Chapter 33
The house felt too quiet without him.
I tried distracting myself for hours. I folded laundry, wiped down the counters, and even tidied my room. I didn’t do these things. Our maids did. But for some reason, something as simple as pouring coffee, which I never drank, made the weight feel a little bit better.
It was like every small sound made the silence heavier. The tick of the clock in the kitchen echoed mockingly. The drip of the faucet began to gnaw at my ears.
I ended up sitting by the window, staring out at the tree line as though he might just appear there, waving to me with some murdered animal on his arm. But I’d settle for even his shoulders hunched, my father’s rifle slung on his arm, and his stormy eyes shadowed the way they always were.
But he didn’t.
He didn’t appear in either form.
Hours had passed since he left, and still nothing.
He ignored my texts. No shock there, it was like he’d taken a card out of my brother’s deck.
I desperately wanted to know what happened on their trip.
I begged Shiloh for a week to tell me even one thing.
My texts to Carrington were desperate, but like I knew he would, I was shut out.
“Hunting,” Shiloh had said, his voice as flat as his smile, like it was the only explanation I deserved.
The way he’d looked at me before he left…it wasn’t cruel, but it wasn’t tender either.
Just empty.
A hollow familiarity, like I was the air he couldn’t breathe anymore.
I wrapped my arms around myself and pressed my forehead against the cool glass, watching soft snowflakes fall and melt on the ground.
Was Shiloh warm enough?
I hated that I’d asked him about the wedding again this morning and about being my plus one.
That was why he ran off without me. I was being too persistent, trying to take too much.
I had to back off and let him make the decision.
He said he’d think about it. That was something.
Better than the other times, which were just a flat-out ‘We’ll see,’ or some other non-answer.
I should’ve known better.
But the words had tumbled out before I could stop them, because I wanted it so badly. I was desperate to walk in with him, to let people see us as a couple, finally, after the long year we’d fought to stay together.
I wanted one night.
Just one to believe that we were something steady.
Something real.
And maybe something that could last.
I loved Shiloh.
I loved his wit, his passion, his drive, and the way he loved me.
He knew I had a bad past with men, but his own painful history brought us together.
It wasn’t a fairytale. Not a happy one at least, but he saved me from the big bad wolf.
Tyler, my ex, had hit me one too many times that night.
And I left in the rain, I was convinced I could drive until my car gave out.
That’s how I landed in Kentucky, how I fell into Shiloh’s literal backyard. His dog almost ate me, but at that point in my life, I hadn’t cared if I lived or died. Money didn’t matter when I spent all my savings on different makeup products, constantly trying to hide the bruises.
What is money when it can’t save you?
My family didn’t know about Tyler’s cruelty. They didn’t know anything but the rosy tones I fed them of my life. Shiloh was the first real thing to happen to me. He was so stoic, and yet his pain was so tangible that it was written all over his body.
The dog charged me, and I couldn’t get my damn shoe out of the mud. Why had I taken on this stupid, self-destructive mission? Why had I run my car out of fucking gas and crashed into a tree in the middle of nowhere? Now, I was going to die because of a dog.
A random mongrel was eating my face while I was stuck in the mud in some backyard, all because my designer shoe would not move, and the unrelenting rain poured down on me so hard it created quicksand.
“Help,” I whispered, seeing the frothing drool get closer and closer in the dark.
But then an angel appeared.
No. A man. A blond-haired man in sweatpants.
“Roxy? What the fuck? Why are you barking so goddamn loud? What is—”
He froze, his phone light flashing on me for a minute and then back again.
“Help,” I repeated, so cold and tired I couldn’t say much else.
He could have let his dog eat my body, and I wouldn’t have had the energy to scream.
Maybe it would hurt less than Tyler.
“Hello? Lady? What are you doing here? Are you hurt?”
He shoved his frothing monster indoors through a sliding screen, and then he walked barefoot in the mud to me.
“Are you okay?” he said again, getting closer. He looked like a giant angel. Bathed in the light of his house. But maybe he was a pretty devil, with his demon hellhound.
“Sorry about Roxy. She’s my roommate’s. Do you need help, miss?”
I couldn’t speak. My shoe was still stuck, my body still plastered in the mud that half consumed me.
“Come on up. I’m Shiloh. Let’s go take a look at these cuts. I’m a doctor, to be. Still in my residency, but I can help you.”
Ah. An angel indeed.
Even when he pulled me up like he was Hercules, and scrubbed my shaking body with warm water and soap, I still couldn’t speak.
I was in shock. That was likely normal for someone who endured the night I had.
I fell asleep at the wheel, ran out of gas, and hugged a tree with my car.
I wasn’t fully aware of anything until his roommate’s dog tried to eat me.
“You are pretty banged up. Did you get in an accident or something? Is that where you came from?”
I nodded, not bothering to mention my broken wrist was from my newly ex-boyfriend.
“Damn. Okay. I’ll get you cleaned up and warm as best I can until the ambulance gets here. They take a while since we’re in the sticks. What’s your name?”
I frowned, my throat feeling like razor wire. Instead, I pointed my chipped nail at my bracelet.
Shiloh tenderly held my wrist and read the letters allowed.
“Xanthy? That’s unique. And beautiful.”
Shiloh treated me like royalty. He stitched my cuts, bandaged my wrist, washed the grime from my body, and gave me clean clothes to dress in.
I didn’t want to leave him.
And when the ambulance finally got there, I didn’t.
“Alexandra Harding? What are you doing this far out? Does your family know where you are? There’s a reward for your safe return!”
I ignored the idiot paramedic who was rough and kept trying to stab me with a needle. I missed Shiloh’s soft touch and warm hands.
“Shi—loh.”
My man, who came in shiny sweatpants, held my hand, kept the touchy medical personnel quiet, and even came with me to the hospital. He didn’t seem fazed by my name, and he didn’t treat me differently when my parents showed up in the small hospital demanding that I be helicoptered back home.
“Respectfully, she’s stable and safe here. Kentucky can take care of her.”
No one ever snubbed my dad. Hell, only my brother ever told him no.
And even he didn’t do so without consequences.
Shiloh telling off my father made me smitten.
Maybe it was the drugs flowing through my veins, or maybe I was just hopeful for the first time in years, but I pulled Shiloh down to my lips and demanded he kiss me.
He was so soft, and when he kissed me back, my world fell apart and was rebuilt with him as my center.
It had always been that way since. Shiloh was my universe, and I kept him grounded.
The memories tasted like bile in my mouth, and I sighed, tipping back the coffee to wash it away.
He hadn’t said no. He hadn’t said yes either.
The silence he left me with before the stupid hunt had said more than either answer.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember the way things used to be between us.
The nights when he held me like I was something he needed, not something he was trying to escape.
The mornings when his voice was rough but warm, when he’d kiss the back of my neck before I could fully wake or fucked me out of my dreams into my perfect reality.
Lately, all I’d gotten was distance—a living nightmare for someone like me, who craved attention and belonging.
I told myself it was stress. Maybe he was carrying something he couldn’t talk about since he saw his dad. That if I were patient enough, if I loved him hard enough, he’d come back to me, and tell me when he was ready.
But the longer I waited, the more it felt like trying to hold water in my hands. No matter how tightly I curled my fingers, he was slipping through them little by little.
My gaze stayed fixed on the woods, dark and endless beyond the yard. A shot rang out. A crack in the sky that made a shiver work down my spine.
He always came back from there quieter than when he left, like the trees stole pieces of him.
And yet, he kept going.
I pressed my palm against the window and whispered under my breath, “Come home to me, my love.”
The words fogged against the glass, fragile and fleeting, and then vanished as quickly as I’d spoken them.
The hours passed, and I started to worry.
The early morning bled into afternoon and afternoon bled into night.
My mother and father were away on some business bullshit, and I was angry that I craved attention badly enough to miss either of them.
The shot in the woods echoed in my head, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the shot I heard was for an animal… or him.
I heard him before I saw him.
The crunch of boots on the snowy path outside was slow and heavy. The door creaked open. Then the low groan of the floorboards beneath his weight, and finally the rustle of his coat, hat, and gloves.
I didn’t move from the window. I couldn’t. My body stiffened like prey bracing for the predator’s shadow.
The door to the kitchen swung open, and there he was.
And my blood ran cold.
Shiloh filled the room like a storm, broad shoulders hunched, hair damp with sweat, and dirt streaking his jaw. The rifle strap dug into his shoulder, and he was covered in blood, like some sickening movie.