Page 103 of Delicate Escape

“I can’t believe Anson did that for me,” she said as she took off her slippers and crawled into bed.

I slid in beside her and pulled her against my chest, still needing the contact. “People care about you.”

Thea looked up at me, her pale green eyes searching. “It’s been a long time since I’ve let them.”

That knowledge sliced at me, stoking the fury burning low in my gut. I pressed a kiss to her forehead as I turned off the lamp. “Get some sleep. You need it.”

“Okay,” Thea mumbled. But she was already fading.

It didn’t take long for her body to go completely lax against mine. Her breaths made my white tee ripple with each exhale. I watched the movement in the moonlight through the sheers and tried to take comfort in the feel of it. Of her. But it wasn’t enough.

All I wanted was to take the Sutton approach and hunt Brendan down. And it wouldn’t be enough to simply wipe him from the Earth. I wanted him to hurt. To feel every ounce of pain he’d inflicted on Thea and more.

The level of rage tweaked me. It wasn’t something I’d ever experienced before. Not ever. Not when my dad and brother died, and not even after Rhodes had been taken.

My skin itched. Felt too tight for my body. I needed to move, run and burn off the phantom energy. But I didn’t. I stayed right where I was and listened to Thea’s breathing, the way it occasionally hitched with slight half snores.

I didn’t move as one hour slid into two and then three. But when the clock hit one a.m., I couldn’t stay there anymore. As carefully as possible, I shifted Thea off me. Stilling, I waited. Her breaths were shallower now, but within seconds, they deepened again.

Pushing to my feet, I headed for the door. As my fingers closed around the metal knob, I turned. As twitchy as I was, I couldn’t help but watch Thea for a moment, see the way her exhales made the brown locks flutter around her face, how she looked so incredibly at peace.

I was thankful for that. She deserved every ounce of peace. But I wanted that in her waking hours, too. Never wanted her to fear Brendan and his twisted cruelty again.

The doorknob twisted under my palm, and I pushed as quietly as possible. Stepping into the hallway, I shut the door softly behind me and nearly cursed as Moose tore past me. Thea had warned me about her cat’snighttime crazies, but this was the first time I was seeing it in action.

Moose did some sort of ninja flip off the wall and took off into my room. With my luck, the damn mutant would probably piss in my shoes. I wanted to laugh, or at least smile, but I couldn’t get my mouth to cooperate. Not with everything weighing on me.

Just the thought had that twitchiness returning in earnest. I moved down the hall, past the kitchen, and through the living room to the back door. Opening it, I stepped outside. The moment the cool mountain air hit me, I felt like I could breathe again.

The scent of the ponderosa pines would always bring the feeling of home. But the truth was, I had no idea if my roots were here. Had no idea if my birth parents had simply been driving through town and ditched me here. But even if they had, Sparrow Falls had become my home. My refuge. And it was for Thea, too.

I wouldn’t let her lose that.

I didn’t know how long I stood there, letting the night air wash over me and trying to let some of the anger pulsing inside me go. But at that point, I felt like I’d need the subzero temperatures of the Arctic for my fury to fade.

The hinges on the back door squeaked as it opened and then closed again. I didn’t turn around. I knew it was Thea. Not because she was the only other person here, but because I had some sort of radar for her. It was as if my body recognized her energy signature.

She slid a hand up my spine, and the heat of her palm bled through my tee. She didn’t talk at first, just took her time, reading my mood like a psychic worth millions. “You want to talk about it?”

I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into me, inhaling that floral scent mixed with a hint of coconut. It soothed far more than the pine lacing the air had before. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

Thea tipped her head back and looked up at me. “Is that a no?”

I sighed, my thumb tracing the ridges of Thea’s spine through the thin cotton of her tank top and robe. “Feel like this anger is going to burn through me. Everything that asshole put you through, and he’s just out there living the good life.”

Thea’s gaze bored into me as her hand stilled on my back. “He’s not.”

My focus moved to her, brows pulling together.

“There’s no way he could possibly be happy with everything he did to me. Happy people don’t try to break others down. They don’t try to ruin them. That’s what I’ve realized. He must be absolutely miserable, and that’s the only solace I have.”

I shook my head. “Not good enough.” It wasn’t fair that people thought Brendan Boseman was God’s gift. That the world didn’t know the truth. The fact that his mind was likely a miserable place didn’t cut it. It didn’t ease the fury coursing through me.

Thea shifted then, moving in front of me and placing her hands on my chest. “You need to let it go. If you don’t, it’ll eat you alive.”

I didn’t want to hold on to it. Didn’t want it to keep burning through me.

“What helps?” she asked. “When you’re angry, what helps? Iusually need to get my hands in the dirt. Plant or tend the ones I already have. Shifting that energy to something positive usually helps. When I’m sad, too.”

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