Hunting Human - Amanda E. Alvarez [114]
“Yeah, you’re here.” He rolled to his side and settled her against him, his fingers trailing down her side.
“Things will be easier now that Markko is out of the picture,” he said around a jaw-popping yawn. “We can stay out here for a couple of weeks, or go back to Portland if you’d rather. We can always drive out here for the full moons and spend a few days with everyone. We’ve got time to make a decision, decide where we go from here. There’s so much I can show you, so much to enjoy…” His body relaxed behind her. “I love you,” he whispered, sleep overtaking him in the next instant.
Beth squeezed the hand laced around hers. So easy. So simple. Why did it feel anything but?
She supposed she could put everything behind her now—Markko was out of the picture for good and she could glide into a future with Braden. His entire family would make it easy, accommodating her as though she’d always been there. A frown creased her forehead. That was the easy way out. She couldn’t do it. Not again. She’d be running away from everything all over again. Worse, she’d be using Braden to do it.
Beth lay next to him for a long time, listening to the sounds of his breathing. When she was certain he was deeply asleep, she pulled away, dressed and grabbed her shoes, quietly shutting the bedroom door behind her. The house was silent, the rest of the family asleep in their rooms. She hated feeling like she was sneaking away in the middle of the night.
I’m not strong enough to do this if he tries to talk me out of it.
She grabbed her purse off the entry table and removed Braden’s keys from the hook by the door. She’d send him an email, telling him where she’d left the car.
“Going somewhere?” Chase stood silently by the door, watching her every move.
Beth tightened her fist around the keys and reached for the door. Chase didn’t move to stop her. “I need to go. There are things…” She swallowed around her nervousness at the thought. “So many things I need to take care of. That I need to face. I can’t do that if I stay here.”
Palming his wallet off the entry table, Chase pulled the door open for her. “I’ll drive you to Portland.”
Beth stopped, startled by his easy acceptance. “What?”
“Shh.” Chase gently pulled her across the threshold. “Come on, if you want to do this without being noticed, we need to get going.”
“I don’t understand,” Beth said, following Chase to his car.
“But I do.” Chase ushered her into the car. He didn’t speak again until he pulled onto the highway. “I understand what it feels like to run from your past. And what it feels like when that family makes it easy for you to pretend the ugliness never happened.”
Beth considered him silently for a long time. Strange that he of all people knew her feelings as well, if not better, than she did. “I need to sort some things out. I need to see some people I’ve left behind. I wasn’t fair to them,” she said.
“Rachel’s parents.” It was a statement.
“I was hurting and I abandoned them. It wasn’t fair.”
“You couldn’t stay and they couldn’t help you,” he agreed.
“No. But I don’t have that excuse anymore. I need to see them and I need to see Rachel.” She dreaded that part. She’d missed Rachel’s funeral while she’d been in the hospital and she’d never been able to make herself drive out to the cemetery later.
“I need to know that I can handle things on my own. That I’m not just relying on Braden or your family to make things easy. I need to adjust to this life on my own, spend some time dealing with everything,” Beth explained, more for her own benefit than for Chase’s. “It would be too easy to let the warmth and support of your family do it for me.”
“And you need to know that you’ll come back to my brother because you love him, not because you’ve come to rely on him.”
“Yes.” Her fear of that discovery bled through her voice. She reached over and turned on the radio, turning the volume up and staring out the window, trying not to think about what she was leaving behind.
Chase stayed with her throughout the day. He helped her pack up some of her apartment, get her