Chapter 19 - Fern
It’s been two weeks, and I still can’t stop looking for him.
Every time the medical center door opens, my head snaps up. Every time I catch a glimpse of dark hair across the town square, my heart stutters in my chest. Every time my phone goes off, I grab it like a lifeline and feel the disappointment sink through me when it’s not his name on the screen.
Connor hasn’t called. Hasn’t texted. Hasn’t shown up on my porch or lurked outside my window or done any of the overprotective werewolf things that drove me crazy before I pushed him away.
I told him to leave. He left.
Apparently, he actually listened this time.
I should be relieved. This is what I wanted. Distance. Space. Time to figure out my own feelings without his presence clouding my judgment. But relief is the last thing I feel as I sit in my office between appointments and stare at my phone like it might spontaneously produce a message from him.
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter to myself. “You’re a grown woman. If you want to talk to him, just call him.”
My thumb hovers over his contact for a full minute before I finally press it.
He picks up on the third ring. “Fern?”
The sound of his voice makes something warm unfurl in my chest. I shove the feeling down and focus on sounding normal. “Hey. I was wondering if we could talk.”
“About?”
“About… us. About everything that happened.” I twist a pen between my fingers and watch it spin. “I think we should clear the air.”
A pause. Then: “When?”
“Tonight? You could come by the cottage after I get off work.”
“What time?”
“Six?”
“I’ll be there.”
The line goes dead before I can say anything else. Not exactly a warm reception, but I suppose I deserve that after the way I treated him.
The rest of my workday drags by in a haze of distraction.
I see three patients and take detailed notes and offer therapeutic insights, but part of my brain is stuck on repeat, rehearsing what I’m going to say to Connor tonight.
I’m sorry. I was scared. I shouldn’t have called you a mistake.
I don’t know what I want, but I know I don’t want you to disappear from my life.
By the time five-thirty rolls around, my stomach is in knots.
The walk home takes fifteen minutes, and I spend every one of them looking over my shoulder. That prickling sensation at the back of my neck has returned, the one that tells me I’m being watched. I pick up my pace and clutch my bag closer to my body as I watch the tree line for movement.
Nothing. Just shadows and swaying branches and the distant call of birds settling in for the evening.
I’m being paranoid. Robbie hasn’t shown his face since that night at the bar, and the pack has been watching his campsite around the clock. If he were close, they would know.
Still, I don’t breathe easy until I reach my front porch and fish my keys from my purse.
The cottage looks undisturbed. The sheet I pinned over the broken kitchen window has been replaced by actual glass, courtesy of someone from the pack whose name I never caught. The lock turns smoothly, and I push inside and drop my bag on the entry table.
That’s when I hear footsteps coming around the side of the house.
My heart leaps into my throat. I grab the nearest object—a ceramic vase from the hallway shelf—and raise it over my head as a figure appears at the corner of the building.
Connor holds up both hands. “Whoa. It’s me.”
I lower the vase with a shaky exhale. “Jesus Christ. You scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry. I was checking the perimeter. Making sure everything looked secure after the break-in.” He comes up the porch steps and stops a few feet away. “Old habit.”
“You’re early.”
“Figured I’d scope things out first. You okay? You look pale.”
“I’m fine. Just jumpy.” I set the vase back on the shelf and step aside to let him in. “Come on. I’ll make coffee.”
He follows me into the kitchen, and I busy myself with the coffee maker to avoid having to look at him. The silence between us feels heavy and awkward, nothing like the charged moments we’ve shared before. This is the silence of two people who hurt each other and don’t know how to move forward.
“So,” I begin as I measure grounds into the filter, “how have you been?”
“Fine.”
“Busy with pack stuff?”
“Something like that.”
I pour water into the reservoir and hit the button to start brewing. “Connor, I didn’t ask you here to make small talk.”
“Then what did you ask me here for?”
I turn to face him and lean back against the counter. He’s standing by the kitchen table with his arms crossed, and he looks guarded in a way I’ve never seen before. Like he’s bracing himself for another blow.
“I wanted to apologize,” I admit. “For what I said that morning. About us being a mistake.”
He blinks a few times before he asks, “Did you mean it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. At the moment, I was scared and overwhelmed, and I said the first thing that would push you away. That’s what I do when things get too real. I run. I push. I sabotage.”
“I noticed.”
“It’s not an excuse. It’s just… an explanation, I guess.
” The coffee maker gurgles behind me. “The truth is, I can’t stop thinking about you.
No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try to convince myself this is wrong, you’re always there.
In my head. Under my skin. I don’t know how to make it stop. ”
Connor uncrosses his arms, and I watch him process my words. Then a slow smile spreads across his face.
“So what you’re saying is you can’t resist me.”
“That’s not—I didn’t say—”
“Sounds like that’s exactly what you said.” He takes a step toward me. “You think about me all the time. I’m under your skin. You can’t make it stop.”
“Don’t twist my words around.”
“I’m not twisting anything. I’m just repeating what you told me.” Another step closer. “Face it, Fern. You want me.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“And yet, here we are.”
I shove at his chest with both hands, and he doesn’t budge an inch. The playful resistance infuriates me even more, and I shove again, harder this time.
“You think you’re so irresistible. You think just because of this stupid mate bond, I’m supposed to fall at your feet and—”
He catches my wrists and pulls me against him in one smooth motion. My protest dies in my throat as his mouth crashes down on mine.
The kiss is hungry and demanding, and I give back as good as I get. I fist my hands in his shirt and yank him closer, then bite his lower lip hard enough to make him groan. He walks me backward until my spine hits the counter, and I wrap one leg around his hip to pull him flush against me.
His hands find my waist and grip hard enough to leave marks. I don’t care. I want marks. I want evidence that this is real, that he’s here, that I didn’t imagine the connection between us.
“You drive me crazy,” he growls against my mouth. “Two weeks of staying away from you, and I almost lost my mind.”
“Then why did you stay away?”
“Because you asked me to.” He nips at my jaw and drags his lips down the column of my throat. “Because I was trying to be a decent man for once in my life.”
I thread my fingers through his hair and tug until he lifts his head to look at me. “I don’t want decent right now.”
Something dark and hungry comes alive in his eyes. He hoists me onto the counter like I weigh nothing at all, and I gasp as the cold surface meets the backs of my thighs. He steps between my legs and pulls me to the edge until there’s no space left between us.
“Tell me what you want,” he demands.
“You. I want you.”
His mouth claims mine again, harder this time. I wrap both legs around his waist and arch into him, chasing the friction I need. His hands slide up my ribs and skim the undersides of my breasts through my shirt, and I whimper against his lips.
I yank at his shirt, trying to pull it over his head, but he catches my wrists and pins them against my stomach. The restraint makes me squirm, makes me want him even more.
“Patience,” he murmurs against my skin.
“I don’t want to be patient.” I roll my hips against him and feel exactly how much he wants this, too. “I’ve been patient for two weeks.”
He laughs, low and rough, and the sound vibrates through my entire body. “Is that so?”
“Yes. Now stop teasing me and—”
His phone rings, and we both freeze. Connor pulls back just enough to glance at the screen, and I watch his face fall.
“It’s Nic.”
“You have to answer it?”
“I have to answer it.” He presses one more kiss to my mouth, quick and apologetic, before stepping away and lifting the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
I can’t hear what Nic says, but I watch Connor’s posture change. Whatever the Alpha is telling him, it’s important.
“Understood. I’m on my way.” He ends the call and looks at me with genuine regret. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“Right now?” I ask, sliding off the counter.
“Afraid so. Pack business.” He cups my face in both hands and presses his forehead to mine. “I’ll come back as soon as I can. We’ll finish this conversation. I promise.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m standing alone in my kitchen with swollen lips and a racing heart and coffee I forgot to pour.
The next hour passes filled with restless energy.
I check every lock twice. I test every window latch.
I even wedge a chair under the back door handle, the way Connor did the night someone broke in.
Paranoid, maybe, but the feeling of being watched hasn’t faded, and without Connor here, I feel exposed in a way I haven’t since I arrived in Silvercreek.
Eventually, exhaustion wins out over anxiety. I change into pajamas, brush my teeth, and crawl into bed with my phone on the pillow beside me. Sleep comes slowly, but it comes.
The crash wakes me at 2:47 a.m.
I bolt upright in bed, heart hammering. For a moment, I convince myself I dreamed it.
Then I hear footsteps.
My blood turns to ice. I reach for my phone and clutch it in trembling hands as I slide out of bed and creep toward my bedroom door. Logic tells me to stay put, to lock myself in and call for help. But some desperate part of me needs to know. Needs to see who’s down there.
I ease the door open and peer into the hallway. Nothing moves in the darkness. The footsteps have stopped.
Maybe it was just an animal. A raccoon knocking over the trash cans outside, or that stray cat that’s been hanging around, jumping through an open window.
Except all my windows are closed. I checked them myself.
I inch down the stairs, placing each foot with agonizing care to avoid creaky floorboards. The living room comes into view, empty and undisturbed. The front door is still locked. The chair I wedged under the back door handle is still in place.
Then I turn toward the kitchen.
A figure stands silhouetted in the doorway. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Familiar in a way that makes bile rise in my throat.
“Hello, Fern.”
Robbie’s voice is exactly how I remember it. Calm. Controlled. Utterly devoid of warmth.
I stumble backward, and my hip catches the corner of the couch. “How did you get in?”
“You really should invest in better locks.” He takes a step toward me. “Did you think running to the middle of nowhere would stop me? Did you think those idiots watching the campsite would keep me out?”
My fingers fumble with my phone behind my back. “Get out of my house.”
“Your house?” He laughs, and the sound makes my skin crawl. “You don’t have a house. You don’t have anything. Everything you are, everything you have, belongs to me. You’re just too stupid to realize it.”
He lunges.
I don’t think. I just react. My hand closes around the lamp on the end table, and I swing it at his head with every ounce of strength I have. The base connects with his temple, and he staggers sideways with a grunt of pain.
It’s the only opening I’m going to get.
I run. Up the stairs, two at a time, my lungs burning and my legs shaking. His footsteps thunder behind me, close, too close. I reach my bedroom door, slam it shut, and throw my weight against it as I fumble for the lock.
The deadbolt clicks into place half a second before he hits the other side.
“Open the door, Fern.” His voice has lost its eerie calm. Now it’s pure rage. “Open the goddamn door, or I swear to God—”
I’m already dialing before he can finish the sentence, and Connor picks up right away.
“Fern?”
“He’s in my house.” The words come out in a terrified rush. “Robbie. He’s here. He’s trying to break down my bedroom door.”
“I’m coming.” His voice is hard as steel. “Don’t open that door for anyone but me.”
“Connor, please hurry. Please—”
The door shudders as Robbie throws himself against it. The wood groans but holds.
“Five minutes,” Connor assures me. “Just hold on for five minutes.”
I end the call and back away from the door, clutching my phone like a weapon. The pounding continues. Robbie is screaming something on the other side, threats and promises and words that blur together into meaningless noise.
Then my stomach lurches.
The nausea hits me like a truck. One moment, I’m pressed against the far wall, and the next I’m on my knees, scrabbling for the trash bin beside my nightstand. I barely get it under my face before I’m retching and my entire body convulses as I empty my stomach.
Great. Perfect timing. The one moment I need to be sharp and focused, and my body decides to stage a rebellion.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and sit back on my heels. My head is spinning. My stomach cramps again, threatening a second round.
Just what I need. To be sick on top of everything else.