Page 127 of Bittersweet & Strange

Still solid.

Still the man who put himself between me and a pistol without hesitating. The man who stood against an entire village without taking a single step backward and held me together in the dirt when I screamed for my father.

He looks exhausted now. Not merely tired but emptied out by the day, and when his eyes settle on mine, some of the hardness leaves his face.

“I want to go home, Boone.”

I stare at him.

His gaze travels slowly around the cottage before returning to me. “This village has done nothing for either of us.”

My body tenses.

“I can’t leave.”

“You can.”

“My father—” His name catches somewhere inside me. I swallow hard and try again. “My father is still—”

“Dead,” Rhys finishes quietly.

I flinch. Something almost apologetic crosses his face, but he doesn’t take the word back or soften it into something easier for me to hear.

“He’s dead, Boone.”

“Stop.”

“There is nothing you can do for him by remaining here.”

“I said stop!”

“Your future is not in this cottage.”

I stare at him through the tears gathering in my eyes.

“It’s with me.”

Anger comes so suddenly that for one blessed second, it pushes the grief aside. And that is a relief.

“If you hadn’t taken me, none of this would have happened.”

The accusation leaves me before I can decide whether I mean it, but once it’s there between us, I don’t take it back.

Rhys doesn’t even blink.

Maybe I want him to.

Maybe I want him to argue with me. Maybe I want him to tell me I’m being cruel or irrational or unfair, because then I can scream at him until I have nothing left inside me.

Instead, he reaches up and closes one hand gently around the back of my neck.

“Get off me!” I scream.

He pulls me against him, and this time there is no strength left in me to fight. Neither of us speaks. His mouth presses against my hair.

“I let you go once,” he says quietly. “I won’t do it again.”

I close my eyes.