Chapter 24
Carrie
He still hadn’t left.
Every minute— every second —I was bracing myself to hear the words.
I have to go.
The day was almost done. Twenty-four hours had passed since Leo knocked on my door, and now? Now, I was curled on the couch with a cup of hot tea cradled against my chest as I watched the man who killed Leo let Tic-Tac out from the pet carrier. The small golden bell that hung from Tic-Tac’s new blue collar jingled as he dashed through the house, darting up the stairs to hide.
A grunt sounded from Grayson as he rose to his full height and pulled off his knitted hat, revealing his thick, dark locks, still as perfect as before he put it on two hours ago. “He’s updated on his shots, and they put a chip in him, so when it gets warmer, and he decides to go explore outside, we can find him,” he told me, unbuttoning his thick, black Carhart coat.
His dark eyes met mine, watching me closely as he asked, “How are you feeling?”
Physically? I was great.
Mentally? I wasn’t the best.
And emotionally? Emotionally, I didn’t know what the hell was going on. It would be so easy to give in to this and trust him, because Grayson was the kind of man you could trust. Without a doubt, I could trust him with my life, but would I be able to trust him with my heart?
We were strangers. It didn’t make sense to feel the way I was feeling.
You felt it the first time you saw him, leaning against that pole on the street.
“I’m okay,” I answered before taking a sip of tea.
He shrugged off the coat and came to me, draping it on the back of the couch. “I’m sorry I was gone so long,” he muttered, reaching out to brush a curl from my cheek. “But he needed to get checked out before the next round of storms comes in later tonight.”
I nodded, looking back to the TV, not paying attention to the characters on the screen, thinking back to the conversation we had after he finally got some food in me…
Four Hours Ago.
“Did your mom teach you how to cook?” I asked, setting down my fork, feeling full for the first time in what felt like days. The drug Leo gave me did a number on my system. Jake assured both of us that it would be out of my system completely within a day or two; I just needed to drink plenty of fluids and remember to eat.
Grayson set the table while the meal was cooking, ordering me to remain on the counter. It was only after my plate had been made and my chair pulled out that he allowed me to hop down. Then, he took a seat across from me at my little table, unbothered by its age or size.
“Cooking is a basic life skill,” Grayson answered before taking his last bite. I watched as he chewed, marveling at the way his mouth worked, the way his jaw moved. When he was done, he added, “She taught me the basics, and when I was in the military, I didn’t have shit to my name. If I wanted good food, I had to learn how to make it.”
I nodded, giving him a small smile. “It was very good. Thank you for making it.”
He set his fork down beside his plate, mirroring mine, and sat back, the wooden chair groaning underneath his weight. He reached for his glass of water, and my eyes dropped to his snake tattoo on that hand. His business was called Red Snake, and last night…I remembered him saying White Snake on the phone.
I was curious, but I knew I didn’t have the stomach for the answers right now, not when there were other things we needed to discuss.
“Did you bring this table inside yourself?” he asked me, throwing me off.
“Uh—yes. It’s usually—”
“—out on the porch,” he finished for me. “I know.”
I looked out the window, taking in the gray skies and white blanket of snow covering the roofs and the ground, all the way down into town. “The porch is a great space—for warmer weather, but I lose it in the winter. Sarah warned me of that when I moved in,” I said.
He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, I knew it was time. “Do you want to start, or should I?”
Biting my cheek, I looked back to him and pulled my hands into my lap. I couldn’t meet his eyes, but I could definitely start. So with my head bent and my eyes focused on the faint scars on my wrists, I began. “Robert has been dead for over two years now, and during those two years, I’ve done two things.” I took a breath. “I grieved, and then, I grew. However, I think—I think during my grieving, I’d been blind. Actually, I think I was blind in our marriage, too.”
“What do you mean?”
The more I healed, the more I remembered. I’d done some research, finding a book on suppressed traumatic memories at work in the fall. I needed something to explain the dreams.
I looked up, finding Grayson leaning forward on his elbows, his plate moved to the side, his attention on me. His hands were folded in front of him, his brow furrowed. “Carrie, what do you mean you were bli—”
“Robert was mean to me,” I confessed suddenly.
A shadow fell over Grayson’s features, and I couldn’t handle it. I looked back down to my lap. “After you left six months ago, I started having dreams, but they didn’t seem like dreams, because they felt familiar. They were all about Robert and me—not the big moments in our life that everyone saw. No, these dreams were about the little moments, the ones that happened behind closed doors.”
“Why aren’t you looking at me?” Grayson asked, an edge to his voice.
“Because what I’m about to tell you will make you wish you were the one who chopped my husband into pieces,” I rasped, looking at him.
His nostrils flared, but he said nothing. I dropped my eyes again. “You’ve seen my file, my old pictures. It’s no secret I used to be smaller—thinner. As a kid, I was always bigger than the rest of my friends, and I didn’t think anything about it. That all changed when I turned ten years old. My father hired dietitians to monitor my weight. I lost the weight and my father was satisfied. When I hit puberty two years later, my hormones took control, and I gained the weight back. I gained curves. My breasts came in, then my hips and butt widened. I couldn’t stop it. There was nothing I could do.”
I raised my head again to find him in the same position, rage burning in his eyes. “He starved me,” I whispered.
Grayson’s eyes sliced to look out the window.
“I was allowed a small lunch and an even smaller dinner. I don’t even think I was eating a thousand calories a day. My father locked the fridge and the cabinets,” I explained, my voice shaking. “When I got to high school, I was thin as a twig, and everyone called me ‘Tiny Carrie.’ Then, the years passed, and I got used to the hunger—to the pain in my stomach. My body adapted, and in college, my father introduced me to Robert, who was one of his colleague’s sons. Robert was charming; we had the perfect love story.”
Those dark eyes collided with mine as a muscle jumped in his cheek. He sighed through his nose and tipped his head, urging me to continue.
I swallowed. “I think I was so use to the abuse from my father that when Robert started repeating the same patterns, I didn’t recognize it. That book discusses the many different ways suppressed memories can pop back up in your life. The dreams—the memories—were never about him starving me, but he made all my meals. He picked all my outfits. He made sure I was working out in the morning for at least two hours. I was his doll, not his wife. He also yelled at me. A lot. More so towards the end. I was never good enough for him, and I was so blind, I figured that was how a man was supposed to love a woman. It was all I ever knew.”
A single tear slipped down my cheek, and Grayson’s face twisted. I quickly wiped it away before moving on. “After his death, I was so overwhelmed with pain and grief. My mind was lost—I was lost. I thought that it was—that was the only kind of love the world had to offer me. After my...attempt, I was sent to the rehabilitation facility, where they pumped me full of medication but also gave me a decent amount of food. The weight came back naturally, and by the time I escaped, I’d never felt healthier.”
Grayson bit off a curse, shaking his head. “Jesus.”
“What I told you months ago during that first night about me being in pain was the truth. I was in pain, but not from love. The longer I’ve been gone, the more I get to know myself, the more I realize what Robert and I had wasn’t love. That man didn’t love me, Grayson. I was nothing more than an asset to him.”
He bent his head, inhaling a deep breath, but I didn’t wait. I kept going, needing to get all of it out.
“The first time you looked at me, I’d never felt more beautiful in my entire life,” I croaked, my voice thick. “The first time you kissed me, I’d never felt more alive—more wanted. When you didn’t come back, I mourned the fairytale I thought you could give me. I was so hopeful, Grayson, and I didn’t even know your name. After months of waiting, I wanted to feel that again, and I’d looked at the life I’d built for myself and the people in it…” I looked out the window, watching the snow starting to fall. “I took a chance on Leo because I had to move on from you.”
“Carrie…”
My head snapped back to him. “I need to apologize.”
He shook his head. “There is nothing you need to apologize for, Sunshine.”
“I hope to God I didn’t hurt you,” I breathed, my chest aching. “I would never be able to forgive myself if I hurt you, Grayson.”
Suddenly, he was on his feet, the chair slamming into the wall behind him as I jumped. He stalked around the table and yanked my chair out before grabbing my face in both his hands. His lips brushed against mine softly as he promised, “You didn’t hurt me.”
Relief washed over me. “You don’t think—”
“No,” he cut me off, answering the question before it left my lips. “The only thing I think is how goddamn lucky I am to have found you.”
Present.
After that, he gave me a kiss and got to his side of the conversation.
Leo’s death.
Grayson went on to tell me that his team took care of the body, making it look like Leo went back out to sea, where they dumped his body into the icy water and abandoned his boat. After this news was delivered, I waited for the shock to come, but it never did. These men had done this before, that much was clear, and I knew this would never come back on me.
Now, there was just the matter of the town, and Sarah and Michael.
Grayson said that he would handle Michael, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Dominic typed up a story for me to memorize in case people asked me questions about Leo.
Everyone would believe that story. Leo was an obsessed fisherman who’d had a run of bad luck at sea—even his employee was feeling it. The guy wouldn’t question him going back out, especially when, according to the Red Snake team, he was so far behind on bills and payroll.
While Grayson was at the vet, I’d it read three times. After that, I straighten up the house, made a cup of tea, curled up on the couch, and waited for it to hit me.
It never did, and now, Grayson was back from the vet, just like he said he would be.
“Carrie?”
Blinking, I raised my head, meeting Grayson’s eyes as he stood over me. “Yes?”
He lowered himself to his haunches, gently took my mug from my hands, and set it on the side table before returning his attention back to me. “Talk to me,” he ordered. “What’s wrong?”
I was worried about not feeling anything over Leo’s death. Before he turned into a crazy asshole, he was a decent friend, and yet, I still wasn’t sad. I thought I’d be sad. I was sad over Robert, but not Leo, who had been kind to me. “Am I a bad person?” I blurted.
Grayson raised a brow. “A bad person?”
I nodded. “You know, for not being sad about Leo?”
I watched in awe as his face softened. His brow relaxed, the tension around his mouth disappeared, and his eyes—the darkness within them seemed to melt altogether, revealing something even more gentle and kind: Grayson’s soul.
“Baby,” he murmured, gripping my chin softly. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and when he broke our gaze, he closed those warm eyes, shaking his head. “Fuck, I’ll never understand you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked as my brows snapped together.
He leveled with me then. “After what you told me this morning, knowing what I already knew from your file and what happened last night…I just don’t understand how your heart could still be so precious—so pure.”
My lips parted as his hand shifted, cupping my jaw and guiding me closer to him until we were face to face. His minty breath skated across my skin as he rasped, “I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you never lose your light.”
A lump formed in my throat as my heart drummed inside my chest, beating rapidly.
Boom, boom, boom.
“Do me a favor then?” I requested, suddenly breathless and intoxicated by his scent, his words, the look in his eyes.
“Anything,” he rumbled softly as I wrapped my fingers around his wrist.
I pulled his hand down my neck, over my collarbone, and finally stopping right over my heart, pressing his palm against it. His eyes flashed and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “There’s no way to stop it. I think you and I both know that,” I whispered, placing my other hand on top of both of ours, pressing down so he could feel that little organ beating for him.
It would never beat for anyone else.
His eyes snapped down to where our hands were.
“What’s the favor?” he asked, his voice raw and rough. The air between us was thick now, vibrating with an electric current powered by need, stretching between his soul and mine.
“I need you to catch me, Grayson. Catch me when I fall.”
If someone asked me how it happened, I didn’t think I could explain it, but as soon as the words left my lips, he didn’t give them a chance to linger in the air before he struck. I was yanked to him, and the next thing I knew, I was in his lap, my thighs spread on either side of his, both of his hands holding my head.
“You saying you’re falling for me?” he clipped.
I nodded.
Our foreheads were together, and the next words out his mouth were ones I would remember for the rest of my life. “I’ve already fucking caught you, Sunshine,” he growled. “There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d let you slip through my fingers.”
“Never let me go,” I croaked, wrapping my arms around his neck.
He shook his head once. “Never,” he vowed as his hands dropped to my waist, his lips against mine.