Page 48 of Beckon

Tami had read everything she could on ways to handle this situation. She knew approaching him was the wrong thing to do, so she stayed where she was and watched him suffer.

It was so unexpected, but not really. She knew there was something he held on to, so did his therapist. He was told he had to deal with it, or these things would never get better, but Chandler swore there was nothing else he needed to deal with. It was just a matter of getting over things. Personal experience taught her that simply deciding toget over thingswasn’t the way life worked. She was looking at proof of that fact.

“Please come back to me, please come back. I miss you.” She prayed her plea made it through his pain.

15

CHANDLER

One minutehe was in that hovel listening to screams, and the next he heard Tami begging for someone she missed to come back to her.

Chandler fought hard to surface from the memory the way his therapist had taught him.

This is only a dream. It isn’t real. I’m safe. I can open my eyes. There will be no bodies.

He pictured himself swimming up toward the light. He imagined his arms burning with the effort and the surface got closer and closer before he broke through and gasped for air.

Eyes open, he immediately found Tami and reached in her direction. When she came closer and took his hand, he took in the whole scene. Some of the pillows were on the floor, the sheet was tangled around his legs, and Tami was… crying.

“Oh, shit. Please tell me I didn’t hurt you?” Chandler fought the sheets and when he finally freed himself and stood before her, he saw her tremble.

“Did I… ” He didn’t have to finish the sentence, she put him out of his misery quickly.

“No, god, no.” She laid a trembling hand on his chest but didn’t meet his gaze.

“You’re scared.”

“Yes, but not of you, for you.” She stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He stroked her head that lay against his still heaving chest. “One minute you were fine and then the next you were saying the same things.” He knew what she meant by the same things. She’d witnessed it once in person and a handful of times through the phone.

It was the same things he said the day he entered that hovel. Seeing Wilson like that. Killing an innocent man in front of his family.

“But then… then something changed, and you were telling me to leave. I know you didn’t meanme, but you were looking straight in my eyes and shouting and… I could feel your pain. It was so overwhelming.”

And you just buckled under it,he added for her. Because that’s what it had looked like to him.

“Tami, I’m… I’m so damn sorry. I can’t even begin to apologize.” Chandler only thought he’d felt guilt before. That was a joke because he had never—never—experienced it the way he did after seeing her tremble.

The walls were closing in. Maybe it was the lingering adrenaline or maybe it was the oppressive blanket of guilt or possibly something else altogether. No matter what it was, he had to get out of that room.

He had to think, and he couldn’t do that with his beautiful angel pressed against him. Chandler needed to release some of the tension in his coiled muscles and that couldn’t happen there.

Mostly, he had to scream and shout and rail at the irony of it all. An all-inclusive resort where Harold and Constance had married most definitely was not the place.

But how could he explain that to the woman he loved? To tell her he needed to run away after she’d gifted him something so beautiful and pure.

I am going to do the exact thing that both Harold and Constance warned me not to do in their own way.

No, that’s not it at all. His Tamitha would understand. She had practically held his hand every step of the way since he’d chosen a healing journey instead of a destructive path. Hell, she was the reason he made that choice to start with.

She would understand, she had to.

He would make her understand.

A sigh of relief rose from her, still pressed against his chest. He felt it pebble his skin.

“What was that?”

“You,” she quickly answered. “Your heartbeat finally slowed a bit. Steady and strong. The rhythm makes me happy.” Chandler smiled down at her. It was amazing how she sensed the changes in him.

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