by T. S. Joyce
“Shhh,” Tagan said, falling to his knees beside her.
“Don’t touch me!” she sobbed, trying to fling his grip off her upper arms.
He didn’t let go. Instead, he drew her into his lap and held her tight.
“Don’t touch me,” she said again with less feeling.
“It’s okay. I’m here. No one is going to hurt you.”
A low wail left her lips as she clutched onto his T-shirt in the dark. Her tears were dampening the fabric, but she didn’t care. For the first time since she’d been attacked, the touch of a man didn’t frighten her. She didn’t even flinch when he lifted his hand to stroke her hair away from her face.
She squeezed her eyes tightly closed and allowed him to rock her gently until her heart felt like it was back in her chest. He smelled like soap and piney woods with an undercurrent of something rich and masculine. She didn’t deserve his comfort. She didn’t deserve anyone’s comfort.
Stupid fucking nightmare.
Every time it was the same.
Every time she had to relive the night that stripped everything from her.
When she opened her eyes again, they had adjusted to the minimal blue moonlight filtering in through the bedroom windows. Kellen crouched near her ankles, staring at her like he’d never seen a woman cry before. Denison and the rest of the crew, all but Connor, stood just inside the doorway, looking haunted.
“We thought someone was hurting you,” Tagan said, his voice a soft stroke against her ear.
How did she explain that someone was hurting her? All the time.
“She’s okay,” he told his crew. “Go on back to bed. I’ll watch her until she falls asleep.”
Kellen squeezed her ankle under her flannel pajama bottom pants and gave a sad smile. It should’ve felt too intimate coming from a stranger, but instead, a comforting warmth spread up her leg. Denison stepped forward and brushed his fingertips over her head, and the same warm tendrils flooded her, making her feel dizzy, like she’d taken a cheap shot of whiskey. The other men did the same, one by one.
“Why did they do that?” she asked when they had gone.
Tagan slid his arm under the crease behind her knees and lifted her onto the bed. “Because touch is important to us. You were hurt. None of them would’ve been able to sleep tonight if they didn’t reassure themselves you were okay.”
“It felt…”
A slight frown took Tagan’s face. “It felt like what?”
“Comforting.”
His eyebrows shot up, as if she’d caught him by surprise. Seconds ticked by as he studied her face—for what, she didn’t know. “I’m going to get you a drink of water, and then we should talk about what happened to you.”
Brooke lifted her chin and shook her head. “I don’t want to do that—”
“But you will, or that nightmare will follow you to the grave. Wait here.”
Panicked at the idea of sharing that night with anyone, she clutched the comforter and eyed the window. She could just leave. She could leave here and keep the hurt inside where it belonged.
Tagan returned, disrupting any thoughts of escape. He handed her a glass of water and turned to flip the switch on an old-fashioned sconce on the wall. The soft glow of a lightbulb bathed the room, and Brooke drew the covers over her lap like armor. No doubt her hair was a rumpled mess, and she was wearing the least attractive pajama set she’d ever laid eyes upon. It was the reason she’d bought it, so she could be invisible.
But here, in front of Tagan, with him studying her with that unsettling calmness about him, she wished she’d brought something cuter. He wore a thin, gray cotton T-shirt, still rumpled and tear-stained from her earlier meltdown. Black sweats were slung low across his tapered waist and his feet were bare as he drew one under him.
As she cradled the glass of cold water, he reached over and tugged at the bandage on her neck. The one she never removed unless she was switching it out for a new one.
She allowed it. God, she was actually going to let someone see the ugliest part of her. And not just someone, but Tagan, who felt…important.
She scrunched her face as the adhesive pulled at her skin.
“Brooke, why do you have a bandage over an injury that is healed?”
“Because it doesn’t feel healed.”
“It still hurts?”
“No.”
Tagan folded the bandage carefully and dropped his gaze. His motions were slow, calculated. “What happened?”
Tagan thought she was weak. She saw it when he’d helped rid her trailer of the mouse, and she could see it now. But she wanted to be stronger. She wanted his respect. Tilting her chin up and straightening her spine, she said, “I was mugged. He was caught. He went to jail for three months, and now he’s free. I left Boulder because I wanted to get better.”
He huffed air from his lungs and dragged his gaze to hers. His eyes were such a strange color. Blue and green and brown all at once. Churning, as if something she’d said had angered him. “That’s a nice, shortened version there, but that won’t help you deal with this, and it won’t help me understand.” He patted the bed and settled a pillow, then lay beside it, hands hooked behind his head. “I’ve got all night.”
With a long, steadying sigh, she lay beside him on the pillow he’d fluffed for her and stared at the sagging ceiling. “I was a painter. I had shows in galleries and made a living off my art. People wanted to be near me and speak with me about how I created and why. I had everything. Friends, a supportive family, a mentor who was with me every step of the way. My apartment wasn’t the nicest, but it was home, and soon, I was going to have enough money saved up to buy a condo I’d been eyeing. My life was perfect.”
“Nobody’s life is perfect.”
“Mine was.” She saw it now, that perfect life dancing just out of her reach. Days filled with outings to appease her creative side, and nights spent in her studio, working out everything she wanted to say with oils or acrylics. When she became too comfortable with one, she switched.
Stacks of blank canvases, waiting for her to put a story on them. Waiting to be hung in the galleries who were happy to provide space and good lighting for her when she had enough to sell. Champagne and pictures for local newspapers, and Meredith always there when her nerves got the best of her.
“I like to take the stairs instead of the elevator. Elevators have always scared me. Probably because when I was younger, my mom and I got stuck on one for a few hours. I was a creature of habit, always leaving around the same time to go to the gym or to go pick up food. A man stopped me and asked me for a light in one of the wells one night, but I didn’t think anything of it. I told him I didn’t smoke and went on my way. The next day, he was there again, but instead of a light, he wanted my purse this time.” Thickness clogged her throat as she thought about how mad the man had been when she fumbled. “I tried to hand my purse to him, but it was a small one with a wrist strap, and when it didn’t slide off, I yanked to try and loosen it. Only, it came out of the man’s hand instead. He hit me.” She pitched her voice to nothing but a whisper. “I thought he would kill me, but he only laughed when I pleaded with him not to. He gave me the mark because he wanted me to remember what he’d done and how helpless I really am. He made the mark with a pocket knife. I don’t wear the bandage because it hurts, Tagan. I wear it so I don’t see how pathetic I am in the mirror every day.”
“What’s his name?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Does to me.” His voice sounded grittier than she’d heard before, and when he spoke, the air in the room felt heavy, harder to breathe.
She wanted to give him what he demanded, really, but thinking about saying that monster’s name out loud felt like conjuring the devil himself. “I can’t.”
His body went rigid beside her. “You aren’t pathetic, Brooke. And you aren’t weak.”
“You thought I was. I could tell when you saw me scream at that mouse.”
“I w
as wrong. You’re maybe the bravest woman I’ve ever met.”
Those words. Oh, what they did to her heart. A layer of loneliness slipped from her, making her feel raw and exposed, but hopeful, too.
“What happened to your paintings?” He rested his arm by her side and squeezed her hand gently with his.
Flutters filled her stomach as he left his warm hand on top of hers. The callouses on his palm rubbed against the smoothness of her hand. They really were from two different worlds, but everything in her sang that Tagan knew heartache, too. He was a kindred spirit who would understand, if only she could be brave enough to explain.
“I can’t paint anymore. Every time I try, it comes out dark. Different. Unsellable. The bright parts of me that created before were snuffed out. I guess…I guess I came out here because I thought I could connect to the outdoors and find my muse again.”
“You drew starscapes.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
“Yes.”
“Put your jacket on.” He sat up and scrubbed both hands down his face. His hair was still mussed from sleep, but when he looked back at her, his expression wasn’t tired. It was kind. Her fingers twitched for the warmth he’d taken with him when he’d let go of her hand, but in this moment, she knew exactly what Tagan was.
He was a friend. He was a decent person. And he was a good man.
And as scary as it was to trust someone with her darkest secrets, he wasn’t running. This perfect stranger was offering her sanctuary she hadn’t known existed.
Five minutes later, teeth brushed, jeans and sweater on, jacket folded over her arm, Brooke waited on her porch for Tagan. She hadn’t known which trailer he lived in, but one across the road and two down had the light on. When Tagan ducked under the front door and smiled at her, all doubt was erased. A strange zing of excitement traveled up her spine that he lived so close.
With a silent twitch of his chin, he gestured her to follow. She jogged to catch him, pulling on her jacket as she ran. It was still winter, but on the cusp of spring, and even though the days were warm, the nights had a chill that bit right through those trailer walls. She’d been sleeping with the window unit heater blasting and still hadn’t managed to keep the gooseflesh off her calves.
The light from the park disappeared as Tagan opened a gate for her and waited for her to pass.
“It’s so dark,” she whispered, afraid to wake the others. If she could hear every word through the walls of her rental, surely they could, too.
“I figured you’d have trouble seeing,” Tagan said, handing her a cold, black cylinder. “Here.”
Brooke clicked on the flashlight and pointed it toward the ground. “And you don’t have trouble seeing in the dark?”
A simple “no” sounded over his broad shoulder before he marched off at a grueling pace.
The trail wound this way and that like some giant serpent through the trees. The smell of pine was fragrant, and the sound of forest birds soft in the distance. Gentle wind rocked the branches in the evergreen canopy over their heads, and the pine needles made swishing sounds as she walked across them.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, desperate to fill the silence. The dark had frightened her as a child, and out here in the middle of nowhere, those fears crept back.
“You’ll see.”
She halted. “I don’t know about this. I think we should go back. It’s the middle of the night.”
“You scared?” he asked. It wasn’t a taunt. She could tell when he turned around. In the illumination of the flashlight, his expression only held concern.
Embarrassed, and afraid her voice would shake, she nodded her head.
“Of me?”
“No.” She frowned. By all accounts, she had every right to be afraid of him. She’d only met him yesterday and was in the woods with him, in complete darkness, and no one knew where she was. But for whatever reason, instinctual perhaps, Tagan didn’t feel like a threat to her. Instead, he made her feel…safe.
He approached slowly arms extended, but didn’t touch her, as if he were trying to calm a frightened animal. “It’s five minutes more hiking, and we’ll be there. You shared something big with me tonight, and I know that was hard. I’m sharing something of mine, too.”
A slow smile stretched her face. “Something special?”
His Adam’s Apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Yes.”
Something flashed, and she jerked the beam of light toward it. “What was that?”
Tagan’s warm palm pushed her hand down, and softly, he pressed her thumb against the button that turned the flashlight off. “Look,” he said, so close his chest pressed against her shoulder blades, and his breath tickled her ear.
A tiny glow shone then disappeared. Another followed, farther away and to the left. Then another and another.
“They’re fireflies,” Tagan explained in a hushed tone. “They stay active late into the night up here.”
She’d seen fireflies before, but not like this. As more and more lit up, she gasped. “They’re beautiful.”
Tagan looked down at her, holding her gaze in the soft moonlight. “Yeah. Beautiful.”
Her heart beat against her chest as his eyes dipped to her lips. Her breath froze in her chest as he leaned closer.
“You want me to kiss you, don’t you?” he asked low.
The fireflies illuminated the woods behind him with their twinkling lights. Her lips throbbed with wanting, and her chest stirred like she was just coming back to life after a long slumber. If he kissed her, she’d be changed from the inside out. From her cells to her muscle fibers to her pounding heart, everything would be different. She wanted that. She wanted to live again.
Searching his eyes, she nodded. “Yes.”
His chin tilted slightly, and he gave her a hard look. “You’re too good for this place. You shouldn’t be wanting things like that.”
He pulled away and turned his back on her. Not before she saw something dark in his eyes. Hurt, or perhaps regret, she wasn’t sure.
Angry and feeling tricked, she clenched her hands at her sides and glared at his receding back. “I shouldn’t want things like what? To kiss a man? I didn’t ask you to get that close to me. You leaned in, and now you’re shaming me for feeling?”
“No, Brooke,” he said, turning, “you should absolutely want to kiss a man. Try saving your affection for someone who returns it next time.”
Her mouth dropped open. How utterly confusing. She’d completely misread that moment with the fireflies, and now she’d angered him. Admittedly, she didn’t have that much experience with the opposite sex. Still, his abruptness stung. “I’m sorry I…” She didn’t know what she was supposed to apologize for. Clearly, she’d done something wrong, but she hadn’t a clue as to what.
He hiked up the trail, much faster than she could keep up with, and when he was nearly out of sight in her flashlight beam, he stopped and pointed to a clearing on the side of the mountain. “Here. This is where you’ll get the best cell phone reception.”
Confusion engulfed her as she paused beside him. “Thank you,” she murmured softly, trying to keep the tremble from her voice.
“Can you see the trail we came up?”
She pointed the flashlight down the steep embankment along a thin, worn path. “Yes.”
“Good. That’ll lead you right back to the park.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home.” But he didn’t go back down the trail. Instead, he disappeared into the woods.
“What did I do wrong?” she blurted out.
Tagan didn’t answer. Hell, from the way he’d torn out of there, he was probably too far away to hear her. A stupid, treacherous tear slipped down her cheek, and she dashed it away angrily. She’d trusted Meredith to rent a decent place for her. This trip hadn’t been her idea. It had been her mentor’s. Let me take care of everything, she’d said. Yeah, well look where that got her. Then she’d been stupid enough to trust Tagan, a co
mplete stranger, and a man so hot and cold she couldn’t read his mood from one moment to the next. And now he’d abandoned her out here in the woods in the middle of the freaking night. She was pretty sick and tired of trusting others, only to be left on her ass.
Another tear came, and another. And just in case that jerk Tagan was watching her from the woods somewhere, she turned her back to the forest and looked out over the valley between this mountain and the next.
“Oh, my gosh,” she whispered as her gaze landed on the starry night before her.
A million specks of light pierced the dark veil above her. The mountains were only dark shadows, tinged in the blue moonlight, but the stars…the stars were resplendent.
Brooke sagged to her knees at the grandeur of it all. No city lights tainted the sky here. There was just wilderness as far as the eye could see, and millions upon millions of stars.
Her soul opened like the blossom of a spring flower as she relaxed under the dark blanket of the sky. She let the breeze have her neck as she stretched her head back to see everything above her.
One last tear streamed down her face, but this one wasn’t from anger or confusion. It was from reverence. Leaning backward until she lay on the ground, she spread her hands and ankles out and inhaled deeply.
Tagan had said this place was where the best reception was, but that wasn’t why he’d brought her up here. He’d brought her here to loosen her muse, because on some level, he’d known what she needed. And it was this, right here. Moments of silence with the thing she’d adored painting for so long.
“I think you should stay,” Tagan said from right behind her.
She should’ve been startled, but oddly enough, she was getting used to the silent way he and his crew moved.
“I thought you hated me.”
“I don’t hate you, Brooke,” he said, lowering himself until he lay beside her. “I just can’t get involved with you like that. I don’t do one night stands.”
“Me either. I’m sorry I pushed you too far. I just haven’t been around a man like you. I got lost in the moment.” She shook her head self-consciously and thanked the heavens above that Tagan couldn’t see the heat burning across her cheeks.
