“What do you mean you’re leaving again?” Isabel holds the sheets against her bare chest, feeling like she’s suffering from some pretty serious déjà vu.
“It’s only for a little while, Bel. And it is the only way. It is the only way to keep the Dogs off of our backs for good.” He sits down heavily on the bed, taking her hands in his and holding them to his chest.
“But I told you already; they haven’t bothered me since you left. I told you what the big Chief guy said. He said he’d leave me and mine alone if I gave you the message from him. I haven’t seen them in weeks.” Isabel spreads her hands open to make him see. “They’re not going to come near us anymore.” She sounds more certain of that than she feels.
Wesley’s already shaking his head. “You haven’t seen them because they don’t want to be seen. As soon as I walked down the street I saw two guys watching the house.”
“What? Where?” Isabel moves to stand up as if she’s going to look out the window and see them still standing there.
“Isabel, trust me. They’re there. And they’ll be there until I do this last job.” Wesley takes hold of her shoulders, making her look at him, forcing her to hear him.
“What job?” Her voice is dull, not wanting to hear this.
Wesley sighs deeply. “I knew the Chief had come to see you.”
“How did you know?” Isabel narrows her eyes at him.
Wesley looks up at the ceiling in despair. “Do you ever not ask questions?”
“Do you ever give straight answers?” Isabel plants her hands on her hips, forgetting she’s holding the sheet against her breasts and ends up giving him an eyeful.
“If you do that again, I’m not sure I’ll be able to give any kind of answer at all.” He gives her a look that makes her shiver with want.
But now isn’t the time for that. She shakes her head, giving him a pointed look that he can’t misinterpret.
He sighs deeply, resignedly. “I guess I’m going to have to get used to you not taking no for an answer.”
“You better believe it.” She doesn’t even try to make any kind of excuse. “So what do you mean you didn’t go far?”
Wesley looks around cagily for a moment, as if he’s trying to figure out how to make his great escape. “I wanted to keep an eye on you, an eye on the house. I wanted to make sure the Dogs didn’t try anything again.”
“So you’ve been watching me?” Isabel doesn’t even try to temper her tone of voice or make any bones about the fact that she’s mad, really mad.
“No, I’ve been watching out for you. There’s a difference.” He gives her a withering look that she only finds more infuriating.
“All this time, you’ve just been hanging around, skulking in the shadows?” Isabel throws her hands up, unable to believe what she’s hearing. All those days and nights when she was missing him like crazy, wondering where he was, hoping like hell he wasn’t getting into trouble, all that time he had been just a few steps away.
“First of all, I don’t skulk.” He points a finger at her, which she just bats away.
“Not funny, Wes.” She shoots him a warning look as she pulls her cami top over her head, needing not to be naked right now. There’s something about arguing naked that has a way of making you lose all credibility. “Do you have any idea what I was going through when I thought you’d disappeared, that I wasn’t going to get to see you again? And the whole time you were there; you could have just come out of the shadows at any point and said ‘hey, Isabel, so it turns out you don’t have to be sad and depressed for weeks on end because, guess what? I’ve been here the whole freakin’ time!’”
Wesley carries on as if he hasn’t even heard her, or more like because he isn’t listening. “Secondly, I’m not going to apologize for it. Do you think it was easy for me to be so close to you, to see you walking down the street and not want to walk beside you? But I did it because I had to make sure that you would be all right. Whatever you want to believe about me, Bel, you have to believe I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was just trying to protect you.”
Isabel feels her levels of anger ratcheting down a notch, but she remains with her arms crossed, staring him down. “If you’ve been watching this place then how was it you didn’t know Mike only showed up yesterday?”
Wesley smiles at her indulgently, shaking his head. “Is there ever a moment when that head of yours gets turned off?” He asks the question more to himself than to her. “I was only watching out for you the first week. When I saw the Chief talking to you, I knew I was going to have to come up with a different plan. I knew they weren’t just going to leave you around because I wasn’t around anymore. They would go through you to get to me and I couldn’t let that happen. I left because I didn’t want you to get any more involved in all this Devil Dogs shit. But it was too late. I should have realized that.”
“Too late for what? Wes, you’re not making any sense.” She pulls her fingers through her hair in frustration.
Wesley sighs deeply, as if he doesn’t really want to say what’s about to come out of his mouth, but he knows she won’t let it rest if he doesn’t. “The Dogs don’t just let you leave. It’s not like cancelling your gym membership. When you’re done, there are consequences.”
“What kind of consequences?” Isabel feels her hands trembling and she shoves them underneath the bed covers so he doesn’t see.
“The kind people like me enforce.” Wesley doesn’t go into any more detail than that and Isabel is secretly grateful for his tact.
“So what do we have to do? Leave town? What’s the plan?” Isabel pulls on her shorts, standing up, ready for action. Whatever they have to do, she’ll find a way to do it. She’s made her decision; she wants to be with Wesley and she’s going to do whatever it takes to make sure they can be together.
“If we leave town they’ll find us, Bel. These guys have people everywhere. They’re one of the biggest motorcycle gangs in the country. You can’t run from them.” Wesley looks at her seriously and Isabel is under no illusion that he’s telling the truth. “The only way to get them off of our backs for good, forever, was to promise to do one last job for them. After that, I’m out. Simple.” He shrugs his shoulders as if it were just that, when Isabel knows that it’s anything but.
“I’ve seen you come back from those kinds of jobs before. I’m the person who patched you up every time. I know they’re anything but simple. So don’t try to pretend this is all just a cakewalk.” She shakes her head, afraid of what he isn’t telling her. “It’s dangerous, isn’t it? It would have to be; otherwise they wouldn’t agree to let you go if you go through with it. It has to be worth their while. How long will you be gone for? When will you be back?”
Wesley takes her hands in his and pulls her towards him, splaying her hands out over his chest so she can feel his heart beating against his muscular chest. “You don’t need to know anything more than I’ve already told you, Bel.” His dark eyes are impenetrable as he stares at her hard.
“How can you say that? How can you just expect me to wave as you leave without having any idea when you’ll be back or even if you’ll be back at all?” Isabel shakes her head. “I can’t do that, Wes. I can’t wait around, not knowing if I’m going to ever see you again.”
Wesley brings her in closer to his chest, holding her tight against him. “I’m going to come back, Isabel. I promise you that.”
But she’s already shaking her head. “But you can’t. You can’t promise that. You don’t know.”
“I’m coming back, Isabel. I’m coming back. All I need to know is that you’ll wait for me.” He whispers the words against her lips. “I need to know you’ll be here when I get back.”
Before she’s even had time to think about it, before her brain has even processed what her body is doing she’s nodding, unable to speak in case she starts to cry.
“Say the words, Bel. I need to hear you say it.” He strokes her cheek with the back of his hands, looking deep into her green eyes as if he is discovering something new each time he sees her.
“I’ll wait for you.” She whispers them against his lips. “I’ll wait for you.” She leans in closer to him, sealing the promise with a kiss.
“I love you, Isabel, and I’m coming back for you.” His words echo in her ears even after he’s gone from her arms.