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No one took his hand and led him through life, not before his turning and not after his turning. He preferred the fight and the struggle, knowing he was capable of surviving on his own. So when he met Tate, the feisty redhead that carved a place into his life, he knew he’d never be rid of her and he accepted his fate. He hated to admit it, but he really cared for her. Below the flirtations, underneath his sly little comments, he truly cared, and it bothered him.
Sometimes, he forgot there was a time before Harper Rock, that he had a life before stepping into his combat boots and heading to the land behind the fence of the Quarantine Zone. He only remembered in the quiet moments before and after discharging his weapon, and he hated every memory.
Whenever he looked at a woman, he remembered his ***** of an ex-wife and the two kids he had waiting for him. He was a **** husband. He was a **** father. It wasn’t like he could hit the reset button and start all over again. He tried making the most of every new day, some sort of optimistic ******** he’d had hammered into his mind by his commanding officer, but it didn’t ease the weight of his guilt. He was living, breathing--figuratively--while he left his family high and dry. And then he had the nerve to move on.
“I’ll take the one on the right,” he replied, finally answering the shopkeep. All thoughts about his past disappeared, forced to the darkest recesses of his mind. The old man behind the counter looked at the piece of jewelry and back at Cavanagh. “Yeah, that’s the one. She’s a special kind of lady.”
Cavanagh smirked as the shopkeep pulled the antique piece from the display case. He’d thought about getting flowers, but something about the appeal of jewelry took him toward the more pricey end of the shop. Tate didn’t seem like the kind of girl to care about diamonds and jewelry, but the piece he picked--she had to love the decorative beak. The beak reminded him of the long-nosed plague masks.
“Is there anything you’d like it to say, sir?” The old man looked up from where he’d wrapped the gift, a card in one hand and a pen in the other. The gift had been wrapped in tissue paper and packed into a red square box; two white ribbons were off to the side for a finishing touch.
“Let me write it down,” he grunted, reaching across the counter to snatch a pen and a scrap of paper. He scribbling out a few words and then turned the paper around, the sentence reading from left to right. The shopkeep didn’t say anything else, so Cavanagh shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and wandered the length of the store.
After he collected the wrapped and addressed gift, Cavanagh left the shop and made his way along the road to the Gullsborough station. It was only a short distance to the Newborough station, and then a smaller trek to the hunting grounds. Before his turning, Cavanagh enjoyed hunting, more for the relaxation than sportsmanship, and she’d requested bear fangs. He had a feeling she’d be at the hunting grounds. If she wasn’t, he had no problems calling her or emailing her.
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