Page 17 of The Fence Between Us

Skye must have read what he wasn’t saying in the strained lines of his face and nodded, dropping the issue and returning to her tiny lace markings. Rabble gave a silent sigh of relief. That was a conversation he desperately didn’t want to have with her. Not yet.

He left her to her details and turned his attention to the low platform where the threebrideswould stand during the parade. He let his mind wander as he constructed each of Elyza’s ideas for the float, Skye painting the entire time, pausing only to mark off each project from the checklist provided to them by Elyza.

At one point, Rabble practically begged Skye to take a short break and scarf down the sandwich Elyza delivered, along with a heap of praise for the work they’d done. She’d agreed reluctantly, proceeding to eat faster than anyone he’d seen before, including his time in basic training. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed, both with the speed in which shefinished lunch and the dedication she showed to each minute detail she included on the posts.

Dusk had fallen by the time Skye stood, slowly, arching her back to stretch the kinks out of her muscles. Rabble tried, he truly did, not to let his eyes wander over her form as she reached toward the ceiling on her tiptoes. His self-control slipped when her shirt pulled up, exposing a thin strip of bare skin at her waist.

Skye came out of her stretch and turned to greet several of her previous students who had come with their parents and were leaving for the night. The smile that lit up her face took his breath away, and he was moving before he knew what he was doing.

Rabble grasped Skye’s hand lightly and watched surprise and wariness war in her eyes. “Can we talk?”

Chapter 10

Skye

Skye wasn’t sure if she should panic or be angry. Maybe both? Everyone knew “can we talk” was the line somebody said right before they broke bad news. Rabble wasn’t someone she would considereveryonethough. He’d never operated on society’s standard of normal.

Her hand settled against his warm, rough skin as he entwined their fingers, and Skye let him lead her out of the warehouse, under the glow of the building’s security lights. The crowd had dissipated throughout the day, many of the families having headed home within the last several minutes. Only a few dedicated stragglers continued working and would stay late into the night. They were relatively alone among the crickets and other singing bugs that made homes in the grass and trees behind the warehouse.

He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, in soothing circles. Skye didn’t know if it was more for her or himself.

She felt the shift, a subtle change during their conversation the day before while working on the parade float, something almostcompanionable between them. His soft lips against her cheek as he brushed a kiss there had solidified her confusion and left her feeling like a silly schoolgirl. This though, felt different even from that. The urgency to his movements set her heart racing and made her stomach clench in nervousness.

“Skye…” He dropped her name from his mouth like he wasn’t prepared to speak at all, and he seemed to struggle for the right words.

His throat bobbed as he searched for the vocabulary to convey his dismay. “Dash and, well, I suppose Declan too, made me realize something this morning. It’s eight years too late, but I, I’m sorry.”

Skye sucked in a breath and held it like her life depended on it, her heart thudding painfully beneath her chest, but she stayed quiet as he went on.

“I let you down. I left when you needed me, when we needed each other, and I can’t ever take back these years of doubt and everything that could have been different, but I want the chance to. I mean I hope, maybe I might get the chance to.” He cringed as his words rushed out, desperate to be spoken and yet wished they’d remained unsaid.

Skye found his fumbling endearing, but what was she supposed to say to that? She had loved him since childhood, had probably always loved him in truth. She’d been waiting to hear him say those words for so long, but too much history divided them. Too much to start fresh? Could they use the broken blocks of their past to build a stronger future? Was she a fool for wishing they could?

She stared at her hand, linked with his. “I think I’d been holding out hope, maybe you’d just been held up with something. Maybe you were just running late. I wanted so badly to believe you still planned to run away with me, that you hadn’t left me behind. But when I found your enlistment papers,” hervoice cracked and she swallowed, disentangling their fingers to distance herself, “I felt like my world finished crumbling completely. All the freedom we longed for was gone. The only person who knew how I felt, gone. Ithurt,Matthew.”

Skye watched the blow land when she used his given name, the way he flinched and blanched at the same time. She didn’t say it to hurt him. Even though telling him the truth sounded selfish in her ears and unshed tears blurred her vision, he needed to understand how deep her wounds went.

His eyes darkened in the fading light of dusk, but she could read pain in the lines around his eyes and the tightness of his mouth.

“Did you think I couldn’t handle going with you? That your career choice might scare me away? Did you not think I was strong enough to be there to support you through trainings and deployments?” The vulnerability in her questions made Skye

cringe.

She hated feeling so exposed but there was no other way to convey the way he’d hurt her. “I would have given anything to stay with you, no matter where that path led.” All of the hurt and confusion bubbled back to the surface, and Skye felt like the eighteen-year-old girl she’d been, betrayed and alone. Scared.

“No! I knew you would go with me. But you had your heart set on college and—.” He swallowed roughly, his warm hand following the path of her jaw to caress her cheek as he rushed on, “

I couldn’t be the reason you didn’t chase your own dreams. I couldn’t take you away from all of that.”

Skye sighed, suddenly exhausted, and pulled away from him to sag against the rough siding of the building. “What a pair we are. I was looking to you for freedom, and all you saw were the chains you thought you represented. I wanted you, Rabble. Just you.”

He closed the distance and leaned in, cupping her face with his huge hands and smudged his thumb across her jaw. He dipped his head, his lips grazing the shell of her ear before he pulled back and met her eyes with an intensity that awakened some long slumbering part of her. “I don’t deserve to ask this of you, I know that.” Leaning his forehead against hers, his soft breath whispered passed her ear, “Would you give us the chance to find out what we missed, Skye? Let me show you how truly, devastatingly, miserable I am without you.”

The silence that followed was thick with tension, hurt and fear yawned like a chasm between them.

“I…I need to think,” Skye murmured. She wasn’t sure who she was speaking to, maybe Rabble, maybe herself, maybe even the universe.

If she hadn’t known him so well, she may have missed the minuscule way his face fell, but the flash of pain in his eyes disappeared immediately. He nodded but didn’t speak, as if he couldn’t quite trust his voice.

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