Page 16 of Monsters, Vows, and Growls
The worst part was that my traitorous heart screamed,he came back. He came back!
It shouldn’t have meant everything, but it did. His arms were wrapped around me like they never left. Like they remembered how to hold me, even when I didn’t know how to hold myself together. His chest rose and fell beneath my cheek, steady and strong, and I could feel the rumble of his voice in his body when he whispered, “I should’ve called. I should’ve come back a thousand times, and I didn’t, and I have no excuse.”
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. There was nothing to say. He should have.
My sobs had quieted, but the ache hadn’t. It was still sitting there, thick and jagged, like it had carved out a permanent space in my chest.
“I was broken,” he continued, voice raw. “I didn’t know how to be the man you needed. And I thought if I let you go, you’d findsomeone better—someone whole. You deserved that. Youstilldo.”
His fingers curled into the back of my shirt like he couldn’t bear to let me go. “But I didn’t stop loving you, Ells. Not for a second. Not ever.”
I flinched. That word. Love. It landed like a spark on dry grass—dangerous and impossible to ignore. I sat up slowly, wiping at my face, forcing myself to look at him.
His eyes were red-rimmed. There was pain in them. But no pity. No guilt-game or manipulation. Just truth. Honest, devastating truth.
“You don’t get to say that to me,” I whispered. “Not after all this time.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“And what, you say you’re sorry, and we just... pick up again? Like it didn’t take meyearsto even look at another man without comparing him to you?”
“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to pick up again. I want to start over. From the ground up.”
“Why now?” I asked, and it came out more broken than I meant. “Why not five years ago? Or two? Or last week?”
His jaw tightened. “Because I was a coward,” he said simply. “Because I didn’t believe I deserved you. Because I built an entire town trying to create something good, but it still felt empty without you in it.”
I stared at him, stunned. My chest trembled with every breath.
“And after our meeting at the Bistro, I sat in my truck and thought about when Carol dragged me toSalt & Flame,” he went on, “about when I first tasted your food, and I swear, Ells… I cried. I actually sat there and cried like a damn fool. Because you’d turned your pain into something beautiful, and I’d just turned mine into drywall and distraction.”
The silence between us was thick. I reached for the coffee cup I’d abandoned earlier, just to do something with my hands. I couldn’t look at him. Not yet.
“I don’t trust you,” I said finally. “Not with my heart. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
He nodded. “That’s okay. I’ll earn it back. Every bit of it. Whatever it takes.”
I looked up then, finally meeting his eyes.
They were steady, honest, and a little afraid. But hope also sparked in them. Those whiskey eyes that had been my undoing when I was a teenager were still devastatingly dangerous. An epic war raged inside me. I knew I hadn't been living, really living, without him. I had survived, but I hadn't been living. But if he hurt me again, if he left me again, I wouldn't be able to survive that.
I thought about Carol and our conversation. About her saying,there will never be another man for me. Neither would there be for me. I knew it. I had tried. Several times. But as soon as anything looked like it might become serious, I had pulled the plug. I just hadn't been able to muster the emotions that were necessary for an honest relationship; those still and always had belonged to Pats.
A scary question rose inside me. A dangerous question.What is the sense of surviving if there is no real life after?
"You ambushed me with your question," I told him honestly. "Let me think about it."
"Whatever you need, Ells. I'm here. I'll be waiting."
She didn’t say no.She didn’t say yes either, butshe didn’t say no. It wasn’t much. But I knew it was more than I deserved. Shit, seeing her cry. It hurt.
I had never seen her break down like this. I take full responsibility for that. Yes, she cried when I broke things off, but it hadn't been like this. Not these gut-wrenching sobs as if I'd torn the soul from her. Was that how she had cried when I wasn't there? Alone? Was anybody there to comfort her? Carol, I hoped, because her mother… let's just say Lisa was different. And I’d been a fucking coward. I hid behind the nurses, telling them not to let Ella back into my room. I worried that seeing her upset would make me change my mind, and I couldn't risk that. Back then, I thought I was doing the right thing—protecting her, setting her free. She had a future ahead of her. I had a list of spinal surgeries and a wheelchair with my name on it.
She wasn’t meant for hospital rooms and endless PT.
She wasn’t meant for a man who couldn’t shift anymore—at least not then. At least not without pain and complications. And she’d never asked about that part of me, not really. She knew I was a shifter. She accepted it, sure. But there was always a hesitancy when the subject came up. A pause. A nervous flick of her eyes.
I told myself it was better not to push. That maybe she’d come around. But when I lost the use of my legs for that year, that pause haunted me. I couldn’t imagine asking her to live with a crippled man who turned into a bear—one she seemed a little afraid to meet in the first place.
