3. Kira
3
KIRA
I wait until Dom’s footsteps move away from the door before I let myself release a slow breath of relief.
He didn’t scream at me to go away.
In fact, that brief and unexpected moment of brushing my arm against his chest made his eyes spark with arousal? Attraction? Interest?
I’m probably wrong. But for a split-second, I could have sworn he was looking at me as if he liked me. More than liked me.
Which is… not what I was expecting
I have a place—a real bed—to sleep in for the first time in days. I still don’t have any clothes or money, or even know where I’m going to go from here, but for tonight, I’m okay.
Dom asked if I needed help with my bags. I mentally snort. If only he’d known all I had were the clothes on my back and a jar of BBQ sauce that I’d tried to eat my first night because I was starving. It didn’t take long to learn that BBQ sauce without ribs or chicken to go with it is not as fun.
I’d sleep in the back of my car, wrapped up in a musty old blanket I dug out of my trunk. I dread to think what I would have done without that blanket.
I consider crawling right into the bed, closing my eyes and luxuriating in not sleeping crumpled up in the back seat of a sedan, but I have to do something about my clothes.
There’s not much to look at in this room. It’s a blank canvas of a room, but it’s safe, it’s warm, and it’s the best thing I’ve had to look forward to for days.
Not ready to fall into bed after all my nervous energy from telling lie after lie downstairs, I wander over to the window, pulling open the drapes to let in some of the moonlight.
A forest lies several feet away. It’s dark, but peaceful, more so because this room faces the back of the house, so there are no lights from any town or city in the distance. It’s the perfect place where Bryce would never think to look for me.
Unless he goes through the side desk in the living room.
Back when I was planning—only mentally at that point, in case Bryce found any list I wrote down—I told myself I would take the postcards with me.
There were all from Dom. I have a stack of them that I bound together with an elastic. I’m not sure why, but even knowing he hated me, I could never make myself throw them out. The last few all had different photographs taken from a place called Wylder, upstate New York.
The postcards always had an address where I could find him, and that he was thinking about Aaron. That’s it. He never asked how I was or said how he was. Just a single line that he was thinking about Aaron, who died on their last deployment.
Bryce had come to me with the mail, suspicious about why Dom was sending his wife a postcard, until I reminded him who Dom was.
“Aaron probably asked him to check on me if anything ever happened to him,” I’d explained to Bryce before he could rip the postcard in half the way he’d been about to.
Our parents had died when I was still in school and Aaron had been about to graduate high school. Aaron would have asked Dom to keep an eye on his little sister if anything ever happened to him. I’m sure of it.
Bryce’s expression had changed, his suspicion melting away. “Oh, the guy who had a problem with you.”
Yes, the guy who had such a big problem with me, he couldn’t bear to spend more than twenty minutes in my presence. I’d spontaneously hugged him before he left town for his first deployment, even though Bryce was watching. It was like hugging a dummy. He had been so tense. I’d regretted it immediately, but Dom had come to Palmerston, our small Missouri town alone, and the thought of him going to fight a war without so much as a hug felt wrong.
I didn’t know much about him, just the little Aaron told me. He aged out of foster care and moved around looking for a job. That’s it. I’d hugged him goodbye, telling him I hoped he stayed safe, and tried not to feel hurt when he ended the hug so quickly.
When Bryce hadn’t torn up the postcard, I’d shoved it in a desk drawer, along with the others that kept coming, year after year.
With nowhere to go after I left Bryce, I’d made a brief stop in Chicago, where I’d pawned my dad’s old watch. It had hurt so badly back when I’d done it and hasn’t stopped hurting since. Then I’d taken my stack of dollar bills, not nearly enough cash to give up one of the last things I had of my parents, met a divorce attorney, and sent a letter.
Mom and Dad would understand what I needed to do and why. They would not have wanted me to stay married to someone like Bryce if there was anything I could do to get out of it. Even if it cost me the only thing I had to remember them by.
Then I came here. To Wylder. To the man who hated me.
Movement below my window captures my attention.
A tall man with long, lean muscles, short dark hair, jeans, and a black T-shirt strides into the forest.
I watch him, frowning.
Where are you going?
Just before he disappears through a gap in the trees, he slows. As if he knows he’s being observed, he twists around.
I’m not doing anything wrong.
Yet the second he turns, I shove the drapes closed and I freeze, my heart racing.
I wasn’t doing anything wrong, so why did I hide?
I give it two minutes, just to be sure, then I pull the drape open. A wolf. Shit. I nearly fall in my scramble away from the window when my gaze clashes with a pair of golden eyes at the edge of the forest.
“It’s okay, you’re inside. It can’t get to you, so quit shaking,” I order myself as my heart pounds in my chest.
I’m safe.
But it was staring right at me, like it knew I was hiding behind the drapes, and was waiting for me to open them.
Then my heart pounds for another reason.
Dom.
He was out there, heading into the forest. Should I warn him about the wolf?
I briefly consider it. Then I shake my head at my stupidity. This is Dom’s home. He knows all about all the wild things that live in the forest. He can look after himself just fine. The guy was a Marine . A wolf is nothing to a guy who fought countless wars and came home a hero.
I’m walking to the door to get cleaned up in the bathroom when a howl rings out and I nearly have a heart attack. I freeze, waiting for it to come again, and when it doesn’t, I continue to the bathroom.
Just like Dom said, there’s a clean towel hanging behind the door and a spare toothbrush in the cupboard under the sink. No hairbrush though, so I’ll have to stick with running a hand through my hair, and braiding it to keep the waves under control.
A shower can wait.
Quickly stripping out of my clothes, I spend the next several minutes hand washing my T-shirt, panties, and bra with a bar of unscented soap.
Would I prefer a washing machine? Yes.
Do I miss my tumble dryer so I never have to experience wearing damp panties as I drive for hours? Of course.
But home comes with something I will never miss.
Bryce.
I wring my clothes out as best I can, and spend far too long in the shower, washing my hair with coconut shampoo, and my body with soap.
The last few days have involved using hand wipes in places no one should use them, and brushing my teeth with a tube of toothbrush and my finger.
I had fifteen dollars and a handful of change in my purse on the day I’d left Bryce. When my gas got low, I spent every cent I had to get more. Nothing else mattered than to get even further away from Bryce. Not food. Not a motel. Nothing. Just get far, far away from Missouri.
I’d pawned my watch in Chicago to pay for more gas, some food, and, most importantly, an attorney. I’d bought a toothbrush and more wipes as well, but someone banging on the restroom door made me drop my toothbrush. I’d seen the state of the floor. There was no way that toothbrush was going back in my mouth. No way.
I’m yawning as I dry my body, brush my teeth, and gather my wet clothes before returning to my room. I lock the door behind me. Dom seemed vague about the other people who live here and I have no desire to have someone surprise me in the night.
I ignore my stomach rumbling as I hang my clothes on a cold radiator and climb naked into bed, flicking the lamp off before I settle down for the night.
Food is a luxury right now. Uninterrupted sleep where I don’t have to worry about someone banging on my car window or a security guard shouting at me to park elsewhere is all my body is crying out for. One night of proper sleep and maybe tomorrow, I’ll be able to figure out what to do next.
Dom’s bed is so comfy, I’m drifting off within seconds.
Bryce would have received the letter I sent the day before yesterday. I paid extra to send it by using their registered delivery service. He’d have had to sign to accept the letter, which the attorney told me I should keep the receipt so I’d have a record he received it.
I envision him dressing in his uniform, getting a knock on the door, and frowning as he tells Doug, our postman that he hadn’t been expecting any mail.
He’d tear into the envelope, drag out the letters and my wedding ring would fall out, along with the divorce papers I’d already signed.
I try to imagine what he would do next. Go to work like usual? Immediately try to track me down? Sign the papers?
No. Bryce wouldn’t just sign them. That would be too easy. His mom left his dad when he was in middle school, and Bryce liked to tell me that she hadn’t been serious with her vows. That he was serious about his. In sickness and health, he liked to remind me. Till death us do part. That last part is what terrifies me the most.
Bryce won’t sign those papers. He’ll try to convince me that this isn’t something I want. That I want to stay with him.
Which he can’t do unless he finds me. And if he finds me here…
My fingers clench in the comforter I’ve pulled up to my neck.
Dom never tried to hide his hatred of me. He sent me those postcards because my brother asked him to check in every now and again on his friend’s sister. That’s all. I’m a responsibility to Dom. A duty to a dead big brother.
That doesn’t mean I want Bryce to put a bullet between Dom’s eyes if he finds me here. Bryce never put his hand on me, more for fear someone might wonder about the bruises on the sheriff’s wife, but he has no reason to keep his hands off Dom.
I roll onto my back. It’s too dark in the room to see the ceiling, but I stare up at it anyway. “So you have to make sure he never finds you,” I breathe.
And if he finds me?
The attorney has that statement I signed. If I ever turned up dead, it will be because of Bryce.
Another howl rings out, drawing my gaze to the drapes in the darkened room.
The wolf sounds like he’s further away, which is a relief.
I close my eyes, no clearer about my plans for tomorrow or the day after, but for tonight, I have somewhere that isn’t a public restroom or a parking lot in a grocery store to rest my head.
I’m safe .