He was tempted to tell Ruby that—how freeing it is to share your pain with someone—but again, that wouldn’t be listening. She didn’t need any lectures. Right now she only needed someone to listen. So as hard as it was, he embraced the silence and sipped the coffee he’d brewed to give them both a second wind.
Ruby sipped hers, too. She hadn’t said anything since they’d sat down, and while it felt like a damn eternity, it probably hadn’t been more than five minutes. Five long, silent minutes. She sat straight, her body pulled taut as though she wanted to be ready to run. Her hands were frozen around the mug, her knuckles white. God, he couldn’t stand it, the blank look in her eyes, the paleness that drained the life from her face. She’d gone back to that place, he could see it. She was relieving every horrifying moment.
He leaned over and took away her mug, set it on the coffee table. Then he held her hand, threading their fingers together, hoping it was enough to bring her back.
She blinked but didn’t look at him. “I was going to leave because…” A swallow seemed to stick in her throat. “…I can’t risk him finding me,” she whispered. “Then he would find you. And Elsie. And Bryce and Avery.” Her hand trembled against his. “I can’t let anything happen to you, Sawyer. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
Anger flowed in, rising into a seething hatred. The son of bitch was still controlling her. He’d traumatized her into thinking he should have a place in her life forever…
Sawyer kept his eyes focused on Ruby’s broken face so he wouldn’t let the rage overpower him. She needed him to keep his shit together, no matter how much he wanted to launch himself off the couch and tear that man apart with his own hands. “Who is he?” he asked, binding the words in a fragile restraint.
“That’s why I wanted to leave.” Ruby’s head cranked slowly until she gazed at him. “Because you can’t fix it. And I knew you’d want to try.” Huge tears bubbled out of her eyes, but she didn’t wipe them away. “I don’t want it fixed for me. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to remember. I only want to move on.”
But she did remember. That man had victimized her. He closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling until his pulse stabilized. Focus on Ruby. Only on Ruby. He could deal with the monster later. “How long were you with him?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her against him, holding her so she would feel safe and protected.
The back of her head rested against his chest. “Um. It was a couple of years.” Anguish suffocated the words. “We were engaged.”
He tightened his arms around her as if that would help hold her together. God, he wished it would. He wished he could put back all her broken pieces…
“He was great. At first,” she went on. “I had no family. Only a few friends, who were pretty bad news.”
And he took advantage of that. Men like that knew; they could spot vulnerability fifty miles away. Sawyer inhaled against her hair, breathing in the faint scent of coconut. He held on to that fragrance because it kept him there, with her. Instead of letting him plot and strategize that sorry-ass-excuse-for-a-man’s demise.
“I met him at the bar where I was a waitress.” Her voice had gained strength, a note of indifference, like she was trying to distance herself from it all. “We started dating and he did everything right. He treated me like a queen. Then we got engaged and I moved in with him.” Her hand slipped into his. It had started trembling again, as though she’d suddenly gotten cold. “That’s when everything changed. The first time he hit me, I thought it was an accident. He begged me to forgive him and swore it would never happen again.”
The hatred prowled again, stalking the outskirts of his thoughts, tempting him to say something, tempting him to make threats against the man who’d cut her so deeply. Instead Sawyer stroked her hair, focusing on the softness, on the feel of her in his arms. “But it did happen again,” he prompted.
She nodded against his shoulder. “It got worse. The littlest things would set him off, and I…didn’t know what to do. A couple of times I called the police, but he was a—”
The words died out suddenly.
He sat up, gently turning her face to his. “He was a what?”
Her eyes strayed. “He was…um…well-liked. People in the community knew him, so he always smoothed it over. No one really believed me.”
“God, Ruby.” God. The anger boiled in his gut now, hot and fierce, threatening to spill over. He kissed the top of her head. As long as he was touching her, he could fight the drive to make her ex suffer as badly as she had.
“The last time he came after me, he said he’d kill me if I told anyone.” She leaned against his chest again, as though she was so exhausted that she couldn’t hold herself up anymore. “He said he knew how to make it look like an accident.”
Which meant it was about power. The guy got off on being in control. He wasn’t even worth the rage. Not worth that effort. Sawyer had learned to fight with the law, and he knew justice was the ultimate punishment. The only punishment that mattered. That’s how he’d ruin this man. He’d hold him accountable. Someday. When the time was right, he would find him and make sure he saw the inside of a prison cell.
“That’s when I ran,” Ruby murmured. “I packed up all my stuff when he was at work and I just started driving.”
He bent and lowered his lips next to her ear. “I’m so glad you did.” Glad. That wasn’t nearly enough to describe it. Relieved. Happy, too, because she’d ended up here. With him. She’d ended up with all of them. And they needed her as much as she needed them.
She peered at him over her shoulder. “I know you’re not him. But sometimes…physically…it’s hard to forget the way he hurt me.”
He wouldn’t forget it, either. She might not let him track the bastard down tomorrow. But he would. Eventually. And he’d make him pay.
“Don’t leave, Ruby.” He straightened and brought her fingers to his lips, kissing her, begging her. “You belong here. At the Walker Mountain Ranch. With your family.” With him.
He’d expected that sweet smile of hers in response, but instead she pulled her hand from his and scooted to the opposite side of the couch.
The distance left him cold. Had he misread things?
“There’s something else you should know.” Her shoulders steeled, as though she was bracing herself again. “I can’t have children. It’s not possible.”
His stomach clenched, emptying him from the hope he’d felt. Because that’s how her eyes looked. Empty and hopeless.
“When I was fourteen, I had an ovarian cyst.” Her voice wavered, but there were no tears in her eyes, which somehow made it worse. Like she’d accepted her fate to be completely alone in the world for the rest of her life…
“My foster parents at the time didn’t believe me. They thought I was trying to get attention, so they never took me to the doctor.”
All the anger he’d held off before swarmed him. “That’s neglect.” How could someone do that? How could a parent keep a helpless child from getting the care they needed?
She shrugged like he didn’t know the half of it. “The cyst ruptured, and they finally brought me to the hospital. But there were complications.” The words didn’t waver at all, but tears slipped down her cheeks. Just a couple, then she whipped a Kleenex out of the box on the coffee table and blotted her eyes like she wanted to be done grieving. “Turns out I have endometriosis.”
A shard of her grief splintered into him. She said it like that meant she’d been damaged, like she thought it excluded her from ever being loved. “I don’t care.” Sawyer followed her to the other side of the couch, lifted her chin, and stroked her face. “That doesn’t matter to me,” he murmured, pinning her eyes with his so she’d know it was the truth. “There are other ways to have kids, Ruby.” Hell, his cousin Chase had married his partner, Robert, two months ago and they’d already found a surrogate. And his buddy at the station just adopted twin girls from Haiti.
“But I can’t have
a baby,” she repeated, her voice hoarse with pain. “Not your baby.” Her face hardened with the same resolve he’d seen in the pool, on the ropes course, when he’d accused the kids of stealing. And that right there was what made her so remarkable. When she believed she knew what was best, she didn’t give up. She fought hard. But she was wrong this time. His life would be better with her in it, he already knew that. And there was no way in hell she’d convince him otherwise.
“You deserve a baby, Sawyer. I could never give that to you,” she said, her strength breathing through.
But she didn’t have to be so strong and she didn’t have to carry that alone. He studied her, seeing all the things he loved most—her compassion, her courage and vulnerability, her conviction. The feelings he had for her gathered like a warm ray of the mountain sun in his chest and brought a smile to his face. “It doesn’t have to be a baby. I only wanted a family.” And she knew better than anyone what that meant, what a family should be, because she’d always dreamed of having one of her own. He knew she’d never take it for granted.
Her jaw pulled tight, trying to ward off the tears, it seemed, but she failed. They fell faster, bringing with them soft sobs that made him hurt. But they were necessary, too, those sobs. She had to let the grief flow out so she could make room for joy. He knew.
That’s why he held her tight, pulling her down to lie with him on the couch, murmuring over her, stroking her skin, telling her it was okay. Everything was okay. He didn’t know much, but he knew everything would be okay as long as he had her with him.
That was the last thing he whispered before she fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
There hadn’t been a day in her life when Ruby didn’t want the sun to come up. Until today. But it had anyway. For the past hour—since she’d seen the very beginnings of light smudge the sky pink, she’d remained still, more still than she’d ever been in her life.
Sawyer spooned her on the couch, his chest a solid, protective wall against her back. His rhythmic breathing had lulled her body into peace and hope and more love than she’d felt for anyone, ever. After everything she’d shared with him last night, the world looked different. It wasn’t only the way that the early-morning sun rays peeked through the window, illuminating everything in their soft light. It was the fact that, maybe for the first time in her life, she felt safe. And she didn’t want that feeling to end. So she’d lain against him, unmoving, staring out the window on the opposite wall watching light chase away the darkness.
Her careful stillness didn’t matter, though, because Sawyer stirred, then slipped his arms around her. “What time is it?” he asked, the words almost a whisper in her ear.
And she knew she had to answer, no matter how badly she didn’t want to. “Six-thirty.”
“Did you sleep?” he asked, his fingers playing with her hair.
Her eyes closed, but happy tears still gathered. “Yes.” She’d slept off and on, but then she’d wanted to keep herself awake so she could feel him next to her, wrapped around her.
It couldn’t last forever, though. Not when they both had other responsibilities. Ruby sat up. It was like tearing herself away from the warmest, coziest blanket she’d ever snuggled with. “You have to work today.”
“Yes.” He groaned as though that was the worst news he’d ever heard. “I have to be at the station by eight.” He pulled himself to a sitting position, dark hair all bedraggled and adorable, t-shirt twisted and wrinkled, and it was so intimate and lovely waking up with him this way. She wanted to break the clock that hung on the opposite wall and wrap herself back into him forever.
A small, knowing smile quirked his mouth. He’d read her mind. “Good morning, Ruby,” he murmured, lowering his face to hers. “You’re beautiful in the morning, by the way.”
She doubted it—already she could feel her frizzy hair tickle her face, but this moment was so beautiful that she chose to ignore her serious case of bedhead. “Morning, Sawyer,” she managed, heart gasping with sweet desperation.
Holding her cheek against his palm, he kissed her softly, almost innocently, but the delicious pressure of his lips against hers made her face feverish.
“I’ll go take a shower, then I’ll make you breakfast,” he said, rising from the couch as though he was suddenly in a hurry to get away from her.
“Breakfast,” she repeated, admiring his startling physique. And wondering if his haste had something to do with the way his jeans strained at his crotch. He was being careful with her again.
“I don’t cook much, but I make the best pancakes.” His chin dipped slightly and his eyes raised as though he was tempting her. “Trust me. They’re mind-blowing.”
They very well might’ve been, but it wasn’t exactly pancakes that she wanted blowing her mind at the moment. “I can’t wait,” she said, lifting her lips and brows into her own tempting expression. Because she didn’t plan on being careful with Sawyer. Not anymore. Last night he’d taken her very heart in his hands, proving he would guard it and protect it in a way no one else ever had. She’d told him things she’d never told anyone else, and even though she hadn’t disclosed everything, his sheer compassion, the way he’d held her and let her cry, had rooted their connection so deeply inside of her.
She’d never wanted to make love to a man before. After seeing Mama fall into bed with all the losers in her life, Ruby had guarded herself closely. Until Derek. And the thought of making love to him used to make her physically sick. When he’d start throwing out hints, she’d have to escape to the bathroom and throw up before he cornered her and took what he wanted.
Over time she’d learned how to disconnect, so that he only had her body. Sex had been empty and terrifying. But after last night she yearned for Sawyer. She needed to be with him. She needed to lose herself in the passion that had already flared with that light brush of his lips against hers. It had inflamed all of her, both body and heart, and made her writhe with a frantic longing she’d never experienced.
“Give me ten minutes,” he said, already turning away from her.
“Ten minutes,” she repeated, letting him think he would leave her behind. But she’d only give him two, just long enough to get himself undressed, then she’d follow him and offer herself over, knowing that, for the first time in her life, it would be real. All of her. Heart, mind, body, soul. Everything.
Seconds seemed to slow as she watched the clock’s long arm strut past blurred numbers. God, it must the slowest clock in the world. Maybe it was broken. She forced herself to remain on the couch, though an aching desire simmered low and deep. Already her breasts were tingling, the softness between her thighs throbbing. For Sawyer. For the way she knew he could love her…
Forty-five seconds and she couldn’t sit still. Not anymore. A daze settled on her as she quietly made her way down the hall, into the master bedroom. Evidence of Sawyer was spread around the room—tennis shoes on the floor, a stack of books on the bedside table—but it wasn’t messy, only lived in.
The sound of the shower beyond the bathroom door lured her closer. Steam curled through the opening.
She was sure her heart would float away as she pushed through and stepped inside.
The door creaked behind her.
Sawyer had already made it into the shower. She could see only the outline of his muscular body standing underneath the spray, but even that was enough to dissolve her knees.
Bracing a hand against the wall, she crept closer. “Sawyer?”
His body froze. Then he wiped a hand against the glass, clearing away the fog.
She smiled, hoping it looked seductive and not terrified. “Do you want some company?” Her throat had gone hoarse. But it wasn’t shyness. It was the force of her love for him weakening everything else. Even her ability to speak.
The glass door swung open and he stepped into view.
Wow. Wow. He was beautiful, all hard muscle and firm skin. Dark hair sprinkled the right places on his defined chest. Her g
aze lowered, following the dark trail past his hip bones and down to his erection, which was still flexed and straining.
Happy to see he hadn’t taken care of that, yet.
Seeing that he desired her the same way she wanted him brought that warm surge of pleasure tingling through her again. Her breasts felt full and warm, ready for his touch, aching for his touch…
Sawyer stayed where he was, droplets of water coursing down his wet body. “Only if you’re ready, Ruby,” he said low and quiet. “Only if you want to.”
“I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t want this, Sawyer. If I didn’t want you.” But words were not enough to express how much she wanted him, so she pulled her t-shirt over her head and dropped it, letting it puddle on the floor beside her. Her heart whooshed with an onslaught of blood that tempted her to hurry, but she moved slowly, spurred on by the mesmerized way Sawyer watched her, his eyes roaming her body, his broad shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths.
Slowly she unbuttoned her jeans, then seductively slid them down, keeping her gaze fused with Sawyer’s as she wiggled her hips.
His eyes seemed darker, heavy. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he uttered in a way that made her want to do so much more.
Without speaking, she hooked her fingers through her white lace underwear and peeled them down until they slid to the floor. Then she stepped out of them, flinging them to the side with her foot. Arching her back in a way that made Sawyer suck in a breath, she unclipped her bra and tugged the straps off her shoulders, saving the cups that covered her for last.
Heart of Rockies 03 - More Than a Feeling Page 24
