Chapter Fifteen
By the time she’d tied off the stitches like he’d shown her how, Ren was completely unconscious.
And burning up with fever.
She touched his forehead but she didn’t even have to know for sure how high his temperature had climbed.
His face was already a bright red and he’d kicked all the covers off his body.
She spent the next few hours alternating between trying to cool him down with a wet washcloth and attempting to get some ibuprofen in him by grinding it into powder and mixing it with water.
Nothing seemed to help.
When the heat in his body turned to chills, she wrapped him in her arms, covered them with a blanket and held him.
“I know you had something you wanted to tell me, so I need you to wake up and try, okay?”
Her voice seemed to soothe his fever-ravaged mind and body so she kept talking.
“You call me Peaches. Did I ever tell you how much I like that? I never would’ve thought I would, but I really do. It makes me feel...special. Cared for.”
His body shuddered again, and she pulled him closer, hooking her leg over his hips to bring him even closer, kissing his forehead.
“I know you’ve been talking to me and asking me questions. Trying to get to know me. And I know I avoided them a lot.”
She knew there was very little chance that Ren was understanding her, but she still wanted to get it all out.
“But I’ll tell you, anyway. I married a monster. I was nineteen years old, pretty much alone in the world, and fell for the first guy who showed me attention.”
She brushed hair off his forehead.
“You asked me if I knew what he did. I didn’t. I really didn’t at first. But it didn’t take long for me to put it together. He was a criminal. Sold things on the black market. I’m not sure exactly what. Weapons, I think, maybe? Technology.
“I should’ve gone to the police. The first time I suspected something, or at the least the first time he hurt me. But I had nowhere else to go. He convinced me that nobody would believe me about the abuse.”
Talking about this hurt so much.
“But I think maybe he knew I was going to go to the cops, anyway. Before I even knew that was going to be my plan. That’s when he changed everything. He fired all the live-in staff who worked at the house, so there was no one around but us.
“Then he told me he was going to train me to be perfect. Teach me how to be the perfect wife. For two and a half years I never saw another living soul but him in that house in Grand Junction. I never stepped foot outside it unless it was some sort of punishment. Like...like the snow. Buried in the snow until I was sure I would die.”
She wiped the tears that leaked from her eyes.
“That day it was because I’d forgotten to put the lid back on the toothpaste and clean out the sink. But really that was just an excuse for him to torture me. If it hadn’t been that, he would’ve found something else.”
She rubbed her hands up and down Ren’s arms. Arms that had never once been used to do anything but bring her pleasure and comfort.
“Eventually I just gave up. Gave in to him. He wanted the perfect puppet, I realize now. Damien’s always been the master puppeteer, getting people to do what he wants. I became an empty shell of a person filled up with the desire to be perfect for him.”
Ren stopped shuddering. She almost hoped he could hear her, could process what she was saying, so he would understand. Even though she knew it was probably better for him if he didn’t know anything about Damien if the police asked him.
Or, God forbid, Damien coming after Ren himself.
Because telling him this didn’t change anything. Didn’t change the fact that if Damien discovered she was alive, he would search the world over for her and kill anyone who got in the way of bringing her back to him. Ren included.
“I completely lost myself. Didn’t know who I was anymore. Once I was that perfect shell, he could start bringing me places again. A restaurant. The opera. I never talked to anyone, and just sat by his side, the perfect dutiful wife. One day he took me to the bank with him.
“For most people, getting caught in the middle of a bank robbery, getting grazed by a bullet in the head, would be the worst day of their life. For me, it was the best.
“I still couldn’t even tell you exactly what happened that day in the bank. Robbers. A SWAT team. Yelling, shooting. I got shot. Well, a bunch of people got shot, but I think my wound actually came from the good guys. Or at least Damien was screaming something like that.”
She trailed her fingers along the gauze covering Ren’s wound.
“There was blood. So much blood everywhere. Even more than what you lost today. I thought I was dying. Everybody thought I was dying. Damien jumped on a SWAT team member and started hitting him and then got detained, although he didn’t get arrested.”
If they had arrested and processed him, they would’ve realized what a criminal they had on their hands. But they’d thought he was just a guy hysterical that his wife had been shot, so they’d let him go.
“Miracle of all miracles, I got brought to the wrong hospital. The closest, but one that was having some sort of biological pathogen scare and was turning away patients. The CDC had been called in and it was complete chaos. I was just sitting in a corner of the ER since everyone had bigger problems than me. I’d stopped bleeding and obviously wasn’t going to die.
CDC personnel stopped right in front of me, discussing how anyone who had died in the last four hours in the emergency room needed to be immediately cremated because of contamination concerns. ”
She could swear she almost felt Ren’s arms tighten around her. His shuddering had completely stopped. She kicked the blankets off them a little so neither of them would overheat.
“I was sitting there with my own medical file in my lap and knew this was my only chance. Nothing like this was ever going to happen again. I saw the CDC guys tell an orderly to take a woman I was pretty sure was dead, somewhere, and I followed. To make a long story short, I looked at her chart, copied what was said about needing to be cremated. Put my medical file and jewelry in a metal box next to hers and ran.”
She rubbed his hair off his forehead again.
“It worked. Everyone assumed I had died in the shootout—I was reported on the news as a victim—and the hospital confirmed they had ordered cremation of all bodies at that time.”
She sighed, lying back farther. “That was six years ago. I’ve been running and hiding ever since. Scared of everything. Haven’t even painted. I let him steal so much from me, Ren. Not only the three years I was married to him, but the six years since. Nearly a decade of my life.
“It wasn’t until I met you that I realized it was time to stop. Not stop hiding. I’m never going to be able to stop hiding. But stop being his puppet. Stop letting him dictate and control my every move.”
She reached over and kissed his forehead, pulling him closer. “You taught me that, Ren. And I love you for it.”
* * *
IT WAS THIRTY hours before Ren finally woke up. Natalie had bathed him with cool washcloths when he got too hot, held him when he got too cold, fed him as much broth as she could get him to take.
And talked to him through the whole thing.
She realized talking about her life with Damien had been more for her than it had been for Ren, especially since Ren wasn’t going to remember any of it anyway. There was so much she’d pushed aside. Feelings of anger, inadequacy, helplessness, pain.
Maybe she was never going to ever truly stop running from Damien physically. But she could stop running every other way.
She was done letting him pull all her strings. Done being a puppet.
Looking at Ren now, watching his body wake up—his temperature back to normal, the sickly pallor gone, even his shoulder wound looking much better—was like a physical caress.
Natalie knew she hadn’t known him long enough to call what was pressing inside her chest legitimate. Knew they were brought on by the dangerous and adrenaline-inducing circumstances that they’d found themselves in. But she didn’t care.
She hadn’t known she was starving until she’d tasted him.
She wasn’t a fool; she knew things would always be complicated at best. But maybe a relationship with him could possibly work. He lived in Montana on a farm, for crying out loud.
A farm that sounded like everything she’d ever wanted in the world.
Why would Damien ever look for her on a farm in Montana? He wouldn’t. She could explain everything to Ren, and then stay off the grid there. Take shelter in him. In them.
Give in to these feelings that had been wrapping themselves around her heart since the first moment she saw him on the train. And hope he felt the same way.
His green eyes blinked open right then. She saw confusion light his eyes, then knowledge as he remembered where they were.
Then heat—so much heat—as he focused in on her.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” he whispered. “From the beginning it has hurt me to look at you.”
She felt her face—and other parts of her body—begin to burn.
“I think that might be some residual fever talking there, soldier. You’ve been pretty sick for a while.”
In a heartbeat his face changed, a cool focus washing out the passion that had just crackled between them.
“I’ve been unconscious?” he asked briskly, already starting to sit up. “How long?”
She moved to help him, but he’d already made it himself. “A few hours.”
He pinned her with his eyes, moving his shoulder, testing it. “How many hours? Twelve? Eighteen?”
“Probably closer to thirty. It was sunset two days ago when you fell in. You woke up and helped me stitch you the next morning, and then you were out all day yesterday and a lot of today. It’s midafternoon now.”
She wasn’t expecting the muttered curse that fell from his lips.
She laughed nervously. “Got a big date that you’re missing?”
He began patting around the bed. “I need my phone. Do you know where it is?”
“It’s broken, remember? You were asking for it before the fever.” She got the pieces from the table and brought them over to him. “It got crushed in the fall or the river.”
He muttered another curse before standing, completely naked and a little unstable, and walked to the window.
“It’s too late. Damn it. I didn’t expect this.”
Natalie had no idea what he was talking about. “Expect what?”
He didn’t answer, just rolled his shoulder and stretched his arm as if to test the usability. It had to have hurt him, but he didn’t complain. Then he walked over to the couch where she’d hung his clothes—getting steadier with every step—and got dressed.
“Ren, what’s going on?” Obviously she was missing something important. She struggled to keep her voice calm.
He walked to her and cupped her face in his hands. “We have to go. We’re going to be walking out this afternoon.”
“We are? Why? Where?”
He closed his eyes like he was in pain. More than just the pain in his shoulder. Something deeper. “We’re closer to a town than we originally thought. I saw some smoke a few miles away before I fell in the river. So get together whatever you can so we can walk out in about thirty minutes.”
“Are you sure we’re that close to civilization?”
He walked over to her and leaned his forehead against hers. “Yes. I’m positive. I just wanted a little more time with you alone before giving you back to the rest of the world. And then the mountain lion...”
He still looked pained. She knew he wasn’t telling her everything. But what he was telling her was enough.
She smiled and kissed him softly. “I don’t think I wanted to go back to the rest of the world, anyway. Go do whatever it is you need to do. I’ll be ready in thirty minutes. I trust you.”