by Kit Tunstall
Her eyes widened. “What? I didn’t—”
He seemed sad. “You have reason enough to fear me, I agree. After the way I attacked you yesterday morning—”
Mina shook her head. “You didn’t attack me.”
His lip curled. “Not deliberately, but I was too caught up in the dream I’d been having to realize I was acting in real life. I know I scared you.”
Hesitantly, she reached out with her right hand, which didn’t hurt as badly as the left, touching the back of his with her fingertips. “You did scare me, but it wasn’t because you were physical. It was what you said.”
Coop’s puzzled frown revealed his confusion. “What did I say? Did I tell you something horrible while I was still asleep?”
“No, you were awake.” She sighed. “And it wouldn’t be horrible at all, except you won’t feel the same way when you find out, and I’ll have broken your heart again.”
He ran a hand through his overgrown locks. “Are you talking about me saying I love you?” At her nod, his frown deepened. “I’m sorry if my emotions scare you.”
“It’s what they mean.”
“You have to know I’d never pressure you to move faster than you’re able, love.” He turned his hand to take hers in a gentle grip. “My loving you doesn’t mean I expect anything. I know it will take time to recover from what that animal did to you. I’ll wait however long I have to.”
She shook her head. “You won’t want to.”
Coop scowled. “I know how I feel. Emme said you were worried about telling me something. Nothing you say could make me love you any less, Mina.”
She couldn’t hide her skepticism. “Everyone knows I hate Shane.” She took a breath. “And I do. I really hate him for what he did to my mother and to me. But…” Trailing off, she looked away from Coop’s intense green gaze.
He squeezed her hand lightly. “But what?”
“There’s more to it.”
After a long pause, he prompted gently. “Like what? You’re plotting his murder? You want to track him down and run him over with the last Humvee?”
She managed a feeble smile, still not able to look at Coop. “I thought about killing him. At first, it seemed like my only way out, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how. I wasn’t strong enough to fight him in a direct confrontation and had no clue about killing him in other ways.”
“Look at me, Mina.”
Reluctantly, she made herself turn her head.
“This is my not shocked face. Who wouldn’t plot to murder someone who was hurting them on a regular basis? He was unconscionable in what he did to you. I’m just sorry you didn’t find a way to do it, and you were too afraid for your family to ask for help.” He leaned closer, his gaze unwavering. “I would have killed him for you without a second thought.”
Mina’s lips trembled, and she looked away again, torn between being touched by his sincerity and anxious that his clear commitment to killing Shane would make it impossible for him to understand anything else she had to tell him. “You’re sweet,” she settled for saying, though it might have been a strange response. Was offering someone’s death a sweet gesture? Under the circumstances…yes.
“Killing him didn’t work out, especially after things changed,” she whispered.
Coop gripped her hand. “What changed? Did he do something…worse to you?”
Mina nodded, looking over his shoulder. “Much worse. He started treating me gently. He tried to coax me to love him.”
Coop snorted. “That’s insane.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I would have preferred he remain brutal. It was so much worse having him make love to me than rape me. Making me feel things I didn’t want to, touching me as a lover instead of a rapist…”
“You have to know that was all physical, love. Men can be raped too. It requires physical arousal on their parts, but that doesn’t mean they want to have sex with someone who stimulates them.” He cupped her chin, making her meet his gaze. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He was saying the right words, and she hoped he truly believed them, because she didn’t. “It wasn’t just physical though, Coop. He got inside my head. After awhile, I started to care about him. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop myself.” She couldn’t bear to see the horror or disappointment that must be on his face, so closed her eyes. “I gave in. I started doing things that would please him. I stopped fighting.”
His thumb at the corner of her eye forced her to blink and look at him. “You were surviving, Mina. Prisoners of war might eventually cooperate with their captors too. It’s sometimes necessary to ensure survival. I imagine pleasing him made your life easier?” He smiled when she nodded. “You were doing what you had to. It wasn’t your fault.”
Mina bit her lip, so tempted to let the confessions stand there, to accept the out he was offering and try to move on with Coop. It was so seductive to let this be the full truth that he knew, to let herself forget all about Shane, and the knots in which he had tied her. She couldn’t do it though. He had to know everything before she could allow him to offer any kind of commitment to her. “It started as a way to survive, but it was more than that. I know you don’t want to believe it, but I started to care for him. Never enough that I wanted to stay with him, or that I was willing to marry him and have his baby, but the feelings were still there.”
His look of disgust made her heart stutter, and she dropped her head forward. “I knew you’d feel that way, and I don’t blame you. I’m not going to hold you to anything, Coop.”
“Christ, Mina, I’m disgusted with Shane, and how he manipulated you, not with you.”
His application of light pressure forced her chin up again, and she stared into his eyes. She licked her lips, wanting to believe his words, but questioning how he could truly feel that way. How could he blame Shane and not have any lingering disgust for her after her admission?
“You didn’t love him, sweetie. I stand by my assertion that it was simply survival. You needed to think he mattered to you in some way to endure his touch.”
She shook her head. “I told him I loved him.” Her voice broke. “God help me, but I said it. It was the first time he said the words to me, and I just sort of repeated them.” She clamped a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob, unable to look at Coop for more than a second. “I wanted to take it back. I told him it was a mistake, and he said he’d give me a couple of weeks to figure out what I wanted. His only stipulation was I stay away from you.”
“And then the barn?” Coop swore before cupping her cheeks in his hands, forcing her to look at him. “You listen to me. I don’t care if you said it. I don’t care if you felt it, even a little. Do you still love Shane?”
She shook her head. “I only did in a pale sort of way. It was never anything like how I feel for you.” Mina bit her lip, wishing she hadn’t admitted that. Coop didn’t need the burden of how she felt to influence his reaction. “But the point is I still said it to him. I made the whole situation worse by letting him think I loved him. And I did care for him.”
“Think about this for me. If you hadn’t said you loved him...if you had told him you didn’t and demanded he leave you alone, would he have done so?”
Mina hesitated. “No, I don’t think so, based on how he reacted the day he overheard us.” A tear streaked down her cheek. “He killed my mom to punish me.”
“I think the fact that you cared about your rapist, even a little, speaks to the fact that you have a generous heart. I’m sure you got to know him well over the months he was your captor.” At her nod of confirmation, he said, “It’s understandable then. You were in an intimate situation, sharing physical and emotional connections. You did what you had to in order to survive. If you had kept fighting, he probably would have killed you. Yes?” Again, Mina nodded. “I don’t find it disgusting that you care about Shane. I’m not threatened that you still harbor some ambiguous feelings for him. He’s in the past and can never hurt you again, unless you let
him.”
Mina’s lips trembled again, and more tears streaked down her face. “I want to forget about him, but how do I do that? How do I let go of everything? The love, the hate, the fear…it’s all a poisonous miasma inside me. I wanted to die to escape it.”
“Do you still want to die?” Concern underlay his words, but not a hint of anything else, such as an attempt to make her feel guilty for trying suicide.
Slowly, Mina shook her head. “When I first woke up, I was disappointed that I’d failed. I’ve failed at so much lately, because I’ve been weak. But then I realized I was even more relieved to still be alive. Killing myself isn’t the way to deal with this, but I didn’t want to tell you the truth. I thought you’d hate me.”
He drew her into a tender embrace. “I could never hate you. Hell, if Shane came back tomorrow, and you chose to go with him, I’d still love you. I wouldn’t like it, but I’d respect your choice.”
“That’ll never happen,” said Mina firmly, absolutely sure about at least one thing.
He drew her into a gentle embrace before pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead. “Why don’t you get more rest? I have some chores, but I’ll come back later to check on you, okay?”
Mina nodded, feeling completely drained. Idly, she wondered how much blood she had lost and how long she’d be in bed this time. As he started to stand up, she reached for his hand. “Listen, Coop, please don’t tell anyone what I told you. It’s too humiliating.”
He sighed. “You have no reason to be ashamed, but I promise I won’t say anything to anyone.” His movements were kind as he disengaged her hand from his. “Do you want me to have someone come sit with you?”
Judging from the anxiety shadowing his eyes, he was really asking if it was safe to leave her by herself. She couldn’t fault him for the thought, considering what she had done. It would likely take a long time before anyone completely trusted her to be alone again. “I’m fine by myself, but if you’ll feel better having someone wat…here with me, that’s fine.”
He hesitated for a millisecond before bending to kiss her forehead again. “I’ll come visit you after dinner.”
Mina watched him depart with her heart still heavy. She should feel relieved, but she couldn’t quite believe he was so amazing. No one was that perfect. He couldn’t really have believed everything he’d said, could he? Did she? Of course not. To survive, she’d only have had to cooperate with Shane by not fighting him. There had been no need to become an active participant in her subjugation. He dismissed it as a byproduct of her tender heart, but what if it was some deeper, darker impulse? Did she really yearn for someone to control her?
Her stomach roiled at the thought, and she sagged back against the pillows with a deep exhalation. She’d been over this countless times and was no closer to reconciling the way she had behaved to the way she should have acted. Coop was either telling her what he thought she needed to hear, or he was a frigging saint. Mina knew she would be analyzing their interactions for a long time to come in hopes of determining which it was.
*****
Coop set about afternoon chores, eventually finding himself in the orchard, though he didn’t realize why. He was almost shocked by the eruption of swear words that escaped his mouth. Even more shocking was the way his fist, seemingly of its own accord, raised and thrust against the tree in front of him as hard as it could. Chips of bark flew away from the point of impact, and blood blossomed on his knuckles, but it took a long second for him to recognize any pain. It was oddly distant, as though his nerve sensors were cushioned.
A shout left him, and he hoped he had come far enough from the others to avoid anyone witnessing his semi-breakdown. If Shane was in front of him right now, he’d pummel the last bit of life from that sadistic bastard with his own hands. Motherfucker. He voiced that word, along with several more, and hit the tree again.
For a brief time, Coop let the rage soar and take over, giving in to the need to curse and hit something. When he finally stopped, he placed his forehead against the ravaged tree, looking down with only a twinge of concern at the blood pouring from his torn knuckles, onto his pants, and then the snowy ground. The rational part of him knew he’d behaved like an out-of-control moron, and he’d left himself open to infection with his tantrum.
The angry beast inside him wanted to keep punching and yelling.
Fucking Shane had twisted Mina so badly he didn’t know if she’d ever be free of the trauma. Of all the horrible things that monster had done to her, convincing her she cared about him was the worst.
His breath hitched in his throat as he remembered her confessing to having said she loved Shane. Nausea rolled in his gut, and he barely choked back the urge to vomit. A shiver of revulsion wracked him. She hadn’t really meant it. She couldn’t have. There was no way any normal person could care about someone like Shane after everything he’d done. It had to be the PTSD talking.
Coop’s shoulders trembled as his mind insisted on conjuring a cozy image of the woman he loved beside Shane, lying beside him after sexual release and whispering words of love. Words she had never spoken to him, but she’d wasted on Shane. He could no longer suppress the urge to vomit, and it spewed from him in an acidic rush that left his throat as raw as his emotions.
What if she had meant it? He’d told her it was all right, that it had been a coping mechanism, and he’d meant that, but… The idea made his skin crawl, and he couldn’t deny a savage surge of jealousy lanced him.
It would have been so much easier if Mina had just hated Shane. Would he always be sharing her affections? Would Shane continue to be a haunting shadow that loomed over both of them? Would there be a tiny part of Mina that always wondered if she should have done something differently, if she should have been with Shane?
Coop shook his head, immediately rejecting that idea. Despite whatever Shane had done to her, and how he’d fucked up her head, Mina clearly hated him, even if she also loved him a little. The psycho had tormented her for months, hurt her, and eventually killed her mother in retaliation for Mina’s disobedience. If there had been anything she might second-guess, it would be if she could have done something to save her mother. He would have to enlist Emme’s help to make sure she didn’t dwell on such thoughts and sink deeper into depression when it was obvious she couldn’t have changed anything that had happened.
Several calming breaths helped him regain perspective, and he realized he’d meant what he’d said to Mina. He loved her enough to let go of the pain of hearing she’d cared for Shane and to try to build a future with her at her pace. It didn’t matter if she’d had feelings for Shane. The other man was gone now, having definitively screwed up his own chances of ever winning Mina by murdering Janie. Shane was her past, but Coop was her future.
But if he ever saw the other man again, his knuckles would be in a similar state. Rather than chunks of bark left on the ground, it would be the remnants of Shane West’s corpse.
*****
Mina waited for Coop to come visit her, but he never arrived after dinner. She tried to suppress the dark thoughts eating at her. He hadn’t really meant it. After having some time to consider what she’d said, he had realized just how inappropriate her reactions to Shane had been. He’d decided she was crazy or masochistic, and he didn’t need that kind of burden. He was probably trying to think of a way to let her down easily without having her attempt suicide again.
Tears scorched her eyes, but she forced them back. The next time she saw Coop—and it seemed unlikely that he would be coming to her bed tonight as the daylight faded and full darkness took its place—she would have to reassure him that she could handle his rejection. It was what she had expected, after all. Then she’d have to make sure she wasn’t tempted to kill herself again, because she would never want him living with crippling guilt, thinking he had caused her to commit suicide.
The opening of her door interrupted her thoughts, and she had a difficult time hiding her disappointment when Emme came in
side. “Hi.” She sounded listless even to herself.
Emme’s brow furrowed with concern, but she smiled. “Hey, sis. How are you feeling?”
“Better after some sleep.” Mina bit her lip. “How long will I have to be in bed?”
Her sister lifted a shoulder. “It depends. I don’t really know how much blood you lost, so it could be weeks before you feel full-strength again. You won’t have to stay in bed that long, but you’ll have to take it easy.”
A sharp laugh escaped Mina. “I’m such a fragile, wilting flower. How the fuck have I managed to survive the end of the world for so long, Emme?” Tears flooded her eyes, underscoring her weakness, and she brushed at them impatiently. “If it weren’t for you guys, I’d have been dead long before now.”
“If it weren’t for Shane, you wouldn’t have been so fragile the past months, Mina. Don’t be so quick to dismiss your strength. You have been through hell. You’re still alive and sane.”
“With scars that will last forever.” She wasn’t referring to the slashes on her wrists. Mina sighed heavily. “How am I supposed to move on?”
“It’s trite, but I guess just take it a day at a time. Even a minute at a time, as needed. Take as long as you require, sweetie. We’ll still be waiting.”
Emme meant well, but her words still made Mina flinch. She didn’t doubt her sister’s devotion and sincerity, but what about Coop? He’d said all the right things, but he wasn’t here now.
As though she’d read her thoughts, Emme said, “Coop wanted me to tell you he’s on patrol tonight, so he won’t be able to see you until tomorrow.”
Her heart lightened a bit at the news, and she managed a ghost of a smile. “Oh.”
“He’s crazy about you,” said Emme as she unwound the wrappings on her wrists to check the wounds before dabbing them with some kind of oil. “Don’t have any doubts about that.”
“I can’t help but have doubts. Only a saint could live with everything I’ve done.” Mina bit her lip, falling into silence.
Emme looked puzzled. “What is it you think you did?”
