Page 5 of Snowy Secrets

But this is better for her than anything I can give her. It wouldn't be fair of me to ask her to wait. She can't understand that yet.

Every decent piece of me breaks as she pulls on her shorts and stomps into her sneakers, and I finally sit up to get a better view of her. If this is the last time I see her, I want every detail of it committed to memory. But when she reaches the door, all of the walls I'd begun erecting to prepare myself for this crumble, and I follow.

"Bella," I call after her.

Dressed only in the sheets, I stop in the doorway. She's halfway to her car, anger and hurt evident in her every step, her red hair swinging, shoulders bunched, hands clenched into fists. I call her name again when she reaches the door, but she doesn't give me the time of day.

"I love you," I say, the confession falling from me before I can stop myself. Bella goes rigid, turning to look at me with her nostrils flaring and those green eyes ready to slice me in two. "I'm doing this because I love you."

Silence hangs between us for two long seconds. "If you really loved me, you'd come back. You'd choose me. Over and over again, you'd choose me. But you're not. You're being a coward. And I never pegged you as one. Guess I was wrong about you."

Time speeds back up, her car door slams, her engine roars, and she throws gravel, mud, and grass as she reverses quickly. My heart is torn out, dragged along every inch of rough road as she speeds away like she can't get away from me fast enough.

This has to be the right decision.

I take my time cleaning up the cabin, putting everything back in place. My movements are slow and methodical. The world hums with the absence of Bella. With what I just did. My second thoughts swim around me, but I can't take it back. It was the right thing to do. For her.

Always for her.

Over the next few days, I wait to hear from her, but there's no word. Not even when I text to ask her if she's okay, when I call after complete radio silence. I didn't expect her to cut me out completely. I can't take it anymore.

I have to see her one more time before I leave.

The drive to her house triple knots my stomach. This wait is worse than dropping from a helicopter into enemy territory. I park at the end of her long driveway and walk the rest of the way to her door, enjoying the towering trees, the scents of home, before I'll be without it all for who knows how long.

After I knock on the front door, I stuff my hands in my pockets to keep from lunging forward to touch her the moment she opens the door. But when it swings open, it's her father standing there instead.

I put on a fake smile.

"Oh, hey, River. What are you doing here? Aren't you shipping off today? Come on in." He waves me inside, and I barely make it across the threshold before I stop. "You want a drink?"

I shake my head. "No. But thanks."

He stops halfway to the kitchen and turns to really look at me. His graying hair gives him an air of authority—not that the colonel needs more authority. The big man takes up more space as his hands land on his hips. "What brings you here, River?"

Inhaling deeply, I brace myself. "Is Bella home?"

It's awkward to ask. Not that he doesn't know about Bella's and my relationship, but he's my friend, my superior, and the two sides of myself war with each other for dominance.

"I'm afraid she's not. I thought she would have told you." He strides closer again, putting his big paw on my shoulder and getting a good look at me this time. "She left town two days ago. Came home in a rush, packed a few bags, and high-tailed it out of here before I could ask her too many questions. I thought the two of you might be holing up at the cabin until you left."

Every word drives a stake further into my heart. "You don't know where she went?"

He shakes his head. "No, but I know she's safe. Texts me three times a day."

So her phone isn't dead. She's not without service. She's not hurt. She's just ignoringme.

My eyes close against the blow of that realization. The world shifts, breaks, morphs into something I can barely recognize. A world without Bella.

I told her not to wait. I told her to find a life without me. And she listened.

What a fucking idiot I am.

The colonel's hand tightens on my shoulder, and then I'm moving. He's steering me toward the couch in the living room. When I'm sitting on the plush leather cushion, he disappears and reappears with an old-fashioned glass in his hand and two fingers of Johnny Walker in the bottom.

"Drink up," he says, and I follow his order, draining the two ounces of liquor in one gulp. The burn flares and dies in my cold chest.

Bella is gone. She might not come back. I've lost her completely.

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