by Liz Durano
Suddenly I’m free and I keep running along the trail, barely able to see but I don’t care. I need to get away. Ryan was never into running so he can’t possibly keep up with me. I hear a car door slam and I speed up, panic rising. What if he runs over me with his car?
“Go ahead and run, you bitch,” he yells as I step off the trail, stopping behind a boulder to catch my breath. My lungs are burning, the spot under my left eye stinging. “You think you can get me fired from the hospital? Think again. I’m going to fight it all. I’ll destroy you, Sarah.”
I don’t wait to hear anymore. I keep moving even when I hear the sound of something hard hitting glass. It shatters. But I don’t stop to look back. I keep going. I keep running.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The guys and I leave the conference right after lunch, foregoing any plans to meet colleagues for dinner for another day. We’re homesick and I miss Sarah. We check out of our hotels, get in my truck and I hightail it back to Shiprock, even ignoring Tony’s request to stop at another roadside stand selling jerky for the third time. I drop each one of them off at their homes and after a quick stop at the City Market for a bouquet of sunflowers, I head straight to Sarah’s apartment, hoping to catch her before she heads to work. She’s not expecting me back until tomorrow morning.
As I make my way to the lobby of her apartment building, a lanky woman wearing pink glasses opens the door before I can input the code on the console.
“Are those flowers for 4D?” She asks, poking her head out the door. “She said to leave them in the lobby.”
“Who?”
“Sarah. The nurse. The flowers are for her, right?” The woman asks. “I told her about the other guy trying to deliver flowers yesterday but he didn’t have the code for the building or her apartment number.”
“What delivery?”
The woman looks at me, confused. “You’re from the florist, right? One of the other guys said he was delivering flowers yesterday but she wasn’t home.” She pauses, her eyes narrowing as she looks at the sunflowers. “Come to think of it, he wasn’t carrying flowers. Maybe they were in his car.”
My throat tightens. “What did he look like?”
“Blond, tall, blue eyes. About thirty. Not your typical delivery guy, I guess, but good-looking. Always thought they’d come in a lot younger,” she replies.
“Where did she go? Sarah?”
“She went out. Looked like she was going for a run,” the woman answers. “But she drove.”
I don’t wait. I turn around and sprint back to my truck, tossing the flowers on the passenger seat. I don’t know where Sarah went but blond, blue-eyed guys are not a common sight around Shiprock. And any guy who’s supposed to be delivering flowers brings the damn flowers with them.
I could be wrong but I also have a bad feeling I can’t shake the moment she mentioned the guy with blond hair and blue eyes. Ryan. Has to be. I should have known better than to leave Sarah alone. How’d he find her? Where is she now? Where the hell did she go for a run?
I dial her number. After five rings, the call goes to voicemail. I hang up and drive to the medical center first, scouring the parking lot for her SUV but I don’t find it. She usually parks in the row closest to the jogging path and as I drive past it, her SUV isn’t anywhere.
I drive to the college, wondering if she’s running on the track there since I’m not running with her. She would have known better than to run the other trail outside of the city alone. But as I drive through the parking lot, I know I’m not going to find her here. My hand trembles as I dial her number again.
Sarah, pick up.
The call goes straight to voicemail. Is the battery dead? Did she switch off her phone?
I drive to the trail I’ve taken her twice in the past few weeks. It’s off a service road that’s popular with hard-core runners. Sarah should know better than to come out here alone but she’s also stubborn. As I approach the trailhead, my heart sinks when I spot her SUV… or what’s left of her SUV.
The windshield is shattered, the back windows completely gone as are the side windows, all of them bashed in. Dents and cracks mar the body, faint black specks sticking to the paint. A crowbar. As I walk around the battered SUV, my boot steps on something metallic and my stomach rolls. Her phone, its display shattered, desert sand stuck in the cracks. A few feet away, I see a tube of lip gloss.
“Sarah!” I look inside the car, fearing the worst, but it’s empty. Shards of glass glisten from the seats.
Did Ryan follow her here and take her? Where do I even start?
“Sarah!”
I walk away from the SUV, scouring the ground for fresh footprints and stop when I see a pink scrunchie just along the beginning of the trail. I pick it up, looking around, searching. I call out her name again and again, louder each time, hoping she’d say something if she were still hiding. I fight back the tears, the sour taste in my mouth, the feeling that I failed her.
I keep walking along the trail, searching the landscape. It’ll start to get dark soon and I need to find her. I check my phone for a signal but there’s not a single bar. I call out her name again.
Then I hear it and my heart stops. I catch my breath. Gravel crunches beneath my feet as I run toward the sound. It’s as if I can almost hear every piece of it under my boots. I listen, straining to hear what I thought I heard. Or did I simply imagine it?
I call out her name again. I wait.
“Benny?”
She emerges from behind a boulder and I catch my breath. She looks so small in the distance, her hair loose, her shoulders and arms red from being out in the sun. I don’t need to know that she’s afraid. I heard it in her voice when she called my name. I can feel it in my heart, twisting my emotions, wringing me dry.
I run toward her, navigating through the shrubs of snakeweed, dropseed and Indian rice grass, plant names I’d learned back in school—names I never thought I’d recite inside my head as I close the distance between us, needing to ground myself with the very things that have sustained me. Mother Earth, Father Sky… and when I take her in my arms, my Sarah.
“Are you alright?” I pull her to me and hold her, feeling her body tremble against mine.
“Better now that you’re here. He left twenty minutes ago but I couldn’t go back. I wasn’t sure if he’d be waiting.” Her answer comes in gulps. I can feel her heart beating against my chest as I hold her. She seems so small, so delicate.
“Your car’s totaled,” I mumble as I pull away to inspect her face. Her left eye is swollen where he hit her and I swallow the curse threatening to come out of my mouth. I want nothing more than to kill the bastard for laying a hand on her, but she’s safe she’s safe she’s safe. I pull Sarah to me again, holding her tightly as I fight back the tears from behind my eyelids. I pull away again, focusing. I need to check and make sure all of her is okay. I hold up her hands, her palms covered in scratches, pieces of earth stuck to the skin, blood caked in. Her knees and shins are covered in cuts, too.
“My ankle…” Sarah whispers as I get down on my haunches to get a closer look. Her left ankle is already swollen right above her sock, its elastic stretched to the maximum.
“Hang on, Sarah.” I unlace her running shoes and slip off her sock as carefully as I can. Sarah cries out, her hands resting on my shoulder for support.
“Can you take me to the medical center? They’ll know what to do,” she says as I straighten up and hand her the shoe, the sock tucked inside. “I just hope I didn’t break any bones.”
I nod, lifting her in my arms. I don’t want to say anymore. I just want to get her out of the sun and back to safety. Sarah buries face in my neck as I make my way slowly through the brush and back on the trail, each step evoking a mantra inside my head. Mother Earth, Father Sky, my Sarah.
When we reach the truck, I carefully set her down next to the passenger side and open the passenger side door.
“Oh, Benny, you brought me flowers.”
My chest tightens when I see the sunflowers on the passenger seat. I’d completely forgotten about them. Then I remember what her neighbor said. Shit. What if Sarah had been home when Ryan came by her apartment yesterday?
Come to think of it, he wasn’t carrying flowers.
The realization hits me like a punch to the gut and I take a deep breath. I stare at Sarah, fighting back the anger and rage for the man who can’t let her go.
Get a grip, Benny. You can’t lose it. Now now. Not ever.
Clearing my throat, I set the flowers on the floor and force a reassuring smile. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”
Pearl, Nana, and Dax arrive in Shiprock three hours later along with two members of their private security team. By then, Sarah is in my apartment asleep in my bed, her ankle iced and lathered in arnica gel we picked up from Central Market on the way.
While the security guys stay downstairs, the three of them cram into my small sofa until Nana gets up to head to the kitchen, telling everyone she needs to do something. Within minutes, she’s done an inventory of my pots and pans and the contents of my refrigerator and asks me if she can make us all something to eat.
“Of course,” I say. “Mi casa es su casa.” As she clasps my hand, I can see the worry in her eyes. “Y la cocina tambien.” And the kitchen.
Or I think I said it right.
“Daniel is on his way from New York,” Pearl announces as she rises from the couch. Next to her, Dax follows, his expression distant. “I’d like to stay with her, if that’s okay, Benny.”
“Of course.”
“Me, too,” Dax mumbles, following his mother into my bedroom as I join Nana in the kitchen and help bring down a spice mix she spies from the cupboard.
“You have everything I need to make tacos,” she says and I nod, smiling. Tacos are always good.
Daniel arrives just after midnight without any fanfare. It’s a simple text message announcing he’s downstairs and I let him in. The security guys are staying at a nearby motel and will be back in the morning. After all, it’s not like we’re expecting an attack or anything. I’d give my life for this family if I have to.
After a curt nod and a greeting, Daniel sets his carry-on bag next to the front door and looks at the apartment, his gaze on the couch where I’d been sleeping.
“I thought Sarah said you had a one-bedroom apartment,” he says. “Where’s everyone?”
“In here.” I lead him into the bedroom, pushing the door partly open to reveal four sleeping figures on my king-sized bed. Never have I been more grateful to have one.
From left to right, it’s Dax, Nana, Sarah, and Pearl. Sarah’s ankle is elevated on a pillow, her sock-covered foot peeking out from under one of the blankets.
Beside me, Daniel chuckles. “Guess some things never change. You buy a five-bedroom house so everyone can have their own bedroom, and everyone sleeps in one bed anyway. At least, whenever I was away.” Daniel turns to look at me. “How is she?”
“They gave her something for the pain and it knocked her out,” I whisper as Daniel looks inside but doesn’t walk in. “They’ve been with her since after we had dinner.”
Daniel doesn’t speak for a few moments. His Adam’s apple bobs as he clears his throat. “Thank you, Benny.”
From the bed, Pearl stirs.
“Daniel,” she whispers as she carefully removes Sarah’s arm draped over her chest and slides off the bed. As Daniel steps into the bedroom, I turn away, giving them the privacy they need as a family.
In the living room, my phone vibrates with an incoming text message from Tony.
Just got your message about taking the week off. Don’t worry. We got everything covered at the office. Do what you need to do.
Thanks.
Hope your woman’s alright.
I can’t help but smile.
Your woman.
Guess everyone knows about that part, too. That’s the thing with small towns. Everyone knows your business.
But it’s not all bad. Just before her family arrived at my front door, Sarah and I learned that Ryan got pulled over for driving erratically on the highway. In the trunk of his car, they found a crowbar with pieces of glass that could only have come from Sarah’s SUV. Sitting on the passenger seat next to him was her driver’s license and credit cards that must have fallen out of her fanny pack when she ran.
He’s being held at the detention center and will be charged with aggravated battery and causing bodily harm.
At the hospital, I’d learn that Ryan had followed Sarah on the trail after he smashed the windows but gave up when he couldn’t find her. By then, she’d found a boulder to hide behind where she waited until she heard the sound of an engine starting. Only she was too scared to venture out, thinking he could still be waiting for her. She’d also twisted her ankle by then and knew she wouldn’t be able to outrun him if he spotted her again. Sarah heard me calling out her name about twenty minutes later but even then, she thought she was hearing things. After all, I wasn’t supposed to come home until tomorrow.
But that’s how life works. Not everything goes according to plan and after everything that just happened, I’ll take what I can get. Sarah is safe and with her family, and that’s all I care about.
She’s all I have.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Two days later, I learn that Ryan is being charged with aggravated battery and causing bodily harm. There are other charges, too, but I barely hear what they are when Dad tells me after he returns from the courthouse. My face turns numb and I’m suddenly back at the trailhead, fending Ryan off. I want to tell Dad that I’ve seen firsthand what Ryan can do and my mind simply can’t take anymore. No more replays, no more interviews by the detectives, no more questions. No more, no more, no more.
But Dad is being Dad. Someone tried to hurt his daughter and he’ll go through hell to make sure Ryan will pay. He won’t leave Shiprock until he’s satisfied that Ryan will get his due. At least, it would mean that he wouldn’t be near a computer for awhile even if there’s nothing that can be done about all the pictures he posted. Like ripples on water, the consequences go far and wide.
I just want life to be normal again with Benny meeting me for a run after my shift followed by breakfast and then a quickie in the shower before he’d go to work and I’d crawl under the covers to sleep. But life isn’t going to be the same again, not after this.
I can’t even go back to work. The agency already notified me that they’re not renewing my contract. At least, they didn’t cite the morality clause as a reason this time, maybe on account of the attack on me that made the local papers. As far as everyone’s concerned, my contract simply ran out and they have someone else flying in to do her 16-weeks.
But even if they would have extended my contract, it wouldn’t have worked out. Word about my naked photos got out at the medical center not because of Ryan but Enrico. He found them while browsing porn sites and told a buddy who told another buddy who just happened to work at the medical center. I’m just grateful that it happened after I arrived at the emergency room and the detectives showing up right after to ask me questions and take my report. And since I don’t have to come back to work because of my ankle, I won’t have to go through the shame of having to deal with the whispers and the sideway glances. At least, Melina gave me that option even if she refuses to talk to me again.
With no prospect of a job for me in Shiprock, it means I have to return to Taos. It means leaving Benny who’s gone above and beyond for my family and me.
He’s never left my side since this all happened, not once. And with my family now checked in at a local hotel, it’s just us the moment they leave for the day. As Benny sleeps next to me, I touch his cheek, needing to memorize the feel of his beard on my fingers, the smooth skin along his cheekbone and the warm comfort of his breath, knowing he’ll always be there for me.
He loves me.
For why else would he do everything he’s done so far? Why else wo
uld he stay with me even after I disobeyed his advice not to run the trails by myself? And with the pictures now having made it to Shiprock, I can only imagine what his friends must be thinking.
His family.
“I’m sorry for everything,” I whisper when he opens his eyes. “For Ryan, the pictures…”
“That’s the past, Sarah. It’s done. It’s over. At least, you don’t have to worry if anyone will ever know because now they do,” he murmurs, taking my hand and pressing his mouth against my palm. “And wouldn’t you know it, but the world didn’t end.”
I smile. “Why are you so positive?”
“Is there any other way to approach this?” He weaves his fingers with mine. “Some things are just out of our control whether it’s Ryan finding you or Enrico spotting your pictures online and telling the world. At least, we know he’s into porn, right?”
I roll my eyes. “What guy isn’t?”
“Now you’re painting all men with a wide brush, Sarah,” he says with a look of mock seriousness. “Although I have to admit, I’ve looked at my fair share when I was younger.” He pauses. “The moment I got a good signal, that is.”
We giggle, the seriousness of the last three days fading into memory. At least, for now. He pulls my hand toward him, our fingers still interlaced together.
“Come here.”
I scoot closer to him and he unlaces his fingers from mine to give me room, making sure my sprained foot is also safely positioned over a pillow at our feet.
“You’d make a good nurse, you know,” I say as I snuggle against his chest, his breath fanning the hair at the top of my head.
“Only for you, though,” he murmurs. “I just want you safe, Sarah. That’s all that matters.”
“I don’t want to be without you, Benny.” I inhale his scent, taking him in. His strength. His raw masculinity. His soul.
