13. Kira
13
KIRA
I can’t keep my eyes off the man leading me into the forest.
“I can feel you watching me.” He lifts a low-hanging branch before I can walk into it.
He’s wrong about the watching. What I’m doing is nothing less than staring.
“I’m not sure I should have agreed to this.”
He stops immediately and looks down at me. “Because you’re afraid of me?”
I shake my head. “I saw that bloody T-shirt. You shrugged it off in front of Shawn, but you should be getting medical treatment, not showing me the beauty of this world.”
“I’m a Marine.” He keeps walking. “Bullets bounce off us.”
I grip his wrist.
Every muscle in him tightens.
I immediately snatch my hand away, heart lodged in my throat, and I back up, bumping into a tree. Bryce hated when I touched him without permission. A wife lets the husband take the lead. And here I am just… I gulp. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have?—”
“Kira.” Dom’s voice is whisper quiet. I’d run away, but the intensity in his gaze cements me in place. “I’m going to tell you something important, and I want you to really listen to me. Can you do that?”
All that intensity means I should run, right?
I know intense.
Intensity comes with a threat and a gun gently placed on the nearest surface to remind me of my place. It’s a reminder of what will happen to me if I don’t behave.
Intensity is something I don’t want.
So why am I not running away from Dom?
“Kira?” he asks softly.
I force myself to breathe in, dispel the panic which must be the thing freezing my ability to run.
Dom gave me his bed. He had Shawn come over to help me, so Bryce couldn’t force me to return to him if I didn’t want to. And I don’t want to. Dom has never threatened me or scared me. He is not Bryce.
“Yeah?”
“If you ever want to say anything, touch anything, do anything, you are free to do it. I can be possessive of the people I care about, and that’s because I don’t want them to hurt. You never have anything to fear from me, Kira.”
“I know you won’t hurt me.”
Relief flits across his gaze so quickly, I nearly miss it. “Good.”
My eyes flick to his side. “I know Marines. Aaron fell down the stairs once and when I asked him how he was, he said?—”
One corner of his mouth lifts in a faint smile. “Outstanding?”
I nod, fighting a smile of my own. “He’d broken his leg and couldn’t walk for six months, so you can probably understand my suspicions about what you’re nursing under that shirt.”
I’d thought Aaron was crazy for not telling me how bad it was, but he said it was as much about mentally pushing through something when everything has gone to shit. Or, in his case, when you’ve broken your leg in two places and don’t know if you can stand. Instead of saying you're having a shit day, it’s outstanding.
I’m not sure I get it, but I’m not a Marine, so maybe I’m not supposed to.
Dom lifts his shirt and my brain short circuits. So must my body, because I don’t even hesitate before touching the wall of rock hard muscle inches from my face. I know he said I could touch whatever I wanted, but I’m sure he wasn’t giving me permission to grope him under a minute later.
“See? Not a scratch on me.” His voice is decidedly more husky than it was a moment ago.
He’s right. I swear I’m looking at the same spot where there was a bullet hole and blood, but Dom’s skin is unmarked. Literally not a single scratch on him.
“I saw a hole in the shirt,” I whisper, struggling to believe it.
Dom grasps my wrist and I look up, startled, as he lifts my hand and brushes his lips across my knuckles. “Maybe we can ration out that touching, huh?”
I don’t need to ask him why. His eyes are heated, and when they dart to my mouth, I wish he would kiss me.
“Okay.” I make myself take a small step back when I want to step closer.
Dom has done so much for me already. The more he does, the more Bryce would want to kill him.
He squeezes my hand, keeping hold of it as he leads the way through the forest. “Come on, I know a nice spot we can sit.”
We walk for another five minutes, winding through trees and bushes.
It’s not quiet. I’d always thought a forest would be silent, but birds chirp high above us, small woodland creatures scurry around the brush, though I never see them. There’s a constant stirring of leaves as the wind produces this hypnotic sound that makes me want to curl up and go to bed, like listening to rain hit the window.
The nice spot is beside a pool of water too small to be a river or even a pond. It’s like we’re in our own world. No people or houses or traffic noises anywhere.
It’s perfect.
We sit on the soft earth, and I don’t care about staining my clothes. As I wrap my arms around my raised knees, Dom leans his back to a tree, his long legs stretched out in front of him. We sit quietly, enjoying the soft sounds of this forest.
I don’t know what Dom is thinking.
I’m thinking about everything that brought me to this moment. Not leaving Bryce. Having married him at all. And why. It’s a question I’ve mulled over and over for years. When we first got married, I was eighteen. Bryce was a few years older.
Those first few years weren’t terrible. Or maybe Bryce was more subtle about controlling me, so they didn’t seem so bad.
The last five years were the absolute worst.
Now I think I know why.
Every year, Dom would send me postcards from all around the country, and they would remind me of how trapped I was in Palmerston, tied to a man who I knew would never let me go.
Five years of control, of regret, and of being smothered by a man who I thought loved me. It wasn’t me he loved. It was controlling me.
That’s when I realize whose idea the elopement was.
“It wasn’t me,” I whisper.
“Kira?” I feel Dom turn to look at me, though I keep my eyes on a softly swaying branch across from us.
“I thought it was my idea to elope, and it wasn’t.”
“His?” He rests his shoulder against mine, quietly reassuring me. Or maybe it’s to comfort. Whichever one it is, it’s working.
I look at him. “I’d wanted to go to college before we got together. It was a dream come true for a quiet, nerdy girl who hung out with the librarian to have someone like Bryce Peters, star quarterback, notice me.”
“Go on.” Dom wraps his arm around my shoulder and draws me close.
I lean into his embrace and keep talking. “Some girls were bullying me. They had a problem with my freckles. They wouldn’t have done it if my brother was around, but he’d just left for another deployment. I’m not sure if they stopped bullying me because he joined the Marines, or because I once overheard them say he was hot.” I make a face. “Uh. I just put an image in my mind of my brother that I wish I could take out.”
Dom must be smiling from the kiss he presses against my forehead. He kisses me like it’s something he’s always done, and it feels like something I always want him to do.
“I could probably guess what it was.”
“Well, the big blond star quarterback came to the rescue of the girl being bullied for her millions of freckles. As you can imagine, she lost her mind over him.” My smile fades. “What’s funny is later, he was the one pushing me to use concealer so I wouldn’t be as freckly for our anniversary photos.”
“I happen to have a thing about millions of freckles.” He tilts my chin up so we’re eye to eye. Slowly, he lowers his head as I hold my breath, and he touches his lips to mine in the softest kiss I’ve ever had in my life. It is over, far, far too soon. “If you ever have a spare couple of hours, I don’t think I would mind taking the time to kiss each one.”
“I shouldn’t have let you kiss me,” I whisper. I knew what he was about to do, but I didn’t do a thing to stop him. Even now, I wish he would do it again, and I shouldn’t.
“Because it isn’t something you wanted?”
“Because it will cause trouble with Bryce if he ever finds out.”
“Leave Bryce to me.” His expression turns thoughtful. “Two hours wouldn’t be enough.”
I blink at him, confused. “To do what?”
“Kiss every freckle.”
“Because I have that many?”
He kisses me as painful barbs from my school bullies rear their head, distracting me. This time on the tip of my nose. “Because I would want to take my time, Kira.”
I like this side of Dom, and I wish I’d seen it in Missouri.
My smile is brief. “I think Bryce wanted us to elope so I would stay in town. His dad was the sheriff, but he wanted to play football. When he hurt his knee in his senior year, he lost his college scholarships, so he got used to the idea of taking over as sheriff for his dad.”
Dom frowns. “ He hurt his knee. You could have gone to college. Nothing was stopping you.”
Except there was. Bryce had already graduated, so after my graduation, we eloped to Las Vegas and I didn’t make it to Brown that first semester. I wanted to. But I never did.
I shrug. “I guess I could have pushed harder, but I just… I thought I couldn’t. That I had to stay in town and be Bryce’s sweet wife.” I realize what I just said and I stare at Dom, horrified. “This has been going on for much longer than I thought, hasn’t it?”
He was making decisions for me, nudging me in the direction he wanted me to go, and I was too blind to see it. I thought it was love motivating him. It wasn’t love. It was his need to control me.
Dom tucks me closer until I’m practically sitting in his lap, winding his arms around me. “He killed your dreams so he could have his, and while he knew exactly what he was doing, it’s not your fault that you didn’t. We never expect the people we love to stab us in the back.”
I remember bringing up the idea of signing up to attend the community college soon after we got back from our elopement. But Bryce was busy as the deputy sheriff, and he wanted us to host more at his house. I’d moved in with him, and that first month was a whirlwind of packing, unpacking, and hosting guests who stopped by to congratulate us.
I’d always loved to help out in town, but Bryce wanted me to do more of it. To set the perfect example of what a sheriff’s wife should be. Tasks and responsibilities ate up all my free time, which meant no community college.
And slowly, my life was consumed by him and his needs. I became Kira Peters and Kira Matherson just… disappeared.
“Kira?”
I jump, startled at the concern in Dom’s voice. I must have zoned out. “Sorry, I need to break myself of that habit.”
He tilts his head, frowning. “I’d like you to stay. Not just until my birthday, but for however long you want.”
I shake my head. “I’m sleeping in your bed and I can’t keep doing that. Where are you even sleeping?”
“The outbuilding.”
I stare at him. Here I am, taking up his bed and relegating him to an outbuilding ?
He flashes me a grin. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. We have a sofa bed, but I much prefer the outbuilding. I can show you if you like?”
I peer into the forest. It’s just trees around here. No sign of any outbuildings. “Is it far?”
“A couple of minutes.” He gets to his feet and offers me his hand.
Curious about this outbuilding, I let him pull me up.
We don’t have far to walk to reach a red farm style outbuilding. It looks freshly painted, not original, I don’t think. There’s no lock. He pulls it open and we walk right inside.
It’s warmer and drier than I was expecting. Tools hang off hooks on the walls, and a tall ladder rests against an alcove where bits of stray poke over the side.
“I sleep up there.” Dom nods at the alcove.
The first thing I notice is that there is no railing. “Aren’t you worried you’ll roll off in the middle of the night?”
He laughs.
I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard him laughing. His smile is warm, and his eyes are soft. “That hasn’t happened yet, and it’s unlikely to. I don’t move when I sleep.”
“You don’t move? Ever ?”
He nods. “I go to sleep and when I wake up the next morning, I’m in the exact same position. Want to climb up and have a look?”
I’m still marveling at his strange sleeping habits as he leads me to the ladder. “Uh…”
He slows to look at me. “Scared of heights?”
I study the ladder, chewing my lip. “I’m not sure. If I fall?”
“I’ll catch you.”
But that would mean him coming up behind me. In other words, I’m going to have my ass in his face. Maybe coming to see this outbuilding wasn’t a good idea. “Uh…”
His amusement fades. “It’s okay to say no, Kira. I won’t push you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
And that’s what makes up my mind.
Choice. Not force or manipulation.
“Okay.” I nod firmly, sending out a mental plea to anyone listening to not let me fall off this ladder and humiliate myself.
I take my time climbing up, Dom following behind me. I’m so hyper aware of him and wondering what he’s thinking, that I forget all about what I’m climbing up to see until I reach the top of the ladder.
“Oh!”
“What do you think?”
Is his voice a little more hoarse than it was before, or is it just in my head?
“It’s cool.” I climb over the edge, my feet sinking into springy straw. It’s warm, it’s soft, and best of all, there’s a skylight right above. “I didn’t realize outbuildings had skylights.”
“They don’t. We knocked down the old building that was here before and built a new one. It was rotting, so it was only a matter of time before it collapsed anyway. We’d always planned on turning it into a second house one day but never got around to it.”
He keeps his distance, watching me through hooded eyes as I traipse over the straw. Then I have a sudden thought. “You haven’t seen any mice up here, have you?”
I strain to listen for any suspicious squeaks, but it’s hard to hear over my pounding heart.
He shakes his head. “No mice. Just warm straw, a nice view, and a great place to lay my head at night.”
He points his chin at the straw. “Want to sit?”
“On the straw? With you?” I blurt out.
He gives me a lopsided smile. “It’s easier to stare up at the sky that way.”
When I hesitate, he lies on his back, and stares up at the skylight with his arms folded over his chest.
Nowhere near me.
After a moment, I do the same. I completely understand why he would prefer this to a sofa bed. It’s peaceful, and the straw is more comfortable than I’d expected. “This is really nice.”
“It’s a good place to think.”
“And much better than a sofa bed?”
“That too.”
“Kira?” Dom says a long while later, right when I’m in danger of falling asleep and rolling off the side to my death.
“Yeah?” I glance to my right, checking to make sure I’m nowhere near it. I’m not. I quietly sigh in relief.
“You won’t fall off.” He smiles.
“I thought I was going to fall asleep and wake up just before I hit the bottom when I inevitably roll off the edge.”
His smile grows. “Want me to move to that edge just in case?”
I stare at him in horror. “So I can fall asleep, roll over and then push you off! No.”
“You won’t. I’m not that easy to move,” he assures me, reminding me of his big shoulders, the way I touched his chest earlier, and the fact he’s lying inches away from me, on a springy floor of straw.
His smile fades as tension crackles between us.
I sit up. “Uh, we should probably?—”
“Go back to the house?” he interrupts.
I nod.
He climbs down the ladder first, assuring me that he’s there to catch me if I slip. My climb down is not nearly as scary as it was climbing up
He walks me back as the sky is turning gray and the sound of a car engine is heading further away.
“You have a letter.” Galen sticks his head out from a room that looks like his office, brandishing a thick white envelope.
“Me?” Behind me, Dom pushes the door closed, but stays close as I walk over to Galen to take it from him.
It’s addressed to me. Ms. Kira Matheson rather than Mrs. Kira Peters. Exactly like I wrote when I filled in the divorce papers. So it must be from the attorney in Chicago. With my heart in my throat, I tear into the thick letter and I could cry when I see what it is. The divorce papers.
Bryce signed it.
I didn’t think he would, but he has.
“Kira? Everything okay?” Dom asks.
“He signed the divorce papers,” I whisper.
No one says a word for several seconds.
“He did?” Dom asks.
I hand the letters to him. “He signed them days ago.”
“So what does this mean?” Dom asks.
“It means I’m getting divorced,” I whisper, relieved, excited, and confused. But most of all, excited. “It means I can start over.”