Page 80 of The Anchor Holds

She didn’t recoil at my tone or the bitchy look I was shooting her. “End it before you can feel anything you can’t control,” she countered.

Before I could reply, there was a loud crash, a loaded pause then the harsh wail of a screaming toddler.

Fiona glanced over, without panic, as did I. No broken bones or blood visible, just a destroyed living room and a toddler who was sick of the adults talking and not worshipping her as we should’ve been doing.

“You’re lucky.” She pointed at me, scooping up her daughter and laying a kiss on her head.

“I don’t consider myself lucky when your daughter hurts herself.” June’s cries quieted down as her mother cooed.

I was lying. June wasn’t seriously hurt, and it would all be forgotten in a couple of minutes, giving me the out I needed.

“Mm-hmm,” Fiona smirked, her lips against her daughter’s head. “Fair warning, I’ll be coming over sans child to ensure you’ve got no excuses.”

The promise in her words scared me appropriately. “I don’t do girl talk,” I told her.

“Tough shit,” was her reply as she walked out the door.

“Fuck,” I groaned. This was getting messier and messier, and I didn’t know how to escape it.

To give myself respite from the romantic entanglement, I went back to my original task of trying to remove myself from the crosshairs of a criminal organization without being buried in a shallow grave.

Somehow, that was more comforting than facing the truth of my feelings for Elliot.

Fifteen

Rattlesnake—Jack Van Cleaf

In regard to willpower, I’d always thought I had a lot.

I’d quit cocaine, sugar, processed carbs. Had been employed by some of the baddest assholes in the world. Worked eighteen-hour days. Had pushed myself to the brink working my ass off, getting to the top.

I’d persevered through situations I thought would kill me and came out on the other side. I’d seen things that made me want to scream into the darkness when the nightmares woke me, but I kept my lips closed.

But I lasted onlythree daysin my resolve to stay away from Elliot. He was not like any kind of drug, donut or high I’d ever chased before.

Maybe because he was inherently bad for me. He was the only thing that I’d enjoyed, become addicted to, that wasn’t harmful to me.

It was the other way around. I was harmful to him. But Fiona’s words echoed in my brain, her accusation that I wasbeing a coward. Then there was the memory of Elliot’s smell, touch, and the safety I felt with him.

While driving to the gym, I told myself that I could burn off all that yearning with a hard workout, that I’d push my body to its limits. I could get back to the diet of deprivation both in regard to food and attractive fishermen.

Yet I ended up at his place. It was early in the morning on a weekday, so I assumed he wouldn’t be home. He’d be fishing. That’s what I’d told myself when my car found itself cruising in the direction of his house. I was just going to cast my eyes upon the place that contained a different version of me.

Except I’d memorized the fishing schedule and had made it my business to know the timetable of Shaw and Sons departure dates. He wasn’t set to leave until the weekend.

I wasn’t one to leave my fate up to chance, to leave it to ‘destiny’ to decide whether we would cross paths. I didn’t let anything—let alone some made up concept for atheists and believers alike to rely on—control my life.

I was the only one who controlled my life. Until Elliot gave me the blessed break from that, which I hadn’t known my body had been craving even more than carbs.

And my resolve, my willpower, the promise I had made myself… All the reasons why not all faded away on my drive to the gym as I turned left instead of right and went to his cabin.

His truck was there. So, not at the restaurant or with his family or with some other woman. My ego was big enough to delude myself into knowing he wouldn’t be with another woman. If there was another woman in Jupiter who could sate his needs, he would’ve already been with her.

After parking my car, I didn’t get out right away. I gripped the steering wheel, gazing at the front door of the house, squinting at the windows, trying to talk myself out of such a rash decision. Though the time to talk myself out of being there waswhen I wasn’t within sight of the house. If he was home, then he likely could see me sitting there, staring at his house like a maniac.

Yet I sat there for another handful of minutes, my stomach churning. It was a choice, getting out of the car, knocking on the door. Elliot had made it clear that he was not going to allow some kind of fuck buddies situation. He’d made it clear that he had feelings for me. Real feelings. That he intended on pursuing some kind of real relationship.

By coming to him, I was cosigning on that relationship. On that four-letter word. The prospect of it being a reality instead of some obscure concept I thought I’d never actually feel nor have felt toward me by a romantic partner.

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