by Pam Godwin
Jarret approaches and slides her phone into my hand. “Good luck.”
With a pat on my back, he heads to the motel office with her travel bag. After he checks her out of the room, he’ll ride her motorcycle back to the ranch.
Step one finished. Ninety-nine thousand more to go.
As I pocket her phone and climb behind the wheel, the weight of the day catches up with me. Cattle herding, bookkeeping, trailing Conor since she arrived in town—all of it seeps into my weary muscles. It feels like bedtime, the stars bright against the velvet black sky, but it’s only nine o’clock. It’s going to be a long night.
Pulling onto the street, I drive in silence until I hit the first dirt road.
“Do you still play guitar?” I know the answer, but I need her to talk through it.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t have time for it.”
“When was the last time you played?”
“Chicago.”
“You miss it.”
She stares out the passenger side window, her voice a vault of hollow sound. “I don’t let myself miss it.”
I let that settle into the space between us. Then I push forward. “You never let yourself accept what happened in the ravine or with your dad in Chicago.”
“Stop looking for shit that isn’t there.” Her hand twitches on her thigh. “I’m not broken.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
“Then I don’t need to be fixed.”
“Didn’t say that, either.”
“What are you saying?” She cuts her eyes at me.
“Tell me what happened on your sixteenth birthday.”
I researched Prolonged Exposure therapy. The more she talks about her trauma, the less her memories will upset her.
“I was attacked.” Her voice is wooden. “We all were.”
“What happened to you, Conor?” I flex my fingers on the steering wheel. “Be specific.”
“You were there.” She turns back to the window. “No sense in rehashing it. It’s in the past.”
“No, it’s right here, in your triggers, in every aspect of your life. It’s haunting you relentlessly, because you refuse to stop for five fucking seconds and talk about it.” I take a calming breath and even my tone. “If you don’t confront it, you won’t defeat it.”
“I’m getting by just fine,” she says quietly.
“That’s right. You’re getting by.” I turn onto the next dirt road and slow the truck to a crawl. “The mind does a good job at protecting you from things you can’t handle. Sometimes, it’s too good. It represses memories and feelings, makes you believe you moved on. But those walls you’ve built to hold everything back? They’ll weaken. A hand on your wrist, a sip of alcohol, something will bring them down and let everything loose in one huge devastating flood.”
She clenches her jaw, silent but listening.
“There’s a good chance you won’t be in a controlled environment when it happens.” I pause, searching my mind for scenarios. “You’ll be in a classroom or in a bar with no one around to hold you through the aftermath.”
Her mouth opens, forming a half-stunned, half-smiling O of disbelief. She stares at me with overly bright eyes then collapses over her lap in an outburst of laughter.
“Oh God, Jake.” She continues to laugh, but it’s mocking and forced. It’s not her laugh. “How much time did you spend online?”
I grind my teeth. I spent six years researching all the ways I can help her.
She shakes her head, still laughing. “What phrases did you search on? How to repair a ruined girl?”
I punch the brake so hard the inertia sends her careening against the shoulder belt. Her head whips forward, and she releases a choked oomph.
Her hands flatten on her thighs, and she straightens in the seat. Then she slowly turns her neck and scowls the sexiest scowl I’ve ever seen. “You’re such an asshole.”
I lurch through the space between us, put my mouth an inch from hers, and inhale her fuming breaths. “You have no idea how badly I want to kiss the insolence off your face.”
Her chest hitches, and her gaze lowers to my lips.
There’s no build up. Or maybe it’s been building for years, but my need for her is ravenous. It roams, feral and restless, through my body, prowling under my skin, throbbing at the base of my spine, and tightening my balls. I need her, I need her, I need her…
She places a finger on my chest and pushes. “No thanks.”
I snap out of the hungry trance and return to my side of the seat.
Fucking fuck, what am I doing? I can’t kiss her. Not until I deal with the boyfriend. There’s an order of operations for a reason. A carefully considered plan.
Focus on the plan.
Letting my foot off the brake, I roll the truck forward. The ranch sits on the other side of that hill, just a few minutes away. The moment we arrive, she’ll be distracted by Ketchup.
I need to wrap this up. “In two weeks, Levi Tibbs will go free. We’re going to kill him, quietly and efficiently, and bury the body in the ravine.”
Silence.
“Any questions?” I ask.
“How do you know my triggers?” She rests a hand on her wrist, stroking it. “Why do you even care? Last time I saw you, you couldn’t wait to get rid of me. Now you’re… I don’t know what this is, but it feels like the coercions of a madman. Stringing me along with lies about my horse? What the fuck are you doing?”
“For each answer I give you, you’ll have a dozen more questions.”
“No, I—”
“I promise you, Conor. Everything you don’t know is connected to other things you don’t know. There are so many…” Secrets. I rub a hand down my face. “I could unload it all on you right now. Full disclosure. But if I did that, I’d lose my leverage.”
“Leverage for what?”
Here we go.
“Your obedience.” I hold up a hand when she starts to interrupt. “I’m going to peel away your walls, piece by piece, using my methods. For every session you submit to, I’ll answer more questions.”
“You’re going to hold back information so you can dole it out like little rewards? That’s fucked up, Jake.”
“No, I’m going to trade answers for your participation. Answers in exchange for progress. If I divulged everything now, you wouldn’t agree to work through the grieving process.”
“Grieving process? I’m not—”
“You need to grieve the night in the ravine.”
She stiffens. “No, I don’t.”
“You were raped. Sodomized. Abused—”
“Stop!”
“You need to grieve your relationship with your family. The damage your dad did to you. His death. Your brother’s incarceration—”
“I can’t. I don’t need this.”
“You need to grieve our relationship.”
She needs to be enraged about it. She needs to loop back, reflect, and let herself be sad. I can’t move forward with her until she acknowledges the things I’ve done.
“I’m not broken,” she whispers.
“You don’t need me to fix you. You need me to sit with you in the sadness.”
FOURTEEN
Jake
To be on the brink of something so momentous and consequential demands diligence. Impatience is my enemy. Insatiable desire is my weakness.
As I watch Conor nuzzle Ketchup’s nose, every molecule in my body screams at me to go to her, to touch her, to kiss, lick, bite, and devour her, and to shove myself so deeply inside her she won’t be able to push me away.
I can’t believe she’s here.
She’s home, and it’s finally safe for her to be here.
We haven’t gone to the house yet, but she moves around the stable like she never left. Checking Ketchup for scrapes and bumps and mucking out the stall, Conor throws herself into old tasks with a smile that lights up her whole face.
She hasn’t smiled
like that in years. I know, because I’ve been watching her. Clocking her every movement and following her around campus like a creeper. When I couldn’t be there, I hired a private investigator to tail her.
I did what I did to protect her, all while trying to forget her.
She touches her brow to the soft part of Ketchup’s muzzle. “Does anyone ride her?”
“I do.” I push off the wall and prowl toward her. “Get her saddled. We’re taking her out.”
“Tonight?” A wide grin, and she spins around, kissing Ketchup’s snout. “Do you want to go for a ride? Yes, you do, don’t you?” She pivots toward the next stall and smiles at my stallion, her voice laced with affection. “How about you, Barnabe? You wanna go for a run?”
“He’s not going.” I grab a saddle pad from the tack room behind her.
She glances at Ketchup and narrows her eyes at me. “I’m not riding double.”
“You’re not riding alone. You haven’t been in the saddle in six years.” I hold out the pad. “It’s dark. The terrain’s changed. One misstep and you’ll be ass-end-over-tea-kettle. We’re riding double or not at all.”
“Fine.” She sniffs and snatches the pad. “But I have to sit—”
“Behind me. I know.”
As she saddles, cinches, and bridles the mare with practiced movements, her gaze turns inward. So many unanswered questions in that logical head of hers. Soon, they’ll start chipping away at her mask of indifference.
When Ketchup is ready, I swing into the saddle and hold out my hand. She grips it, and I sling her up behind me.
Riding double isn’t ideal for a guy my size. But Ketchup is strong and sturdy, and Conor weighs little more than a feather. We’ve done this countless times.
She wiggles back to the edge of the saddle, her hands hovering out at the sides like an uncomfortable newbie. But her unease has nothing to do with the horse. She doesn’t want to touch me.
“Grip my waist.” I urge Ketchup into a fast trot, forcing her to grab on.
Her handhold twitches with reluctance, each finger a deliberate, barely-there point of contact. Fuck if I don’t want to strip her down to her skin and remind her just how intimate the bond between us used to be.
We exit the stable and cross the field at a lazy pace. The full moon illuminates the landscape, embracing us in a pale glow.
The house sits off to the side, a couple of windows shining with light. Jarret and I live alone in that huge fucking estate, and I hate it. I miss the family dinners, the arguing and laughter, and the strum of guitars. Mostly, I miss Conor and Lorne.
“Where is everyone?” she asks.
I glance back and follow her line of sight to the bunkhouse in the distance. When she lived here, the long building served as a permanent home for the ranch hands. Now, it stands like a tombstone in the dark.
“Jarret and I fired everyone.” I breathe in, carefully choosing my words. “We replaced the employees with people we trust, and no one’s permitted to live on site.”
Because we don’t trust anyone enough to allow them to live here.
“What? Why would you do that?” She gasps. “What about Andy Longley?”
I know what she’s thinking. How could we fire the father of the man Lorne murdered? Truth is we did Andy Longley a favor. What we should’ve done was dump him tits up in the ravine like all the others.
“Remember what I said about the answers I give?”
Her fingers press against my waistband. “For each answer, there will be more questions.”
“Yes and following a single line of questioning will pull you in too deep, too fast. We’ll keep it at the surface for now.”
“Because you want leverage.” Irritation clips her voice.
“Ask a new question.”
“Why did you lie about Ketchup?”
I tilt my head back until the moon emerges from behind the rim of my hat, rhythmically rocking in sync with Ketchup’s gait. “I cut all ties that connected you to the ranch. Removed every reason for you to come back until it was safe.”
“Safe? Safe for whom? And what the hell does anyone need to be safe from?” At my silence, she blows out a breath. “More questions, I know. But you can’t just trickle bits and pieces. You’re not telling me anything.”
“I’ll tell you.” I guide Ketchup toward the small grove of trees at the edge of the east pasture. “But you have to do something for me.” At the tree line, I pull us to a stop. “Hop off.”
She dismounts, and I follow her down.
“What are we doing?” She looks around, probing the darkness.
“You know what that is?” I gesture at the trail leading into the grove. “It’s the road to adventure.”
“Oh, no.” She crosses her arms. “You know I can’t go in there.”
The ground cover crawls with poison ivy. The plant doesn’t affect me, but one touch of a leaf against Conor’s skin and she swells up with an itchy painful rash. She’s so sensitive to the sap she’s been hospitalized on several occasions.
“If you do what I say, I promise you won’t come in contact with it.” I clasp my hands behind my back. “Remove your boots and jeans.”
“You’re out of your damn mind.” She fixes me with an incredulous stare, her eyes glowing in moonlight.
“You want answers. I want your boots and jeans.”
A battle of wills heaves between us. I don’t look away. She doesn’t move.
I’ll win this, because she’s curious by nature. She doesn’t just desire the knowledge I’m keeping from her. She’s dying to find out what I intend to do in that grove.
So I wait her out, and it doesn’t take long.
“For the record, you’re a cock-sucking pig. But you know what?” She yanks off a boot, mumbling to herself. “I lost all my give-a-fucks.” The other boot follows. “They’re all gone, wherever give-a-fucks go.”
If she didn’t give a fuck, she wouldn’t be tearing at her zipper like she has a burr in her pants.
“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, anyway.” She shoves down the jeans and kicks them away. “Probably set your filthy eyes on every pair of panties in town.”
She’s wrong about that, but I haven’t exactly lived a life of celibacy, either.
She straightens, fists her hands on her hips, and hurls a livid glare in my direction.
The thin tank top meets the top of her thighs, the cotton as white as the crotch of panties peeking beneath the hem. As much as I want to absorb every glorious inch of her, I rein in my eagerness and turn my back.
“Climb on.” I squat low and tap my shoulder.
“You want to…” Her voice rises an octave. “Give me a piggyback ride?”
“That, or I’ll carry you like a baby. Your choice.”
“For the love of Pete.”
She paces behind me, back and forth, back and forth, and stops.
Her hand touches me first, a soft pressure on my shoulder, and my pulse races. Then her other hand, her legs, her chest. The dainty length of her wraps around my back, and I pin my lips to contain my ragged breaths.
My legs straighten. My hands grip her thighs. My boots step onto the path. But my thoughts are elsewhere, careening off the tracks and into a vivid dream where I’m burying my face in her pussy, pinching her nipples, tying down her arms, and fucking her until the cows come home.
By the time I reach my destination, I’m so fucking hard it hurts to walk.
“We’re here.” I back up to a stump surrounded by poison ivy. “Put your feet down.”
“You promised!” She clenches her thighs around my waist, her arms clinging to my shoulders.
“Keep your feet at the center of the stump and hold onto the branch above you. Do you see it?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I already told you, and I’ll tell you more if you obey.”
She shifts around on my back, stalling, hesitating. Then she lowers her legs. When she’s finally in position on th
e stump, I step back and take her in.
Starry sprinkles of moonlight filter through the canopy, delineating the alluring shape of her.
Fingers curled around the branch overhead, she balances on the stub of wood. Tank top, underwear, and bare legs, she glows white against the shadowy backdrop. With her unruly red hair, tattooed arms, and defiant glare, she looks like a bloodthirsty angel.
Everything inside me tenses with anticipation.
“Wipe that look off your face, Jake Holsten.” She shifts her weight. “I’m not having sex with you.”
Not yet. “You’re standing on a stump, enclosed by poison ivy because it’s the only way I can think to restrain you.”
“I changed my mind.” Her throat bobs, and her legs grow restless. “I’m not comfortable with this. Take me back to Ketchup.”
“Hear me out.” I step around her, stamping down errant saplings of poison ivy. “Tonight, we’re reestablishing the roles we once had and setting a foundation for trust. My approach to your therapy doesn’t exactly conform to the social constructs of sex and mental health. But every step I take will be carried out with complete honesty, control, and care.”
And love.
I love her so goddamn much, but she’s not ready for that truth. That’s why we’re here.
Earlier today, I placed the stump on uneven ground. Little movements cause it to wobble. Not enough to topple over, but it fucks with her balance and forces her to hold onto the overhead branch. That keeps her hands out of my way.
“I can’t restrain you by conventional means.” I pause in front of her and meet her eyes. “No rope. Nothing touching your wrists. That in itself is problematic. And before you give me hell for wanting to truss you up, think back to the night of your birthday. Before the bad stuff happened. What did I do to your wrists?”
“You tied them.” A choked whisper.
“Did it make you uncomfortable? Did you hate it? Did you tell me to stop?”
Her jaw flexes. “You know I didn’t.”
“We’re going to get you back to that, Conor. Back to that place where you can trust again. Whether it’s with me or with someone else. Understand?”
She blinks and looks away.