3. Isla
3
ISLA
Three days had passed. I waited for the darkness to recede, but it never did. Kavanaugh was there every step of the way, making sure I had everything I needed. He laid down with me at night, never crossing the invisible line I had drawn between us. He never tried to hold me or kiss me. He was just there.
Waiting.
My dreams were filled with darkness. It wasn’t scary necessarily, but I woke in a panic, always thinking I was back in that storage container, surrounded by tea lights and Christmas decorations. And every time, I searched for IKE, but he wasn’t there.
I grabbed my phone off my nightstand and scrolled to his number. My thumb hovered over it, but I pushed down the urge to call him.
“Then when you’re ready, you’ll come to me.”
I wanted to see him so badly, but I didn’t want to confuse things between us. So much had happened in that storage container. Things I never thought would happen, like facing my own mortality, had put a new spin on life. I should be out thanking God I was alive, going on shopping sprees and buying myself new clothes. But instead, I was holed up in this house, waiting for…something.
Setting the phone down, I knew I couldn’t call him. I wasn’t ready to go to him, and I wouldn’t confuse him or myself by calling him before I was ready. Ready for what? I didn’t know what I wanted. I couldn’t jump into something with IKE when I was still with Kavanaugh, and I was finding it hard to tell Kavanaugh to leave even though I wasn’t sure about anything between us.
“If you stare at it, it’ll ring,” Riley said, coming into my room. She flopped down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Are you going to spend another day moping around the house?”
“I don’t mope.”
“You totally mope. I get it. You were taken and shoved in a large metal container. It’s way worse than Jason or Chucky coming after you. In fact, I’m not sure how you’ve managed to keep from curling up in a ball and rocking back and forth all night.”
I threw a pillow at her face. “You’re an ass.”
“Yes, but a very lovable one. So, where are we going today?”
“Do we have to?” I groaned, wanting to bury myself in a pillow all day.
“Well, you can come out with me or you can stay home with the guys all day. Bowie will irritate the hell out of you with his complaining, and Kavanaugh will ask you every five minutes if you’re okay and if you need something. I would think the choice is pretty clear, but hey, you do you.”
She stood and headed for the door.
“Wait.”
Turning back to me with a grin, she quickly wiped it from her face and batted her eyes at me innocently. “Yes?”
“I’ll go with you, but only because you’re less of a pain in the ass than the other two.”
“I figured you’d say that. Put on some warm clothes. We won’t be inside.”
“I’ve had enough of being cold,” I retorted.
“Yes, which is why I told you to put on warm clothes.”
And with that, she was gone. I marched over to my dresser, pulling out long underwear, jeans, and a sweater. “I really hate her.”
“Hate who?”
I shrieked as I spun, glaring at Kavanaugh. “What are you doing?”
“I just came upstairs,” he said, stunned by my reaction.
Meanwhile, I was still holding my chest, hoping my heart didn’t pound its way out of the cavern that most days felt entirely too empty. “Next time, make some noise,” I snapped.
He slowly walked toward me like I was a caged lion, his hand held out to me in a soothing gesture, my kitten in one of them. He always used Sasha against me as a kind of calming device. “Hey, I’m sorry.”
I instantly deflated, feeling like an ass for snapping at him when I clearly needed to get my shit under control. “It’s fine. I’m just…jumpy.” I took my precious baby from him, snuggling her against my face. She purred softly, rubbing her tiny nose against my face. I couldn’t take her cuteness sometimes. It undid me.
“Well, that tends to happen when you’ve recently been kidnapped.”
I smiled at his attempt at humor. I could see the longing in his eyes, the desperate need to find a way to comfort me. But I just couldn’t bring myself to set aside everything I’d been so angry about and accept what he was offering. I should. I knew I should. Kavanaugh was a good man, full of love and all the wonderful things I should want. But he also hid things from me too many times. Taking care of me after my ordeal didn’t wash away all that happened.
“Riley’s dragging me out of the house,” I said, changing the subject. “She said to dress warm.”
“Are you sure about that?”
My smile faded as I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Concern marred his face, and as he shoved his fists into his pockets, I knew it was taking everything in him not to demand I stay home.
“I think it’ll be good for me to get out of the house,” I lied.
“It’s only been a few days.”
“I know, but…staying around here isn’t doing me any good.”
Sasha started biting my fingers playfully to the point where I had to set her down on the bed or risk having my hand scratched up by her back claws. Besides, I couldn’t hide behind a kitten, no matter how much I wanted to.
“You’re safe,” he bit out, his protective side coming out strong. “I just…we just got you back and?—”
“And I can’t stop living my life,” I said, turning to fully face him. “I know what you’re thinking. And yes, it is a little scary, but I can’t let that stop me from living. I won’t become a hermit and?—”
“I’m not suggesting you do that,” he argued. “But you were held for four fucking days! I thought I lost you and—” He cut himself off, turning away from me as he tried to rein in his anger. “When we opened those doors, I didn’t know if I was going to find you alive or not. And when I felt how cold you were, I nearly lost my goddamn mind.” His eyes came back to meet mine. “So, when I ask you to stay home, it’s not because I want to keep you to myself or make you stop living. It’s because I’m terrified that if you walk out that door, I might never see you again.”
My heart softened toward him even more. Walking over, I placed my hand on his cheek and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “I know. But if I stay here, the terror will swallow me whole.”
His rough fingers brushed against my hand, and then he swiveled his head and pressed a kiss to my hand. “I know. I just…”
Behind all the brightness in his eyes, I saw words he desperately wanted to say. I stepped back before he got the chance, putting space between not only us, but the confession he was about to make.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, cutting off what he was about to say. I still didn’t know what to do or say about any of it, and if he said what I knew he wanted to, it would only muddy the waters.
“I’ll be with Riley, okay?”
“Just…keep your phone on.”
“I will.” I stepped back, my fingers dangling from his.
“I may call you.”
“And I’ll answer.”
“And I’ll text.”
“Okay,” I smiled.
“Multiple times.”
“I’ll answer every time. Just give me five minutes leeway before you call the police.”
He scoffed at that. “I wouldn’t call the police.”
“Thank God.”
“I have a whole team at my back that would arrive in tactical gear the moment I sent out the signal.”
Okay, that was so much worse. “Let’s try to avoid that.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Walking away from him was like leaving a needy two-year-old. He watched me with sad eyes, his fingers itching at his sides. He wanted to run to me, to pull me back to his side, but I kept going until I was downstairs and striding out the door with Riley by my side.
“You made it,” she muttered as we headed down the walk.
“Keep moving or we might not get out of here.”
As soon as we were in the car, I made the mistake of looking back at the house. Kavanaugh and Bowie were both standing on the porch, their arms crossed over their chests as they watched us pull away. With wide eyes, I turned to Riley.
“That was creepy.”
“You’re telling me. When did we become those women?”
“What women? In what world are there women who are watched constantly by their boyfriends and unable to leave for fear that they might break a nail?”
Okay, maybe I was exaggerating a little, but that’s what it felt like. And even as we reached the stop sign at the end of the road, I could feel their eyes on us, waiting for the car to explode or a rogue bullet from a hunter to fly through the window and kill us.
“I imagine this is what it’s like to feel hunted,” Riley muttered.
“Will it go away?”
“Not likely. But the good part is that?—”
When she didn’t finish, I turned to her, waiting for the rest. “The good part is what?”
“I’m thinking. I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”
I rolled my eyes and relaxed in my seat, trying to enjoy the sun on my face. It was cold outside, but I was alive. That was something. As we pulled away, I saw a gray car idling down the road by the curb. And as we drove away, it followed us, never getting too close.
Walking around the flea market for two hours wore me out. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The doctor told me it would take some time to feel one hundred percent again. Still, I had hoped I would feel better on my first day out.
“You know, you used to be more fun when we would go to these things,” Riley pouted.
“What can I say, getting kidnapped and freezing in a shipping container took some of the joy out of my life.”
“Yeah, you need to work on that. You’re killing my buzz,” she chuckled.
“I know,” I sighed heavily, staring up at the sky. “It looks like it could snow.”
“Hush! It’s too early for that.”
“It felt like it was snowing in the shipping container,” I grumbled.
“Is that what we’re going to do? Every time we talk about the cold, you’re going to turn the situation into the shipping container?”
I turned to her in mock shock. “It’s been three days!”
“Yes, and it’s every bit as annoying now as it was in the hospital. You have no idea how cold it was. My fingers were frozen. And my personal favorite. I’m pretty sure my pee froze inside my body. I mean, come on. How long am I going to have to hear about your horrendous ordeal?”
“Probably until the day I die. I’ll be laying on my deathbed and I’ll say Do you remember that time I almost died in the shipping container? This is like that. ”
“Unless you die in a fire. That would be the complete opposite.”
“I choose not to die from the elements. Just a nice heart attack or car bombing will suffice.”
“Or a shove down the stairs,” she suggested. “You never know, I might get tired of living in the smaller room and decide to off you.”
“Just make sure it’s a good one. I don’t want the police showing up and thinking it’s a boring murder.”
“I’ll make sure it’s extra gruesome.”
“I would appreciate it,” I smiled, feeling a little lighter than I had when I woke up this morning.
This was what Riley did for me, always helping me make light of the situation when things threatened to drown me. But it wasn’t just the near-death experience that was weighing on my mind, and based on the way she kept trying to say something, only to stop, I knew she wanted to ask about it.
“Go ahead.”
“Oh, thank God! What is going on with you and Kavanaugh? I swear, the man is all up your ass, but won’t actually touch you. He hasn’t kissed you once. And then there was that whole cryptic thing about him coming home because you had a fight. I mean, whatever happened with that? Did you make up through Morse Code while you were in that container? And what does this mean for IKE? Are you really telling me that you spent four days with that sex god and just dropped him?”
She clamped her mouth shut, shooting me a pleading look out of the corner of her eye.
“I don’t know what’s going on with Kavanaugh. Our fight seems…distant or something. Like I shouldn’t be mad about it in the big scheme of things. It’s just this minuscule thing that happened, but at the same time, my head is telling me to keep my distance.”
“What exactly did happen?”
“He lied to me. Again. Well, before that, he showed up at my interview and asked all these really inappropriate questions, which now I realize weren’t inappropriate because the interviewer was the psycho who took me. But he made me think the man was after me and was trying to poison me. Which he probably was, so I suppose I have to let that go.”
“Don’t you hate it when men are right and you can’t even be angry about it?”
“Yes, it’s very frustrating,” I sighed. “And after I turned down the job, I went back to the hotel and the senator was there with Kavanaugh’s fake fiancée. Apparently, I was all over the news as the other woman. Not that any of that matters right now, but Kavanaugh knew about it and didn’t tell me. And then I found out that his fake fiancée—who is extremely gorgeous, by the way—knows all this stuff about him. Like, super personal stuff. And stuff about his brother! And when I asked Kavanaugh to tell me about it, he flat-out refused.” I shook my head in annoyance at the whole thing. “And now it all seems super petty to be upset with him, but…” I shrugged, not sure she would even understand. “And to make matters worse, I found out when I came home that he announced everything that happened with his brother in a news conference. He couldn’t tell me anything that happened, but he told the whole world.”
“To get you back,” she pointed out.
“That’s just it,” I sighed. “His hand was forced. That’s the only reason the truth came out. And he didn’t tell me. He told everyone else. Would I have ever found out?”
“Maybe it was one of those really traumatic things that he just couldn’t talk about.”
“He talked about it with her, and he didn’t even tell me about it. I think that’s why it makes me so upset. If there are lies this early in, what about a year from now?”
“Do you trust him?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I think…it’s like the shine has worn off and…we rushed into everything. We could have had something good, but it’s tainted now. After everything with Shawn, I just want someone I can trust.”
“Then you need to tell him.”
“He’s really weird right now. He thinks he’s going to lose me.”
“Isles—” she said, stopping me with a hand on my arm. “You can’t stay with him because of his own fears. Do what you need to do. Even if that means ending it. Besides, it’s better to stop things now instead of dragging it out.”
“What if in three months I want him?”
“Do you really think you will?”
The sad part was I didn’t think so. Our romance was, unfortunately, fun for only a short time before it became a complicated mess.
“I think you already know what you need to do.”
“I do,” I sighed. “I just don’t look forward to ending things.”
“Nobody does. But this is Kavanaugh.”
I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse for what I was about to do.