Page 130 of Lesson In Forgiveness

They, as a group, had broken him with their silence.

Absently, she rubbed a fingertip over the raised scar on her midriff. That little sucker was the one that set her rehab back by weeks. The bullet that struck her there, and the one in her shoulder, hadn’t passed clean through, and the surgical team had dug into her flesh to find them.

The resulting infection in her midsection had been nasty.

Once she’d been discharged from the hospital in Denver, she’d been flown back to Phoenix to wait out her recovery. Per Jasper’s orders, she’d been tied down to the bed at Heisler headquarters for the safety of the nursing staff.

A smile twitched her lips.

They really should have tightened the straps.

Anyway, her recovery was in the past, along with all the horrible drugs and needles that went with it. She was scarred up but healthy, she’d regained some of her pre-shooting fitness, and she was here on a mission.

One she’d dreamed of for months.

Grateful the dress allowed her to stride rather than totter, Tabitha squared her shoulders and followed her lover. She was almost intercepted by the Avalon women, who all wore varying expressions of concern; she waved them off without a hitch in stride and pushed through the doors into the brisk October air.

No Grit.

Fuck.

“Now if I were a man whose dead girlfriend came back to life, where would I be?” she muttered to herself, frowning as she swept the area with narrowed eyes. The pathways were all lit with solar lights, and the play areas were open to view—not play. “The big bad wolf ran away, thinking the bunny wasn’t going to stay. But the bunny has something she wants to say, and she’s not going to wait another damn day.”

Grit wouldn’t head for any of the designated areas, she thought. Not now when he needed space to think. If she’d learned anything about him during their time together, it was that he was essentially a private kind of guy.

A shock this big?

He’d feel it down to the soul.

When something hurt you that badly, she mused, there was only one place to go.

Determination in her step, she let one particular set of lights guide her, well away from the buildings she’d help construct. It seemed like forever ago when she’d hidden in plain sight, hauling lumber and hammering in nails, using her cover to suss out Elias and judge his character.

Running rings around Grit, admiring him, falling into an obsession that led to the impossible.

Love.

Dominic would roll over in his grave if he knew his prize project was evolving beyond his psychological conditioning. Murder, mayhem, and money were his ultimate goals, no matter how he’d passed it off as scientific advancement and genetic whatever-the-fuck.

Tabitha gave the ground a swift middle finger, hoping her father saw it from the deepest level of hell. She was more, so much fucking more, than he ever intended. Free of his shackles, she was stronger, braver, whole.

Well, nearly.

All thanks to this man, she thought with a sigh, taking the path leading to the right and finding him standing in front of a cabin. Their cabin. The one they should be living in right now, taking the next step toward… well, whatever came next.

Grit looked defeated, and she hated it.

The low heels she wore crunched on the gravel as she approached. She hesitated for a minute, wondering whether to stand beside or in front of him; after a brief deliberation, she took her position before him, looking up into his haunted eyes.

They said nothing for a long time, each taking stock of the other. It crossed her mind whether he saw anything different in her, if her dance with death changed the way he felt about her.

“I missed you,” she murmured. “Every hour. Every day.”

He closed his eyes. “Trying to breathe without you is the worst pain I’ve ever known. I traveled a few thousand miles to wrap my head around losing you, and you were so entrenched in me, I… fuck, Tabitha. I heard your voice in my head. I smelled you on the streets of Paris, in Rome, when I was hiking in the fucking mountains. Saying I missed you doesn’t come close to the reality of it.”

“We tortured you,” she said quietly, more to herself than him. Guilt pelted her, wicked little stones flaying her open.

“I did this to myself, little tiger. How many times have I preached about the value of family, of trusting the people you love to get you through the hard times?” There was anger in his eyes when he opened them again, directed inward. “I isolated myself, drowned my sorrow in whatever bottles I could find, and severed all ties to my life. When that didn’t stop me from sinking into despair, I walked away. There’s no one to blame for this but me.”

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