Page 52 of The Space Between
I thank him and sit in the dark for a long time, listening to the river move.
I have no doubt that fucker will be back. Especially since he’s now also got no employer and not a lot to lose.
CHAPTER 10
Blakelyn
I don’t sleep.I just lay on my back for hours, staring at the cracks in the wood on the ceiling beam and chew the inside of my cheek until I taste copper.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter.
It was just a kiss. A touch. A slip.
But I’m not seventeen and naïve. I’m not some girl pining over someone who was never hers to begin with.
I’m a woman with bruises that haven’t fully faded on the inside, who walked away from a man who used love like a leash. I put hundreds of miles between myself and that life. I choseherefor the silence, and the safety, and the chance to breathe again… and now, I can’t breathe without thinking abouthim.
Gruene Cavanaugh… with his broad shoulders and broken voice and haunted green eyes.
The man who saved me the day Tyler showed up. And he did. If Tyler had gotten to me, he wouldn’t have stopped until I was no longer breathing. I know that.
The man who kissed me like he was trying to forget every time he hadn’t.
The man who walked back to his cabin last night like it, like I, meant nothing at all.
Except , he spent hours installing cameras and motion detectors on my cabin. He put markers in the river. I know itisn’tactually nothing… and so does he.
I’mon the dock before the sun is.
Wrapped in an old hoodie I never wear, regardless of the Texas summer. My hair is still damp from the shower I couldn’t get hot enough to chase off the chills inside of me.
Tyler is coming back. I know he is. It’s not an if… it’s a when.
The breeze off the water smells like cedar and morning and a summer that’s starting to rot at the edges.
Pulling my knees up, I rest my chin on them and tell myself I’m fine. But then, I hear the sound of boots on gravel, and my pulse skips like it’s still tethered to him.
The tread is different. It’s not Tyler. I know that. But my pulse still races, and my back still tightens as I brace for a hit that’s not coming.
Damnit to hell.
Gruene doesn’t sayanything as he walks up. He doesn’t stop until he’s standing at the top of the dock.
I glance up at him.
His eyes are bloodshot. His jaw’s tight. His shirt’s wrinkled like he slept in it—or he didn’t sleep at all.
“Your motion light was on all night,” he says gruffly.
I nod but say nothing.
“Thought maybe you didn’t feel safe.” He says.
“I didn’t.” I mutter.
“I should’ve stayed.” His voice is quiet.
“You didn’t want to.” I flatly reply.
