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My hands fisted at my sides. “This is all new for you. The fear. The uprooted life. The running and hiding. But as time passes, you will get tired of always looking over your shoulder, and when that happens, you will resent me.”
He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring. It was clear that I’d upset him, but as he exhaled slowly, some of the tension in his body seemed to ease. “Damn it, babe.” He looked away from me, staring off at the mountains behind me.
It was then that I felt how cold it was outside. Feeling the need to shiver, I moved to fold my arms over my chest.
That drew his gaze back to me. He took me in and sighed. “Let’s get back in the car. It’s freezing out here.”
“Can I drive?” I asked, needing the distraction.
He nodded and we climbed back into the Jeep. As I pulled back onto the interstate, it took me a minute to realize where we were—less than an hour away from the safe house.
Silence filled up the car and as the minutes ticked by, that silence became more and more heavily apparent.
“You’re wrong, you know,” Colt said, dispelling the heaviness around us.
“About what?” I peeked at him for a second before returning my attention to the road. He was staring out his window.
“I want you to put yourself in our shoes for a moment,” he said. “If my brothers and I were the ones in WITSEC and we had to run, would you run with us? Would you uproot your life?”
“I shouldn’t have said any of that,” I said, trying to deflect.
“It’s how you feel. So answer the question.” His firm voice told me that there was no avoiding this.
“Yes, I would run with you,” I said.
“Do you think you would come to resent us?”
“No,” I answered without thought, because I didn’t need to think about it. I just knew on every level, from my head to my heart to my soul. I just knew. I didn’t care what came our way or what we had to endure; as long as we were together, that was enough for me. They were enough.
I saw his point and it was a little reassuring, but my guilt was still too crushing. “You and your brothers are stronger than me. If you had been in my place, I don’t think you would have even allowed yourself to get close to me to begin with.”
Colt didn’t deny it. Not that I expected him to. The fact that he didn’t just cemented why I was a piece of shit. Realizing that unleashed Logan’s voice in my head.
“You know better, Shi. What the fuck were you thinking dragging them into all of this?”
“You’re being stupid, Shiloh. So unbelievably stupid. You have fucked everything up by telling them.”
“I did not intend to fall in love with you or to drag you into this.” My throat became tight and my resolve to stay strong wavered a little.
Colt let out a sigh. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him look away from his window to stare at me. “I don’t know for sure what I would have done if our roles were reversed. What I do know is that from the moment I first saw you, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I had to know you, and the more time I spent with you, the more I was determined to keep you.”
I bit my lip so it wouldn’t tremble.
“If that isn’t enough to reassure you,” he continued, “then look back on how you and Knox came to be. He tried to not allow himself to be with you and yet, you two are together.”
One tear escaped my left eye and rolled down my cheek. I wiped it away before it could drip off my chin.
Colt put his hand on my knee. “Please stop punishing yourself because you think you’ve damned us by loving us. You have a bad habit of doing that.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Colt stopped me with a light squeeze of his hand. “I understand why you feel guilty. I would, too, but I want you to listen when I tell you that I wouldn’t choose to be anywhere but here, with you, right now. I know it’s the same for my brothers. If we need to keep reminding you of that until it sticks, then so be it.”
Another tear rolled down my cheek, this time from my right eye. Colt’s hand left my knee and he wiped the tear away with his thumb.
“That’s not really fair for you to have to do that,” I said.
“If it was over trivial things, I could see how it wouldn’t be,” he said. “But what you’re feeling right now and what is happening is anything but. And I know it’s not just the guilt you feel about us that’s bothering you.”
He was hinting at Isabelle.
