Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Grayson stilled, letting those words sink in. He’d suspected something bad had happened to Wren ever since his conversation with Lark, when she was cleaning this very cabin.
And after that nightmare Wren suffered a few nights earlier, he knew whatever it was, it was really bad.
But this…
His blood ran cold at the thought, and her words sliced through him like broken glass.
“Wren,” he whispered. He told himself he was prepared to hear whatever she shared. That he would be her rock, her support, that he’d find a way to help her. But right now…there simply weren’t any words.
He still held her hand, but he was no longer sure if she was the one trembling or he was.
“If this is too painful to…” He stopped talking, cursing himself for being a coward. Despite what Wren might think, it was obvious she was a survivor. And if she was strong enough to pick up the pieces after something like that, then he sure as shit could be strong enough to hear it.
If he couldn’t, then he didn’t deserve her.
She lifted the hand he wasn’t holding to wipe away the tear rolling down her cheek.
“Do you want to tell me?” Right now, he’d give her anything she needed. How this conversation proceeded was totally up to her.
She sniffled, pausing only for a second before nodding. “I’ve never talked about it to anyone except my therapist.”
He was relieved to hear that, to know that his brilliant, brave woman was smart enough to seek help.
“I mean, my family—most of my family—knows because they were there. Robin was only a toddler, so he doesn’t remember, and Piper wasn’t born yet.
But Mom and Dad and Lark…” She bit her lower lip.
“They know. We just…we don’t…we haven’t talked about it in a long time.
It’s sort of the dark cloud that hovers over the picnic.
We see it but ignore it, praying it doesn’t dump a bunch of rain on the hot dogs and potato salad.
” She gave him a sad grin. “Cute analogy?”
He chuckled, even though his heart was breaking. “You’re wasting your time as a librarian. You should be a writer.”
She huffed out a soft laugh. “I’ll leave that to your future sister-in-law.”
Ella wrote steamy romance novels under a pen name, something that Maverick took great pride in sharing with anyone and everyone. Typically, because it allowed him to joke about how he was her inspiration.
“You were only nine,” he murmured, unable to hold in the part that fucking slayed him.
“Yeah,” she said, as the story slowly poured out, haltingly.
“I’d never met Uncle John until that weekend.
When he came to stay with us. He’d shown up out of the blue, surprising my dad.
Uncle John and my dad’s mom were brother and sister.
According to Dad, Grandma and her brother had a falling out before I was born.
Dad never knew what caused it. My grandma was a tough old bird and very private.
When Dad asked what happened, she just said that it was between her and her brother and no one else’s business. ”
“Were you close to your grandma?” he asked.
Wren shook her head. “Not really. She’d retired to Florida before I was born—right after my grandfather died—so we only saw her at Christmas, and once when we traveled to Disney World.
I never met my granddaddy. My mom was four months pregnant with me and Lark when he passed. Then Grandma died when I was eight.”
Grayson got the sense Wren was working her way through the story, trying to find her way there slowly. He didn’t mind. He’d sit here all night, listening.
“Anyway, Dad was surprised when Uncle John just showed up, but he was also sort of glad too. He’d always talked about his uncle fondly and was sad when Grandma cut him out of their lives.
Grandma had died nine months earlier, so I think Dad was actually happy, because except for us, Uncle John was the only relative he had left.
He was grateful for the chance to reconnect with family, you know? ”
Wren was clearly justifying her father’s actions for inviting the man into their home.
“If he had known,” she started.
“I understand,” he said, placing a soft kiss on her palm. “Do you think your grandmother knew? Do you think…”
Wren shrugged. “That’s one of those questions I’ve always asked myself, but never had the courage to ask my dad. I’m sure he believes so, because after…that weekend, Dad stopped talking about his mom entirely. I got the feeling he was mad at her.”
“That makes sense. He probably believes she should have told him, warned him.”
Wren nodded. “My dad is an incredible man. The best,” she stressed.
“Wren. That’s not in question.”
She drew in a breath, and it seemed to calm her.
“Okay, good,” she finally said, before forging on.
“Dad invited Uncle John to stay for dinner and to spend the night in our guest room. Dinner was a lot of fun that night. Uncle John was a funny man. He had all these silly voices he used when he told stories, and he did magic tricks, and he could do the funniest thing with his mouth.” Wren attempted demonstrate by pulling her top lip to the left, the bottom to the right.
Her fingers remained for a second before she released them, her lips slipping back into place.
“He could make his stay like that,” she said, gesturing to her lips.
“Then he’d wiggle them. Lark and I laughed so hard we cried, but neither one of us could manage to do it, no matter how long we tried. ”
Grayson’s jaw clenched at the thought of her great-uncle playing games with her, intentionally giving Wren a false sense of safety.
“He stayed the night, and the next morning, he insisted on taking us all out for brunch in Leesburg and shopping. Said he had a few birthdays to make up for,” Wren continued. “We went to a mall. I got a Barbie doll, Lark asked for a play drum set.”
“Of course, she did,” Grayson murmured, his comment prompting a ghost of a smile. The tears had stopped as she kept talking. He was grateful for that, because the sight of her crying killed him. However, he was certain there were more tears coming.
“We stayed in Leesburg so long that we wound up going out for dinner too. Cheesecake Factory,” she said, her eyes wide like she was talking about some magical land.
“You have to understand, this was a big deal to me and Lark. We never went out to eat. Our family has always lived on a budget. So eating out twice in one day was like seeing a unicorn.”
Grayson knew the McCoys well enough to appreciate how tight money had been, and likely still was. Wren’s mom had always stayed home to raise her and her siblings, and her dad was a middle school science teacher here in Gracemont.
“That night, Uncle John and my dad sat in the living room, drinking bourbon and reminiscing about the good old days. Dad’s a quiet guy by nature, probably because it’s hard to get a word in edgewise in a house that contains Mom, Lark, and Piper.”
Grayson chuckled. “Same was true in my house. Maverick and Theo always filled the quiet, and they didn’t leave much talking space for the rest of us.”
She smiled…briefly. “That night, Dad talked for ages and it was so fun to listen to his memories. Mom let us stay up a little past our bedtime, then she shooed us to our rooms, even though we begged for ten minutes more. It usually took some work to get Lark to settle down and go to sleep, but we’d had such a busy day, we were both zonked out the second our heads hit the pillows. ”
She paused, the sudden quiet a sign that this was where the story would be harder to tell.
He hated the idea of her suffering even a second of pain. “Wren,” he said, holding her hand with both of his. He was about to assure her that he didn’t need to hear it if she didn’t want to continue, but she stopped him.
“No, please. I want— I need to finish.”
He nodded. “Fine. But before you do…” He reached for her, lifting her onto his lap so that he could wrap his arms around her waist. “You were too far away.”
She laughed softly. “I was sitting right beside you.”
“Practically miles apart,” he said, placing a kiss on her cheek.
“You Storms all give the same sweet kisses,” she mused.
He frowned, until she explained. “Your dad kissed your mom the same way. And I saw Maverick, Levi, and Theo all give the same kiss to their significant others.”
Grayson shrugged. “I can’t be with you without wanting to touch you.”
His admission seemed to please her, but only for a moment, then shadows clouded her pretty eyes.
That was when he suspected she was worried about sharing this story for another reason.
He’d thought her hesitance was based solely on the pain in retelling it…
but he could see now that it was more than that.
“There is nothing you’re going to tell me tonight that’s going to change the way I feel about you, little bird.”
She blinked back tears as hope and disbelief warred on her face.
“Nothing,” he reiterated.
She swallowed deeply, then nodded. Just once.
“It was dark when I woke up. The middle of the night. I smelled the bourbon Dad and Uncle John had been drinking. Then my bed shifted, and I realized someone was lying next to me. I startled, and that was when Uncle John moved, coming over top of me, pinning me to the bed. He put his hand over my mouth, whispered, ‘Shhh.’”
Grayson held still, even as rage built in his chest. He didn’t know where her uncle John was these days, but he was damn well going to find out.
Wren wasn’t looking at him. While her gaze was fixed on a spot on the wall, Grayson knew she was seeing something else entirely in her mind. She’d gone back to her childhood bedroom, to that night.
“I tried to move, but he was a lot bigger and heavier. I was struggling to breathe with his hand covering my nose and mouth. I panicked, afraid of suffocating, but I was helpless, completely pinned. He pulled up my nightgown. Pulled down my panties.”
It was Grayson’s turn to swallow, bile rising.