Chapter Twenty-One – Elliott
That did not end well, his bear said as Elliott drove away from Rachel’s house.
No, it did not, Elliott agreed.
Elliott has a book to write.
The line stayed with him all the way up the mountain.
As he drove, he replayed the morning over and over again.
From those first blissful moments when he’d woken up beside his mate. To the voicemail.
He pictured Rachel at the sink, her back to him. The way she had sent him home. Politely but firmly.
As if she had already begun to put up her defenses.
By the time he parked outside his cabin, he was no clearer on what he should have said, only on the fact that he should have said something.
He tried calling her first.
No answer.
He told himself she was driving the girls to Percy’s. That her phone might be in her purse. That she might not have heard it.
He sent a text instead.
Did I do something wrong?
That felt too bare the moment he sent it, but it was too late to take back.
No reply came.
Elliott went inside and stood in the quiet of his kitchen with his phone in one hand, and felt unease begin to settle in for real.
She thinks we’re going to leave, his bear said at last.
Elliott looked down at the screen, still blank in his hand. I think you are right.
We need to fix this, and fast.
He tried calling again ten minutes later.
Still nothing.
The second text he sent was less raw than the first.
I’m sorry if that voicemail upset you. Call me when you can.
He stood looking at the screen after he sent it, as if willing the three little dots to appear.
They didn’t.
The quiet inside the cabin had begun to press on him by then, too still after the noise and warmth of Rachel’s house. Pancakes. Syrup. Lucy talking with her mouth full. Rachel at the table with her coffee, looking so damn happy.
Then the voicemail.
Then that change in her.
Elliott dragged a hand through his hair and looked at the clock on the stove.
Rachel should have dropped the girls off by now.
He told himself again that she was probably driving back.
That she might have put her phone in her purse and ignored it on purpose.
That none of this meant as much as it felt like it meant.
Call Isla, his bear said.
Elliott hesitated. I don’t want to make this stranger than it already is.
You want to know they got there safely.
That, at least, was true.
He found Isla’s number and hit call.
She answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, Isla, it’s Elliott.”
“Oh, hey,” she said. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. Sorry.” He leaned against the counter, staring out of the window without really seeing the view. “I just wanted to check that Rachel dropped the girls off all right. I tried calling her and didn’t get an answer.”
There was a tiny pause, then Isla said, “They’re here. Rachel left a little while ago. Is there a problem at the restaurant?”
Relief went through him so quickly that it almost made him light-headed.
“No,” he said. “It’s all good. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“Right,” he said. “Thanks.”
He ended the call and stood for a moment with the phone still in his hand.
At least they’re okay, his bear said.
Elliott sank into one of the kitchen chairs and looked down at the blank screen. “Yeah.”
But that meant she was almost certainly avoiding him. And that hurt.
Elliott has a book to write.
“She thought I was already halfway gone,” he said quietly.
His bear was silent for a beat, then said, Then don’t let her be right.
That was the trouble.
How did he do that? How did he make Rachel believe all he wanted to do was stay here and be a family with her and the girls?
He sat there for a while, the phone loose in his hand, the kitchen too quiet around him.
His bear said nothing. He did not need to. Elliott understood now what Rachel had heard in that voicemail. Not the details of it, not whatever Diane actually wanted to discuss, but enough. Enough to make her start protecting herself before he had even had time to think.
He got up and crossed to the window, then turned back again, restless now. The problem was already plain. He could go to her tomorrow and tell her he was staying. He could say it a dozen different ways. But words were exactly what she had stopped believing in.
That was the whole point.
Rachel did not need another promise.
She needed something real.
Something he could put in front of her and say: this is what staying looks like.
He stopped in the middle of the kitchen and stood there, thinking.
Then, without meaning to, he found himself back in that morning at Rachel’s house.
The girls at the table. Lucy asking for something more exciting than pancakes.
Rachel, with her coffee in hand. The easy warmth of the kitchen before everything had changed.
Home cooking’s hard to beat.
He had said it lightly at the time, just to win Lucy around. But now the words came back and stayed.
Because it was true.
The meals that stayed with people were not always the fancy ones. Not the rare ones. Not the ones served somewhere far from home. They were the ones tied to kitchens and family tables.
Food as home.
Elliott went still.
Then he reached for his phone and pulled up Diane’s number.
His bear stirred at once. You’ve got something.
“Maybe,” Elliott said.
He hit call.
By the time he spoke to Rachel tomorrow, he needed more than hope.
He needed something solid enough for her to believe in.