Page 95 of Catching the Mistletoe

Less than an hour later, the engine of the RV rumbled to life, its vibrations a dull echo in the frigid morning air. Mack was his usual quiet self, and I couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I hadn’t missed the little glances he was flicking my way. Or even his steady gaze on me while I was rinsing the breakfast dishes. He didn’t know that I could see him in the reflection of the chrome coffee pot.

Yeah, so that was a little reassuring, I gotta say. It was like he was trying to figure out a puzzle, and the fact that he felt he needed to do that gave me hope.

As we wound our way through the Pennsylvania countryside, past snow-capped mountains and leafless trees, he was focused, his brows drawn together in a tiny frown, a slight tension in his shoulders.

I got it, because I felt just as tense. So I turned away from him to look out the window some more. We crossed into Virginia, and barely registered the view, beyond an impression of frosty trees and carpets of snow as far as the eye could see. My mind was focused inward, replaying Mack’s words over and over.There is no us. It hurt. A lot. Underneath the pain was a world of fear, too.

Sure, I was scared, scared of the void he might leave behind, of the words he might say that could slice through me. But there was something else, too—a fiery stubbornness, a refusal to let this be the end of us. Didn’t I get a say in this? I mean, who the fuck did he think he was? Did he think that he could just decide, and that was the end of it? That I was just going to roll over and play the part of the wounded girl left behind? No way. No fucking way! I was a fighter, goddamit! I’d fought for more than half my life, just to be here, sitting next to him. I wasnotletting him go that easily.

When we got to Shenandoah, the peaks of snow-capped mountains were hidden by the low, leaden clouds. Mack slowed and turned into the entrance to the park, the road narrowing and curving so that we were weaving through a dense forest of pine and spruce.

My heart was a drum, relentless, pounding out a rhythm of ‘this isn’t over, this can’t be it.’

With each mile marker we passed, the need to speak, to challenge the silence that sat so heavily between us, almost overwhelmed me. If I didn’t say something now, there’d be nothing but silence between us ever again.

So I blurted out, “Can you pull over?” He looked at me in surprise. “I need you to pull over.”

His jaw bunching, he pulled the RV into a scenic overlook. The engine cut off, leaving a sudden, almost jarring quiet.

“I want to talk.”

Mack jerked his gaze to me, and I swear I could see the tension in him ratchet up to a hundred. “About what?”

“Us.”

“There is no—”

“Fuck that.” I was not letting him get away with it, not this time. “You can’t just say there is no us and expect me to believe you. That’s not how it works.”

Mack’s gaze shifted, and his eyes were clouded, his body rigid. “Arabella—”

“No, just listen. You and I have been through so much together. I refuse to believe that means nothing to you.”

He twisted away from me, looking out the side window, his shoulder hunched.

Oh god, I was going to cry. “And I just have to say, it means everything to me. Everything.” My voice cracked on the word. “I get it if you don’t love me, and maybe I can deal with that for a little while, because I know you care about me. And I just think, maybe if you tried, you could learn to love me. And I can wait for that, if that’s what you need.” God, I was fucking this up so badly. “Because I just don’t know—”

“Ineversaid I don’t love you.”

I went completely still. “What?”

“I never said I don’t love you.” Turning back, his eyes were stark and raw and what I saw there had my heart pounding.

“Then why...”

He was already reaching for the door handle when he said, “Because the likes of you ain’t meant for the likes of me.”

Before I could even process his words, Mack had pulled his coat from the back of his chair and he was out, slamming the RV door behind him and striding down the road. All I could do was sit there and stare after him, frozen in shock and confusion.The likes of me ain’t meant for the likes of him?Oh. God. It all fell into place. I finally understood exactly why he had done what he did.

It wasn’t about him not wanting me. It was his twisted idea that he didn’t measure up.

The shadows of his past had convinced him he was unworthy, and he carried that belief like an invisible shackle. He didn’t see himself as hero material, so he was keeping me at arm’s length, not because he wanted to, but because he thought that’s where he belonged.

He wasn’t just fighting his feelings for me; he was fighting against himself, for me. It was his screwed-up way of being noble, of trying to save me from the darkness he thought he’d bring into my life.

He was sacrificing himself for me, and that knowledge twisted inside me, tearing at my heart. “Mack,” I whispered brokenly. But of course, he couldn’t hear me, and he was still walking away from me. Panic gripped me and I barely noticed the tears burning the backs of my eyes as I shoved the door open, leaping from the RV, my boots slipping as I hurried after him. “Hey!”

He didn’t stop.

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