Page 53 of Savage Surrender

Weller’s face tightens. “Darling⁠—”

“You’re right.” My throat goes tight as I kiss the fur between the puppy’s eyes before she can lick my mouth again, and I plead with myself not to cry as I struggle to make my arms release her inside the pen.

The puppy twists around at once, paws reaching for me as she jumps against the side, and I stand and turn away from her before I do something stupid like grab her and run. My empty arms feel wrong. Freddie takes my hand in his, tugging me into his warmth, and my throat squeezes. Owen stares behind me at the pen, while Weller looks at me with the expression of a man who hates himself a little more than he did a few minutes ago.

Tristan hands me my flowers. A small white card disappears between his fingers before he slips it into the pocket of his flamingo shirt.

“What was that?” I ask.

“The rescue’s card.”

“Why?”

His gaze drops briefly to the puppy, who is now attempting to climb the side of the pen after me. “Because Weller is occasionally wrong.”

Weller hears him and narrows his eyes, but Tristan has already turned toward the grocery store.

I let Freddie pull me away. It takes effort not to look back, so naturally I do it three times before the rescue tent disappears behind a cluster of bicycles.

A wine stand sits beneath a striped awning ahead, its bottles packed into silver tubs of ice, and before anyone can steer me toward the grocery store, I have a cold bottle of champagne in my hand.

“We should celebrate our emancipation.”

The words sound too bright and cheery for how I feel, but fake it til you make it, right? I want a drink badly enough to stop thinking about the puppy, and all the ways this tiny glimpse of normalcy could be ripped from us at any moment.

Weller looks past me at the crowd instead of the bottle. “We aren’t safe enough to drink.”

“And if your heat starts—” Freddie begins.

Tristan sighs, takes the champagne out of my hand, and hands cash to the girl tending the stand, who doesn’t bother to card him. He tucks the bottle beneath his arm.

We leave the noise of the village on foot, following Tristan along a shaded lane where golf carts give way to bicycles and then to long stretches with nobody on them at all. The music follows for a while, mixed with gulls and voices from the restaurant patios, but the maritime forest closes around us one turn at a time. Live oak branches twist over the path. Spanish moss moves in the breeze, palmetto fronds crowd the sandy edges, and every house vanishes behind trees almost as soon as we pass it.

Weller lasts four minutes before starting his inquisition.

“How much farther is it, Tristan?”

“Close,” Tristan says.

“That’s not a distance.”

“Then think of it as encouragement. We’ll be there soon.”

“Who has access to the property?”

Tristan ducks beneath a low branch. “At present? No one. The property manager checks on it every few months with a code that changes regularly.”

“Who owns it?”

“Someone unlikely to report us.”

Weller’s mouth flattens. “Security?”

Tristan looks back at him. “Locks. Storm shutters. No security system... yet.”

“Supplies?”

“Power, water, beds... the basics. No food.”