Chapter 4
RYKER
If there’s paparazzi at Delaney’s place, turn around and go to yours.
I’m sure your security is better.
Got it?
We’re good.
Just pulled into the parking lot. It’s empty.
Good. How is she?
Quiet. I think shock set in.
How are you?
Ask me again tomorrow.
—Text from Liv to Ryker
Delaney’s head rests against the Rover’s cool window, eyes closed and body still as the sun begins to rise above an empty Main Street, ushering in a new day.
Good fucking riddance to the old one.
“Lane.” I gently place a hand on the blue scrubs covering her leg when she doesn’t answer, scared to startle her if she’s finally sleeping. But without moving an inch, her eyes open and focus on me. “You want to give me your keys?”
With a slight nod, her purse is shoved my way.
Guess they’re inside.
Pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever opened a woman’s purse.
My mom’s was always off-limits. If we wanted something, we asked.
We weren’t allowed to just grab something out of it.
There weren’t many things that would piss her off, but that was one of them.
Shuffling around in Delaney’s bag feels .
. . wrong. But if we want to get out of this car and inside her apartment, we need keys.
It’s basically empty. A wallet, gum, her phone, one of Kyrie’s toys, and her keys tucked away inside a pocket.
Okay. Survived that. With them in hand, I round the front of the car and open her door slowly, careful to make sure she doesn’t fall out.
She barely moves. Her eyes open a crack to see me as her lower lip quivers.
She’s one giant bruise on top of another.
Her battered skin, swollen and sore.
“How about you let me carry you, Bambi?”
I half expect her to tell me to fuck off.
To tell me to stop calling her Bambi. She’s not a damn deer.
She may have told me that a time or ten before.
She’s feisty as hell and fiercely independent and liked giving me hell with a side of beer.
Maybe I’m prodding her, but nothing comes.
Not this morning . . . Not after last night.
She simply nods, her arms sliding around my neck as I lift her from the seat and kick the door closed. “I’m so tired, Ryker.”
Pressing my lips to the top of her hair, she relaxes. “Let’s get you upstairs, and then you can go to bed, okay?”
I feel the small shake of her head before she rests it on my shoulder and take the stairs at the back of Love in Bloom two at a time.
The familiar feel of the old metal creaking beneath my feet reminds me of the stairs behind my aunt’s bakery.
The ones we used to take back in the day when we wanted to party without being found.
It takes a minute to get the key in, and a few shakes of the knob before it turns and the door—
What the fuck?
Is that—?
A small pink pig with a bigass flower around its neck. Like big. Practically the size of the thing’s head. It stares at me from the other side of the door.
“Ahh . . . Delaney? There’s a pig in your apartment.”
She lifts her head to look at me. “That’s Tori. She’s harmless.”
Okay. Harmless pig. Didn’t see that coming.
The harmless pig refuses to move, forcing me to step over her.
“Do you want to lie down?” I ask, having no clue what to do now that I have her here.
So I stand in the middle of her apartment, frozen.
The pig named after—what, a 90s TV star?
—on one side, staring at me with beady little black eyes, like it thinks I’m the one who hurt its human, and me on the other. “Do you—”
“I want a shower.” Her words are careful. Measured. Clearly spoken so I can read her split lips. “I want to wash his hands from my body.”
Her chest shakes with each weak word, and I look around the apartment for direction. A small kitchen and open living room directly in front of me with a hall off to one side. The setup similar to my aunt’s. Looks like we’re going right.
After a few steps, Tori joins us and, honest to God, noses the door to the bathroom open.
Well, okay then. Smart pig. Carefully, gently, I sit Delaney on the counter and turn.
A clawfoot tub with a sheer shower curtain circling it sits on the opposite wall.
Once I’ve got the water on, I turn back to Delaney, who hasn’t budged.
“Do you . . .” My words die as tears pool in her gold-flecked, milk-chocolate eyes. “Do you need help?”
She shakes her head no.
“Okay.” Guess that was a stupid question, but as I take a step toward the door, Delaney grabs my hand.
“Don’t leave.” She takes a deep breath, like the words hurt to say. Not physically, but mentally. Emotionally. And there’s absolutely no way I’d say no to her. “I mean . . .” her hands shake, and her ASL is iffy at best. “Will you stay in the living room? Please?”
Some of her words are signed. Some aren’t. But there’s no missing what she’s saying.
Stay. I don’t want to be alone.
If this motherfucker doesn’t die in that hospital, I might kill him when he gets out.
I shove my hands in my pockets and drag my eyes over her boxy blue scrubs. The ones they gave her because her clothes became evidence. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right out there with Tori.”
Thank you, she signs.
And that one, she gets right.
Inever make it to the living room. Not willing to be that far from Delaney, I slide my ass to the floor next to the bathroom door and listen to muffled sobs.
The fact I can hear her tells me just how hard she’s crying.
The new hearing aids I got last month are the best I’ve had yet.
My doctor referred to them as superpower hearing aids, and he was right.
They pick up so much more than my last ones did and have a crazy battery life.
But right now, part of me wishes they weren’t.
Am I intruding on her privacy by sitting here?
She’s been in there for a long damn time.
Steam stopped escaping from under the door at least ten minutes ago, but she hasn’t come out yet.
Tori sits across from me, eyeing me up like I’m intruding in her space. Who the fuck knows. Maybe she’s looking at me like I’m breakfast. Don’t pigs eat people? I swear I’ve heard of that.
All thoughts of the pig evaporate like the damn steam when the door finally opens, and I jump to my feet.
A still shaky Delaney stands in front of me, wrapped in a fuzzy pink robe that hits her mid-thigh.
Her bruised skin rubbed raw no doubt from the hot shower and scrubbing and soap, and her long, dark hair, hanging in wet, nearly black waves around her bare shoulders. Beautiful and broken.
“You stayed,” she whispers so low I don’t hear it, but I feel it.
“As long as you need,” I promise.
Her lip quivers, and I slowly wrap my arms around her, giving her a moment to back away if she wants to. In case the touch is too much, too soon. But she doesn’t. Delaney wraps her arms around my waist and buries her face in my chest, like she’s scared to move.
I drop my chin to the top of her head. “I won’t let him hurt you ever again. No one will. I promise.”
Another sob rips from her throat. I slide my arms under her legs as they give out and carry her through the open door to the bedroom across the hall from the bathroom.
Not a single thing is out of place. No clothes thrown on the floor.
No mess on the single dresser. Her bed is made with a plain green comforter the color of the sage in my great-grandmother’s garden, with sheer white curtains hanging down from the four corners of the canopy above.
It’s simple and clean and devoid of any real personal touches, save for the single stuffed pig sitting on the pillows that looks a little like Tori.
With careful steps, I move through her space and rest her on the center of the bed before sitting close enough to be next to her but not enough to be touching.
Not unless she needs it. I’m running without a playbook.
I have no idea what this woman needs or wants.
Just that I know God himself couldn’t get me to walk out of this room right now.
Not without her. Not unless she tells me to, and even then, it might just be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Delaney pulls her knees up to her chest and plays with a loose thread on her towel as the foot of the bed shakes.
When I look down, Tori has made herself at home on a giant pink pillow I’m guessing is her bed, and I fight back a laugh when I see she’s resting her head on her own stuffed pig.
Turning back, I drag my eyes over the woman next to me and throw a Hail Mary. “So . . . Tori, huh?”
That gets a small smile, and damn . . . it’s like I just hit the damn lottery.
Noted. This woman loves her pig.
“Is there a story there?”
“Not really,” she slowly spells out before her hands drop to her lap and back to that thread, curling it around her thumb.
“Don’t worry about signing, Lane. It’s quiet in here, and I can hear you and read your lips.”
She nods, and her shoulders relax a small fraction.
“I found her wandering near the bar a few months ago. She didn’t have a tag or a collar, and animal control said no one had reported her missing.
I wasn’t sure what to do, so I put a flyer up at the bar and kept her with me.
No one ever came or called, so she sort of just became mine. ”
“So you named her?”
She nods.
“Why Tori?”
There goes that smile again. “I thought about calling her Piggie Smalls because she’s little, ya know .
. . And I mean, who doesn’t love Biggie?
But when that didn’t feel right, I decided to go with The Notorious P.I.G.
” She peaks over the bed at the little pink pig who’s fallen asleep that quickly. “Tori for short.”
“You a big 90s rap fan, Delaney Rousseau?” I ask, fascinated.
“Kinda.” Her thumb turns white from lack of circulation until she finally unravels that loose thread. “I guess we better get to know each other a little better if we’re getting married, shouldn’t we?”
I kick my shoes off and lean back against the pile of pillows stacked along her headboard as the other reality of the past six hours kicks in. “Lane—”
“No, Ryker.” She sits up straight and stares into my eyes, and fuck if it doesn’t hurt to see the pain there.
“Do you understand you saved my life? Do you really, truly comprehend that? He would have raped me. He probably would have killed me. I couldn’t breathe.
He was choking me. I thought I was going to die.
You saved me. Let me save you.” She scoots closer and runs her trembling fingers over my hair, lightly touching my hearing aid.
“You’re sure you can hear me? Because I’m trying to learn ASL, but I know I’m not very good yet, and I want to make sure I don’t fuck one more thing up tonight. ”
A single tear trickles down her cheek, and I flick it away with my thumb.
“I can hear you well enough with these in,” I tell her and take her hands in mine. “And yeah . . . your ASL is kinda shit, Lane.”
“Don’t be mean to me, you ass.” She smiles through her tears. “I’m trying.”
“I know.” I shrug. “Guess I’m selfish. I just wanted to see your smile and teasing you tends to do it.”
Truer fucking words . . .
“Your lawyer said you need this, Ryker. I might not be able to do much, but I can do this.” She looks away as if ashamed, and I cup her cheek and bring her face back to me. “It’s my fault you’re in this mess. Let me fix it.”
“Delaney.” My head pounds in time with my heart. “It is not your fault. I’d do the exact same thing in a fucking heartbeat. No one has the right to lay their hands on you. No one.”
Her beautiful doe eyes swing back, pain and determination warring with each other.
“You already said you were my husband, Ryker. Your lawyer said it’s all over social media already.
This will work. She said she’s your family.
And your family isn’t like mine. I already know that.
Your family looks out for each other. If she thinks this is the way to go, then this is the way we go. ”
“My family has plenty of attorneys, Lane. I have options.” I’m not sure if any of them save my job, my brand sponsorships, or every fucking thing I’ve worked my entire life for, but that’s not her problem. It’s mine.
With a deep inhale, she crosses her legs and straightens her back. “Please let me do this for you, Ryker. I’ll sign a prenup if you’re worried about money. I’m not after anything. I just want to protect you the way you protected me.”
“Jesus, Lane. I wasn’t even thinking about that.
I don’t want to ruin your life. If we do this, we have to actually get married.
Be. Married. Live together. Be together.
I don’t even know for how long. Are you really willing to do that?
” I’ve been pulled to this woman for months.
Before I knew she was Ashton’s sister and after.
Pulled like never before. But this . . .
This isn’t what I had in mind. “You’d be trapped. ”
“I’ve been trapped before, Ryker. I’ll never let that happen again.
” She drags the pad of one finger along a small white scar on her palm.
Tracing the healed wound like she’s somehow finding comfort in it.
“I promise you I could spend two years married to you and those years couldn’t possibly come close to the worst in my life. Let me do this for you.”
I lift my arm, and without another word, Delaney sinks into my side, her head against my shoulder. “How about you sleep on it, and we’ll talk more when we wake up?”
“Are you going to sleep?” she asks softly as her eyes grow heavy.
“Yeah,” I lie and spend the next three hours watching her instead.