, I respected him, I felt nothing but deep gratitude to him.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“So when you told me you were marrying him, let's just say I was deeply conflicted. And I'm not proud of my thoughts or my emotions. Fast forward to when I found you on the hilltop. I was so damn pissed at you. Not about the past and not about what happened to our relationship. I was just so angry. My thoughts? The moment I saw you again, you were trying to leave me. It was irrational, I get that. But there it was. I didn’t want to lose you and mourn you again.”

Mojo crawled into Tess’s lap, and she looked down at him, stroking his fur.

Look at her. She is so beautiful.

Levi couldn't pull his gaze from Tess. He drank her in. Drank in all the changes from the last time he’d seen her.

Her intelligence shined through as always.

Tess’s mind had always been an aphrodisiac to him.

“I trusted that you were making decisions about something bigger than you and that you were acting selflessly. And I put that here on my shoulder with the good angel that whispers in my ear. You always lived on that shoulder.” When she looked up, he tapped his right shoulder.

“On the Angel side.”

“Yes, exactly.”

Her hands kneaded Mojo’s ears, and he let out long, low rumbles of pleasure. “Tell me about the other shoulder, the devil one.”

He caught her gaze and let it hold. “I'd rather not.”

Tess sat quietly, waiting.

“I've been angry, honestly.”

“Fair.”

“No, Tess. The rage I felt wasn't fair, which made me angry with myself, with life, and my future.”

“I'm sorry, Levi. In my mind, you mourned the end of our relationship and moved on.”

Levi monitored his tone to make sure he didn’t sound bitter when he asked, “What did that look like to you? Wife, kids, mortgage, and gutter cleaning? Beer and football?”

“A wife who was athletic and beautiful. I imagined you had three kids, and they were all adventurous like you. You’d pack the babies into backpacks and climb mountains. Black Diamond ski vacations with hot cocoa around a roaring fire. I pictured beautiful things for you because I wanted beautiful things for you. I wanted you happy. I wanted your wife to have come through a normal childhood without my baggage. I wanted you to forgive me and forgive the situation.”

“I’d told you you're my life,” Levi said quietly.

“I thought that was youth talking.”

“Well, as it turns out, it wasn't. And honestly? I tried for what you described. But whenever I was in a relationship, I’d look into the woman's eyes and realize I was trying to make it work, but it felt plastic and unnatural. And ultimately, it was unfair to let someone I cared about feel that, on some level, she wasn't up to being—"

“Me?”

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