Adrift (Kill Devil Hills Book 4)

by Sarah Darlington

  “Don’t be so dramatic. You know I hate that. You liked the way we would fuck,” he went on. “You wanted everything I did. I always made sex more and more intense for you. I always brought you to a higher place. Don’t even try to play innocent and deny it.”

  “No,” I answered. “I never liked it.”

  “Stop lying to me!” he snapped, raising his voice for the first time. “I’ll show you.” His big hand traced over more than just my shoulder this time. He shoved his fingers inside my shirt, cupping one of my breasts. Squeezing and tugging a little too roughly at my nipple, which was already way too sensitive from pregnancy. “See,” he breathed, his voice jagged and coarse. “You love it. Admit it. You've never wanted me more than you do right now.”

  “Really…I’m just about as grossed out as I’ve ever been in my life.” I wasn’t exactly sure where, when, or how, but I’d lost my fear of this man. He only annoyed me now. And the way he was behaving was just plain pathetic.

  “Keep talking dirty. I like this new side to you,” he said.

  What?

  I couldn’t remain passive anymore.

  “Get off me,” I yelled, trying my best to swat him off me. “You don’t get to touch me anymore. Remember. Are you incapable of listening or just delusional?”

  Quinton swerved the car, the tires hitting the rumble strip on the road, making the whole vehicle shake. “That is it!” he said. “I’m ending this argument right now. I’m showing you how good girls behave.”

  He removed his touch from inside my shirt, taking the wheel with both his hands, and he pulled the car off the road. There was open grass, weeds, and space on the side of the highway. And he parked there.

  As the car came to a complete stop, I knew that if I was going to try to fight him off I needed my hands. The younger ‘take-no-crap’ juvenile delinquent, former version of myself surfaced. She should have surfaced from the start with Quinton. I wasn’t exactly sure why she never had. But, in this moment, it boiled down to the fact that it wasn’t just me that needed protecting—the twins needed it too now.

  With all my strength, I raised my restrained hands high in the air and brought my wrists down on my right knee. The force stung like hell, my wrists were probably going to be bruised, but somehow the one swift motion worked. The zip ties’ mechanism popped, and suddenly my hands were free. Not waiting for Quinton to make sense of the fact that I’d just freed myself, I attacked him. With the palm heels of both my hands, screaming like a banshee, I turned and stuck Quinton's eyeballs at full force.

  I hit with speed, accuracy, and all my strength. Really, I had no clue what I was doing. But it was the only thing I could think to do.

  Quinton screamed louder than me.

  Instinctively he pulled away in his seat. And his hands protectively went to his eyes. “You bitch!” he yelled. “I can’t see!”

  Good!

  I grabbed the keys out of the truck’s ignition. I reached down between my legs and started using them to saw at the plastic. Easier than I expected, I freed one ankle and then the second. Then I pushed open my passenger door, stumbling from the truck, and took off running.

  I ran—straight smack into a person.

  As if I’d materialized him out of thin air, there Ben was. And I was suddenly in his arms. Noah was there too. Out of the corner of my eyes I could just make out his blond hair.

  “How?” I breathed, staring wide-eyed up at Ben.

  “We’ve been following you,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around me tight. “Thank God, you’re okay.”

  “Where’s Quinton?” Noah demanded.

  “In the truck,” I answered, staring up at Ben, letting him hold my full weight. The surge of energy and adrenaline that helped me escape moments ago changed into exhaustion. If he hadn’t been holding me, I’d be in the grass right now. “He has a gun. I poked him in the eyes. He had pictures of Rose. On his phone. He threatened her. He threatened everyone.” Short sentences were rolling out of me in bursts. My brain didn’t want to function properly. But Ben and Noah needed to know everything I knew.

  “Let’s get in my car,” Noah decided for all us, ushering both me and Ben toward his Honda. “Hurry. If he has a gun then we don’t need to take any chances.”

  Ben helped me into the backseat of Noah’s car, and he moved to sit in the back with me. Noah plopped down in the driver’s seat, slamming his door shut, locking the door. He started the car and we waited, all eyes staring straight ahead at Quinton's truck.

  “The police are on their way,” Noah said. “They have his license plate number and they know the make/model of his truck if he tries to flee.”

  “And I have his keys.” I jingled them in my sweaty palm. “So, he can’t leave.”

  “Juniper!” came Quinton’s voice from outside.

  I jumped a little in my seat.

  Oh, God. I looked up and watched as Quinton stumbled, like a drunk man, from the trunk. He had both hands pressed over his eyes, and he kept repeatedly yelling my name. Maybe I’d blinded him. Maybe he only wanted us to think he was blinded.

  Beside me, Ben breathed heavily in and out. His hand shook as they held my shoulders. “He’s not carrying his gun. I’m going to go out there.”

  “What? No,” I pleaded, clinging to him tighter. “Please, Ben, don’t go.”

  “I was ranked number one in hand-to-hand combat skills in my company during basic training for the Coast Guard. Trust me. I know what I’m doing. If it comes to it, I know how to fight.”

  Of course, he’d been number one at that. Ben excelled at everything he did, but that didn’t mean I wanted him anywhere near Quinton. Not ever. “Please,” I tried again. “You can’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”

  I could practically feel the internal battle raging within him as he sat beside me. Stay with me—or go face Quinton. Just then I heard the sound of sirens in the distance. The police were on their way now. They could take care of Quinton. Ben needed to stay with me.

  Meanwhile, Quinton still stumbled around in the grass like a fool.

  “I want to speak with him before the police get here,” Ben said through gritted teeth. His eyes weren’t on me—they were on Quinton outside. “I want him to know he can never come near you again. He needs to know that.”

  “Write him a letter once he’s safely away in jail,” I suggested.

  Noah chuckled up in the front seat. “Let Ben go say what he needs to say,” he urged, siding against me. “I’ll go with him. It’ll be okay. We’ll be right back.”

  I was outnumbered.

  Ben and Noah left the car.

  CHAPTER 23:

  BEN

  Really…I wanted to kill Quinton. I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck, taking a page out of his own playbook, and I wanted to squeeze the fucking life out of him. He’d kidnapped Juniper. He’d threatened my little sister. He didn’t deserve prison. Prison was too good for this man. There were red marks around Juniper wrists—like he’d bound her hands somehow. Her makeup was smeared down her cheeks—liked she’d been crying. Who knows what sort of awful things he’d been saying to her for the past thirty minutes? Who knows the things he would have done to her had she not escaped him?

  So, I left the car, and I moved with swiftness and stealth. I didn’t wait for Noah to keep up. Instead I charged Quinton, like a linebacker on a football field, and sacked him to the ground. I had at least twenty pounds of muscle on the guy, so getting him on the ground wasn’t a hard feat. A second later I had his face pushed into the grass, my knee pressing hard into his back, and his arm twisted around behind his body.

  Now that I had him subdued and on the ground, I didn’t know exactly what to say to him. Don’t come near us again. You piece of shit. If I ever see your face again, I will destroy you. I didn’t know. None of it felt like enough. Only a couple hours ago, I’d been completely sure in my ability to protect Juniper. Instead this man had taken her from me, right under my nose, so easily and that left me feel
ing like all my promises (or threats) might be hollow.

  The sound of sirens grew closer and closer, and I remained silent.

  Maybe there wasn’t anything I could say. The press of my knee in his back—maybe it said everything for me. When I still couldn’t come up with the right words for Quinton, it was Noah I spoke to instead.

  He hovered, in his usual quiet, watchful way.

  “Thanks, Noah,” I said to him. “And I’m sorry I judged you before I ever knew you.”

  “Most people do initially,” he replied.

  “Well, I respect the hell out of you now.”

  “Thanks. It’s appreciated.”

  “You two want a room?” Quinton mumbled sarcastically into the grass.

  I dug my knee a little harder into his back. He yelped but said nothing else.

  “You want to say something to him?” Noah nodded off in the direction of the sirens. “Now’s your last chance.”

  “I have nothing to say. I got the girl. He didn’t.”

  Quinton grunted below me but didn’t comment.

  A minute later the cops arrived. They arrested Quinton. He’d likely be charged with abduction, something the officer said might result in a sentence of twenty years in prison. Which was a relief, to say the least. Our statements were taken, the rest of my family showed up on the scene, even my parents, and the night dragged on well past midnight.

  Overall, Juniper didn’t seem too shaken up. Surprisingly. Even if she was feeling otherwise, on the outside she remained calm. Me, on the other hand—I felt jittery and agitated. I couldn’t shake off the adrenaline feeling. When it was all said and done, when we were finally safe in our home, I realized at least an hour had passed since I’d said a word to Juniper.

  “You okay?” I asked her.

  “Yes. Just exhausted,” she whispered before she slipped off her shoes. Not bothering to change out of her clothes, she crawled into our bed and snuggled under the covers.

  I followed her lead, removing my own shoes and socks, followed by my layers of clothing. Once down to just my t-shirt and boxer briefs, I pulled back the covers and joined her.

  She snuggled against my side.

  “You okay?” I asked again.

  “Yes,” she repeated, stressing the word.

  “Juniper, really?”

  “Ben, yes, really.”

  I guess I didn't fully believe her. I was shaken up. Shouldn't she be, too? “Truce?” I asked. The whole ‘truce’ thing meant many different things for us. Sometimes it was an excuse to make out. Sometimes it was an ‘I love you.’ Right now, as I called it, it meant utter honesty.

  “Ben—why are you with me?” she asked.

  What. The. Fuck. Her question blindsided me. I swallowed hard and sat up. The light in the bedroom was still on, and from the look on her face I could tell she was dead serious.

  “I'm pregnant—” she started.

  “Yes, I'm fucking aware. We're back to this?” I didn't want to fight with her, not tonight. But how could she doubt me?

  “Hear me out. Okay?” she pleaded. She sat up too, swirling a strand of her hair through two of her fingers. “It's just, I saw you wrestle Quinton to the ground like he was nothing. You build furniture like you're Jesus the Carpenter. You have a family that loves you and would do anything for you. You're smart and handsome and young. You could go to college. You could start over. You could do anything with your life. That compass on your chest points west. Last I checked this isn't west.”

  “Do you have a point here, Juniper, baby?” I groaned. “Because I don't like where this is heading at all.”

  “You're too good for me.”

  “That's bullshit.”

  “You are. Who am I? The pregnant runaway with the psycho kidnapping ex, that's me. I don't want you to wake up in a year, or two, or three, and regret everything. Maybe right now it doesn't feel like it, but one day you might come to resent me. I know you. I know you always do the right thing. Is that what you're doing with me? The right thing.”

  Wow, damn. Way to slice me right open. There was accuracy in some of her words. “When I was seventeen, I got Sonya pregnant,” I confessed. “I thought, at the time, that it was the worst thing in the world that could have happened to me. I was going to be my school's valedictorian. Assuming Katie Baker—this really brainy girl, who was second in the class, always waiting for me to screw up just one test, one grade, so she could pull ahead of me—assuming she didn't get it over me. I was going to play college football, hopefully at Luke University like I'd always planned. I was going to do big things with my life. I was king of my high school, and I had a world of possibilities in front of me. Not so unlike the version of me you're describing now. That baby growing inside Sonya was not going to hold me back.

  “So, I pushed her toward having an abortion. She was on the fence about what to do. She needed me to step up and decide, and I easily made the decision to terminate the pregnancy. That same day she got the abortion, this feeling in the pit of my stomach settled. Regret. Anger. Loss. I couldn't shake it. I tried to tell myself I'd done the right thing, made the right decision for myself and my future, but I'd made the wrong decision. Once I realized that, everything that once mattered to me didn't anymore. My popularity, my friends, my grades—all fucking bullshit. I ended my own child's life because I wanted my world to stay the same and then suddenly I hated that very world I lived in. Sonya and I started fighting. When I no longer wanted to go to the same parties and hang out with the same people—she couldn't understand. She didn't feel the same loss as me, she didn't see how it was all bullshit the way I did, and so we broke up. Probably something that would have happened eventually either way.

  “I joined the Coast Guard the summer after that year, before my senior year, and I got the fuck out of Kill Devil Hills. You know the rest from there. Life forced me back here. And when I first met you, the fact that you were pregnant, felt a little like my second chance. It still feels like that. But don't think for a second that I love you because of that, or in spite of that. I love you because you're my best friend.”

  She breathed in and exhaled deeply. Juniper had tears running down her cheeks. Her big blue eyes were watching me intently. I sure as hell hoped that meant she understood how much I only wanted the life we had. Not some ‘bigger/better’ imaginary thing.

  “Really, you're my best friend. I wake up and dread going to work, only because I'd rather spend my entire day just hanging out with you. That feeling of loss in the pit of my stomach—it's not so bad when I'm with you. In fact, it feels a lot like hope these days. I don't want to go to college, not at this point. I want to be with you. I want this—” I reached out and rested my hand on her stomach for a second. “You already feel like my family. You have since the night I met you. I can’t wait to add to our family. I’ll never regret any of this.”

  She nodded silently. A couple seconds ticked by. I could tell I’d won her over. I could tell she believed me and wasn’t going anywhere. She had a way of going shy on me whenever we shared any sort of emotional moment, and this was one hell of one, so I knew she needed a moment.

  “I’ve never had a family before,” she uttered, her voice raw. “Well, my parents are both still living. But I mean the real sort—where everyone sticks around and no one drinks away dinner—that sort.”

  “I’m your family,” I urged.

  She nodded once more.

  I couldn’t take the distance between us. It wasn’t much distance, a few inches, but I couldn’t bear it. “Truce,” I said. This was a whole different kind of truce, my favorite kind, the get over here kind.

  A smile touched her lips, which told me she knew exactly what I meant, before she closed the distance and pressed her lips to my lips. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her in close.

  This was it. Right here. In some ways, even after I’d made it the beach on the night I’d almost drowned, in some ways it still felt like a part of me was still lost at sea, treading wat
er, fight for my life. But this right here, this woman, was my shore.

  CHAPTER 24:

  A COUPLE MONTHS LATER

  BEN

  When your girlfriend gives birth to another man’s kids it shouldn’t be the happiest day of your life. But fuck that. Today was the happiest day of my life. Juniper, at thirty-six weeks pregnant, had given birth to two—very redheaded—little girls. Even if I wasn’t their biological father, it had never felt that way and would never feel that way. I’d been there every step of the way, and I loved their mother more than anything on this Earth. No matter what happened in this life, I’d always be their father.

  It was a very humbling feeling. The whole day had been quite the emotional rollercoaster. Juniper had had a planned C-section, so parts of the day had been relaxed and easy. Other parts had been terrifying, since surgery of any kind is always terrifying. But the twins were here now. And they were both healthy, beautiful, perfect, little human beings.

  The crazy part of all of this was that Georgina was currently in labor down the hall. She’d gone a week over her due date, almost like her baby had been waiting for our babies to come first, and with any luck her little boy would have the same birthday as our girls.

  “Does this make you want a baby?” Nathanial asked Ellie.

  Nathanial held one twin in each of his big arms—both girls were fast asleep on him like he was the freaking baby whisperer. Ellie stood apprehensively on the opposite side of the room with her camera in her hand. I didn’t want all of my family overwhelming Juniper. So for now, Nathanial and Ellie were the first people of everyone that I’d let visit.

  “Hell no,” Ellie answered in a hushed voice. “I’m content just being Aunt Ellie for now. Why? Does it make you want kids?”

  “They’re not so bad,” Nathanial said, giving her a wink. “They seem easy enough.”

  She made a face at him. “Well then… I better leave this room before you start getting crazy ideas.” Ellie, even though she was the most maternal of my sisters, probably because she was the oldest, had never been great around little babies. “Congrats and all guys,” she said before backing away for the door.