CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THIS TIME I wake up slowly, as if from a deep sleep.
I blink my eyes open and the first thing I see is a brown ceiling, wooden.
Then a head, an animal’s. A bear, I think, and there’s not just one but several, lined up along the walls.
Which are also wooden like the ceiling, made of logs.
A small lamp sits on the nightstand, flooding the space in a yellow glow.
There’s also a dresser right by the door that may lead outside, and another door that stands ajar and is a bathroom; I can see the hint of a sink through the opening.
None of this is even remotely familiar. None of this is giving me any hints as to how I got here.
Finally, I look down at myself. I’m lying on a bed with white sheets, my head is resting on a pillow, and I’ve got a blanket on me. All cozy and warm and extremely unfamiliar.
But that’s not my main concern. Second by second, as I come awake and become more alert, I feel various aches and pains starting to show up.
My back hurts like crazy, and my shoulders are tender.
My knees and elbows are stinging, making me think I banged myself up pretty bad.
I’m about to inspect myself more when I freeze because I smell something.
Leather and spices.
And even though I’m not completely awake and haven’t pieced things together, I know that scent.
My body, my brain, my fucking heart knows that scent.
I’ve been obsessed with it for far too long and traumatized by it far too many times.
Without wasting another second, I jackknife on the bed and instantly regret it because the room spins and every ache comes back tenfold.
I clutch my head and fall against the pillows, panting.
Amid the chaos in my brain and sudden panic, I hear his voice. “Careful.”
Just one word spoken in that rough and unused voice of his and everything comes rushing back. Everything. And I realize there’s no word for a girl as foolish as me and there’s no word for a man as heartless as him.
All of a sudden, I can’t breathe. I can’t get any air into my body.
I can’t… I pull at the sheets. I wheeze.
I kick my legs, drag them up and down the bed.
Everything seems to be spinning. Everything seems to be closing in.
It’s like something is sitting on my chest. Something is choking me and…
I see him move. I see his dusty, bloody boots coming toward me.
“Don’t,” I scream somehow. “Don’t c-come… near…”
His boots come to a halt immediately.
Something about that breaks through my panic, through my suffocation, and I’m able to take a full breath.
Still gripping the sheets, I move my eyes up and look at him then.
He stands a few paces away from the bed, wearing the same clothes from before, bloody and dusty and now wrinkled too.
As though he’s been in them for hours now.
His bandanna is gone and so is his Stetson, and I can see the dark rich waves of hair falling over his forehead, curling around his ears.
But most of all, I can see every inch of his face clearly.
Every feature on it, every angle and every peak.
That scar and those eyes. And dear God, there’s one emotion running rampant on his face: concern.
The kind he had back on the cliff when he set his fucking wolves on me. Even through the panic, it had warmed my heart. Now it only makes me want to scratch that emotion off his fucking face. He did it again, didn’t he? He threw me to the wolves again. Panting, I ask, “What… what place is this?”
“A cabin,” he says, keeping his gaze steady and expression the same. “A hunting cabin in the woods.”
Right. That would explain all the bear heads on the wall. Not to mention the fact that once again, we’re in the middle of nowhere. “Did you…” I begin, putting a hand on my neck. “Did you drug me again?”
“No,” he replies, and it seems like he does it emphatically too. “No, you passed out. Hit the ground pretty hard.”
I remember that now, him diving at me and tackling me to the ground. Him covering me with his body as he shot whoever it was that was trying to… shoot me. As he got shot himself. My eyes jerk over to his shoulder, the right one, but before I can inspect more, he speaks.
“There ain’t no concussion or anythin’, but you got yourself some scrapes and cuts,” he informs, motioning with his chin. “Tried to clean them as much as I could, but you’re gonna be sore for a while.”
I don’t care about cuts and scrapes. I don’t even care about a concussion. My breaths are coming hard and fast, and I’m dizzy again. The room starts to spin and I think I may be on the verge of another panic attack. “What… what happened? Who were they… Who—”
“Peyton,” he snaps, his deep voice lashing, and I draw in a sharp breath.
Panting, I focus on him again. He keeps our gazes connected as he raises his arms, his fingers splayed wide as though he wants me to know he’s harmless.
Then, “You need to listen to me, listen to my voice. Fuck who I am, just listen to what I’m sayin’ to you.
I need you to take a breath. Do you understand?
Just take a deep breath. That’s all you need to do.
This is like what happened at the cliff, yeah?
You’re scared as fuck and I get that. I do.
But you need to do what I’m tellin’ you to do.
’Cause I can’t come close to you. Can’t touch you right now.
Can’t put my arms around you. Can’t…” His chest moves with a large breath.
“So I need you to listen to me. Just listen. You need to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, yeah? Do it.”
I stare at him for a few seconds, still and frozen.
Unable to comprehend what he’s telling me.
The only thing I can focus on is how he sounds.
Somehow both rough and tender, cajoling and bossy.
And again, concerned. And then as if to prod me further, he decides to follow his own advice and show me.
He decides to breathe in, his ribs expanding like the wave and falling when he lets it out.
When I still stare at him like I don’t understand, he adds softly, “Please.”
I’ve got a death grip on the sheets, but that one word from him makes me loosen it. It makes me follow his instructions and breathe. It’s probably nothing more than my survival instinct. I’m simply trying to do what helps me make it to the next second.
For the next several seconds, the only sound in the room is of our synchronized breaths.
The only thing I see is the green of his eyes, the rise and fall of his massive chest, his arms that are still raised up in surrender, in peace.
Like some kind of a joke. Like those hands will never hurt me.
Like the man who’s helping me breathe will protect me until his last breath.
Well, if it’s a joke, then how come instead of laughing, I want to cry?
I don’t, though. I stay strong and slowly my body loosens up.
My chest warms and the churning in my belly eases.
And since he’s been watching me avidly ever since I noticed him in the room—knowing him, maybe even before that—his own breaths come easy.
Something I hadn’t realized, that his breaths were strained as well, until I saw his chest moving smoothly.
I want to look at his shoulder again, hunt down his bullet wound, ask him if he’s okay, but I stop myself. I need to focus. I need to freaking focus on myself for once rather than him.
Slowly, he lowers his arms and I command on a whisper, my eyes direct, “Tell me.”
He watches me silently for a few seconds, but I wait him out. And then he declares, “I lied.”
And all the warmth my body had regained simply vanishes. I go back to gripping the sheets tightly and my breaths become choppy.
His jaw pulses for a long moment before he begins. “About that day in the car. It wasn’t only my ma and my daddy that I pulled out of a burnin’ car. I pulled out someone else too. Lynnie.” I flinch at the name, but for once he doesn’t notice. “Lakelyn, but we called her Lynnie. My sister.”
This time, I don’t flinch. I sit there frozen, shocked and afraid, terrified as I wait for him to speak. As I watch his body go taut, his features tightening, his scar standing in stark relief.
“She was thirteen,” he continues, his lips barely moving, the left side of his face seeming to be set in stone.
“A couple of years younger than me. Still called her my baby sister, though. She hated that. Reckon that’s why I did it.
She was… annoyin’, followed me everywhere I went.
Wanted me to teach her how to climb trees, how to ride a horse, how to make those little stones skip on the lake.
And Christ, I tried. Swear to God, I tried my best, but she was so fuckin’ bad at it, at all the ‘boy stuff’ like she used to call it.
And then, blame me for not teachin’ her right. She…”
He slows down here and swallows several times, clenching his jaw, and my own throat feels too small for my emotions. My whole body feels too small for everything I’m feeling right now.
“She was good at other things, though,” he resumes.
“Roses. She was good at ’em, better than our ma, even.
Had her own little garden. She loved art, too, colors and stuff.
Would spend hours sketchin’, paintin’, noticin’ things no one else did.
If our parents were gonna bicker over somethin’, she’d be the first to read their moods and figure that out, would come out to the barn to tell me it was gonna be a big one.
Where Daddy may have to get Ma somethin’, usually this blueberry pie from town, to make up for it.
She was… she was the best sister I could’ve asked for, and she… ”