Chapter 12
SCARLETT
“Did you put on sunscreen?” Luke asked.
“Not yet.”
He reached into the backpack beside our feet and plucked out a bottle, tossing it over. “Your knees and shoulders are a little pink.”
I doused my arms and legs, then stood and sprayed the back of Luke’s neck.
“Thanks, beautiful.”
“You’re welcome.” I kissed his cheek and returned to my seat.
The sun was warm today but the spray from the river kept my skin cool, which was probably why I hadn’t noticed I was starting to burn. My ghostly white legs and arms hadn’t seen the sun in months, but wow, had I missed it.
My hair was tucked into the same cap I’d worn the whole trip, Luke’s cap, and my ponytail draped down my spine. I hoped the ends would pick up some highlights because I didn’t see a trip to the salon in my future.
“I need a haircut,” I said.
Luke frowned. “What kind of cut are we talking here? Because I might have an opinion. Short like Presley’s?”
“Do you like her hair?”
“It’s fine. But I love yours.”
“I just want a trim.” My sister could pull off the short style. It suited her personality, spunky and free. She stood out and her hair made a statement.
I understood why she wanted it short. Long hair had been one of Dad’s requirements. But still, I loved the long, bright-blond strands. They gave me something to hide behind. They gave Luke something to toy with. His fingers always seemed to find their way into my hair, even when we slept.
We’d woken up to the sun’s warmth on the tent’s walls and the birds singing their good-morning song.
Luke had kept me in his arms all night, our legs twined together.
As he’d promised, there’d been no hurry, no race to get on the water.
He’d built a fire to cook breakfast and brew coffee.
Then we’d slowly packed up camp and headed out.
Luke turned an oar, steering as we floated.
His forearms flexed. His biceps and shoulders strained against his T-shirt.
By the time we made it to camp, I’d be so hot and bothered from drooling over him all day that I might not be able to wait for him to set up the tent before I pounced. Raft sex? Oh, yeah.
That was, if he was still speaking to me.
I didn’t want to ruin this trip, but the niggling sensation in my stomach couldn’t be ignored. Now that I’d made the decision to tell Luke everything, the truth clawed at my throat, scratching to get out. I’d swallowed it down at breakfast, but this was as good a time as any to set the words free.
Just tell him. My hands trembled at my sides so I tucked them under my legs. My heart raced.
I trusted Luke to keep my story safe. I trusted him to help me figure this out.
I trusted Luke.
With my life.
Here goes.
“I need to tell you something.”
The easy, relaxed expression on his face disappeared. “Want me to stop?”
“No.” It would be easier to talk this through if he was rowing. If we were moving. “You asked me a while ago what happened at the Warrior clubhouse. I wasn’t ready to tell you. The truth is, I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
“You can.”
I gave him a small smile. “I know.”
He nodded for me to continue and I had a hard time holding those navy irises. There was shame in my story. Regret.
“Jeremiah lived at the Warrior clubhouse,” I said.
“He kept telling me that he was getting an apartment. I believed him for a while, but he had no intention of moving out. Besides, stealing from the club would have been harder if he hadn’t lived there.
I justified living there too, waiting and believing his lies, because I was in love with him. I told myself it was temporary.”
Luke swallowed hard. “You really loved him, didn’t you?”
“No,” I admitted. “I thought I loved him. I loved the boy he once was but not the man. I think I stayed with him because of fear. I was scared to go out on my own. And the irony of that isn’t lost on me. I’m more like my mother than I want to admit.”
“I don’t know your mom, Scarlett. But I do know you. You’re loyal. You’re stubborn.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “You stick things out, even when they’re hard. Staying with him isn’t a sign of weakness. You just weren’t ready to give up.”
My reflection was there again, shining in his soulful eyes. What would it be like to see myself that way? Emotion bubbled in my chest and I choked down the urge to cry. There was more to my story.
“Anyway, I didn’t have a job or any money.
Every time I talked about finding someplace to work, Jeremiah told me to wait.
Just a couple more weeks and he’d have enough for a deposit on an apartment.
Then I could find a job close to our place.
I didn’t have a car so it made sense. But a couple weeks turned into months.
Then more months. I should have realized sooner he didn’t actually want to leave the clubhouse. ”
“What was it like?”
I cringed. “Disgusting. Dark. Raw. The realness appealed to me. In a way, it was refreshing. They weren’t trying to hide their demons behind floral prints and pastels.
And I needed that kind of honesty. It was like taking my feelings and my fears from Chicago and smearing them all over the wall in black, bloody strokes. ”
The violence was never hidden. Women were shoved around and slapped. Men fought with other men.
“It’s weird to think living there was healthy, but it was healing.
That place was so much like my parents’ house but there was no pretending.
And because nothing was covered up, no one made excuses for why they hit and hurt.
It was eye opening. I needed to stare at the ugly for a while and find the urgency to change my life. ”
That was not the life I wanted for myself. Neither was the life I’d had in Chicago. Neither was Jeremiah. I only wished it hadn’t taken me so long to figure out. Because maybe if I had clued in sooner, I wouldn’t have been in the clubhouse basement on that horrific day.
“The first few weeks were fun,” I admitted.
“The parties were exhilarating. Jeremiah gave me his undivided attention. He took me for rides on his motorcycle and we were in our own world. Then one day I woke up and was starving. I hadn’t eaten the day before.
Jeremiah was still asleep. He’d told me not to go wandering around the clubhouse, but I thought he just meant during the parties or at night since they had a lot of people come over who weren’t Warriors. ”
Luke’s hands squeezed tight on the oars. He knew where I was going with this.
“I went to the kitchen, hungover and out of it. I got something out of the refrigerator and when I closed the door, this man was there. I didn’t recognize him but he was wearing a Warrior cut.
” I could still see the arrowhead stitched into the black leather on the back.
“He came at me. I wasn’t sure what he was on, but I managed to scramble away and raced back to Jeremiah’s room. ”
“I hope Jeremiah beat that guy’s ass.”
I scoffed. “Jeremiah was better at taking a beating than delivering one. He promised that he’d told the guys to leave me alone, but from that point on, I started to see things for what they really were.”
Women being treated like whores. Some raped. Some beaten. Men who didn’t care about anything other than drugs, money and violence. Men who would kill anyone who got in their way. All in the name of brotherhood.
“That was about the time I wanted to see Presley and came to Clifton Forge but chickened out. I shouldn’t have gone back.
” Stupid, stupid Scarlett. “But Jeremiah promised to make some changes, to get us an apartment and a real place to stay. It was all bullshit, but I was so used to believing promises that I stayed the fool.”
“Scarlett—”
“Don’t.” I held up a hand. “I love the way you see me. No one has ever looked past my mistakes and shortcomings the way you do. But I don’t want to see past these.
Does that make any sense? I need these mistakes.
I need these regrets. Because this is the only way I can make sure they won’t happen again. ”
Luke sighed. “I get it. But I still think you’re too hard on yourself.”
Maybe I was, but hard was the fuel driving me forward.
“Jeremiah promised to change and I guess, in a way, he did. Just not for the better. He started staying out later and more often. Most nights, I watched TV in his room and fell asleep hours before he got back. He was jumpy. He was edgy. A few times, he came back beaten to a pulp, but he wouldn’t tell me what had happened.
So I did what I’d always done. I cleaned him up like I had my mother a hundred times before. ”
I’d convinced myself that he needed me. That I was necessary to his survival.
Just like my mother.
“I was stuck. The money my mom gave me had almost run out. Every week that passed, I dreaded finding Presley. The longer I stayed, the harder it would be to tell her I’d been in Montana since June.
Then one snowy morning, Jeremiah was asleep.
He’d come home about dawn with a broken pinky finger—he wouldn’t tell me what had happened.
I assumed he’d been at the tables but maybe he’d been with another woman.
It wasn’t like we were sleeping together anymore so I didn’t care.
It was early and the clubhouse was quiet.
I needed to get out of that room, so I tiptoed out.
I finally decided it was time to get out. I was going to call Presley.”
Luke nodded, his attention fixed on me as we floated. The sun had lost its heat. The sky had dulled. Because I was back in that dark place.
“I hadn’t explored much of the clubhouse.
There was a TV room where I watched movies sometimes.
The kitchen was normally a safe place if I just waited until lunchtime.
There were some women who stopped by regularly and cooked meals.
I didn’t know them well, but they were friendly enough once they realized I had no intention of sleeping with their men. ”
“Remember any names?”