Page 75 of Serve ’N’ Protect

For a moment longer, he hesitated, willing the words she needed to come bubbling up from somewhere locked away in his heart. He reached out, intending to touch her shoulder, but stopped.

All those years, he’d tried to love his father, only to have it thrown back in his face time and time again like a piece of dirty laundry. What would happen if he found a way to love Cassidy, fully and with everything in him, to finally give that part of himself that he’d kept buried for so long, and she left him?

Cassidy might love him now, but the fact was, eventually she’d come to her senses and realize that he had never been good enough at all.

The battle was lost, and he was the loser.

With his heart feeling as if it were shriveling inside his chest, Markus rose and dressed quietly. Not once did Cassidy turn to look at him. She was stronger than he was.

Once dressed, he turned to leave. Grief and despair closed his throat so tightly he thought he’d choke on it. For several seconds, his feet refused to move, refused to walk away from her. Once he did, he’d never come back.

He rubbed his sternum, as if that could ease the painful ache setting up shop inside his chest. It didn’t. Somehow, he got his feet to move, and just before walking out the door, he turned to look over his shoulder one last time. She’d pulled the comforter over her body, as if needing yet another barrier between them.

Markus went down the hallway to the stairs, feeling as if he were in a funeral procession. At the bottom of the stairs, he looked around the living room, taking in all the warmth and joy of Cassidy’s Christmas decorations. She’d brought that into his life. Warmth and joy. Now it was gone.

“C’mon, boy,” he said to Ghost, who lay sleeping by the sofa. “Let’s go.”

Ghost lifted his head then stood, watching as Markus opened the front door. Then Ghost did something he’d never done in the four years they’d been partnered and living together. He refused to obey.

“Ghost, we have to leave.” He opened the door, motioning with his hand.

Still, his dog didn’t budge, but kept watching him from soulful eyes, as if telling Markus what he already knew.

I’m an asshole.

“Ghost,” he said more sharply.

With his big head hung low, Ghost reluctantly rose and walked slowly outside and onto the porch.

As Markus pulled the door shut, his hand tightened on the knob. In less than an hour, he and Ghost would be gone. That was all the time it would take to pack up their lives here in Leonardtown.

He took the porch stairs, turning to glance up at Cassidy’s bedroom window. How could running away be the right thing to do if he’d be leaving the best part of his life behind?

Chapter Twenty-Six

Cassidy ate the last of the cookies. A solitary pecan sandy. It tasted like chalk. Everything did, and everything reminded her of Markus.

Five nights ago, he and Ghost had left. She’d remained in bed, holding back the floodgates until she heard them drive off. Then she’d nearly drowned in her own tears.

Much to her dismay, the Morgan way had let her down. Giving voice to her feelings had been a bad idea. Blurting out that she loved him had been a mistake, but the words had flown from her lips before she could stop them. As she’d told Markus, there was no taking them back.

I’m an idiot. A stupid, impulsive idiot.

The words might have seemed right at the time, and at the time she’d thought it had been worth the risk. She’d stupidly hoped that hearing the words would get through to him. Clearly not.

It was different from what she’d gone through with Hugh, yet perhaps not so different at all. Once again, she’d opened her heart only to have it broken. She couldn’t have Markus any more than she could have had Hugh. Both men were incapable of giving her what she needed, albeit for completely different reasons. As it had been with Hugh, she didn’t fault Markus. He’d been through so much as a child. How could she possibly know or truly understand what it had been like for him growing up without love?

Like her, Markus had been given a raw deal, just in a different way. They both had scars, inside and out. In time, their outer wounds would heal. The inner ones… Who knew? Maybe Markus was so damaged that he would never be able to love anyone. It was a possibility that she’d never considered. Either way, she had to let him go because there was no fixing this. There was no fixing him.

She picked up her coffee mug. Empty. Like her heart. One would think that after three cups of coffee and enough cookies to give her a sugar rush big enough to keep an elephant awake for days, she’d be able to focus. Instead, she was exhausted, as if someone had opened up a bottle of wine then turned it upside down and let the contents gurgle out until the bottle was empty. Not even her work was going well.

Teedle Tech had finally responded to her password request but said they were having internal server issues and to be patient. So now, not only did she not have the missing documents, she no longer had access to all of the company’s annual income statements. This audit should have been a walk in the park. It wasn’t as if the company had shareholders and thousands of employees. From what she’d read, Walt Teedle was the sole owner and had started the company shortly after getting married twenty years ago.

At this point, it almost seemed as if they didn’t want her to finish, which was annoying as hell, since there’d been no agreement in writing for her to get partial payment for time invested if she couldn’t fork over a completed work product.

Cassidy grabbed her cane and went into the kitchen. Lately, she hadn’t been motivated to do any of her stretches or workouts, and now she was paying the price. Her legs were stiff and achy again. She searched the refrigerator for something to make lunch with, coming up empty. There weren’t even any cookies left.

Time to go shopping.