Chapter 12 - Marla
MARLA
I just clung to him. He was safe, that much my body had determined. Ranger would always be safe, so as long as I could touch him, I was safe.
At least, that was what my body said.
But when I felt him dipping me down, my arms tightened. My legs tightened. I still couldn’t believe my body was willing to spread its legs for someone else, even if it wasn’t that kind of spreading, you know?
I felt my side touch down onto something soft and I scrambled.
“Wait, wait, wait, I’m sorry. Whatever I did, whatever it was, I’m sorry, Range. I won’t do it again. I just—”
“Sssshh, sh, sh, sh, sh,” he shushed softly as he pulled back and smoothed his hand over my forehead. “You’re okay. You’re fine. You’re just in my bed.”
I whimpered.
No, not a bed.
Nothing good ever happened in a bed.
“Ranger,” I whimpered out as my eyes lined with tears.
His thumb smoothed across my cheek. “I can’t lay you back down in that closet, Marla.”
My lower lip quivered. “I’ll be good, I promise.”
“You have bruises all on your left side, sweetie,” he said, his eyes aching with something. “I can’t set you back down in there. I just can’t.”
I furrowed my brow before I slowly looked over to the left side of my body. And sure enough, the outside of my arm was covered in one big bruise. I pulled the collar of my shirt back and looked down inside, and there was another bruise. Right against the left side of my ribcage.
Did sleeping on the floor cause that?
“I swear, you’re safe here,” Ranger whispered as he motioned to his bed.
A soft knocking came at the door before a voice sounded. “Knock, knock, someone called for Doc.”
My hands.
How had I forgotten about my hands?
“Come in,” Ranger said.
I heard his door creak open as I stared at my bloodstained fingertips. My God, I was a fucking mess.
I had to pull myself together.
Lizzie was counting on me.
“You have a hell of a friend,” Doc said as he perched on the edge of the bed.
I looked over at Ranger warily, but he just encouraged me with a head nod and a smile. He settled his hand onto my knee, watching me intently, like he surveyed my reactions. I liked that about him. How he watched me. It was like he wanted to learn everything about me, but not in a weird way.
Just so he could help.
It was refreshing, after the months of hell I endured.
“Come here,” Doc said as he held out his hand, “let me see.”
I picked up my right hand and settled it against his palm. He clucked like a mother hen as he surveyed my fingers one by one. I watched him dig around in his bag before he pulled out a small packet, which I understood were alcohol wipes.
“It may sting a bit,” Doc said before he ripped the packet open with his teeth.
“I know,” I said softly.
He gave me a nod before he cleaned up my fingers, and I just…
studied him. He had blond hair tailored to one of those hairstyles that were popular with guys now, where the sides of their heads were faded up into hair on top?
And he had these wildly gray eyes that literally looked like steel.
His skin was peppered with freckles. So many freckles.
I spoke before thinking. “Lizzie’s got freckles, too.”
“Oh?” Doc asked as he switched my hands off.
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, not everywhere, you know? But she has them in random places.”
“Like where?” he asked, keeping his attention on my hands.
I smiled softly at the memory. “She wasn’t born with them, that much I know.
They started popping up randomly when we were in middle school.
” I giggled. “I remember her finding that first patch of freckles right along the top of her thigh. She came over one day and showed me and said, ‘I’m being reprinted!’”
The memory made me laugh, and to my surprise, both Miles and Doc laughed with me.
It felt… nice.
To laugh again.
“She sounds like a hoot,” Doc said as he went back to my other hand and pulled out some gauze and a little tin can.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The gauze?” Doc asked with a grin on his face.
I shot him a look. “No, meanie. What’s in the tin can?”
He chuckled as he uncapped the top and spooned out some of the goop with his fingers. “It’s something I developed. Just a topical pain ointment with a bit of lidocaine in it. Your fingers will start hurting here after a while, but this will help with it.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“No thanks needed,” he said as he bandaged up the tips of my fingers.
As I watched him work, I couldn’t help but think about Lizzie in that video. The punches she took. The way she screamed out for where I was.
She looked for me.
My lower lip quivered just thinking about it.
“Hey now,” Ranger said as he gripped my chin softly and turned my head in his direction. “None of that now. None of this is your fault, Marla. Your friend is capable. The military doesn’t take and train those that aren’t capable.”
“Especially the Navy,” Doc muttered.
“This isn’t your fault,” Ranger said again as he softly shook my head in a ‘no’ fashion from side to side. “I want you to say it.”
I sniffled. “This isn’t my fault.”
“It’s not your fault that you have a friend that wanted to come searching for you when you went missing. That means you are loved, Marla. Those two things are different.”
A tear dribbled down my cheek and his thumb caught it. “Thank you for being so kind to me.”
He shook his head. “You don’t ever have to thank me for that.”
“Aaaaand, done,” Doc said as he settled my hands back into my lap.
I picked up my gauzed fingertips and wiggled them around. “They feel numb.”
“Good,” Doc said as he packed up his things, “means the topical ointment is working.”
“How often do we need to change these?” Ranger asked.
“I’ll seek you guys out pretty much every day here for the next week,” Doc said as he closed his bag and stood from the edge of the bed.
I felt something release in my chest when he did. Not because I thought he would pull anything—because I was finally coming to terms with the fact that I was surrounded by good men—but because…
Because I didn’t want anyone else on a bed with me except Ranger.
Where the fuck did that feeling come from?
I didn’t have time to figure it out. All I knew was that I wanted to feel safe again. I wanted Lizzie next to me, and I wanted us to order our favorite takeout food, and I wanted her to tell me about all of the shenanigan pranks that the women of the Navy pulled on the men all the time.
“Hey,” Ranger said as he helped me to lay back down on the bed.
My body shivered as he tucked me in. “Hi.”
He pulled the blanket up to my shoulder before crouching down next to the bed. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but one of these days, I will convince you that you’re safe.”
Somehow, I believed him. “I know you’ll try. I just don’t know that I can feel safe again.”
He reached out and smoothed another tear off my cheek. But then, he leaned forward. Closer. Closer. Closer, still. And my body froze.
Until his forehead pressed against mine.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered as he slid one of his hands into mine.
The pulse of his warm breath against my face relaxed my shoulders. I was turned onto my side in his bed, and I felt my head sink into the pillow a little more. He squeezed my hand softly, as if to encourage me, and I just… laid there.
I laid there and he didn’t try to get in with me.
I laid there and no one came in to watch us.
I laid there and no one pinned me down.
I laid there and he didn’t try to beat me.
I just… laid there.
Untouched.
Unharmed.
For the first time in months.
My lower lip quivered again. Fucking hell, I hated how much I cried now. “Your bed feels so good. Thank you.”
“Here, let me tuck you in,” Ranger said as he pulled away from me and tucked the blanket beneath my body.
Like I was a caterpillar in the middle of being cocooned.
“Thanks,” I whispered softly.
He returned to my head, eventually, and smoothed his hand over my hair. “I have to go to church. The guys are waiting on me.”
I just nodded softly.
He thumbed over his shoulder. “You know the drill. You can have anything in the little mini fridge. You help yourself to the bathroom. Or take a nap. Or take a shower. You can use whatever’s in there, I don’t care.”
I smiled softly. “Thank you.”
His hand paused on top of my head. “I’ll be back soon, Marla.”
And for the first time in months, I believed the words coming out of a man’s mouth.
I watched him exit the room and quickly close the door behind him.
I stared at the ceiling for a long moment, listening to the quiet.
The bed felt enormous. Too much open space, too much softness, nothing to press my back against. My fingers curled into the blanket and I focused on breathing the way he taught me. In through my mouth, slow, out the same way.
I didn't hear him come in. I didn't hear anything until I felt the weight of him against the side of the mattress. It wasn’t Ranger. It was that massive black dog, pressing his flank against the edge of the bed right where my legs were. Like a wall.
I flinched. He didn't move.
I waited for him to do something, but he just stayed there. Warm and heavy and steady, like he had nowhere else to be. My hand drifted down without permission and landed on his back.
He didn't react to that either.
Just breathed.
I didn't feel so exposed anymore.