The Strongest Steel

by Scarlett Cole

“Deal?” He narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Okay.” She reached out and put her hand in his. “Deal.”

  He gave her a rough sense of the cost. It made her eyes water, but she could afford it. She clutched the piece of paper that listed her appointments.

  “Just one last thing I’d like to do before you go,” Trent said as he put the designs back into the brown tube.

  “What’s that?”

  “I need a sketch of your back.” Harper could feel the color drain from her face. She’d thought she’d have a few days to deal with the psychological buildup of him touching her.

  “I’m going to make the transfers that make up the outline, so I can put them on your back at your first appointment. I drew the artwork with a rough idea in mind.”

  She watched as he put the brown tube on a shelf, Harper Connelly written on it in black marker in the same script he’d used in her tattoo. There was a small lotus blossom in the curve of the letter Y. Trent had paid attention to every small detail. Grabbing her own hand, she jammed her fingers painfully together to stop their usual dance.

  “Guess I am going to have to get used to you touching my back at some point.”

  He turned back to look at her. Reaching out, he separated her hands, holding them gently and rubbing his thumbs on her inner wrist. His furrowed brow relaxed as he looked at her. “Yes, you are.”

  “Okay. Where do you need me?”

  “I’ll take you to the private room we used the other night and have you lie down on the bed. There’s one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How would you feel if Cujo came in and helped me? It’s a big area, and it’ll be hard to keep the paper still. I can manage if you’d rather not, but it will be more accurate if he can help.”

  “No” was on the tip of her tongue. Someone else seeing her back was not part of the plan. But she trusted Trent. He was looking at her so patiently. No pressure. Everyone else seemed to expect her to have switched back to “normal” by now, in a hurry for her to get back to the rest of her life.

  “Okay. I’m fine with Cujo.”

  Trent stared at her intensely. “Can I ask you something highly inappropriate?”

  “You’re about to see me partially naked, so sure.”

  He grinned at that, a delicious smile giving up both dimples.

  “How would you feel if I hugged you?”

  Being touched by him didn’t seem as frightening as it had the night before, but what if she freaked out?

  “I’m not sure,” Harper whispered.

  He opened his arms to her. “Care to find out?”

  Harper’s fingers started to twitch, but she stopped them quickly by linking them together. Wasn’t all of this about moving on? She slowly walked toward him, never losing contact with the dark pools of his eyes until she was close enough to feel the warmth radiating from him.

  His chest was reassuringly sturdy, an anchor to her restlessness. She rested her forehead on it, the only part of her to touch him. Her arms hung uselessly by her side, incapable of reaching for him, unable to deal with anything more than just standing there.

  Harper flinched as his hands settled first on her shoulders, resting there softly. She closed her eyes. Slowly he slid his hands down her arms and wrapped them around her lower back, south of the scars that had taken control of her life. He smelled of soap, laundry detergent, and something decidedly male.

  Like a desert flower after the rain, Harper drowned in the contact. Her chest expanded, and she breathed deeper. Inexplicably, she felt safe in the arms of a man she hardly knew.

  * * *

  What was it about this woman? She tugged at him in a way no one had in a really long time. His thoughts wandered to his one disastrous attempt at a long-term relationship. A game changer for his love life ever since. Not once, since then, had he considered any kind of permanent relationship. Until now. Trent pulled her closer to him and took a deep breath.

  The way her body fit against his perfectly, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, was so incredibly good it scared him. Lowering his head until his chin rested on hers, he appreciated every curve and line pressed against him. Her scent reminded him of summer air, vanilla, and strawberries. Fresh, clean, and mouthwatering. He felt her warmth against his chest, absorbed the slow and steady rise and fall of her breath. Christ, songs had been written about this very moment—and wasn’t he getting all poetic and shit?

  She still hadn’t moved. Maybe he should just let go, but he really didn’t want this moment to end. Then he felt it. The smallest movement from Harper as just one of her fingers gently threaded through the belt loop of his jeans.

  The small gesture of trust almost brought him to his knees. He swallowed hard as his hand slowly drifted up and down her back. The heat from that single finger meant more than the most passionate embrace. When she sighed and sank against him, he sent up a prayer of thanks to whoever might be out in the universe listening.

  Her dark waterfall of hair was soft under his cheek as he pulled her closer, clenching his jaw and swallowing hard. Why did she affect him so much? His feelings were running wild, but was it just empathy for what she’d been through, or was it something more? Determined to keep his shit together, he swallowed hard. She had no clue how much that one finger on his belt had him churned up inside. Now was not the time to pussy out, so he tried hard to cool his emotions. Harper trusted him with the most significant part of her. How on earth was he going to live up to that responsibility? How was he going to prove to her that her faith in him was justified and that her courage wasn’t wasted?

  Wasn’t this what his own tattoo was all about? It was part of him. Fortitude or courage being one of the four cardinal virtues shown in Paradiso in the Divine Comedy. The ability to confront fear and intimidation. And yet what did he know about it? She was the one standing in his studio sharing the toughest parts of her life with a stranger.

  “I don’t want to move.” The whispered words drew him from his thoughts.

  “So don’t.” He pressed a soft kiss into her hair.

  “No one has hugged me in a very long time,” she said, pulling away to study him with those soulful eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Any time. Tattoos and hugs. I’m great at them both. Just don’t tell the guys out there or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  He tried to sort through his feelings for Harper, shaking his head to clear it. The idea of doing her ink excited him as an artist. As a man, he appreciated the way she’d fit in his arms. And shit, didn’t it make him want to pound on his chest that she’d come to him for help. But if all he felt was compassion for the victim she’d once been, then he shouldn’t be holding her like this, no matter how perfect it felt.

  * * *

  Five hours later, as he nursed a shot of whiskey, he still couldn’t get Harper out of his head. The whiskey burned as it slid down Trent’s throat, a necessary evil to ward off the chills from drawing up Harper’s back. He had felt her distress every time she flinched, every time he’d heard her counting her breaths to ten.

  When she’d finally sat up, the red rims of her eyes had given away the tears that had fallen while she’d lain there. It had ripped his gut apart that he couldn’t make it all better.

  He’d wanted to cradle her close, soothe away her tears, and feel that same sweeping rightness he’d felt before with her in his arms. Instead, he’d held back and watched her walk away from the studio. From him.

  Trent cradled the glass in his hand. Holding Harper in his arms had felt like heaven. For so long, after Yasmin, the idea of a permanent relationship had felt like hell. He’d worshipped her from the day she’d walked into Junior’s on her twenty-first birthday for her first tattoo, but despite his best efforts during their two years together, he’d never been enough for her. Hadn’t earned enough, hadn’t been famous enough, hadn’t known the right people. Last he’d heard she was shacking up with some bit-part rapper from the local scene. As for him, he’d gotte
n into having girls interchangeably and often. He was honest with them, always, about the short-term nature of their relationships. But in the three days since he’d met Harper, he hadn’t thought of anyone else.

  “That was something else,” Cujo said, as he walked into the office, poured himself a shot, and swallowed half of it down. “You know the story?”

  “Not really. Just that it happened a few years back and she’s been hiding it ever since. I don’t want to push too hard.” Not that he didn’t want to know. It was gnawing away at his gut.

  “Who the hell would do that to another human being? That’s some messed-up stuff.” Cujo’s visible shiver summed it up.

  “It’s going to be a tough one. Booked it over five or six sessions of a few hours each and we’ll see how we go.” Knocking back another couple of fingers of the golden liquid, he squeezed his eyes closed and let his head fall back on the sofa to avoid thinking about just how tough the first appointment was going to be for her.

  “Who do you think did it?”

  “No idea. Can’t stand even thinking about it.”

  “There’s something about her, isn’t there?” Cujo asked. Trent opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow at his friend. “For you, I mean. Something’s got to you.”

  “Thanks, Oprah.”

  “Oh come on, dude. I’ve known you long enough. I can tell. You’re different around her.”

  Trent sighed. There was no point denying it. He refilled his glass and knocked it back. He just didn’t know what he was going to do about it.

  * * *

  Crap. Eddie was home. Harper dropped her keys in the colorful fish-shaped ceramic dish that sat on the corner of her tiny kitchen counter. Picking up her broom from its narrow slot beside the fridge, she knocked on the ceiling like someone in an old TV sitcom.

  The volume dropped. “Sorry, Harp!” came a bellow.

  “Thanks, Eddie,” she yelled toward the ceiling.

  Her cupboards and fridge revealed some leftover spaghetti sauce and a dire need to go grocery shopping. Harper made a shopping list while the spaghetti cooked. Maybe she could persuade Drea to drive her. Highly possible if she threw in a free meal.

  Harper sat down on the bar stool at the kitchen counter and removed her sweater, throwing it with perfect three-point basketball style through the opening to her bedroom and onto her bed. There wasn’t even room to swing a cat in her apartment, not that she had ever had the inclination to do so. The small kitchen was tiny but scrupulously clean. Hating disorganization, Harper kept every surface clear and the cupboards meticulously tidy. She looked out toward the window that framed the living room. The view was an uninspiring mix of concrete and wires, but the sunlight during the day was gloriously welcome.

  It had been, and still was, all she could afford. But it was the closest she’d ever been to feeling safe since the incident. At least by day. In her nightmares she watched Nathan again and again being dragged out of the courtroom in his prison jumpsuit, his eyes bulging in fury at his sentence. The police may not have taken the screamed threats to find her seriously, but she did.

  Getting her parents to agree to her leaving had been tough. They’d wanted her to stay home longer. To heal. She hadn’t needed to leave immediately, they’d argued, given the length of the sentence, but one thing Nathan hadn’t lacked was a tight group of friends.

  Winston Bell, Nathan’s father and senior partner in his own law firm, had an ego that was dwarfed only by his political ambition. His police force connections had ensured that law enforcement was of little assistance to her or her family. When the tires on her parents’ car had been slashed, the police had said it was mischief. When her brother, Reid, had been assaulted on his way home from work, they took his statement but never made an arrest or even interviewed a person of interest.

  Harper stared down at the sauce on the stove. Even from his jail cell Nathan had the power to hurt her, to punish her. But it wasn’t until her car had been nearly run off the road by an unmarked van that she knew she had to leave. Her fingers tightened on the wooden spoon in her hand, remembering that night. The feeling of helplessness that had hit her with each bump and grate of the van’s bumper against hers. The sheer terror she felt trying to keep the car on the road and then again when police failed to respond to her 911.

  That had scared her most of all. Determined not to be a victim again, she’d met with Captain Lourie. Dressed in a suit, and filled with determination to be taken seriously, Harper had been shown to his office. On the corner of his desk was a photograph. The captain and Winston on an arid golf course, their polo shirts as red as the sunburn they both sported.

  Lines had been drawn, sides chosen, and it was clear that the police would never be on hers. The lengths they had gone to at trial, to protect Nathan, had validated her decision to run.

  Just thinking about it made her feel sick. The spaghetti bubbling away in the pan, and the sauce reheating in the microwave were no longer appealing. Harper sat down at the counter, tapping her fingers on the cheap three-ring binder that held the documented record of the most horrific moments of her life—copies of trial evidence and the latest legal correspondence, including the letter from the prison service.

  Harper grabbed her phone, pulled up the name she wanted, dialed, and waited.

  “Brewster, Grayson and Ross. How may I direct your call?”

  “Could you put me through to Lydia Grayson, please?”

  The phone rang through to voice mail. “Hey, Lydia. It’s Harp … Taylor Kennedy. I got the letter you forwarded me regarding Nathan. I can’t believe they’re considering him for parole for good behavior. I considered the invitation to speak at the hearing, but I really don’t think I can do it.”

  Her voice started to crack and Harper took a deep breath, willing herself under control. “I want to do a victim impact statement and move on. Could you call me?”

  Cold flushed through her as if her veins were filled with ice water. Putting the phone down, Harper wondered if there would ever come a time when the very mention of his name didn’t bring on such a visceral reaction. And even with a tattoo covering what Nathan had done, would it ever truly be over?

  Chapter Four

  The studio was empty. No one to disturb him. No one to censor his choice of music. The perfect opportunity to knock back a beer from the mini fridge in his office. Trent re-created his drawing into a strong outline by laying the map of Harper’s back on the illuminated table and layering the transfer paper over the top.

  He loved—no, needed—the creativity he was allowed to express as an artist. Combined with the buzz of tattooing, it was a heady experience. Any half-decent tattoo artist could take a photo or a picture and recreate it. Or learn five different fonts to write whatever the client’s heart desired. But it was a very different experience to work with a client to create something totally new. Seeing his own original artwork on someone else’s skin was the best kind of rush.

  Sketching the outline soothed him, a welcome contrast to the craziness that had occurred in the studio today. Apparently Anya didn’t like her name spelled with an I—and maybe her man should have figured that out before he wrote it down for Cujo to tattoo across his bicep.

  Anya was definitely not cool with it, the tears and screaming a bit of a giveaway. First her man had tried to blame the studio, but when Pixie made it clear the studio had no liability because he’d signed off on the spelling, he lost control. His fist had glanced off Cujo’s jaw, the impact sending Cujo’s head snapping backward. Trent and Eric had grabbed both Cujo and the customer, but not before Cujo landed a heavy blow on the customer’s nose. There was a sickening crack, followed by a garbled, “What duh fuck, man!”

  A couple of girls who’d told Pix they were vacationing from Des Moines clearly weren’t used to an East Coast smack down, leaving the studio without getting the tattoos they’d come for. Cujo had to cancel clients while he sat on the bench with an ice pack on his inking hand, and it had taken Trent thre
atening to call the cops to get Anya’s boyfriend to leave.

  Some days just didn’t go as planned.

  The shrill ringtone of the studio phone interrupted his concentration.

  “Second Circle Tattoos.”

  “Trent?” The soft sound of her voice soothed him immediately.

  “Hey, Harper. I was just thinking about you.” The curve of the flame he was just sketching would rise up toward her left shoulder. He finished it before standing up straight, his back groaning in protest.

  “You were?” Surprise laced her voice. “I suppose I was thinking about you too.”

  Trent smiled, continuing to shade the flames. “Those thoughts, would they get you kicked off Santa’s nice list?”

  “I … I don’t know … maybe. I … no. I wanted to know about pain relief for tomorrow,” Harper replied. Trent got a kick out of the flustered response. “I’m totally unaware of Santa’s position on tattoos and self-medication.”

  He laughed at that. “I’m drawing up your transfer. Is it just the pain relief? You aren’t calling to cancel on me, are you?” He was joking. Sort of.

  “No,” she said quickly. “I wondered what I could do to take the edge off before I come in. Anything?”

  Trent paused, the tip of his pencil poised over the paper. He had several suggestions for taking the edge off but wasn’t sure any of them would interest Harper.

  “Like, take Tylenol,” she continued. “Or have a drink or something? I’m nervous that I’m going to flinch and you’ll make a mess.”

  “I never make a mess. I told you. I’m amazing. We need to spend more time together so I can convince you of that.” Harper laughed, and he imagined her curled up on a white bed, her dark hair laid out around her.

  “Can I do anything at all?”

  He put the pencil back in the jar and walked over to the sofa, taking a seat at one end with his forearm resting over the sofa arm.

  “To be honest, there isn’t a lot.” And boy, did he wish there was more, but who knew how Harper would cope? He’d had a hundred-pound cheerleader sail through a tattoo across her ribs, and linebacker faint at the sound of the tattoo machine. “Eat a decent meal before you come in. Want me to pick something up for you?” Or take you out for lunch? He didn’t think she was ready for that. But maybe after this process she would be.