Meredith loved the feel of the wind against her face as they rode the bike along the back roads of Warren County. Luckily for her, the therapist that had been recommended was more of a country doctor, catering to most of the uninsured in the community. She didn’t even have to go into the city for her appointments. Tyler revved the bike as they went around a curve, and she risked a smile. She knew it was for her. She loved the little jump it gave, and it always made her squeal and tighten her arms around his flat midsection.
They got to the old farmhouse the doctor used for an office, and Tyler turned off the bike, balancing it with his long legs so she could get off.
“You want me to stick around?”
She wasn’t sure how long this session would last. She had some things she wanted to discuss, and she didn’t want to be rushed.
“You can leave if you want, I don’t know how long this’ll take.”
“You’re okay, right?” he asked, concern marring his face.
“I am, but I need to talk some things through. I don’t want you to have to wait on me.”
“You know it’s not a problem for me to do that, right?”
She gave him a small smile. “I know, Tyler, but you go do something for yourself okay. I’m giving you a break from babysitter duty.”
“Don’t do that. I’m not ‘babysitting’ you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.” It bothered him that she assumed she knew his mind, knew what he wanted to do. His temper spiked, but he kept it under control for her.
Meredith could tell what it cost him not to talk back to her, not to raise his voice and show anger. It simmered there below the surface and she could see it, but he wouldn’t unleash on her. A part of her wished he would. Another part worried what would happen when he exploded one day. Instead, she sighed, talking calmly.
“I know, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
He gave her a salute as he started the bike and roared off. Squaring her shoulders, Meredith took a deep breath and entered the house.
“How has your week been going, Meredith?”
Doctor Jones was an older woman. She had salt and pepper gray hair and the demeanor of a grandmother. Meredith loved talking with her.
“It’s been going. I’m still having trouble sleeping. I can get to sleep a lot easier now, but it’s the staying asleep I’m having trouble with.”
“Is Tyler still sleeping in the room with you?”
Meredith blushed. “He is, but still on the floor.”
“Has he made any kind of move to try and get back in his bed or move you out?”
“Not at all. I guess that’s what unnerves me.”
Doctor Jones sat forward. “Unnerves you how?”
“What if he wants to get back into his bed, but what if he doesn’t want me to be there?”
Her brows knitted in confusion. “I’m not sure I’m following.”
“What if he has male urges, but he knows that I’m not going to satisfy them.”
“Oh, you’re wondering if he wants to bring a woman home for sex?”
Meredith nodded, her face going red.
“Now, are you interested, or are you jealous?” Meredith ran her sweaty palms along her jean clad thighs.
She watched as the doctor made notes in her notebook. It felt like this answer held a lot of weight. Like if she got it wrong, she would never be the woman she had been before.
“A little bit of both. Is that bad?”
“Not at all, Meredith. You’ve had a tragedy, but you aren’t dead. I’ve seen the man. You’d have to be dead in order not to notice how nice looking he is.”
“But what if I’m holding him back? I mean, it’s been a month, almost a month and a half, since it happened. I still can’t even stand to have a man inadvertently touch me. How long is he going to stand for that?”
The doctor pursed her lips. “Let’s break this down Meredith. Has he approached you in any way?”
“Well no, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t thought about it. I just don’t think I can act on it again – ever.”
“Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you explain to him your feelings and see if you can start out small. The two of you are friends, right? Maybe you should concentrate on spending time one-on-one. Get used to him that way and then see if he’ll take you out on a date. I warn you, if you move too swiftly you could set yourself back.”
Meredith knew in her heart that was true. She also knew that she was the only person here trying to rush herself. For some reason, she didn’t doubt Tyler would wait for her forever. It just made her nervous, the number of women who hung around the clubhouse. They all had their eyes on either Tyler or Liam, and now with Liam spoken for, they were almost all exclusively coming for Tyler. She wanted to stake her claim, but she didn’t know how.
“I’ll do that. I’ll talk to him about maybe spending some one-on-one time together. Ya know, outside of the bedroom.” Nervously she nodded, wetting her dry lips with her tongue.
“You set the pace for this, Meredith. As long as you feel comfortable, it can go at whatever pace you want it to. There is no right or wrong. Remember that.”
Chapter Three
Her watch showed he was late. Tyler was never late, especially to pick her up from her appointment. Tucking her lip in between her teeth, she contemplated if she should call him. Would that be too similar to her acting like a girlfriend? Putting her thumb over his number in her contacts, she was about to press dial when she heard the roar of his bike.
As he came to a stop in front of her and turned the engine off, he was apologizing. “Sorry I’m late. I was boxing with Layne, and I didn’t realize what time it was.”
“Boxing?” she asked as she came down the steps of the front porch. Now that she was closer, she could see that his hair was wet. It looked like he had taken a quick shower before he came to get her.
“Yeah. Kinda like you going for a run. Layne and I box. He has the same kind of temper as me.”
Layne, she knew, was a Prospect who had been over in Iraq as a member of the armed forces. He probably did have a lot of aggression to get rid of. “I understand, I was worried.”
“It’s the only way I can keep from showing you my anger,” he admitted. It was also the only way he could keep from touching her and showing her everything else he wanted to, but he didn’t voice that. “I don’t want to scare you, but sometimes I want so badly to find the fucker and beat his brains out that I’ve just got to release it somehow.”
She understood exactly where he was coming from. When she was ready, she wanted to find him and do the exact same thing. “I know,” she told him softly as she got on the back of the bike.
He breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t hold herself away from him. Business as usual. It was just him that felt disoriented on this day.
She couldn’t breathe. Her face was being held down in the dirt, and dusty soil coated her tongue, making it heavy. Meredith tried with everything she had to scream, but all she kept getting were mouthfuls of earth. All of a sudden she started to choke. It caused her to panic, and she began to hyperventilate, trying to breathe air into her lungs. Clawing with her nails, she fought against the weight pressing her down, trying to get purchase in the dirt to push up, but she could not get it off her. Her back ached as she tried to throw the heaviness off. Thrashing her head back and forth, she fought to get either air in or dirt out. It didn’t matter which.
“Meredith.”
A deep voice, one she knew, called her name. She wanted to go to that voice. It represented safety and warmth. When she heard it, she didn’t feel cold. Struggling to lift her eyes open, she continued to fight.
“Meredith, open those eyes. Stop fighting me. You’re gonna hurt yourself. C’mon honey, open them eyes.”
It was the endearment that got her. He never used them, and it put a warm spot in her torso where her heart beat wildly. She wanted to see him say these words to her. With a start, she awoke
.
Opening her eyes, she took stock of what was going on. Her nails dug into Tyler’s biceps, holding him away from her. She had been kicking her feet and his arm lay over them to prevent her from kicking him.
“Oh no, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Are you okay?” The tenderness in his eyes was almost her undoing.
“You need to talk to the doctor about not being able to sleep without having these nightmares.” It killed him to hear her call out in her sleep, to watch her fight the unknown assailant. It pissed him off; made him want to find the man and rip his heart out.
“She told me once that when I’m ready to get over it, my nightmares will go away. I’m still hanging on to something, I guess.” What that something was, she didn’t know, but obviously it had a tight grip on her.
He wanted to know what it was. What had such a hold on her that she couldn’t sleep at night?
“When I find him and kill him, you’ll sleep perfectly.”
Her heart hated when he said things like that, but her mind agreed with him. She wanted him to find the man that had hurt her and punish him. Meredith wanted him dead.
Chapter Four
I went to the grocery store yesterday, and I was scared to death. Some kid dressed up for Halloween and looked just like my attacker. I had a complete meltdown in the middle of the store. What does that say about me? Even I can tell I’ve been shaken ever since. I don’t think I’ve been this fragile since the actual attack. Last night I barely slept at all. I even heard Tyler come to bed. I’ve never heard him come in the room before. I’m so on edge, I don’t know what to do. I feel like I need to reclaim some piece of myself, but I’m not sure how to do that. I want to feel like I can protect myself and hold it together. I need some kind of outlet besides writing because I feel rage beginning to overtake my personality. I’m starting to get angry and I don’t want to take that out on Tyler. He admitted to me that he’s been boxing with Layne. That they beat the shit out of each other and that’s the only way he can come to me without the anger. I’m not sure that it’s healthy, but it’s got to be better than what I’m doing. Which is absolutely nothing. How can I take back yet another part of myself that I didn’t even know I’d lost?
Breakfast was well underway when Meredith finally made it to the kitchen. Tyler sat at one side of the table drinking from his skull mug. She couldn’t help but notice that everyone gave him a wide berth at breakfast. It was wide most of the time, but breakfast was a different kind of wide.
“Is this seat taken?” she asked as she walked over to where he sat.
“I think you know it’s being saved for you.”
The smile spread over her face involuntarily. He didn’t flirt often, but when he did, it was very cute. “Are people scared of you?” she asked, indicating his mug.
Leaning as close as he dared, he whispered. “Word has it that it’s sacred. Not many people want to touch it, and nobody else wants to drink out of it. They’re afraid of what might happen.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you tellin’ the truth or are you pullin’ my leg?”
“You wanna take a drink and find out?” he asked, an innocent look on his face.
That seemed so intimate, drinking after him. Before her attack, she would never have given it a second thought. Now though, it felt like something that couples would do. “No, that’s okay.”
She watched as he brought the mug back up to his lips and took another drink of the hot coffee. The skin underneath his eyes was dark, and she could see that he was tired. Had her nightmares been keeping him up more than she realized?
“Somethin’ you wanna ask me?”
Her fingers twisted, and he could see her hem and haw. “Just spit it out.”
“If someone wanted to know how to defend themselves – not like self-defense classes where you have to touch each other, but some other kind of defense – what would you tell them to do?”
This was for her. He wasn’t stupid. His only hope was that she was finally getting to the anger side of her grief because until she got angry, she would never be able to overcome it, and he would never be able to get revenge.
“I’d tell you that you need to learn to shoot. Want me to take you?”
He’d given her a gun for protection once before, but she didn’t know how to use it. If push came to shove, she figured she could just point, shoot, and pray for the best. Now though, in this stage of her recovery, she wanted the instruction. She wanted to know how to defend herself if she ever had to. It would be unfair to count on Tyler forever.
“Would you?”
“If you want to learn, I’d be happy to teach you. You wanna go today?” His dark eyes took in the vibrant light that lit up her face. Finally something was coming through besides the darkness. Would she accept it or would this be something else she talked herself out of?
“Can we?” It felt like she was putting him on the spot. “If you have other plans, you realize you can say no.”
“I don’t have any other plans.” And even if he did, he would never say a word to her because this was something she wanted and needed. He would disappoint a million other people before he said no to her.
She nodded. “I don’t want to monopolize your time if you have something else to do.”
“Trust me, nobody else matters as much as you do right now,” he admitted softly.
Meredith didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. It scared her and made her happy, all at the same time. While it excited her that he said those kinds of words to her, it also caused her to wonder what he was giving up for her. What was he not telling her?
“Don’t look at me like that,” he frowned. “Like I’ve told you before, if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be. Just because you’re having doubts – don’t throw that on me.”
With those words he had read her mind. She could tell it pissed him off by the way his eyes narrowed, but he kept it in check for her. Tyler was so nice to her, but she kept throwing it back in his face. When would she be able to accept the nice things he wanted to do for her and live a normal life?
“It’s very heavy,” she told him as she stood with a gun in her hand.
“It’s supposed to be. It means business, and you mean business by holding it. Nobody’s gonna mistake you for a pushover with you pointing that at their chest.”
He had taught her gun safety and how to stand. “Now, I want you to line it up and shoot it. Watch for the kickback,” he cautioned.
Doing everything he’d taught her, she cursed as it kicked back on her, making her shot go wide.
“Brace with your hand on the butt of it,” he instructed.
She did as he instructed and shot again, but again it went wide when it kicked back.
“What am I doing wrong?” Meredith was getting irritated. In her old life she had been good at everything. It had been required by her parents for her to be good at everything. If they could see her now, they would probably be looking down their noses. To her knowledge, no one in her family had ever owned a gun or hung out with a motorcycle gang. Leave it to her to break the mold.
His long legs ate up the distance between them. “I’m going to stand behind you and put my arms around you. Okay?”
Not sure how she felt about the situation, she nodded anyway. When he cozied up to her back, she inhaled deeply, smelling his masculine scent as well as the leather of his cut. Carefully, he put his arms around her and put his hands over top of hers. He was so much bigger than her, but she never felt threatened by him. His chest was hard against her back, and she wanted to snuggle up to it. Shockingly, her nipples hardened when he moved his arms back, inadvertently brushing the underside of her breast. His deep voice lulled her, and she tried to enjoy the feelings for a few moments.
The chest behind her was hard, a solid wall of muscle that told her just how strong he was. Closing her eyes against the panic, she thought back to that night, how that man had boxed her in and she hadn’t been able to get up.
Her mind told her that this was Tyler, not her rapist, but that didn’t stop the quickening of her heart. Stop it, Meredith! He’s the one person who’s not going to hurt you. Allow this to happen, she told herself.
“Are you even listening to me?” his voice held a tone of frustration.
“Sorry, what were you saying?”
“That it’s important to pay attention when you’re aiming your gun.”
His double meaning wasn’t lost on her, and her cheeks heated. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and concentrated on paying attention while he told her what to do.
“You ready to do this on your own?” he asked.
“I think so.”
Tyler didn’t want to let her go. Every time she came to him willingly, it was that much harder to release her. He hated the hold that monster had on her. Hated that he couldn’t seem to break through the walls she had erected around herself. He understood them, but hated them just the same. Reluctantly, he stepped back from her. He set up some more targets for her, and then watched as she aimed and fired, knocking every one of them down.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” He raced over, giving her a high five.
Excitement caused her to launch herself into his arms. She hugged him tightly before realization smacked her in the face. His face wore an expression of shock before he disentangled himself from her.
Brushing her confusion off, she cleared her throat. “I can’t believe I just did that,” she smiled.
The feeling was exhilarating as she realized that she had made a move to protect herself. With his encouragement she had learned to do something she’d never thought she would be able to do.
Heaven Hill Series - Complete Series Page 21
