Talia's Torment

Chapter 12: Revelations and reprimands.

Tanner had been thinking of how to tell Talia the news from Duke the whole way back to the cabin.  Given that someone had been trying to monitor Duke Tanner made sure that ride was a long one.  It was less like lunch time and more like an early dinner time when he arrived back at the cabin to find Talia sitting on the porch swing waiting for him.

                “Meeting up with old friends always seems to make time slip away from you.  Were you able to get caught up with them?”  Talia actually seemed genuinely interested in how his meeting with Duke had gone and it made Tanner smile.

                “Yeah, and we need to talk about my conversation too.” Tanner looked up at her when she stood from the swing, her posture going slightly rigid when it had been so relaxed before.  Her easy demeanor slowly fading away as apprehension seemed to take hold.

                “Really, why would I need to talk to you about a conversation with an old friend from the service?” Talia’s face had gone from an easy smile Tanner had grown so used to seeing to being one of mixed confusion and concern.  He hated that he had caused the crease between her eyebrows and the subtle darkening of her eyes from the concern he could see building there.

                “Well, he is an old friend, but I had him look into where Laurent has been lately.”  He saw her face go from mild concern to blatant anger in a heartbeat and suddenly Tanner thought he might be the one who should go into hiding.

                “You’re joking right?!”  Talia’s voice held bottled rage and with her sudden outburst the birds that had been chirping away in the last rays of afternoon sunshine bolted into the air as if someone had slammed into their tree.

                Tanner looked down and away from her furious gaze, he knew she would be upset with him but had not calculated the look of betrayal she was currently showing him.  He had somehow hurt her and that had never been his intention.  He inhaled in order to explain himself and looked up only to see her walking briskly back to her cabin as if the shadows themselves were chasing her down.

                “Talia wait, let me explain.”

                “What, are you going to tell me that you were not trying to hide this from me?” She flashed a look of annoyance at him over her shoulder as if she was already aware of what his answer would be.

                “Yes, but that isn’t all of it.  Talia would you please just stop for a damn second and let me explain!”  Tanner reached out and grabbed her arm gently to stop her from moving away from him. He wasn’t about to have a yelling match as he tried to chase her down the path like a child having a tantrum.  Tanner knew he had messed up but he would be damned if this was the thing that would drive her away.  He wanted to explain to her that he had been looking into Laurent’s whereabouts so that she would be able to find him.  He knew part of her hurt was because she felt that he had planned on not giving her the information, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

                She stopped cold in her tracks the moment their skin touched.  Tanner slowly took his hand off of her arm.  Until that moment they had never actually made physical contact with each other outside of their training sessions and the night he woke her from her nightmare.  They had always kept a space between them neither one making the full attempt to touch as if they knew that it would send everything around them crashing down in embers.  Talia turned to look at him and the pain he saw in her eyes made him want to crush her in his embrace and tell her that he would never hurt her.  All he had been wanting these last few months was to take the pain he saw flash across her features when she thought he hadn’t noticed.  He wanted to keep her in smiles and laughter, having removed the pain and everything that caused it from her path.

                Tanner knew that this was not a realistic wish, but what was the point in wishing for reality when the dreams we had were so much more enticing.  Snapping himself out of his own thoughts Tanner took a breath and told Talia the whole story.  How he had contacted Duke and asked him to look into Laurent without telling him why he was looking for him or even who the man really was.  That Duke had found the slimy bugger and knew where he would be staying for at least the next month but that the situation had backfired and Duke had been compromised.  That he had planned on telling Talia about his efforts to find Laurent as soon as they had a credible lead because he knew that her training was almost done and he had wanted to bad to do something to help her without her having to feel the need to ask him to do it in the first place.  He made sure to leave nothing out; he wanted her to know everything.  He was about to tell her how he felt about her and that he would help her to finish this if she wanted him to, or wait for her to do what she needed to do and then they could talk afterward when she grabbed his arm and stopped the rambling he hadn’t even noticed he had been doing.

                Tanner slowly looked into Talia’s eyes and froze in his spot.  He felt his chest seize and thought he was going to crumble right there in that very spot.  The odd thought that at least he would fill in the small divot he hadn’t noticed in that path before crossed his mind before he shook it away.  He had never expected to see the look she was giving him now.  Anger he had expected, even maybe a little rage or hurt, but the look of acceptance she was showing him was not what he thought he would receive at all.  As Talia stepped closer to him his world seemed to move into slow motion, he held his breath afraid that if he moved she would startle and the whole moment would be lost.