by Maya Banks
When his hand closed over her shoulder, her skin was hot and flushed. Her eyes flew open, and she gave him a startled look before relaxing when she realized it was him.
“Come on, baby,” he said in as gentle a voice as he could manage. “Let me dry you off.”
He helped her over the edge of the tub and made sure her feet hit the bath rug so she wouldn’t slip. Then he briskly rubbed her down with the towel before wrapping her dripping hair in it and arranging it atop her head.
“I got you something to wear. Can you manage on your own?”
She nodded, nearly toppling the towel from her head. He righted it and motioned to the pair of sweats and the T-shirt on the counter.
“Cade and I will be in the living room. He made fresh coffee. Come on out when you’re dressed, and we’ll talk.”
She grimaced but nodded. Her arms had crept up to her waist, and she wrapped them protectively around herself as she stood naked and vulnerable to his gaze.
Not wanting to make her any more uncomfortable, he averted his eyes and then backed from the bathroom, though the image of her standing in the shower, water running down her sleek body, was still firmly imprinted in his mind.
Cade was pacing the living room floor when Merrick appeared. When Cade saw Merrick, he pulled up abruptly, his face a cloud of concern.
“What the hell is going on? You said she was sleepwalking. In the fucking rain?”
Merrick blew out his breath. “I was up. Couldn’t sleep. Guess I was worried about her. I checked in on her twice, but each time, she was sleeping soundly. I was sitting in the chair over there and heard her come down the hall. I called out to her but she kept walking. Next thing I know she’s out the kitchen door, through the garage and standing out by the street. I don’t even want to know what could have happened if I hadn’t been up.”
Cade let a vehement string of curses fly. “Maybe I should call Dallas.”
“That might be a good idea,” Merrick said grimly. “This is beyond my scope. I don’t know how to help her, Cade.”
Cade went quiet, his gaze moving beyond Merrick. Merrick turned to see Elle walk into the living room, her feet bare, and she was shivering.
Merrick was at her side instantaneously, his arm going around her. “Come sit on the couch and get warm.”
Cade was there with a blanket as Elle settled against the cushions. She tucked her feet underneath her, and Cade arranged the throw securely around her body. Then Cade perched on the couch next to her, worry creasing his brow.
“What happened, Elle?” Cade asked.
She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, they were swamped with confusion and fear.
“I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “I don’t remember anything except waking up outside in the rain when Merrick shook me.”
“Were you having a bad dream?” Merrick asked. “Think about it. Try to remember.”
She frowned, her lips pursing in concentration. “I remember a badge. And bright sunlight. It glinted in the sun.”
She broke off abruptly, her hand going to her forehead. Her fingers shook badly as she rubbed over her eye.
“Elle?” Cade asked gently. “What is it? What do you remember?”
Her hand slowly dropped, delving below the blanket to touch her hip through the sweats she was wearing.
“I remember the badge digging into my hip while he…”
Her voice broke off in a sob, and her hands flew to her face to stifle the escaping sound.
She hated the feeling of helplessness that assaulted her the moment she thought back on that awful dream—the awful memory. It wasn’t a dream. It had really happened. To her. She’d been violated. Held down, helpless, while a man forced himself on her. Had hated her. Had every intention of killing her. He’d tried to kill her. He’d shot her.
What could she have done to inspire such animosity? She couldn’t fathom that kind of hatred. Couldn’t imagine having done anything to deserve something that awful. But what woman did? No one deserved to be raped. It wasn’t a woman’s fault. There was no excuse for a man to violate a woman, no matter how angry he was. No matter what the perceived sin of the woman.
Logically she knew that, and yet she still couldn’t wrap her mind around it all. There had to be a reason, didn’t there? But no. Women were raped all the time for no other reason than a man wanted to exert his power, that he wanted to degrade and punish her.
The fault wasn’t with her. She knew that. And yet she couldn’t get past the idea that she’d done something to warrant a man raping and trying to kill her.
Cade slid his hand around her nape and pulled her head to his chest. She shook violently against him, and she heard the low curses from both Cade and Merrick. She heard the worry in their voices, and the anger. Not at her. But at what had happened to her and the grip her past still had on her even though she couldn’t remember it.
“It’s okay, honey. You’re with us. It’s okay to remember. He can’t hurt you now. Talk it out if you want. We’re here. We’ll listen.”
“I don’t want to remember,” she said, her voice muffled by Cade’s shirt.
Merrick sighed, his heart softening at the vulnerability in her voice. He ran his finger up her bare arm and rubbed his knuckle back down in a soothing manner.
“I don’t claim to understand what you’ve been through, baby. I won’t insult you by saying I do. But I do understand why you don’t want to remember. I get that. But I also know that this is like a festering wound, and it’s not going to go away. At some point, we have to face it. Together. And you need to know that Cade and I are going to be here to help you in any way we can.”
She picked up her head and met his gaze, her eyes burning with emotion.
“I think…” She licked her lips nervously and glanced back at Cade before returning once more to Merrick. She seemed to be waging a horrific war with herself, not just over the dreams and memories that tormented her, but over the here and now and about what she was about to say. “That is, I’m pretty sure I love you both. And I’ve battled with myself until I’m exhausted over it. I keep thinking that I can’t love you. That I can’t love two people. That the very last thing I can offer someone in my current emotional state is love. I keep questioning whether my feelings are real or whether they’re the result of you saving me and taking me in. But they feel real. I want them to be real.”
Merrick was momentarily struck speechless. Cade was no less affected by the sudden declaration.
She looked distressed as she continued on. Not at all like a woman should look when she’d just confessed her love for a man. She was clearly nervous and unsettled and seemingly anxious to get her point across before they could respond.
The words tumbled out of her mouth, so fast he could barely keep up.
“And I know you’re wondering what that has to do with what happened tonight or, well, anything, but it has everything to do with it, because I don’t want to remember my past because I’m terrified that it could come between me and the two of you. It’s a fear I live with every single day.”
When she would have continued on, Cade took her hand, engulfing it in his much larger grasp. “Elle, I don’t give a shit about your past other than the fact that it’s a source of pain and emotional stress for you.”
Merrick was still reeling from the powerful words she’d uttered. He couldn’t seem to get his mouth to work, and he couldn’t afford to screw this up. He had to get this right.
“Elle.”
Her name came out barely a whisper, and he had to clear his throat so he didn’t croak the rest of the words.
The weight of emotion in her gaze took his breath away. She looked…scared. As if she’d taken the biggest risk of her life by blurting out those words.
Viewed from her eyes, it had to be terrifying to lay so much on the line when she had no past, nowhere to go, no one but him and Cade to rely on.
In the end, there was no deep, drawn-out explanation
. There was nothing to say to her but the utter truth in all its simplicity.
“Ahh, baby, I love you too,” he said hoarsely.
He framed her face in his hands, rubbing the pads of his thumbs over her cheekbones. The relief was crushing in her eyes. Her entire body sagged, and then she turned her mouth into his hand to press a kiss to his palm.
“Do you mean it?” she whispered.
He could barely form the words. He was too shaken by the emotion welling in his chest. When had he ever felt so much for another person? It was a completely new experience for him. Nothing had prepared him for this. It undid him. He was tough. Strong. A mixed martial arts fighter. He could take apart a man in the ring without remorse. He could lock his emotions away until they were encased in stone. But this slip of a woman unraveled him as no other person had ever even come close to.
“I love you,” he said more firmly, knowing he owed her conviction. “I think I fell hard on my ass for you the very first time I laid eyes on you.”
She glanced nervously at Cade, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip as she took in his reaction to the scene unfolding.
Cade stroked her hair with one hand. Then his gaze met Merrick’s, and there was determination there.
“We’re okay with this, Elle,” Cade said in a firm but gentle voice. “This isn’t something we’ve approached lightly. I don’t want you to ever think we did. You’re important to us both. You mean everything to us. You don’t have to walk on eggshells around us for fear of pissing one of us off because you think you left one of us out.”
She reached for Cade’s hand, pulling it to her mouth to kiss the inside as she’d done to Merrick.
“I love you.”
Cade’s eyes softened. He seemed to melt right there on the couch. He cupped her face and leaned in, angling his mouth over hers to apply gentle pressure with his lips.
“I love you too, sweetheart. We’re going to get through this. I promise.”
Her eyes glittered with unshed tears, and Merrick could tell she was battling for control.
“I don’t know what to do,” she choked out. “I don’t know how to fix me. I wish I did.”
“Shhh,” Cade said as he kissed her again. “I’m going to call Dallas and see what he has to say. He may can offer insight or at least address the sleep issue.”
She hesitated, opened her mouth as if to say something and then closed it again.
“What is it?” Merrick asked.
“Maybe… Maybe it would be better if one of you slept with me. In case it happens again.”
“I think that’s a very good idea,” Cade said.
He glanced up at Merrick as he said the next words, as if he were checking Merrick’s reaction.
“I think it would be best if you slept between us. No way for you to slip out of bed if you have to crawl over one of us.”
Merrick nodded immediately. Elle looked relieved. She rubbed her hands up and down her legs, pressing tightly against the sweats.
“Call Dallas,” she said in a quiet voice. “I want to fix this, no matter what I have to do. I want to be able to move forward.”
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - O N E
ELLE HAD A RELAXED RELATIONSHIP with Dallas. He checked in on her regularly, even calling the guys for frequent updates. Since having a regular doctor was out of the question when she didn’t even know who she was, Dallas had taken over her care as well as Merrick’s.
If she had an ailment or needed an exam, Cade and Merrick brought her in after work hours and Dallas would see her in his clinic.
Tonight, he was making a house call.
Merrick had called him, concern vibrating in his voice as he’d asked Dallas to come over. It was no wonder Dallas showed as quickly as he did after hearing the way Merrick sounded.
Dallas listened first to Merrick’s account of how Elle had walked out of the house in her sleep. Then he talked to Elle, and she told him of the dreams and of hearing her attacker’s voice. The badge and how it had dug into her skin. She didn’t even realize she rubbed her hip the entire time she was recounting the story.
Dallas put his hand over hers. “As you heal, you can likely expect more of your memory to return. And by heal, I mean emotionally. Sometimes the mind takes much longer to recover than the body, and I certainly believe that to be the case in your situation.”
She nodded because she agreed with him there. There were days she didn’t feel like she’d ever truly get beyond the barriers to her past.
“Don’t fight it. Let it happen naturally. But don’t push yourself to remember either,” he advised. “Be patient. You’ll remember when you’re ready.”
“And what can I do about the sleepwalking?” she asked. “Do you think it’s just a freak occurrence? To my knowledge, it’s never happened before.”
“I’ll write you a prescription for something to help you sleep. Sometimes the mind doesn’t shut off just because the rest of you does. Cade and Merrick will be watching you a lot more closely from now on, so I have confidence that I won’t have to worry about you walking into the streets,” he said with a smile.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “You’re a good friend, Dallas.”
His features softened. “I don’t want you to be too hard on yourself, Elle. You’ve been through a lot, and you can’t expect to just bounce right back from that. Cut yourself some slack, and lean on Cade and Merrick.”
She smiled for the first time since the guys had taken her on the picnic. “I plan to. I promise. They’re pretty good boulders to prop on.”
“Boulders?” Cade asked. He glanced at Merrick. “Were we just insulted?”
The two men stood in the background, silently observing Dallas as he spoke with Elle. Until now. They moved forward as Dallas completed his discussion with Elle.
“What do you think, Dallas?” Merrick asked in a serious tone.
Dallas sighed. “This isn’t my area of expertise. I’d like to be able to do a CT scan just to check for any damage to her brain, but for obvious reasons, that’s not possible. In all likelihood, it’s a simple matter of her mind protecting her from the horror she endured at her attacker’s hands. Will she ever remember? I can’t say. It’s probably dependent on her desire to remember.”
Her cheeks flushed, and she ducked her head. They all knew she didn’t want to remember. She’d been brutally honest about that fact.
“So I’m standing in the way of my own recovery,” she said quietly.
Dallas shook his head. “I stand by my assertion that you’ll remember when you’re ready. It’s only been seven months, Elle. That’s not very long. It takes many women years to come to terms with being raped. We don’t even know what else you went through.”
She blew out her breath and nodded her understanding.
He pulled out a prescription pad and scribbled down an order for medication. But then he took another blank sheet, flipped it over and scrawled something over the paper.
“I’m giving you the name of a therapist. She’s a friend of mine, and I’ll only contact her if you give me permission. I trust her, and she’d be someone good for you to talk to. Maybe she can help you more than I can.”
“Thanks,” she said softly. “I’ll consider it.”
Dallas touched her cheek and then rose. “Time for me to head home. I’m due at work in just a few hours.”
“Thanks for coming by, Dallas,” Merrick said. “We appreciate it.”
“Not a problem,” Dallas returned. “I’ll see you all later. Call me if anything pops up or if you have any concerns.”
“Will do,” Cade promised.
Elle watched as Merrick walked Dallas out to his car, and then she sagged back onto the couch, closing her eyes.
She was a complete clusterfuck—to borrow one of the guys’ favorite expressions. It was certainly an appropriate term for her life and her situation.
It made her head hurt to think of all the ways she wasn’t able to give Cade and Merric
k what they deserved. But she needed what they gave to her. It was the only thing keeping her together. If it weren’t for them, she would have shattered a long time ago.
“What do you say we try to grab a few hours of sleep before we have to get up for Merrick’s training and work?” Cade asked as they waited for Merrick to return.
She nodded, too tired to even voice the words.
He extended his hand down to Elle’s.
“Come on, sweetheart. It’s been one hell of a day. Let’s get you into bed and between me and Merrick, which is just where you belong.”
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - T W O
ELLE STARED DUBIOUSLY AT THE medicine bottle that Cade had picked up from the pharmacy and then quietly shoved it into the bathroom drawer. In the few days since the sleepwalking episode, she’d been leery of taking medication. So far, there hadn’t been a reoccurrence of the event, and unless there was, she wanted to stay away from drug-induced sleeps.
The guys had moved her into Cade’s room, though she still kept her clothes in the spare bedroom. Even the toiletries she’d kept in the hall bathroom had now been moved to the ensuite bathroom in Cade’s bedroom.
After checking her appearance, she straightened the camisole pajama top and then smoothed her hands down the soft, cotton bottoms.
Most people thought in terms of forever. She was on a day-to-day basis, afraid to look further than the present for fear of what the future held.
It was disconcerting to have no past or future and not to know what more than a few hours would bring.
There was a soft knock on the bathroom door.
“Elle? Honey, everything okay in there?”
She opened the door to Cade, who loomed just outside, and offered him a smile.
“Just fine. Was brushing my teeth.”
He swept his mouth over hers, tasting the mint from the toothpaste.
“Ready for bed?”
She let him lead her to the king-size bed, and she crawled up, positioning herself in the middle.
“Where’s Merrick?” she asked, not seeing him.