Chapter 7 #5
Harry looked at her through the eyes of a mercenary, a man trained to break people. She was sleek and fit, but slender. She moved with the grace of a dancer, not an athlete. She was extraordinary, with a once-in-a-generation talent, beautiful and graceful—and prey.
They’d break her in five minutes.
Her luck couldn’t hold out forever.
It wouldn’t be luck operating in her life from now on, it would be Harry, and he’d bend the fates his way. He’d bet on himself against any man, and he was highly motivated.
Not to mention he could always count on his brothers, Sam and Mike. The three of them were unbeatable. You didn’t want to mess with Harry Bolt, especially when backed up by Sam Reston and Mike Keillor.
She was watching his face, trying to take her cues from him, looking a little lost and maybe even scared. His usual expression—or so his brothers told him—was grim. He knew how to scare and intimidate, he had that down pat. But now he needed to hearten.
A smile, that’s what was needed. And he knew how to do it, too. Tighten muscles at corners of mouth, show teeth…
By God it worked! Ellen’s face lightened and she smiled a little in return.
Step number two, feed her.
He took her by the hand and turned toward the kitchen.
For the first time, he was glad he had a big house.
When Sam had found the apartment for him, he’d hated it.
It was so big and empty, with room after room he didn’t need and didn’t want.
It was still mostly empty space, because he’d never taken the time or the trouble to decorate.
But now he was glad that it took a while to get from the bathroom to the kitchen, because he could hold her hand. Her hand was small and soft in his and it felt…good. Damned good.
He nearly snorted, thinking of what Mike would say. Mike, Mr. Unromantic, Mr. Fuck-‘em-and-leave-‘em. Holding hands wasn’t part of Mike’s style. Harry wouldn’t have thought it his style, either, though it had been a long, long time since he’d touched a woman in any way.
Maybe that was why he got off on this so much. He was just holding her freaking hand, something kids did on a playground, not that he’d ever held a girl’s hand when he was a kid. As a kid, everyone had avoided him. His household had been bad news even in the slums they’d lived in.
Now he got it, totally. Got why there were all these gauzy ads on TV, youngsters holding hands in a park, oldsters holding hands in the old folks’ home.
It was nice. It was more than nice. It was warmth and connection. She looked up at him as they crossed the huge bare expanse of his living room and smiled. He smiled back, lost himself in her eyes, and barely missed smacking his shin on the coffee table.
He instinctively shortened his strides, slowed down to keep pace with her. She was still weak and moved slowly.
Fine with him. He’d walk holding hands with her till sundown if he could. He was still savoring the feeling of her palm against his, trying to figure out the last time he’d held hands with a woman, when they finally arrived in the kitchen.
Her eyes widened when she saw what was on the table. A French press full of steaming coffee, a big platter of bacon and eggs and toast, two stacks of silver dollar pancakes and a small pitcher of blueberry syrup.
And—because Nicole had insisted—a big bowl of peeled and diced fruit and a couple of jars of plain lowfat yogurt, which he thought tasted like cardboard. But you didn’t say no to Nicole. That was the law.
Harry held out a chair and she slid in as if her knees wouldn’t hold her any more. He frowned. She was still weak. She needed food and rest and exercise, in that order.
He slid into the chair at right angles to her.
“I can’t claim all the credit for this breakfast,” he said, pouring her some coffee.
He held up the milk pitcher and raised his eyebrows.
She nodded and he turned her coffee a pale tan.
“Nicole and Sam’s housekeeper decided a couple of months ago that I needed fattening up and she’s just continued bringing down food by the bucketful ever since. ”
Her eyes widened. Harry knew what she was thinking. He was a solid two twenty. It was all muscle, but no one looking at him now could possibly know that he’d been reduced to bone and gristle a year ago.
She’d taken two silver dollar pancakes, poured four molecules of blueberry syrup over them and was eating daintily.
Everything about this was just so great. Eve, in his kitchen. Okay, Ellen. But she was also Eve. And—unexpected bonus—lusciously beautiful.
The hot water of the shower had put some rose under the ivory. Her colors were just incredible. The sun was shining in through the kitchen window and she lifted her face into it, closing her eyes.
Harry hungrily watched her face as the sunlight brought everything to life.
The deep auburn eyebrows, delicately arched, the long, lush eyelashes slightly lighter at the tips, the full mouth so deeply red it didn’t need lipstick—it was enough unpainted to bring a full-grown man to his knees.
Not to mention the dark red hair that revealed a thousand colors in the light, from dark brown to coppery red to streaks of blonde.
It was thick and glossy and starting to curl as it dried.
A curling loop hung over her shoulder and he had to dig his fingernails in his palms to force himself not to pick it up and run it through his fingers.
They’d kissed, yeah, okay. But women had this invisible Rule Book men weren’t allowed to read and he didn’t know if some time had to pass from kissing her to fondling her hair.
He’d have the right to touch her soon, though. And not just her hair. All over. Oh yeah, he would.
“This is delicious. Thank her and Nicole for me.”
“You can thank them yourself,” Harry said easily as he transferred half the bacon and scrambled eggs to her plate. “We’re invited to dinner at Sam’s tonight.”
For some reason that alarmed her. Her head rose and the coffee cup which she’d been holding to her mouth trembled. Harry reached out and cupped her hand with his.
“I don’t want to be any trouble,” she said. Her voice was tight and strained. “As soon as I’m better, I’ll be on my way. With some help from you and Sam. So, really, there’s no reason to include me in any dinner invitations.”
Harry listened calmly, refraining from rolling his eyes. He didn’t even dignify that ridiculous statement with an answer. She was here and she was staying.
Instead, he leaned forward and watched her eyes.
It wasn’t a hardship. In the morning light they looked like the finest green marble , with darker veins of color running through them.
Back in his office, her eyes had been bloodshot with fatigue, dark purple smudges under them.
Now the whites of her eyes were as clear as a child’s, the skin underneath fair and unblemished.
“Why did you run?” he asked. She sucked in a little breath, the sound loud in the silence of the room. “You came to us for help, you were safe with us, but you ran away. Why?”
Ellen put the cup down carefully on the saucer, focusing on her hands, as if it were a difficult and delicate task. She looked up finally.
“I thought—" she began and stopped.
“You thought?” He gave in to temptation and picked up the deep red lock that had fallen forward and smoothed it back. Fuck the Rule Book. “What did you think?”
She met his eyes and he nearly winced at the misery in them. Beautiful deep-green eyes full of pain and sorrow and a deep loneliness. She sighed. “You know I got your name through Kerry? Or the woman you know as Kerry because that’s the name you provided her with?”
Harry nodded. He wasn’t the one who’d set Kerry—or Dove or whatever the hell her name had been originally—up in her new life, Sam was.
But had the roles been reversed, had it been Sam who’d been wounded, Harry or Mike would have been the ones to help Kerry into her new life.
Her story had been terrifying. A rich, powerful, brutal, alcoholic husband who’d put her into the hospital over and over again, and who sooner rather than later would put her into a grave.
“She shouldn’t have talked,” Harry said gently. If she hadn’t talked, Ellen would probably be dead by now, but they drummed into the women’s heads that no one—no one—was to know their story. It was their first line of defence. No one was to know, ever.
Shelters had their hotline, which was the way the women found their path to RBK. It was way too dangerous to have an informal network of women talking among themselves. The men after them were brutal, but they weren’t necessarily stupid.
“Yeah.” Ellen nibbled at a corner of a piece of toast, then put it down, pushed the plate away.
“She knew that, believe me she knew that. We became friends almost despite ourselves. We were both waitressing off the books. I could just tell from what Kerry was reading and the way she spoke that she was well-educated, way overqualified for what she was doing. We just drifted together, I think, because we were both so…so lonely.”
Harry nodded again. He knew. The women they spirited away had to keep their heads down for the rest of their lives, otherwise they were dead meat. But women are hard-wired to make connections, they have to do real violence to themselves not to.
Unlike guys.
If Harry hadn’t had Sam and Mike, he’d have spent the worst periods of his life—after Crissy’s death and after Afghanistan—completely alone, never speaking to another human being.
And while he’d been wounded, he hadn’t even wanted company.
Sam and Mike pushed themselves into his life, never taking no for an answer.
Because Harry’s instinctive response was to turn his face to the wall.
“So you became friends? Told each other your story?”