Chapter 9 - The Debt That Cannot Be Paid
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The fire had burned down to glowing embers, casting long, crimson shadows across the timber walls of the study.
Holly had curled her legs beneath her on the sofa, draped in the heavy wool blanket Martha had brought earlier.
Atlas had refused to sleep on his own bed across the room; instead, he lay stretched out on the floor directly beneath her dangling hand.
Brennan sat in the leather chair beside her, staring into the dying coals with a glass of untouched amber whiskey in his hand.
“You should try to sleep,” he said softly, breaking the long silence that had settled over the grand room.
“I don’t think my nervous system will allow that tonight,” Holly replied with a tired, faint laugh.
She looked down at the gentle giant resting against her feet.
“He really hasn't left my side since eight o'clock.”
“He thinks you’ll disappear if he looks away,” Brennan said, a bittersweet smile touching his lips.
“For two years, every time the front door opened, he ran to the foyer hoping to see the girl who carried him out of the rain.”
Holly felt a tear slip down her cheek, and she quickly brushed it away before Brennan could notice.
“Why didn't you stop searching for me?” she asked, looking across at him.
“You had your dog back; you had your life.”
“I didn't have a life,” Brennan answered, his voice stripped bare of all pride and posturing.
“I had a company to run, a mountain of unresolved grief, and a dog who stopped eating because he missed his brother.”
He set his glass down on the table, turning his body toward her.
“When I finally found the security footage from the vet clinic, I watched it a hundred times.”
“I saw a girl who couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds carrying a mastiff twice her size through the freezing rain.”
“I saw her empty her purse onto the counter, handing over crumpled twenty-dollar bills and change just to pay for his initial surgery.”
He leaned in, his gray eyes burning with an intensity that made Holly’s breath hitch in her throat.
“I spent my entire adult life believing that every person has a price, that loyalty is just a line item on an invoice.”
“And then I saw you.”
“You gave everything you had to an animal that didn't belong to you, expecting nothing, leaving no name, and asking for no reward.”
Holly looked down at her hands, feeling the rough calluses from years of busing tables and carrying heavy trays.
“I just did what anyone should have done,” she murmured softly.
“No one else did it,” Brennan argued fiercely, his voice dropping to a tender whisper.
“A dozen cars drove past that alley while Liam’s dog lay dying in the gutter.”
“You were the only one who stopped.”
Atlas gave a deep, contented sigh from the floorboards, shifting his massive head so his chin rested across the instep of Holly’s foot.
Brennan reached out, his fingers brushing against the side of Holly’s jaw, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
The contact sent an electric shiver through her veins, warm and intoxicating.
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“You brought the light back into this house two years ago, Holly,” he said, his thumb lingering against the soft curve of her cheek.
“And I’m never going to let the dark take it away from you again.”
