Chapter Seven
Harley
“We’re here,” Carter said from the front passenger seat.
The whole eight hour drive up here, I was giving him a silent treatment. Well, either I was giving him a silent treatment or I was sleeping. Not that he minded. He hadn’t said even one word to me since we left that hotel.
After I had my melt down, he gently pushed me away from his body, made me stand and positioned me back on the couch, then got up and started barking orders left and right while a whirlwind of activity started spreading out through the suite.
The fact that he hadn’t once even glanced my way was grating on my nerves.
And the hollow feeling of pain in my heart only brought my fight back.
So I started making my own calls and demands.
Something he didn’t miss. Once the door opened and Sienna and Tim barged into the room, he stood completely still with a frown on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.
As I said my demands, and he still hadn’t uttered a word, I turned to him and arched a brow, “Nothing to say, Warden.”
I wanted him to growl at me. To scream. To demand from me to cancel the tour, instead of just postponing the dates. Unfortunately, some of the dates had to be canceled since we didn’t know how long my exile would last, and the silent man hadn’t offered any insight into it.
At my words, his frown only deepened, but I could swear I saw a glint of something in his cognac eyes before he turned and stalked out of the room. He came back two hours later, collected me from his men who assured him all our bags were in the vehicle.
Who even said the word vehicle?
Got, it was infuriating. I wanted to say something then, but he just grunted in response, took hold of my biceps, and pulled me from the room so I kept my mouth shut.
Those were the last words between us up until now.
I looked around and all I could see were… trees?
Where the hell were we?
It was unfortunate that I was spending so much time on the road, sleeping night after night on a tour bus, that the moment the wheels started spinning, it was like a sweet lullaby was sung in my ear.
The fact that I hadn’t had much sleep in the last few days, and my emotional breakdown a few hours earlier only heightened the sting in my eyes, and I was fast asleep the moment we hit the highroad, and once I woke up, I stared mindlessly out of the window not paying any attention of where we were going.
I got out of the car, and inhaled. A fresh, crisp air filled with pine and a hint of the rain hit my nostrils, and my lungs burned as I inhaled deeply.
I hated to admit it, but the clean air felt like heaven.
“Where are we?” I asked looking around, trying to get my bearings, but all I could see were more trees. Everywhere I looked there they were. It was like he drove us into the middle of the forest and just stopped.
He came to stand behind me and put a jacket over my shoulders. It was only then I realized how cold it was and that I was shivering. “Somewhere safe.”
“Yeah, I’ll need a little more information,” I said.
He watched until I pulled the zip on my jacked closed. Turning he went to the car, opened the back and started pulling our bags out. “That’s the only information you’re gonna get.”
“You’re not gonna tell me where you brought me?” I gaped at him.
“The less you know, the safer it is. You can trust me.”
Was he serious?
I knew I could trust him. That was never even a question. From the moment I laid eyes on him, I had complete trust in the man.
With my safety, my body, and as it turned out, with my heart too.
The only problem was, he wasn’t interested in any of it except the fact of keeping me safe. Something he was hired to do.
Something that hurt like hell.
“I don’t know, Warden,” I turned in a circle, my head leaned back, my eyes on the bluish grey sky. “This feels awful like I’ve been kidnapped.”
“Trust me, if I wanted to kidnap you, I wouldn’t bring you here.” He grumbled.
I could hear him moving around, then the bleep of the locks on the car, but it was only when he came to me, and muttered, “Here” that I looked at him.
“What?” I asked, glancing between a bag he was holding my way and his cloudy face.
“We gotta hike from here. There’s no road that leads to the cabin, and I’m not going there and back twice because you’re too much of a diva to carry some of the bags.”
“Fuck you,” I spat, grabbed the bag, and my suitcase, and started walking.
“You’re going in the wrong direction,” he called after me.
I didn’t want to, didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but I still turned and followed him deeper into the woods.
It should have felt like I was walking into danger.
It should have felt terrifying. But as I was watching his legs eat the ground in front of him, his body turning this way and that with such ease, all I felt was heat spreading through me that had nothing at all with the physical exercise he was putting me through.
After what felt like a year of hiking, we finally made it to a stop.
“Finally,” I gasped. My lungs were burning and I was in desperate need of a shower, coffee and a candy bar.
He turned to look at me, a weird look in his eyes. Something that looked a lot like pain and torment mixed with deep satisfaction. “We’re here.”
The whole place looked like it jumped right out of a fairytale.
The A frame was completely surrounded by woods.
Pine trees were the only ones I recognized, but there were a bunch of others too.
I knew that much. The area around the cabin itself had been cleared, and meticulously cleaned of any pine needles.
A stone pathway led to the door, a pathway that started in the middle of nothing.
But it was lined with flowerbeds, and solar lamps with long flexible spikes that were gently swaying in the breeze.
Every few steps. I couldn’t wait to see it at night.
I had a feeling they would look like fireflies were dancing around the flowers.
I couldn’t help myself. Seeing the look of agony on his face, I reached out, and gently grabbed his forearm. “You okay?”
He yanked his arm from my grasp like the touch of my skin burned him even under the layers of clothes. And I couldn’t help but flinch from that sting. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
I knew he was lying, but I didn’t have the strength to push, not with the blow he just landed. “Okye-doke.”
He walked to the door, unlocked it, and then we were inside.
The house itself was open plan, and I could see from the entryway a giant stone fireplace in front of which brown leather armchairs were dotted, but the massive couch stood directly opposite it.
Each armchair had its own small, neatly folded plaid blanked in green, red, brown, and yellow.
I couldn’t see, but I was willing to bet my life on it that the couch had one too.
Frames were on the walls with pictures of kids running around, and adults gathered around the fire. A soft afternoon light poured from the massive windows that were lining each wall. This wasn’t just a cabin in the woods, a safe house.
No, this felt like home.
“Who’s place is this?” I asked softly. I was too scared to disturbed the peace this place was providing.
“It doesn’t matter,” Carter grumbled. There was still something off with him.
Something I couldn’t put my finger on. But something I knew was vital.
However, that all fell from my mind when he said, “It’s safe.
It’s not accessible by the road. You need to know where it is to find it.
And there’s no internet or signal here. No one can find you here. You’re safe.”
“There’s no internet or a signal?” I gaped at him.
“We’re in the middle of the forest, Dynamo. You would have to have a satellite phone and a router that connects directly to the satellite with an amplifier to be able to make a phone call or connect to the net.”
“Do you have those things? What if something happens and we need to call for help’”
“I have what I need to keep you safe.”
“So you meant to tell me that I was kidnapped by the military and dumped in the wilderness.”
“Not a military, Dynamo,” he walked further into the home. “Just me.”
I couldn’t help it. He looked so serious when he said it, watching me, almost to see if I would freak out and run away, that I burst out laughing. “Good thing you’re such an excellent company, Warden.”
“Smartass,” he muttered, but his lips twitched.
I fought the urge to raise my fist in the air and scream Victory! That was how great a feeling it was to see that I almost made him smile.
It was at that moment I vowed to myself I would do anything, give anything to get Carter Ryan to smile.
I didn’t know what it was, but something was haunting him.
A ghost or multiple ones that whispered in his ear he would never be good enough.
Never deserve anything good that came his way.
And I knew it because I recognized the look in his eyes that became more acute the moment he stopped before the cabin.
I had the same ones, I knew how they hurt.
I couldn't banish my own, but I would go to war to decimate his.
“Let me show you around,” he motioned for me to follow him. That momentary flicker of fun was gone. A serious note strung low that hummed through my entire being.
“Lead the way, Warden,” I muttered and followed him around.
The first was a kitchen. It was a mix between rustic and modern.
The big, white, ceramic sink was a dream fit for every farmhouse coupled with the worn out butcher block for the counter tops.
Through all of that, stainless steel appliances were fit in.
The kitchen looked on the living room and its massive fireplace, but on the right side, there was a big dining room table that seated twelve.
And in the left corner, right under a massive window, a breakfast nook sat.
It was charming, cozy, and promised you only good things would happen here.
I just wished I could believe it.