Chapter Twenty-One
He’d lied to her.
She didn’t know why. Didn’t know for how long.
But it’d been clear back at Shawn’s apartment in the interaction between him and that officer.
Rome was keeping something from her. Something that gave Springdale PD reason to consider him for a series of murders, and she couldn’t dislodge the splinter of doubt that’d dug beneath her skin.
No matter how many times she pulled the conversation apart.
Logically, she understood law enforcement had to consider every avenue.
They were dealing with a serial killer who’d targeted every man she’d gone out with over the past six months.
While still technically married. It made sense police would want to look at her husband.
They didn’t care she and Rome had been separated in all that time, that they were only now considering patching things between them.
The fact was jealousy had proven to be a powerful motivator in murder.
But what had she missed? In all the years they’d been together, what could Rome have kept from her this long?
Lettie couldn’t think about any of that right now.
She didn’t have the energy or the wherewithal to do anything more than focus on washing river water and dirt from her hair and scrubbing her skin until it blistered to forget the killer’s touch.
Didn’t help. The feel of leather gloves against her arm, the pressure he’d used at the backs of her legs to carry her.
Going from those woods, into search and rescue’s hands then straight to the hospital and to Shawn’s apartment—had kept her mind from truly taking in the horror she and Rome had survived.
But now, with nothing to act as a barrier between her and all that’d occurred, she couldn’t stop the sob clawing up her throat.
Or the several after that.
She didn’t remember sinking to the bottom of the hotel tub or pulling her knees into her chest. Could only mentally replay every second of running from a predatory threat she was certain would kill her if it got the chance.
Months. He’d watched her for months. Noted who was in her life, possibly memorized her routines, compromised her personal space.
Law enforcement rangers were downstairs right now, combing through her van with every resource at their disposal to identify this killer, but even once they were finished, Lettie wasn’t sure she could go back to living in it. Sleeping in it.
She had nowhere to go. Nowhere she could hide from a man who unilaterally had decided he owned her very being. Her stomach turned acidic, her insides too tight.
A dull thud rang from somewhere in the hotel room, but she couldn’t make herself move.
Her head felt heavier than it ever had, and she let it sink to the tops of her knees.
Water sluiced down her spine, aggravating the bruises and small cuts she’d acquired last night, but the pain kept her from losing it altogether.
Reminded her they’d made it out. That Rome was on the other side of the bathroom door waiting for her with room service and her pick of two queen-size beds.
Cool air cut through the steam filling the tiled bathroom.
Footsteps sounded, nothing resembling the ones that’d chased her down like prey.
The shower curtain protested along the bar it hung from as that all-too-familiar voice surrounded her in a bubble of assurance she’d taken for granted the entirety of their marriage.
She hadn’t needed it then, but she sure as hell needed it now. Needed him. “Hey.”
It took everything to swallow the next sob. Larsons didn’t show weakness. She couldn’t stop the shame coiling in her chest at the thought of Rome seeing her like this. Naked. Bruised. Broken. She turned her face toward the opposite wall.
Rough calluses scraped over her shoulder, and another uncontrolled gasp caught in her throat.
Rome shifted, sitting just outside the bathtub, allowing the shower water to soak through his clothing as he traced small circles into her skin.
So unlike the harsh hands that’d manhandled her last night.
“It’s okay. Don’t hide from me, Lettie. Don’t keep it in. It’ll only eat you up from the inside.”
She hadn’t needed his permission, but that last bit of control shattered at the devotion in his words.
The tears combined with shower water as her entire body shook with the desperate tremors she couldn’t hold back.
The sounds coming from her weren’t human, but something tortured and dying, and Rome shoved to his feet.
Shutting off the shower water, he slipped his good arm around her upper back and hauled her free of the tub with a strength she hadn’t known he possessed.
Wrestling with literal bears and hunting elk for a living had forged him into an immovable force before she’d known him.
But last night had altered them both. Her legs threatened to give out as the last of whatever energy she had to make it through seeing Shawn’s apartment in shambles died.
Rome was there. Not just with a towel to dry her off but holding her up. Keeping her from dissolving into a puddle on the floor. “You’re okay. You’re safe. He can’t get to you here. I won’t let him hurt you again.”
How had he known what she’d needed to hear?
It didn’t matter that he might be wrong, but each word pierced through that wall of heaviness weighing on her chest. Somehow made it lighter, easier to breathe.
His hands were sure and quick as he dried her off from head to toe, careful of her injuries.
Not once did his gaze change from anything but determination and calculation to take care of her at the sight of her nakedness.
This wasn’t about the crazed desire they’d shown each other days ago. This was about piecing themselves back together, and she’d never been more grateful for her husband than she was right then. “Your clothes are wet.”
“I don’t care about my clothes, Lettie.” Rome raised his attention to her then, the harsh lines around his eyes, caused by years out in the sun, lightening as he gazed at her. His hand worked down her arm slowly, picking up wayward waterdrops from her hair, then back up.
Her throat ached as though she hadn’t used it in years. “Thank you.”
“Yeah.” Securing the towel around her middle one-handed with a talent Lettie didn’t possess, he cocked his mouth into a smile. “You good?”
“I…” She didn’t know how to answer that.
Disarmed by his concern, his smile, everything he’d done to make sure she walked out of those woods alive.
This wasn’t the same man who’d left her without a word, the cold, detached husband she’d become used to.
This was the man she’d fallen in love with all those years ago.
Who’d started chipping away at the ice she’d built around her heart in the past three days. “I don’t know.”
He nodded as though in understanding. Like maybe he needed his own chance to work through everything that’d happened since coming across that hiker’s body.
And the shame that’d been suffocating her a moment ago vanished at the realization. That she didn’t have to be strong in front of him. That he was the one person who would never judge her. Because he was hurting in his own way, too.
“I’m going to change in the other room. I ordered a hamburger and fries from room service.
” Rome tucked the corner of the towel beneath the first layer, his knuckles brushing against the skin around her collarbone.
The shock to her system cleared out the last remnants of dread, but she’d spent too much energy on merely standing to really appreciate the heat he generated. “They’ll be waiting when you’re ready.”
“And a milkshake?” She could already taste it.
“Of course.” He headed for the door, the steam having cleared out in the two or three minutes since he’d pulled her free from the endless dark cycle of thoughts closing in. “Who eats fries without dipping them in a milkshake? Probably that bastard who tried to kill us.”
“Rome.” She waited for him to face her again, her heart suddenly too big for her chest. Clutching the towel in both hands to steel her nerves, Lettie banished that splinter that tried to convince her he’d had anything to do with these murders to the hellhole where it belonged.
“Those men I dated, the victims.” She couldn’t stop her voice catching on the last word, how she’d known each of them men who’d ended up under the killer’s hands, known she was responsible for their deaths.
“None of them were what I was looking for.”
Understanding pulled his shoulders back, and from the slight flinch in his expression, she knew he’d pay for the strain on his wound. “What were you looking for then, Lettie?”
No hiding. No keeping it in. She sucked in a deep breath.
“What we used to have. Before my job became more important than our marriage.” She was doing this.
Breaking her family’s mantra not to show vulnerability, but where had single-mindedness for a scrap of approval and praise gotten her up to this point?
“I wanted all night stargazing on the hood of a truck and the peace that came from being in the middle of nowhere with a warm hand in mine. I wanted inside jokes and silent looks across the table. I wanted someone to just…want me again, but none of them stood a chance. Not as long as I was still in love with you.”
“You had that.” His face fell, exposing all that raw hurt that’d kerneled over the years.
Showing her everything he’d kept hidden, and maybe that was why he could confidently tell her the pain would eat her alive if she didn’t get it out.
“You had someone who wanted to give you orgasms every night and feed you and care for you and support your goals and do things with you and help you out and nap with you if that was what you needed. And you threw it away.”
“I know, and I’ve regretted it every single day since I came home and found those divorce papers on the table.
” She took that first step to mending the burned bridge between them, slowly closing the distance between them.
“I was scared you wouldn’t pick up the phone or answer my messages if I reached out, so I didn’t even try.
Failure was and has always been a death sentence for me and my family, and when you left, that’s what I felt like. A failure.”
She could do this. She could peel back every layer until she was nothing but honesty and hope, but that splinter was still there.
Digging in deeper. “I’m not perfect, and I might not always make the right choice, but I don’t want my life to be driven by a career that doesn’t make me happy anymore.
If the past three days have taught me anything being here with you, it’s that there are more important things in life than trying to win the approval of people who do whatever they can to ensure I understand what a disappointment I am, and I want them. All of them. I want… I want you, Rome.”
“What would change?” His hand flexed into a fist at his side, water dripping from his long-sleeved shirt.
“What would change between us, Lettie? You said it yourself. You’re contracted with NPS here in Zion for another six months, and I have jobs lined up all over the country after I’m done here. How would we make this work?”
After he put down Sam. After he destroyed months of hard-earned research she’d invested in the black bear to gather data to launch her tracking device. Lettie notched her chin higher, meeting his gaze. She shrugged one shoulder. “We could try. Please. Can’t we just try?”
Setting her hand against his chest, she pressed against him, angling her mouth up to close the distance between them.
Not expecting Rome to pull back.
Her hand slipped and she nearly fell forward at his retreat, catching herself at the last second. Her aching body screamed in response, but she managed to stay on her own two feet.
Shaking his head, he added another foot of distance between them, leaving her cold and embarrassed and empty. “This won’t work unless we can be honest with each other.”
“What are you talking about?” She’d been honest. She’d told him everything.
“My uncle didn’t die in a hunting accident.” Rome pressed his mouth into a thin line. “I’m the one who shot him.”