Jennifer Estep: By a Thread

He drew back, his golden eyes bright and earnest in his face. He obviously expected me to say something along the lines of how much I’d always wanted him too and how we could pick right back up where we’d left off. But the detective was about to be seriously disappointed—in all sorts of ways.

“Is that all you have to say?” I asked.

His black eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Isn’t that enough? I want you. What more is there to say?”

He reached for me again, and I drove my fist into his stomach as hard as I could.

Donovan gasped and stumbled back, grabbing one of the tables for support. He looked at me with a surprised expression on his face, and I knew it had never occurred to him that I would turn him down, that I would say no to him, that I’d fucking gotten over him. But that had always been the problem with Donovan—he thought he was so much better than I was. Maybe he was, but now I realized he didn’t have a right to look down on me either. Owen had taught me that by accepting me for who and what I was—knives, blood, and all.

“Gin?” Donovan asked in an uncertain voice.

I stared at him with cold, dispassionate eyes. “First of all, nobody, and I mean no damn body , touches me without my permission, much less tries to stick his tongue down my throat without my consent and express invitation. And second, what you’re feeling right now? The sharp ache in your chest? The trouble breathing? That’s exactly what I felt when you turned your back on me outside Dawson’s mine. Do you remember that, Donovan? Because I certainly do. I didn’t expect you to turn cartwheels that day, but it would have been nice if you hadn’t been so fucking disappointed that I was still alive and around to tempt you with my wicked, wicked wiles. And then, to add insult to injury, you came to the Pork Pit later on and spelled out exactly how much you didn’t want to be with me. How do you think all that made me feel? I’ll give you a clue—not good. Not good at all. Now, instead of offering me some sort of apology for the shitty way that you treated me, you expect me to be just as happy to play grab-ass as you are, as though nothing bad ever happened between us.”

Donovan rubbed his chest and slowly straightened up. “You’re angry, and you have every right to be. I was a fool to act the way I did toward you. I’m sorry for that. Sorrier than you’ll ever know. I thought about calling you a dozen times after I left Ashland, but I just couldn’t. I knew that if I heard your voice again, I’d be tempted to go back to the city—to go back to you. Now I’m sorry that I didn’t call you, that I didn’t go back.”

I shook my head. “That’s where you’re right—and wrong too. Yes, you were a fool to walk away from me, but your doing that was the best thing that ever happened to me because it let me find Owen.”

Donovan frowned. “Grayson? But you just took up with him because I left town. We all know that.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And what? You think that I’m just going to forget about Owen and happily fall back into your arms now because you’ve finally gotten off your high horse and decided that you want me? Or at least want to fuck me again? Are you really that arrogant, Detective?”

He winced, but he stubbornly lifted his chin. He wasn’t going to take back his words because we both knew they were partially true.

“Tell me that I’m wrong,” he challenged. “Tell me that you didn’t start sleeping with Grayson just because he was there.”

“Well, I do have slightly higher standards than that. But yeah, maybe that’s how it started out with me and Owen,” I said. “Maybe I was lonely and hurting because of you and how shitty you made me feel about myself and what I do. But I love Owen, and he loves me. What we have is real—the forever kind of real. More than that, Owen accepts me for who and what I am. He knows that I’m an assassin, but he’s not hung up on it like you always were. Like you still are.”

Donovan stared at me, guilt flickering in his eyes, along with just a touch of shame. Yeah, he still wanted me, but he still wanted to keep his conscience clean too, and that just wasn’t going to happen. Even if I wanted to, there was no way I could ever stop being the Spider—not now, not after killing Mab. The Ashland underworld was in major turmoil, and probably would be for some time to come, which meant the bad guys were going to keep coming after me. Donovan would just never understand this need that I had to take them on and to try to help all the innocent people I could. He would just never understand that sometimes my way was the only way to help folks—folks like Callie who didn’t have the money or darkness inside them to go toe-to-toe with the people threatening them.

It wasn’t wrong of Donovan to believe in truth and justice and to want to follow the law and do things by the book. But it wasn’t right of him to always condemn me out of hand either, or more importantly, want me to change to suit his ideals so he could feel better about being with me.

Still, for the first time, I didn’t feel any anger or rancor toward the detective. Instead, I just felt sorry for him. Donovan was a good guy who wanted the thrill of being with a bad girl. It was up to him to come to terms with that. I wasn’t apologizing for myself anymore, especially not to him.

“You have a good thing going with Callie,” I said in a soft voice. “She really does love you, Donovan. You should try to make it work with her, but if you can’t love her wholeheartedly like she loves you, like she deserves to be loved, like everyone deserves to be loved, then you need to let her go. That’s what good guys do, Donovan. They think of people other than themselves and what they want. So you need to man up and walk the walk that you always spout to others.”

He didn’t say anything, but I could see the conflict, guilt, and shame in his face. He cared about Callie, maybe he even loved her, but here he was, kissing another woman inside his fiancée’s restaurant with her standing just outside the door. That wasn’t exactly the kind of good, upstanding, honorable guy Donovan wanted to be, but that was his problem now—not mine.

Not anymore.

“Whatever you decide about Callie, I hope that you have a good life, Donovan,” I said. “Because I certainly intend to—with Owen.”

I stared at the detective a second longer, looking at the planes of his face, remembering everything he’d made me feel, remembering everything he’d once meant to me. Then I put those feelings and memories away forever—finally severing the last thread that had tied me to him for so long.

I turned my back to Donovan the way he’d once done to me and walked away. I didn’t look back. I didn’t have to. There was nothing for me here.

My future was waiting outside—with Owen.

I opened the screen door, stepped outside, and rejoined the others. Callie and Bria were standing in the lot, still talking about bridesmaids’ dresses and when Bria might be able to come back to Blue Marsh for a fitting, while Finn and Owen were sitting on top of one of the electric blue picnic tables, sunglasses on and faces turned up to enjoy the sun. I walked over to the two of them.

“So how did it go?” Finn asked, looking at me over the tops of his sunglasses. “Did Donovan tearfully proclaim his undying love?”

“Something like that,” I said in a mild voice, making sure that Callie couldn’t hear us.

“And then what?” Finn asked, his green eyes gleaming. “I want all the juicy details.”