16. Holden
The nightmares are never-ending. Once I lie down to sleep in my too-soft king-size bed, I can’t close my eyes without seeing those four white walls closing in on me. The one tiny window with bars was the only link I had to the outside world. The thick stench of urine and grease from the leaking toilet and the gruel they fed me lingers in my nostrils.
I wake in a cold sweat, panting for breath. My bathroom door is ajar, the light still on. I peer around the room, seeing that I’m alone. My heart rate doesn’t slow. I swing my legs off the bed and begin doing push-ups. After I count to fifty, I switch to one arm.
Once I reach the point of physical exhaustion, covered in sweat, I collapse on the hardwood floor. It’s cool on my skin, providing relief for my screaming muscles.
Another flashback hits me like a train. The only fight I’ve ever lost was the first day they let me out of solitary confinement. I was in the shower when six guys jumped me. They beat me until my blood ran with the cold water down the drain and bruises covered my body. I had four broken ribs, two almost black eyes, and my fists were raw and bloodied from returning their blows.
The guards found me on the cold tiled floor, lying face down. The prison doctor told me the only way I hadn’t suffocated from the broken rib protruding into my left lung was due to the position I was lying in.
Three of my assailants were in the infirmary, recovering with me, and when they tried again, I took them all out, even with the half-healed ribs.
No one fucked with me after that unless they were in groups, and they never won.
I get up off the cold floor, tearing off my boxers as I step inside the shower. The cold spray shocks my overheated system, drawing my scrambled thoughts back down to a slower pace.
You will not succumb to this.
You aren’t there anymore.
You’re home.
You’re not in danger here.
You’re not alone.
You’re not alone.
You’re not alone.
I repeat it to myself over and over again until I’m finally able to make it back into the room, collapsing onto the bed just as the sun begins to filter light through my curtains.
“The beautyof braless Fridays is that we get to free-boob it without the awkwardness of y’all being around,” Dolly explains.
Duke scoffs. “Then, what was with the night we all went to Old Harry’s and Rosie got a bucket of ice water dumped on her head while up on the stage?”
Dolly pops the cork off a bottle of red wine, shrugging. “That was a rare exception. We were wine drunk, bored, and we both needed to get laid. With y’all around, that’s never going to happen, apparently. Go play with your bow and arrows out in the field and see who can avoid getting shot in the dark, like y’all used to do when you were in high school.”
I tighten my hand around the beer I’m holding. My eyes can barely stay open even though it’s only eight o’clock.
“I was trying to make some extra money actually. This is my last Friday night for a while.” Rosie takes her glass, walking into the living room.
I can make out the soft curve of her breasts as they jiggle with each of her steps. My salivary glands spring to life.
Fuck.
I’d pay to see that contest again any day. Preferably a one-on-one version.
The popularity of the wet T-shirt contest is making more sense the longer I go without sex. Rosie has been ignoring me ever since the firing incident. She thinks I’m doing the same, but I’m hyperaware of her every time she enters a room.
Being aware of the enemy is how you stay one step ahead.
Right, craving a whiff of her scent is just keeping you one step ahead …
She sets her balloon wineglass down on the coffee table, stepping toward me. She’s wearing a heather-gray T-shirt with a scooping neckline with the silky pink shorts. She approaches me slowly, like I might bite.
I might actually.
“I need to remove your stitches,” she says quietly, standing a few feet back from me, chewing her lip.
My eyes flick up to meet hers. I turn my head to show her the pink scar along my jawline.
“Oh … never mind then.” She turns back around, finding her seat on the sofa and pulling a plush throw blanket over herself.
I cut the stitches out myself last night because they itched.
“Well, in that case, I guess I’ll go make myself scarce in the barn with the animals,” Duke grumbles.
I continue sipping on my beer silently as the girls chatter about their week. Dolly scrolls through the movies under the Romantic Comedy tab. They finally select one, and I doze in and out of sleep as the movie plays.
“How many glasses is that for you?” Dolly asks, rousing me with her distant voice.
Rosie shrugs. “It’s my last Friday night for a few months at least. This gig has me scheduled every weekend.”
“In that case, I hope you know you have to sleep in my bed. I won’t settle for you out on the couch anymore. Unless you’d rather sleep with Duke …”
Rosie tosses back the last of her wine, leaning forward to pour another glass. “We’ll see how I feel after this bottle is gone.”
My eyes are drifting shut again when something hits me on the shoulder.
I open them up to see my sister smiling at me. “Go to bed, old man. You’ve been asleep for the whole thing.”
I blink at her. I could tell her that sleeping alone is essentially impossible for me right now and the only way I’ve been able to drift off in this chair without jolting awake from nightmares in cold, dark places is from hearing her and Rosie’s soft voices.
Instead, I stand up and head toward my bedroom. “Night, Doll.”
“Good night.”
I stumble toward my room, my head swimming with incoherent, sleep-deprived thoughts of the frigid cell, the silence, the nothingness of solitary confinement that nearly drove me mad.
I remove all my clothes, except my boxers, collapsing on top of the covers. There’s no point in showering; I’ll have to do it in the middle of the night anyway, just like last night.
And nearly every night since I’ve been home.
I keep the door to my room open so I can still hear the murmur of the girls and their movie. I keep my eyes open, staring up at the dark ceiling and the slowly rotating fan for as long as I can.
It’sice cold in my cell. The guards must have neglected to turn on the heating element in solitary confinement. During the night when the Idaho temperatures drop below freezing, the cold seeps down through the threadbare blanket and into my bones. My movements are slow from the temperature.
Time passes as I drift in and out of a restless sleep. The seconds tick into minutes, and I finally realize that if I don’t get up and move my body, I very well could freeze to death—or at least lose some toes.
I force myself to stand, teeth vibrating against each other. I start with laying my blanket on the concrete floor to put a barrier between my hands and the icy surface. When I drop into the push-up position, it takes me a few tries before I manage to get a grip firm enough to lower my body down, then push back up.
I repeat it over and over again until the blood finally starts to flow through my veins faster, becoming its own source of heat.
I will not die in this fucking prison cell.
A rustling noisewakes me with a start. I bolt upright, gasping for oxygen. A soft humming and exhale to my right jerks my gaze sideways. My body tenses as I prepare to face whatever intruder is in my cell. I shove my hand under my pillow, gripping the blade I keep hidden, hovering over the shape in my bed.
The outline of a slim body in the moonlight is under a pile of wavy, distinctly copper-red hair. My blood is still racing, but her steady breathing and her subtle vanilla scent spread a blanket of peace over my nervous system.
Rosie is curled up, sleeping soundly. I reach down, slowly moving a piece of her hair out of her face.
Her sensual, plump lips are parted slightly, long eyelashes resting on the top of her cheeks. She has one of those profiles that are on magazine covers, every feature somehow inexplicably flawless.
The top of the covers is pulled up to her chin. I envy the way she sleeps.
Why isn’t she in Duke’s bed?
My attraction to her is an inconvenience, one I’m growing weary of fighting. Her father’s role in my prosecution and my time in solitary confinement are enough reason for me to hate every Dixon who ever lived.
The fact that she’s had sex with my brother doesn’t make me hate her, but it does guarantee that I’ll never be able to touch her.
The line between hating her and desiring her is growing more blurry with every second I let her work in my house and sleep in my bed.
But, hey, you didn’t have to do two hundred push-ups and take a cold shower to stop the panic.
Whether or not allowing the enemy to sleep in my bed is wise or not is a question for the morning, when I’ve actually gotten enough sleep and I can read her reaction to waking up next to me, no doubt ending up here by mistake after too many glasses of wine. My thoughts are incoherent with lack of sleep. I can’t process this.
Instead of waking her and throwing her out, I lie back down on the pillow, positioning my body toward hers so I can watch the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she inhales. I return the knife to its spot under my pillow.
In the moonlight, it’s easier to pretend that she’s not here to ruin my life and share my weaknesses with the men who want to destroy my ranch. I’d let a grizzly bear sleep in here if it helped me not have flashbacks of waking up in a freezing cell, completely alone in solitary confinement.
A grizzly would be less dangerous than her.
She stirs, shifting slightly toward me and throwing one of her arms out. It latches around her pillow as she shifts over to lie on her stomach, making another sound that goes straight down to my dick.
It was a sleepy moan, a gentle groan of pleasure that I’ve never heard from her lips. It gives me a desperate need to know what she could possibly be dreaming about.
Probably a memory of fucking your younger brother.
It doesn’t stop me from picturing what her eyes look like when she’s being touched in a way she likes.
What does she like?
The vivid dream I had that made me come in my sleep after the night of the wet T-shirt contest infiltrates my dark thoughts. I shift farther away before I drift off to sleep, gripping the sheets between us and having selfishly filthy, hedonistic thoughts about my enemy’s daughter sleeping right next to me.