Chapter 23
Hawk’s gaze shifted back to the road, his fingers clenching on the steering wheel. After a long moment, he asked, “What kind of questions did he ask you?”
“He’d ask about school. My favorite subjects. My hobbies. He didn”t listen to the answers. He didn”t care. I was a prop to him and my father. I”d tell him I liked to fish, and he”d chuckle and squeeze the back of my neck and tell me to get those tomboy pursuits out of my system now so I could grow up and be a proper wife. That kind of misogynistic bullshit.”
“He came into your room again,” Hawk pushed.
I swallowed, my throat tight. “He did. This time he didn”t keep his hands to himself.” I felt Hawk go stiff beside me and rushed to say, “He didn”t— It wasn’t?—”
I couldn’t get the words out. He hadn’t done the worst thing. The thing I’d been most afraid of. And still, the little he’d done had torn me apart. I still couldn’t make sense of it. He”d done almost nothing. What right did I have to be so damaged from actions so small? There were people who suffered so much worse. But no amount of rationalizing could change the horror I felt when I remembered. When I went into my bedroom and couldn’t erase the man in the dark.
“I moved the chair by my bed,” I said, forcing myself to keep going. “I put it in the sitting room. But when he came to Heartstone Manor, it was back. He sat there in the dark and stroked my arm. After a while, he pulled the covers to my waist and stared at me lying there in my nightgown. He didn”t touch me except for my arm. I pretended to be asleep, and he just— He just looked—” I choked on the word, swallowing hard again.
“You must have been fucking terrified,” Hawk said.
“Yeah. I didn”t know what he was going to do, and I couldn’t stop myself from imagining, even once he left. That was when I started having trouble sleeping. I tried sneaking out of the house the next time he came to visit, but my father tracked me down. He was furious.” I raised my hand to my cheek at the memory.
“He hit you?” Hawk demanded.
My head jerked in a nod. That was almost as shameful as his associate coming into my bedroom. What was wrong with me that I drew that deviant old man to me? That my father would strike me, over and over, for trying to avoid the nightmare he’d orchestrated for me?
“Quinn,” Hawk said in a whisper. “Why didn”t you tell anyone?”
I looked down into my lap, shaking my head. “You don”t understand,” I said, swallowing again to fight back the sob caught in my throat. “You see us now. Griffen behind Prentice’s desk. Kids running through the house, laughing. That”s not what it was. We weren’t close. Prentice was always trying to set us against each other. What happened with Griffen and Ford didn’t come out of nowhere. I was close to Parker and Sterling, and even Avery, though she was older. But not like we are now.”
I pressed my cold hands to my hot cheeks, not sure I could explain to Hawk how alone we’d been in that house full of people. All of us, little islands. Isolated. Stranded.
“There was no one to turn to,” I said. “Miss Martha cared for us. I know she did. But she was staff, and she had her job and Savannah to think about. Even when we were young, we knew not to look to her for too much, or Prentice would get rid of her. I didn”t know who to talk to. Griffen was gone. Ford might as well have been Prentice’s twin back then. And part of me was glad the man was interested in me. Because if it wasn’t me, what if it was Sterling? Or Parker? What if I did something to drive him away, and he turned to my sisters?”
“You were protecting them,” Hawk said. “And no one was protecting you.”
“I could handle it,” I said. “After my father—” I cleared my throat. “After he made his expectations clear, I didn”t hide in the woods the next time the man came to Heartstone.”
“He came to your room again,” Hawk said, his voice grim.
I gave a single nod. “I’d dragged the chairs out of my room. I hid them in the attic. Two days before his visit, an armchair appeared in my bedroom.”
“Your father was a fucking monster,” Hawk said, his voice flat.
“Believe me,” I said, “I”m aware. Once I left home and saw more of the world, I learned exactly how fucked up my father was. In so many ways. This is just one of them.”
I shook my head. I’d never understand the man my father had been.
“To Prentice,” I explained, “he wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was just providing me with some private time with my future husband. Never mind that it wasn’t the sixteen hundreds, and there was no fucking way I was marrying that guy. By then I was just biding my time until I could get out from under Heartstone’s roof, away from my father. I didn”t have a plan. But I knew once I was eighteen, I could disappear.”
“I’ll find out who he is,” Hawk said, I thought mostly to himself.
I drew in a long breath and let it out slowly, staring out the window. Hawk’s SUV ate up the miles between the doctor”s office and town, and I reminded myself that I was free. The man was gone. My father was dead, and everything was okay.
Except it wasn’t okay. I was all fucked up. I couldn’t even sleep in my own bedroom because of what that asshole and my father had done. The man haunted me. I should be over it, but he haunted me.
“One night,” I went on, “he was sitting next to my bed in the dark, stroking my arm. He told me he wasn’t going to do any more than that. Not yet. It wouldn’t be right. But as soon as I was eighteen, we”d get married, and then I”d be his. Except in North Carolina, you can get married at sixteen with a parent’s consent,” I said. “So I guess I”m lucky they let me graduate from high school.”
“Why do you think he waited?” Hawk asked, his jaw unclenching the slightest bit.
I shrugged a shoulder. “I always thought it was because Prentice didn”t want to explain why he let his sixteen-year-old daughter get married. That was a little too country for him, if you know what I mean.” I wouldn’t have thought I”d be glad my father was such a snob, but in this, I absolutely was.
“But you didn”t marry him,” Hawk said, waiting for my nod. “Then what happened?”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, but the sudden darkness only made the memory more vivid. His soft, pudgy hands all of a sudden not so soft at all. He’d been stronger than I expected, his weight holding me down, his hot, dank breath in my ear.
I’m tired of waiting.
I’d screamed. So loud. So fucking loud. For once, I wasn’t thinking about sparing my sisters, or keeping quiet, or not enraging my father. I just wanted him off me. But I wasn’t going to tell Hawk all of that.
Instead, I kept it simple. “When I was seventeen, he decided I was old enough. We wouldn’t get married yet. That could wait another year, but I was old enough. I disagreed. He tried—” I cut off and swallowed again, looking out the window, wishing for a bottle of water. For anything. “I screamed,” I said. “He didn”t— He tried, but I was fighting, and I was screaming, and Ford?—”
I drew in a short breath and let it out slowly.
“Ford heard,” I said. “It was sheer luck. Ford had stayed up later than usual to take a call. He was heading to bed and heard me scream. He broke into my room and saw what was happening. He lost his mind.”
I squeezed my eyes shut again, and this time the memory that flashed there filled my heart with a surge of vengeful gratitude.
“Ford tore the man off me and threw him on the floor. He laid into him, hitting him until his nose was flat, his mouth cut to ribbons on his teeth. I think I was in shock. My nightgown was torn, my fingernails broken, a chunk of hair pulled out at the roots.”
I lifted a hand to my temple, where the hair had long since grown back. I’d been fiercely grateful to Ford, and also a little scared of him, crouching over the man, his eyes stricken and his knuckles bloody.
“Ford left the man on the floor of my room and walked me to my closet so I could change. He made sure I didn”t need the doctor and then told me to go to Sterling”s room and get in bed with her. I did, though I didn”t sleep. The next morning, the man was gone.”
“Did he ever come back?” Hawk asked.
I glanced at him, afraid of what I would see, but I couldn’t read his shuttered expression. “No. I never saw him again. And Ford— I don”t know what Ford said to our father, but no visitors ever stayed in Heartstone Manor again, except family. And Ford started to change. He told me he would take care of things. A year after, just before I left for college, Ford told me I didn”t have to worry about the man ever again.”
“What exactly did he mean by that?” Hawk said.
His words were technically a question, but I could tell he was hoping for confirmation that the bastard was dead. I couldn’t give him that because I didn’t know.
I shook my head. “I didn”t ask. I didn’t want to know.”
“And you took Ford’s word for it? That the man wasn’t a problem anymore?” Hawk sounded disbelieving.
I knew he didn’t understand, and how could he? To Hawk, who was loyal to Griffen, Ford was the villain. And Hawk wasn’t entirely wrong. Ford had done some terrible things. But in this, I trusted him absolutely. “I took his word for it because I saw him after. Because that was when Ford changed. He looked out for me after that. He tried to look out for all of us.”
“A little late,” Hawk said.
I shrugged. I didn’t blame Ford. Over the years, I’d come to understand that Ford blamed himself enough for all of us. “I was having a hard time after that night?—”
“Was that when you stopped being able to sleep in your room?” Hawk interrupted.
“Yeah. I had nights when I would climb in bed with Sterling or sleep on the floor of my closet. I’d sit up all night on the sofa. After that night, every time I closed my eyes, I’d hear him breathing.” My throat went tight, choking off my words.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I forced myself to swallow. To finish this, so I would never have to talk about it again.
“Ford would find me in the sunroom. Sometimes outside, under the trees. I didn”t have the whole hammock thing back then, but I had a little tarp and a sleeping bag. I hid in the forest. I had plans to run away, but Ford told me if I could stick it out a little longer and apply to college, he”d get me out and I”d never have to sleep under Heartstone’s roof again. And he kept his word.”
Hawk sighed, and I wondered if his idea of Ford was shifting just a little. “Why did you come back?” he asked. “Why make a life here after you finally got away?”
That answer, at least, was easier. “I missed my sisters,” I said. “I missed Ford. And it was never the town I hated. It was my father. And the Manor. The memories there. But still, even missing them, I wasn’t going to come back here, but?—”
“Your business,” Hawk guessed, and I nodded.
“It was Ford’s idea. I didn’t come home for the breaks during college. Ford always figured out an excuse to keep me away. A trip, an internship, any excuse to distract Prentice from my absence. I told you about that kayaking trip Ford took me on to celebrate my graduation.”
Hawk nodded, slowing the SUV to let a camper turn in front of us.
“At the end of the trip, I told him I wanted to be a wilderness guide. I thought he’d talk me out of it, but instead, he pitched me the idea of Sawyer Outdoor Adventures. He’d already bought the bungalow. He had a plan for me to get my wilderness certifications, take some business classes. And when I was ready, I”d have my own business.”
“He didn”t want you to disappear,” Hawk said slowly.
My heart ached for my older brother. “I think he was very lonely,” I said. “I think he had a lot of regrets. For allying himself with our father. For marrying Vanessa. For what he did to Griffen. I think he had a lot of regrets,” I said again, “and I think he didn”t want to lose any more of his family than he already had.” I let my eyes slide shut and pressed my cheek against the cold window.
A warm hand closed around my fingers, squeezing tight. Eyes still closed, I squeezed back. I heard the tick-tick-tick of the blinker and opened my eyes to see Hawk turning into a parking lot. Too caught up in memories, I hadn’t noticed that we weren’t heading to Heartstone Manor anymore. I saw the sign and realized where we were.
Hawk pulled the SUV to a stop in the parking lot of the animal shelter. Still holding my hand, he turned to face me, his dark eyes burning with emotion, warming me from the inside. “I bought you Remy”s dog,” he said. “She”ll be here in a few weeks, and you”re keeping her.” Some force in his voice compelled me to nod in agreement. “But let”s go in and see what they have here.”
“Okay,” I agreed, wondering if that was it. Were we done with this? He wasn’t going to ask more questions? It seemed like he wasn’t. At least, not for now.
Hawk squeezed my hand before he let go to jump out of the SUV.
I blinked hard, brushing away sudden tears with the heels of my palms. I was okay. No more talking about my nightmares. I wasn’t sure what could wash away the memories flooding my brain, but snuggling some puppies sounded like a pretty good antidote to the poison in my head.
My door opened and Hawk was there, lifting me out, my crutches in one hand. He set me on my feet, tugging me into his chest, his arms coming hard around me in a tight hold, his bristly cheek at my temple. “Fuck, Quinn. You’re so fucking strong. No one is getting anywhere near you again. I promise. Never again.”
I let out a breath, winding my arms around him, holding on, needing this. Needing Hawk. “I’m not strong,” I said into his chest. “I’m a mess. I sleep in the woods because I’m scared of my own bedroom. That’s not strong.”
Hawk’s arms tightened a fraction more. “No, you’re wrong. You survived, Quinn. You built a life for yourself. You’re smart and capable and stronger than you give yourself credit for. I know that was hard. I’m sorry I had to ask you to tell me, but I’m glad you trusted me.” He rested his cheek on the top of my head for a long moment before leaning back and handing me my crutches. “Come on,” he said roughly. “Let’s go find you a dog.”