by Abbie Roads
She sat up, pushing herself off his chest. His arms around her resisted the movement, but he let her go. Without her body against his, he felt hollow and empty. A strange panic and hysteria hovered at the edge of his conscious mind, ready to swarm over him.
She was still nude from the waist down. His chest was bare, and his dick felt like a tree trunk jutting out from his body. Hopefully, she’d just think he had morning wood. Really, the thing had been ready for reentry for hours.
He could feel her assessing the situation as she moved off him. Did she regret what they’d done? They hadn’t used protection. Not that he even had any rubbers lying around. Sex for him was an anomaly, not something he prepared for. He wasn’t worried about himself. He was clean. All his concern was for her and her reaction to their bareback ride. Regret was something he didn’t want to see on her face.
Pretending to be asleep was way better than confronting her disappointment.
A whisper of sensation against his damaged cheek derailed those thoughts. His brain went into hyperdrive, trying to figure out what it was feeling. Her fingers. She traced the outline of the scar with all the leisure of a child drawing on the sand. He couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to. He absorbed her touch, savored it.
Yesterday, life had seemed so out of control and awful, but now he couldn’t even remember why. All he could feel, all that mattered were her fingers on his face. Goddamn. It felt so right, so damned destined. Destined. That word again.
A sigh laced with some intangible sadness came from her, and then she took her touch away.
He heard the whisper of her picking up her pants. His eyes yearned to open and see her long legs, the roundness of her ass, and the beautiful place at the apex of her thighs that he’d only visited and longed to stay. But he was wary of her reaction. Would his gaze on her cause fear?
There was no whisper of fabric from her sliding her pants on. No. She padded across the living room, through the foyer, and then silently up the stairs.
When her footfalls sounded in the upstairs hallway, he rolled over and looked at the staircase. Damn, she was a stealthy thing. The old oak floors were over a hundred years old and squeaked and groaned with every one of his steps, but not with her.
He stood, yanked his pants over his hips, careful not to decapitate his dick, and tiptoed to the staircase. He looked upstairs, listening. What was she doing? Trying to rob him? Was that her game? Act all damsel in distress, satisfy him sexually, then steal from him?
His heart thwacked one hard hit against his chest wall as if to knock some sense back into him. Damn. The sucker seemed to have a mind of its own about her and wasn’t afraid to beat some common sense into him.
A whine and thump of pipes rang through the old house. He’d recognize those sounds anywhere. She was in the guest bathroom and had just turned on the shower. Hmm…
At the top of the stairs was a door to the right—his bedroom. Farther down the hall on the left was a bedroom door. On the other side of the bedroom, behind another door, was the bathroom. Not easily visible, yet that’s where she’d headed. Hell, he couldn’t remember if he’d put towels or soap in there when he moved in. Oh well. Too late now. He was just glad she hadn’t snuck out the back door.
He turned away from the stairs and headed to the kitchen. Dull winter light shone through the leaded-glass windows, but still, his home fascinated him. The deep, rich brown of the polished oak floors. The bright pops of pink in the wallpaper. He felt like Dorothy when she landed in Munchkinland. He wanted to marvel at every glint and glimmer of color.
In the kitchen, he opened the cupboard. A rainbow met his gaze. He marveled at the cans and boxes and tubs as if they were priceless artwork. He reached for the coffee tub. It was red. Fucking red. He never would’ve guessed red. A huge smile tugged at the skin on his cheek. She’d changed him. Healed all his wounds.
He put on a pot of coffee, set out two mugs—one dark blue and one dark green. He’d never realized they were different colors. Before her, they’d both looked black to him. The carton of creamer had purple writing on it. Purple. He held the carton up to his eyes, staring at the gorgeous color. Everything was so lovely. He wanted to spend hours just looking through his cupboards, but she was upstairs taking a shower, and he didn’t want to seem like a total oddball when she came down.
Should he make breakfast? Have it waiting for her? Was that too much for the morning after? Too familiar? Hopefully, she’d still agree to let him take her to Dr. Stone’s and get stitched up. Whatever she decided, she didn’t have any shoes.
He went into the living room, nabbed his coat off the couch, and shrugged it on. It would be a quick trip to the woods to get her boots. If he was lucky, he’d be back before she finished with her shower.
He headed out the kitchen door, shutting it firmly behind him, then marveled at the color of his house. A subtle, calming shade of yellow, trimmed in pristine white. Holy shit. He’d thought it had been pure white with a black door, but now he saw that his door was a dark walnut color. Seeing his home in full-color glory warmed him from the inside out. This is what everyone else saw, that he hadn’t been able to until Helen. Her presence vanquished the damage done to his brain and his eye.
Reluctantly, he turned away from the house and headed down the porch steps.
Birds hopped and fluttered around his feeder. Red ones. Blue ones. Brown ones. Their colors all so vivid. He’d never been interested in birds until he’d moved here and discovered that a bird feeder had been mounted on a post in the backyard. It made him sound eighty years old, but he enjoyed feeding the birds and watching them while they ate.
The world flicked to black and white again, almost like someone had flipped a switch. “What the hell?” He turned and looked at the house. Solid white, with a black door again.
He wanted to throw himself down in the snow and scream at the loss. He swallowed the urge and tried to find some rationality. Okay. So he’d seen color for a while. That was better than nothing. Maybe seeing color was going to be glitchy. Something that winked on and off randomly.
Or maybe it was something that only happened when he was near her. Both times he’d seen color had been within her presence. It was a theory he couldn’t wait to test.
He headed toward the woods. Six inches of snow covered the ground and had distorted his tracks from last night. A thick wad of clouds obscured the sky in a color that resided somewhere between lonely and melancholy. A few stray flakes of snow meandered hesitantly toward the ground. All around him the world was quiet and…sad.
Ping.
The soft sound seemed so out of place.
Ping.
His cell phone. He should just let the thing go to voicemail, but he couldn’t. Maybe there was an update on Malone’s case. He yanked the phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen.
Evanee calling
He slid the answer icon over and held the phone to his ear.
“Hi, Ev.”
“Oh, good. You’re awake.” His sister’s voice was light and carefree. So different from yesterday’s phone conversation when he’d read the article to her and heard the soft sounds of her crying on the other end of the line. But today, it sounded like the shit their mom had pulled hadn’t dimmed the brightness Evanee had found with Lathan. “I was worried I was calling too early.”
He snorted. “I haven’t even been to bed yet. What’s up?”
“You worked all night?” Concern dominated her tone.
He paused, not knowing how to answer the question. He didn’t want to lie to his sister, but saying I slept with a woman I found in the woods just sounded weird. “Nah. Just couldn’t sleep.”
Cold air snapped against his face and burned his hand holding the phone. Maybe he should’ve bundled up a bit more.
“Well, I’m calling with good news.” Evanee’s voice squealed a bit on the last words.
He opened his mouth, but she rushed on. “We’re getting married.” Happiness overflowed in her voice. A sound he was grateful to hear. She deserved all the joy she could get.
“Congratulations. You know I’m happy for you. Lathan’s a great guy.” Without Lathan, Evanee would’ve been lost forever.
“I know. He’s the best. The best. And I want you here. Tonight. At seven.”
“Wait. You’re getting married tonight?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Isn’t that the most awesome word?” She laughed. “Yes. Tonight. There’s no sense in waiting. I don’t want anything fancy. Just our friends and you.”
A month ago, they didn’t even talk. Weren’t at all close. Didn’t really know each other. It had taken a helluva lot of tragedy to bring them together, and both were determined to keep their sibling relationship alive. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Yay! Okay. I’ve got to make some other phone calls. And find a dress! See you tonight!”
She disconnected the call, taking the energy of her enthusiasm with her. He was happy for her. Evanee had come out the other side of her nightmare happier than seemed possible. But happiness to him meant… His brain conjured up a picture of Helen. Her golden hair and matching golden eyes. She was sunshine on a cloudy day. It was easy to picture himself feeling for Helen the same way Evanee felt about Lathan.
Show the hermit a little affection, and he turned into a stalker. For Helen’s sake, he needed to try to take things a bit slow. She’d freak out if he came at her with words like destined. Yeah. Best to keep that word to himself.
He realized he was standing halfway across his yard, just staring at his phone.
Helen was probably close to getting out of the shower, and how fucking weird would it seem when she came downstairs to find he’d vanished? Creepy. That’s how it would seem. Why didn’t he think to leave her a note?
He started jogging toward her camp, his feet crunching loud and obscene while the rest of the world seemed so silent. He entered the woods, glimpsing her tent up ahead.
Against the stark white, the trees were black, branches raised in supplication as if pleading for spring days. Normally, the forest seemed peaceful and serene after a snow, but not now for some reason.
He wasn’t worried about the coyote. They were nocturnal. The thing was probably holed up somewhere in a warm den, snoozing the day away. Yet a prickle of foreboding wound around his guts.
He jogged into the clearing and froze.
A horror surrounded him. An abomination of destruction and rage.
Nothing was as they’d left it.
All was destroyed.
Her quaint pup tent had been shredded, strips of it dancing on the light breeze. Her sleeping bag had been savagely ripped apart, stuffing hanging out of it in fat piles that reminded him of guts. The neat fire circle was obliterated as if it had never existed.
Debris littered the area. Food was torn open and spread over the ground. Arms ripped off a shirt. A leg ripped off a pair of pants. A busted lantern. A cheap camp stove broken and dented as if it had been the victim of violent fury.
All of it destroyed.
This wasn’t the work of a coyote. Animals weren’t capable of such insanity. It hadn’t been a coyote in the woods last night. Someone had been after her.
Amid the destruction were footprints in the snow. He strode the perimeter of her camp looking for tracks. Found them at the back edge, leading deeper into the woods.
He glanced back through the trees toward his house, barely visible through the branches. All seemed well. She was probably getting out of the shower, heading downstairs to get some coffee. If the worst that happened was her wondering where he’d gone, he could live with that. Right now, he needed to follow these prints to see where they led.
He lifted the collar of his coat to shield his ears from the cold, then shoved his hands into his pockets and followed the trail. Should’ve fucking bundled up.
While he followed the footprints, his mind asked questions. Why was she sleeping out here in the woods in winter? Was she trying to hide from someone? All that camping gear cost money—why not just get a hotel room? She was a gorgeous woman. Maybe she was hiding from an abusive boyfriend. Her body was covered in scars. Had she endured years of abuse?
The footprints guided him along the edge of the woods in a direction that seemed to run parallel to his house but then shifted, and Thomas realized he’d been walking in an almost perfect semicircle that led right back to his place. All the questions in his mind stopped with a terrible realization: these footprints weren’t old and distorted like the ones he’d followed from his house back to her camp. These were fresh.
His heart ceased beating. His lungs refused to suck air. From nearly a quarter mile off, he spotted the roof of his Victorian through the trees dotting the landscape.
Helen was there all alone. Unaware of the danger headed her way.
“Helen!” Her name came out in a primal scream of sound. He started running, slipped, fell, went down on all fours, but was back up and sprinting toward home. “Helen!” He yelled her name again as if she could hear him.
Time shattered into a million pieces. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, and centuries were all strewn about like flakes of glitter.
He ran harder than he’d ever run but got locked into an odd suspended animation. His body seemed to move at the speed of light and in slow motion at the same time. He fought time’s hold on him. Fought to get to Helen. To protect her. He didn’t know what had happened to her in the past, but he knew she’d been hurt deeper than most people could survive. She didn’t deserve any more pain.
Ppgglll… A gunshot from inside his house.
His heart fell out of his chest and landed in the snow. He didn’t stop to retrieve it; he just kept running. If something happened to Helen, he wouldn’t need his heart anyway.
Chapter 6
In the vanity mirror of her old bathroom, Helena caught sight of her naked torso and wished she hadn’t. She’d known her body looked bad. But it was so much worse than she’d imagined.
Water rained from the showerhead, ringing against the old claw-foot tub, a sound that should’ve comforted her for its familiarity, but it didn’t. Not now. Not staring at the disaster that was her body.
Her skin bore witness to the brutality she’d suffered at the hands of the Sisters. Thick scars. Jagged scars. Smooth scars. Sunken-in hollows. Disfiguring and ghastly to look upon. The top of her left breast had a fat, puckered mark from one of the Sisters trying to bury a screwdriver in her heart.
Dizziness came over her. The world distorted, fading out of focus until the only thing visible was the mess of her flesh. Every damaged piece of skin flamed to life, burning and itching in an I-won’t-ever-let-you-forget of epic proportions.
She turned and looked over her shoulder at her back in the mirror.
The ability to breathe stopped. Both sides bore dozens, maybe hundreds, of scars from the gang shanking she’d endured. The raised, angry skin looked like a grotesque pair of fleshy wings had slipped down her shoulders to rest in the middle of her back.
The night of the gang shanking was one of her worst memories. She’d struggled and fought the Sisters’ hold on her until she couldn’t fight any more. After that, it had been about endurance.
It wasn’t until they’d left her alone, with only her blood to keep her warm, that she’d felt her consciousness fade and embraced death with wide, open arms.
She should’ve died.
She should’ve died after the first wounds.
She should’ve died after they left her lying there until morning.
But life was so much crueler than death.
She’d awakened in the hospital after that one. Cuffed to the bed. Every nurse, every doctor pretended to be unafraid of her. All of them failed. Because of course the
CO stationed with her had told everyone why she was in Fairson. Murder.
Hospitals were just a different type of prison.
A sob launched out her throat, slamming her back to reality. She clamped her hand over her mouth, not wanting Thomas to hear.
She was not going to cry. Not again. But another sob threatened to erupt. This time, she understood it was about more than the Sisters. It was about Fairson and being a felon and about how the wounds of her past would never heal.
Thomas would eventually find out she was a felon. Not just any felon. Convicted of murder. That was condemnation enough, but when he found out that she’d grown up in this house… That was too much of a coincidence for him to dismiss. He’d probably be frightened of her. Think she was plotting his death to get her home back.
She turned away from the mirror and got into the tub, closing the shower curtain around her. Water stung the cut on her forehead, and she realized too late that she’d forgotten to unbandage her hand. Oh well. She’d rebandage herself after the shower, and if she was lucky, she’d be able to sneak back to her camp, pack up, and leave for a hotel before Thomas woke.
A fresh, unused bar of soap sat in the soap holder. There wasn’t a washrag, but that didn’t matter. She lathered her body and even used the soap in her hair. When she finally felt clean, she just stood there, steeling herself for leaving this house and leaving Thomas. She wasn’t sure which upset her more.
So what if he’d been kind? Kindness had limits.
So what if she trusted him? Trust could be broken.
A floorboard squeaked right outside the shower. Ice-cold betrayal streaked through her entire body despite the warm water raining over her. And right here was an example of trust being broken. She’d trusted him to understand her need for privacy. Not try to sneak in some shower sexcapades. She hadn’t locked the bathroom door. She hadn’t even shut it. Did he think that was an invitation?
