Devon’s gut knotted as she tried to find a way to explain Cyndi. “She was okay. At first. My dad was an insurance salesman, pretty practical minded. Did well for himself and Mom, I think.” A faint smile curled her lips. “I don’t remember them much. Disney World, seeing Mickey Mouse. The beach. Happy times, but there aren’t many memories.” Swallowing the knot in her throat, she continued, “Mom and Dad had set aside a decent amount of money that was supposed to help provide for me. Food, clothes, all those little expenses that come with raising a child. But Aunt Cyndi liked the money. A lot. She went through it like mad, and by the time I was nine, it was all gone, everything except a trust fund set aside for when I turned eighteen. And I bet she tried to get at it anyway. She met this guy, Boyd Chancellor. He was loaded. He was also a sick son of a bitch. Started molesting me a few months after they got married. When I turned eleven, he raped me. It kept up for a few months. I was getting in trouble at school, stealing, started doing drugs.”
Squeezing the words out took effort. She didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to go there. But she felt compelled to explain. Devon wasn’t really sure why. “I got caught stealing at school, tried to take money from a teacher’s purse. School pressed charges. I ended up in family court. Cyndi and Boyd offered to pay for the damages . . .” Devon’s voice trailed off, and she snorted. “Probably because they didn’t want anybody poking around. The judge in family court wouldn’t go for it. I’d already been in trouble for stealing, for drugs. I think the judge decided I needed to get my act cleaned up. I had to do community service, I was put on probation, and I had to start seeing a therapist.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Luke’s face. He had a stony, cold look to his features, and she jerked her gaze aside, staring out the window. Looking at him right now made it worse, made it harder. “The therapist figured out what was going on. I hadn’t told anybody. Boyd told me nobody would believe me if I told the truth, and he’d been hurting me for so long, I believed him. But the therapist . . . her name was Rebecca.”
The words were coming faster now. Harder. Spilling out of her almost like vomit, and holding them back would have choked her. “He’d raped me the night before. I hurt so much, and all I wanted to do was disappear. Just disappear forever. Rebecca saw it somehow. He hadn’t left a mark on me—Boyd was too smart to leave marks where people could see them—but it showed anyway. I guess Rebecca had worked with so many kids, she couldn’t not see it.” With a shaky hand, she reached up and wiped away the tears from her cheeks, staring down as they sped down I-75.
“I can still remember the look on her face when she sat down beside me and told me I could trust her. Told me she wanted to hear what I had to say—that I mattered. She had the nicest eyes.” Swallowing the lump in her throat, Devon whispered, “I believed her. I didn’t want to. I didn’t like adults. But I liked her, and that made telling her even harder, because if I told her and she didn’t believe me, it would hurt even more. But she believed me.”
The Jeep slowed, and she blinked, a little startled as Luke took the exit for her house. Already there—it seemed as though they’d just left her parents’ house. Yet it also seemed as though she’d been talking forever. “She believed me,” Devon repeated. “Took me to the emergency room and convinced me I had to let them do the exam. I didn’t want anybody touching me. But she sat with me the whole time, held my hand. Boyd was arrested. I was so naive, thought everything would get better. But the day the jury found him guilty, Cyndi threw me out of the house. I ended up living wherever I could for a while, went back to stealing whatever I could find. After I’d been arrested for stealing at school, I tried to stop the drugs—didn’t want to end up in juvie. But after Cyndi threw me out, I just stopped caring. I was almost twelve by then, and I already felt dead inside. I don’t remember half of what happened back then. Stayed in homeless shelters, flopped wherever I could. Lived like that for close to a year. I was living in some abandoned dump—I’d been there about two months when somebody reported me.”
The car slowed, pulled into the driveway, and stopped, but Devon didn’t climb out. She was almost done. Getting this out now was paramount; nothing else mattered. “That was when Eden found me.”
For the first time since she’d started talking about it, Luke spoke. “Eden—the lady who calls you every week.”
“Yeah.” She glanced at him and gave him a weak smile. “My guardian angel. She hates it when I call her that, embarrasses the hell out of her. But she is. She took me to the hospital, and I had to be admitted. I was malnourished; you’ve seen the scars on my arms. I’d been using dirty needles, and the tracks got infected. It’s a miracle I didn’t end up with hepatitis or HIV. Between the infection, me being so malnourished, and my addiction, I had to spend a week in the hospital. I left the hospital, thinking Eden was going to take me back to Cyndi’s, and I was ready to run away again as soon as I had the chance. But she took me to the Mannings. And I was still telling myself I’d run, just as soon as they weren’t watching me so close. But I fell in love with them. They loved me. I’d forgotten what it was like to have people love me, and they loved me almost from the first. After the first month or two, I stopped thinking about running away. Then I started thinking of the place as home. A little before I turned fourteen, they asked me if they could adopt me. It was the happiest day of my life.”
Blowing out a breath, she slid him a deprecating glance and said, “I bet you weren’t expecting all of that, huh?” Releasing the seat belt, she opened the door, but before she could climb out, Luke grabbed her. She yelped, startled, as he hauled her across the center console and into his lap. He buried his face in her hair and held her.
He was shaking, she realized. The bag of food was still in her lap. She half tossed it, half shoved it into the passenger seat and then shifted around until she could wrap her arms around his neck.
“Damn it, Devon.”
Lifting his head, he stared at her. His eyes were as hot as molten steel—and damp. Like he had to hold back tears—over her. Not too many people in her life had ever loved her enough to hurt for her. “Not the prettiest life story, huh?”
“I want to kill him. I’m going to find him, and I’m going to kill him.”
“You can’t.”
“Wanna bet?” he said, his voice icy and harsh. “I can, and I will, and I’m going to enjoy it.”
“He’s already dead, Luke. He was killed before he’d even served three months of his sentence. He was sentenced to three years, probably would have gotten out in eighteen months.” Snuggling up against his chest, she rested her cheek just above his heart and traced the small American flag he wore on one lapel. “I didn’t know anything about it until a few years after it happened. I had nightmares, bad ones, for the longest time, and after one really bad one, Mom and Dad sat me down and told me. They said he couldn’t ever hurt me again, or anybody else.”
“I hope he suffered.” Luke slid a hand into her hair and tugged lightly until she arched her face up to look at him. “Okay. So I can’t kill him. Can I go kill your aunt?”
Devon laughed. “No. Because she doesn’t matter enough.”
“She let him hurt you.”
“Yes. She did.” Wriggling around, she shifted until she could face him. She ended up crouching on his thighs, the steering wheel digging into her back. “But she doesn’t matter enough to me for me to want you getting in trouble.”
A mean smile curled his lips. “I can absolutely guarantee you nobody could ever prove I did a damn thing.”
Laughing, she leaned in and kissed him. “I’m tempted. But, no. I don’t want that between us. Her selfishness has left enough marks on people, Luke. I don’t want it affecting my life anymore.”
Pressing his brow to hers, he said, “I have to do something, Devon. I fix things. That’s what I do, and I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to make this better for you.”
Her heart flipped in her chest. “Oh, Luke. You don’t ge
t just how much better you’ve made everything for me—just by being you.” Dipping her head, she pressed her lips to his.
He slid a hand up her back, curved it over her neck, and when she would have pulled back, he held her close. But he didn’t deepen the kiss. He just brushed his lips back and forth over her mouth and then slid them up her cheek. “I want to kill anybody who ever hurt you, Devon. I can’t stand the thought of it.”
The intensity came off of him in waves, hot and thick and powerful. Shivering a little, she pulled back and stared at him in the dim car. “I don’t need that, Luke. I don’t want that.” Then she leaned and pressed her lips to his ear. “You want to make this better for me, then take me inside and make love to me. Hold me all night and keep the nightmares away.”
It wasn’t enough, Luke thought, as she straightened up and watched him. The faint moonlight shining in through the windows fell across her face, and he could see the need in her eyes, and although his body was already responding, inside, he knew it wasn’t enough. Not for him. Although he’d left the military behind, although the wars waged within the world were over for him, he was still a warrior. A fighter. He knew how to find his enemy and destroy him; it was what he did.
But how did he fight this?
He couldn’t fight the memories darkening her mind, the memories that still managed to cause her grief and give her nightmares. He’d seen her caught in the grip of them, and he knew they were ugly and vile, but he hadn’t expected this.
How could he fight it?
“Take me inside, Luke,” Devon whispered again. “Make love to me.”
It wasn’t possible to get out of the car with her in his lap the way she was, but the moments it took for him to get out of the car and then lift her back into his arms were sheer hell. Not touching her was sheer hell. Not having her in his arms where he knew she was safe, where nobody could ever hurt her, was torture. She wiggled in his arms and gave him a self-conscious smile. “I can walk,” she said weakly.
“And I can carry you. I want to.”
A faint smile curled her lips. “Put like that, seems kind of silly to argue.” Devon slid an arm around his shoulders and snuggled in, rubbing her cheek against his chest like a little cat.
A shy, sweet little cat who had been kicked far too often. Nobody will ever hurt you again, he promised silently. He wouldn’t let them.
He kicked the car door shut and headed to the front door. Devon smiled up at him, a slow, whimsical curve of her lips. “How are you going to open the door, Luke? Going to be hard to do that without putting me down.”
Fighting to push aside the grim fury, he forced himself to smile at her. “I’ll manage.” Reaching the front porch, he shifted her weight around and then, as Devon squealed, he draped her over his left shoulder in a fireman’s hold, one arm over the backs of her thighs to hold her in place. As he unlocked the front door, he slid a hand up one sleek thigh, under the short, flirty skirt of her black velvet dress, cupping it over her rounded ass. “If this skirt was much shorter, we could get arrested for this,” he said.
“You’re the one carrying me around with my butt up in the air. They can arrest you,” she said, her voice muffled against his back.
Opening the door, he toyed with the lacy edge of her panties. “You’re wearing a thong, Devon . . . Damn, I spent the whole damn day not knowing you’ve been wearing a thong?”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like you’ve had a lot of chances to stick your hand up my skirt today,” she said. His body went stiff, and he moved so quickly, the world started to spin as he abruptly put her on her feet. Devon wobbled a little and fell against him, reaching out to grab his arm, only to stumble into the hard, ridged line of his back.
“Be quiet,” he said, his voice flat, hard. Commanding.
Peering around his arm and up at his face, she stared at him. The skin on the back of her neck started to crawl as she saw the look on his flat, stony features. “Luke?”
“Shhh.” Without looking at her, he reached up, laid a finger across her lips. Then he took a deep breath, dragging it in through flared nostrils.
Instinctively, Devon did the same thing, and that was when she smelled it. Her belly rebelled. It was faint, whatever it was, cloying and noxious and foul.
Devon knew that stink. She hadn’t been around too much death, although she’d seen more than her share of violence. But death was the sort of thing that only required a brief meeting, and then you never forgot. The stench filled her nostrils, and she reached up, covered her mouth and nose with her hand.
“Go back outside, Devon. Lock yourself in the car and call the police,” Luke said, pushing his keys into her hand.
“Oh, hell, no,” Devon said, shaking her head adamantly. She took the keys, though, shifting them in her palm so one of the keys protruded out between her first and second knuckle.
“Devon, go outside,” Luke insisted.
“No.”
He shot her a narrow look, his gaze dropping to her hand. When he saw the makeshift weapon, a slow, faint smile curled his lips. He heaved out a harsh breath and then swore, shifting so he stood in front of her. “You stay behind me. Get your phone; call nine-one-one. Tell them somebody broke in.”
How he could know that, Devon didn’t know. Her eyes darted back and forth across the anteroom, trying to see whatever he’d seen, but it was too dark. Her own house seemed unfamiliar, terrifying, as she followed him out of the anteroom.
With a shaking hand, she dug her phone out of her purse and punched in 9-1-1. As the operator’s voice came over the line, she crashed into Luke’s back. He’d stopped in the arched entryway, reached out to flick on the light switch, but no light came on.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“I think somebody’s broken into my house,” Devon said. Luke started forward again, still moving through the darkened house with a confidence Devon wished she had. The smell was getting stronger. She started to gag and had to force back the bile as they neared the kitchen.
The emergency dispatcher had an annoying nasal voice that buzzed in Devon’s ears like an angry fly. Responding to the questions distracted her momentarily as Luke tried another light switch.
This one came on.
Luke swore and spun around, caught her arms. Blinking at the bright light, she squinted up at Luke. “Go to the porch, Devon,” he ordered.
But instead, she glanced around his big body.
The phone fell from numb fingers. A scream rose in her throat. Clapping a hand over her mouth, she stumbled backward and spun away, wishing she had done exactly what Luke had said.
Some images scarred the mind: the sight of a mother using the metal buckle of a belt to beat her child, the sight of a child so starved and skinny she could see the outline of bone, the battered face of a girl who was beaten by her boyfriend when she realized she was pregnant—and the bloody mess that lay on the long, gleaming white surface of the island in her kitchen. That sight was going to leave an ugly, nasty scar, and she suspected it was going to be one of the deeper ones.
It didn’t make sense in her mind at first. Moaning, she stumbled into the wall and closed her eyes, tried to block out the memory, but her mind kept working away at the puzzle of what she’d just seen. Stupid human mind—sometimes it was better to just not understand.
But the mind couldn’t grasp that, and it just kept working away until it made sense of what she’d seen. A dead dog, its golden pelt stained black with old blood. Its face had been turned toward her, soft dark eyes blank with that death stare.
It had been gutted—the only way to explain what had happened—gutted so its internal organs spilled out onto the island’s white tiled surface.
“Oh, God . . .” Devon closed her eyes and sank down to the floor, drawing her knees to her chest and burying her face against her legs. “Oh, God . . .”
NINE
“YOU need to get some sleep.”
Devon glanced back at Luke as he closed the pat
io door behind him. The house was finally quiet. She’d been in a numb haze as the police arrived and started doing their thing. It seemed to take days, but in reality, she knew it was only a few hours.
Too many hours. Although the sky was still dark, she knew morning couldn’t be too far away. “I can’t sleep.”
A warm weight settled over her shoulders, and she looked up at Luke, curling her fingers into the blanket and wrapping it tightly around her frozen body. “Thank you.”
“They’ll have an official report in a few days,” Luke said, wrapping both arms around her and tucking her in closer to his warm body. “The detectives are probably going to have to talk to you again.”
“Hmmm. Yeah, I don’t think I was a whole lot of help just now.” A bitter, ugly smile curled her lips. “I haven’t had too many dead dogs break into my house.”
“Don’t think about it right now,” he murmured against her ear.
“Can’t help it.” She swallowed the bitter taste of fear and anger, tried not to puke. She’d been fighting the need to vomit ever since seeing that poor, dead animal in the middle of her kitchen, and thinking about it wasn’t helping her in that fight.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. “They have any idea what happened?”
“Devon . . .”
Sending him a narrow glance, she said, “I don’t need coddling right now. I need to know why in the hell I found a dead animal in my house.” A sliver of unease wormed through her belly. “A dead animal. Another one—Luke, that skunk. What if . . .”
She saw he’d already made the connection. A grim look darkened his face. “There’s no way of knowing now,” he said, restlessly moving his big shoulders, and then he started to pace back and forth, his feet moving soundlessly over the patio. Luke blew out a harsh breath and said, “The dog wasn’t killed here. Not enough blood. And the police can’t find how the guy got into your house—no busted locks, no broken windows. Nothing.”
He shrugged his shoulders again, like he couldn’t stand being completely still. “I told them your parents had a key to your place and Danielle across the street. And me.”
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