Chapter 11 Stop Crying
stop crying
BELL
Nearly all my adult life.
That’s how long I’d spent trying to be small. Even after Dennis went to jail. I didn’t want to upset anyone. I didn’t want to inconvenience. I tried not to ask for too much. Or get in anyone’s way.
On the list of desires in my life, I would have put “Not Be a Bother” at the top.
But here I was, freaking out in Boone’s truck after he’d ended Dennis, driven me all the way to British Columbia, and even offered to escort me to Noelle’s door.
Stop crying. Stop crying. C’mon, Bell! Vacant Little Thing mode. Go! Go! Go!
It was the panic attack from that first morning, when Boone tried to touch me, all over again. But even worse this time. I couldn’t access my off switch. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t… I couldn’t…
“Bell. I don’t know what to do. Tell me how to help you.” Boone sounded truly alarmed. Apparently, I’d finally managed to break the cool of the Hercules statue who’d taken everything else I’d thrown at him in stride.
I wanted so badly to answer that I was fine, to get myself together, apologize profusely, and finally go see my daughters—the whole point of surviving Dennis and taking this three-day trip. But the tears wouldn’t stop coming. I’d never felt so weak.
"Okay… Okay…" The cabin of Boone's truck filled with cold air when he suddenly jumped out of the truck.
One moment, I was spiraling into an abyss of panic, and the next, the passenger door was being wrenched open.
“I know you don’t want me to touch you, but Vik told Zion I need to get my arms around you. Help you regulate your heartbeat.”
That was all the explanation I got before he hauled me into his chest, scooping me into a hug so tight and enveloping, I felt my rib cage compress under the pressure. My feet left the ground entirely, dangling in the cold night air.
The rough bodily contact should have terrified me—should have sent me spiraling back to the apartment with Dennis only touching me to hurt me. Instead, something in my chest unclenched for the first time in months, and my lungs finally filled all the way.
I didn’t understand why this was working, but I was too desperate to question it.
And my feet were dangling far off the ground, leaving me with what felt like no choice but to wrap my legs around Boone’s waist and cling to him like a baby monkey in one of those nature documentaries I sometimes watched on my laptop to get to sleep.
“That’s right, just breathe into me, sugar.” Boone crooned encouragement I didn’t remotely deserve into my ear, rocking me back and forth.
I laid my head on his shoulder. In the distance, there was a large wooden building with a sign that read BEAR MOUNTAIN BAR & GRILL.
Music spilled out of the open doors, the soundtrack of everyone else who was up this late having a good time. Boone could be knocking back a well-deserved beer right now.
But he just continued to sway with me in his arms, as if there was no other place he’d rather be. “I got you. We’re going to get through this together.”
My heart rate slowed, but I continued to cry, hiccupping as I wet the shoulder of his tee.
Wasn’t he cold? It had to be in the 30s outside his truck, and he was only wearing a t-shirt. But his body radiated heat like a furnace.
Questions like that began to pile up in my head as he held me. Along with, who were Vik and Zion?
As if in answer, two men who looked to be around Boone’s age suddenly came jogging up to us.
One was lean, Black, and incredibly handsome in an Idris Elba and Morgan Freeman went in on a genetic collab sort of way.
He wore a gray turtleneck and chinos, and though he wasn’t sporting glasses, it kind of felt like he should be.
He had a quality to him that reminded me of the professors back at UMG.
The other man was also insanely good-looking.
But that was where all commonality stopped.
He had thick hair swept back in inky black-and-silver waves and wore an intriguing collared shirt.
Not business casual, like Dennis preferred, but something ceremonial-looking.
A claw insignia marked the chest, and ribbons ran in vertical lines down to where they tucked into his jeans.
That and his tanned skin made me think he was probably of Indigenous descent.
They were both staring at me with looks of utter shock, their noses flaring in that same strange way Boone’s sometimes did.
Probably because I looked like such an idiot, koala-clinging to this giant man.
And still I couldn’t stop crying.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I gasped out.
The Maybe Indigenous Guy was the first to speak. “Walker, get in the back with her. I’ll drive.”
“Keys’re still in the engine,” Boone answered, like the other guy’s word was law.
The Black guy shook his head, as if coming out of a daze. “Yes, if she truly wishes not to see her daughters yet, let’s accommodate her before someone comes out of the Bar & Grill and sees us.”
I knew I had no right to feel betrayed, but I looked up at Boone, and the words slipped out before I could stop them. “You told them?”
“Sugar, I couldn’t not tell Zion—like, on a biological level. But I’ll explain everything when we get there. C'mon, let's follow Vik's orders.”
Like a unit mobilized, Boone climbed with me into the back seat of his own truck.
He handled me like a doll, easily repositioning me to sit on his lap while keeping me enveloped in his arms. Meanwhile, the guy he’d called Vik jogged around to the front seat, and Zion climbed into the passenger seat I’d been hauled out of.
“By Ursa,” he exclaimed. “It’s as if we’ve crawled into a sugar cookie.”
His accent was rich and resonant. Not quite British. But adjacent. Like someone hired to play the wise, well-enunciated wizard in some otherworldly fantasy story.
He turned to regard us in the back seat. “You did the right thing, reaching out to us, Walker. And Bell…”
His gaze swept over me with what I could only describe as loving concern.
Even though he’d only met me a few moments ago.
“Bell, I know it’s been a terrible and long road, but we’re glad you’ve found your way to us. We’ll talk more when we get there.”
Okay, when did Boone even have time to fill him in on my “terrible and long” road? And, where was “there?”
Nothing made sense.
But I clung to Boone, continuing to cry, as Vik pulled the truck into an arc and headed back down the mountain road we’d just come up.
“There” turned out to be a series of cabins I could barely see in the shadows beyond the truck’s headlights as we drove down a winding dirt road.
But Vik seemed to know exactly where he was going.
He stopped in front of a two-story log cabin, and Boone said, “Okay, we’re staying here for tonight. But tomorrow, I’ll take you around, and you can have whichever cabin you like.”
A moment later, Vik opened the back door for us like a chauffeur.
By then, I’d stopped crying. But I continued to cling to Boone as he climbed out of the back seat with me still in his arms.
Boone carried me up a short set of stairs into a rustic house that looked like it hadn't been touched in years.
Maybe decades. Open concept, I guess—but in that one-big-front-room way houses used to be built, before realtors came up with a fancy name for it.
The living room bled into a dining area with a long table and a kitchen tucked underneath a set of stairs leading up to the second floor.
The kind of plaid couch that was everywhere in the 90s sat facing a wooden stand holding a bulbous Sharp TV with a built-in VCR.
A huge stone fireplace took up the wall behind the couch, and Vik made a beeline toward it.
Everything except the TV looked handmade and was covered in dust. The house was even colder inside than out. Like walking into a freshly opened crypt.
“Ravik’s wondering if he can draw you a warm bath after he gets the fire going,” Zion said, even though I hadn’t heard the two of them speak.
Ravik? Was that Vik's full name then? He was inspecting one of the gray, weathered logs from a pile beside the fireplace. It was so desiccated that pieces crumbled to the floor as he turned it over.
What were he and Zion to Boone? Friends? Family?
I wasn’t sure what to make of the two guys who’d followed us into the house. But I did know that I didn’t want to ask anything more of them than I already had.
I shook my head quickly against Boone’s chest.
“Perhaps she’ll let you attend to her tomorrow,” Zion said to Ravik, as if consoling him. “She’s not good with asking for or accepting help.”
How does he know that about me? How does he—?
"You're doing great, Boone. Exactly what's needed in this moment.
" Zion's rich voice, practically ringing with authority, cut off my many questions.
"New plan, then. She remains visibly distressed and is most likely overtired from several days of travel.
Take her to the ground floor bedroom for a lie down.
Everything else can be sorted out in the morning. "
Zion spoke, and then suddenly I was being ferried into a dark room. I couldn’t see anything, but somehow Boone had no problem navigating the space. He didn’t even fumble for a light switch.
“Going to set you down on the bed now—okay, okay, I don’t have to.
I’m just going to lie down with you.” I didn’t realize that my body had once again acted before my reasonable brain could catch up until he laid us both down together with one of my hands fisted in his t-shirt while my other arm squeezed around his neck to the point of choking.
“Don’t mind sleeping in my clothes,” Boone rumbled. “Anything you want.”
I didn’t want to be touched. I thought I didn’t want to be touched, but now I couldn’t let him go. Not even to take off my orange coat.
What was wrong with me?
“Your little heart’s beating like a rabbit.” He laid a hand over my breast in a way that didn’t feel sexual but was somehow insanely intimate at the same time. “But it’s okay. It’s okay. Just rest.”
Rest.
My heart slowed again, and my eyes fluttered closed. Still, I had to ask him, “Who were those guys? What did Zion mean by ‘everything else’? What’s getting sorted out in the morning?”
"Ssh." Boone curled around me, encasing me in a protective shell of t-shirt, muscle, and warmth. "Sleep. We'll talk about it all tomorrow."
As if it were a soldier who'd only been waiting for Boone's command, sleep stole over me before any more questions could surface.
So I slept. And not in the fitful way I had in Minneapolis, interspersed with nightmares of Dennis rising from the dead to start the cycle of violence and degradation all over again.
No, this was a peaceful, dreamless black that left me feeling well-rested and reenergized when I woke up the next morning with a huge stretch and yawn…
…to find myself alone in an enormous bed that could easily sleep four people. It was covered in what looked like a traditional star quilt. But instead of the usual eight points, this one had only four, and each tip was marked by a geometric black bear in silhouette against mustard-colored fabric.
The quilt and everything else in the room looked handcrafted—the rough dresser, the simple desk, even the giant bed’s frame.
Boone was nowhere to be found, but the bedroom door stood wide open.
I remembered waking up in my apartment the day after Boone's arrival and finding a similar open door. At least I wasn't naked this time.
I was still wearing Boone's shirt, and the orange coat I'd grabbed from my apartment before we left hung on the back of a wooden chair.
The gift from Noelle…
My chest filled with guilt and regret, remembering how I'd chickened out on seeing her and Holly the night before. Then clenched with panic at the thought of doing anything to remedy that this morning.
What is wrong with me? I asked myself for what felt like the thousandth time since Boone crashed into my life.
"When… Vik and me… bites… not… being able… need… coverage."
Boone's voice drifted in from somewhere beyond the open door. Muffled to the point I could only hear every other word. Was he talking to those two guys from last night?
I slid out of bed and followed my curiosity into a short hallway, at the end of which stood a set of stairs.
"Other than food, you did everything right, Walker.
" Zion's resonant baritone came from somewhere I couldn't see around the corner, clear as a bell now that I was in the hallway.
"Considering the unfortunate circumstances under which you found her, we are nothing but incredibly grateful you managed to ferry our mate here to Bear Mountain. "
I froze. Again wondering just how much Boone had told them about me—wait.
The rest of Zion’s statement finally caught up to my brain.
Our mate?