Free No Time to Cry (Nine While Nine Legacy Book 1) by Stasia Morineaux Page B

twenty hours, taking a road
trip with someone, you forge a sort of bond, especially after a traumatic
experience I’m sure.
    Or so I’d thought. I guess it truly was
just his job. I hadn’t had a chance to tell him how much it meant to me, the
way he had treated me on the drive to Seattle, his attempts to cheer me up,
make me laugh. How nice he’d been. The thoughtfulness he’d shown me. Now I
didn’t want to. He had it all wrong. He didn’t make me feel like I had in the
life I’d lost. He took me to a new place, and made me feel things I had only
ever wished for. The wildness I’d never had the nerve to seek out. He was
sunshine and ocean breezes—wild and unbound, unrestrained, all things possible.
When he held me it felt like there were no limitations in the world, like I
could soar, do whatever I wanted. Whatever crazy thing I could dream up. How
was that wrong? Was my life to now be only about work? This new job ? Was
there to be no room for anything else? Was this job to define me?
    “Gideon will be back this morning. He’s
working on everything, trying to find answers…about last night, about...” he
paused awkwardly, “he’s finding an apartment for you, until then I’ll stay with
Nicklaus. You can stay here.”
    I knew I should say something, ask him
not to go. Tell him how I felt. Yell at him for the seeming accusation of using
him. But no words formed.
    He watched wordlessly as I zipped my
boots on. Last night’s clothes would have to do. I retrieved my bag from the
ottoman and strode to the door. All I seemed to do now was run away from
situations, but it was all too sickening to stand around and listen to, or wait
for.
    Action. I desperately needed to take
action.
    “Iliana? You can’t just leave.” He
stopped in front of me. Not quite meeting my eyes still.
    “I’ll find my own place. I’m still
capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need a baby sitter. I’m not going to
run off and disappear no matter how much I’d love to never see either of you
again.”
     I caught his eye and that set all
the words that were jumbled crazily in my head free.
     “I get that we’re just some sort
of twisted co-workers, that you’re my watchdog. That I was just trying to
forget and bury some pain, to get some sort of semblance of my life back,
something, any bit of it. That I can’t have what I had as a mortal. That all of
that is done, gone. That you did a job—well done—you kept me from jumping from
the car in Oregon, maybe, not that I would have at that point, but whatever.
You did one helluva bang-up job at delivering the
‘parcel’ to the bigger watchdog. Awesome work Liam.”
     I applauded him, gave him a
derisive smile, and moved around him, and out the door. “Tell him he can text
me if he wants anything.”
    Keeping my back to him, so he could not
see the tears and doing my best to keep them from my voice, I kept moving
towards the stairs.
    “Iliana!”
     I heard him roar as I raced down
the stairs, the power in his voice pulled at me, made me want to go to him. I
needed to be away, as far away as I could get from him…or I might find myself
running to him, crashing into him, begging him to change his mind. I couldn’t
do that.    
      He’d made it all too clear what his stance was
on the matter.
     

 
     
     
    ~
Chapter Nine ~
     
     
     
     
    So
now what? That seemed to be my mantra lately. I sat on a park bench, thankfully
it was a nice semi-sunny day, but even so, my thin sweater and leather coat
were not being very cooperative with keeping out the serious October chill
factor.
    It hadn’t taken me very long to walk the
few miles to Green Lake Park, and for a short while I had amused myself by
people watching. People walking their dogs. People jogging. People reading on
park benches. People just being people. People having coffee and sitting on
blankets near the water. Couples, holding hands and snuggling against the cold.
    Enough of that. No more watching. It