Jake washed her carefully, his big hands gentle on her scrapes and sore spots. He growled at the undoubtedly huge bruise in the center of her back. She remembered the feel of Andrew’s boot, his weight on her, and cringed.
“Shhh, Kalinda, it’s over.” He moved on, washing thoroughly, not turning it into anything sexual, then washed her hair. Afterward he scrubbed himself down, and the fragrance of her herbal soap mingled with his masculine scent.
He dried her as carefully as he’d washed her.
“I can do it myself,” she protested. “I live here, so I should be taking care of you.” She tried to take the towel.
“Not this time. Your turn will come.”
Ignoring her protests, he tucked her into her heavy terrycloth bathrobe and ran a finger down her cheek. “It pleases me to care for you, sprite. I came too close to losing you.” His eyes darkened, and he pulled her into his arms, squeezing the breath from her. “God, that was too close.”
When he released her, she clung for a moment, then pushed away and stood on her own. If only she didn’t feel so damn tired. And shaky. I need to call Rebecca and request some big-girl panties.
Jake retrieved the black sweatpants and T-shirt that Virgil had left at her door and dressed quickly. Ignoring her objections, he scooped her up again to carry her downstairs.
She seemed to weigh nothing in his embrace and felt almost fragile. Precious. Every time he remembered how she’d knelt and offered herself to save Virgil, his anger flared, and he wanted to kill the bastard again.
The living room was empty, the silence broken only by the faint noise of people in the kitchen and the ticking of a mantel clock. After glancing around, he chose an oversize chair and then settled Kallie on his lap so she could lean against his chest.
Morgan must have heard them. He crossed the room to yell out the front door for his brother, and a minute later, Virgil came in, filthy and exhausted.
From the kitchen, Wyatt brought mugs of hot chocolate. Jake took one and set it on the adjacent table, then accepted the other and sipped to check the temperature. Just right and liberally laced with Baileys Irish Cream.
“Here you go, sprite,” he said, letting her curl her fingers around the mug but keeping a grip when her hands trembled. She closed her eyes as she sipped, and her long eyelashes made a dark smudge against her pale cheeks. His heart contracted. He wanted to take her upstairs and simply hold her.
But he was also her dom, whether she’d accepted it or not. Much like intense BDSM scenes, painful, frightening events could uncover tears in the soul. Somewhere, something in her past had convinced her that she didn’t belong anywhere—that no one loved her—although anyone seeing her family knew different.
Tomorrow he and her cousins might tell her how they felt, but her heart would be guarded again. Tonight, perhaps, they had a chance of getting through. Perhaps.
He felt like he was setting out poorly equipped for a mission. To try to mend such a long-held belief? He had half a mind to wait and push her into seeing a counselor. Yet was there ever a wrong time to hear you were loved?
Virgil had chosen the couch, Morgan a chair. Muttering under his breath, Wyatt dropped into another chair and scowled at Jake. He obviously didn’t like seeing Kallie in Jake’s arms or the way he’d assumed control. “Listen, Hunt, this—”
“Shut. Up.” Jake shot him an even look. “Up on the mountain, Kallie told Secrist it wouldn’t matter if she died, that she’d never belonged anywhere.” He took her cocoa and set it on the adjacent table.
Wyatt’s mouth opened. Then his brows drew together. He exchanged a dismayed look with Morgan. “But—”
This time Wyatt stopped when Jake frowned.
Jake looked down at Kallie. Exhausted, fading in and out, although light tremors still shook her body. Her exhaustion had caught up. “Sprite.”
She opened her eyes slowly, her gaze not quite focused. “Uh-huh?”
“Tell me where you went after you left your stepfather.”
“Now? But—”
“Don’t think; just tell me.” To better evaluate her responses, he slid his hand between the buttons of her robe. With his palm on her upper abdomen and fingertips between her small breasts, he could feel her relaxed stomach muscles and slow heartbeat.
“I went to live with Aunt Penny.”
“Why’d you leave?”
Every muscle under his hand tensed, and the hurt that gathered in her eyes tore at his heart. She shrugged. “She sent me to Teresa—got tired of me, I guess.”
“What? No,” Morgan said loudly enough to make her startle. Her cousin jumped to his feet. “No, that’s not true.” Moving closer, he stared at her. “Jesus, Kallie, didn’t anyone tell you? She was terrified Charles would hurt you.”
Kallie blinked and frowned up at Morgan, unable to understand what he meant. “Charles never hurt…” Well, maybe her big cousin had slapped her once because she’d spilled her milk. “But why?”
“He’s bipolar. Hell, right after you left, he beat up a kid at school so bad the kid went to the hospital. Penny said he’d just…lose it sometimes.”
Bipolar? Kallie tried to think, but her thoughts tangled as if caught in underbrush. Charlie was bipolar? He’d been a teenager. Maybe he’d gotten a little…weird. Lost his temper. Threw things, usually at her. “I thought he didn’t like me. I was so clumsy.”
“No,” Wyatt burst out.
Morgan shot him a silencing glare, then took her hand. “Kallie, he cried when you left. He’d refused to admit anything was wrong, and so had Penny. But then he hit you…” His lips pressed together. “Yeah, well, he got a psych doctor who figured out what was wrong and put him on medication. Aunt Penny bawled for—hell, forever—at losing you. But she had to work and couldn’t trust Charlie to watch you after school. Not when he was so messed up.”
Oh. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. Aunt Penny hadn’t wanted her to go? Charlie had cried because she’d left? In her head, the murky picture of her aunt with a cold, hard face and her angry cousin lightened and changed until tears filled their eyes. Sadness. Oh.
Morgan squeezed her hand. “Let me tell you—”
“Later,” Jake said, silencing her cousin. “She’ll want more later. Right now, I want to hear about—”
“Who the hell do you think you are, Hunt?” Wyatt snapped, not Virgil, who she’d thought would object first. “And get your hands off her.”
Kallie suddenly realized Jake had his hand flattened on her stomach, his fingers between her breasts. She shook her head at him.
He didn’t move. His eyes never left hers, intent, so very blue. “I’m the man who fought a killer for her.”
Her mind replayed the way he’d come out of nowhere to slam into Andrew—he could have died. She started to shake again. He shifted, holding her closer, with his hand still warm on her bare skin. She tried to push at it.
“Uh-uh, sprite,” he said softly, and she gave up, too lost in the warmth of his gaze to argue.
“So,” he said, his voice as easy as if they’d simply gotten together for a beer at the ClaimJumper. “After Penny, who’d you live with?”
Why did he keep asking about her past? She frowned, trying to understand why he was—
His chin rose, and his eyes hardened. His voice deepened, “You will answer me. Now.”
Wyatt made an angry sound even as her words spilled out. “I went to Aunt Teresa and Uncle Pete.”
“Good place?” he asked, his fingers rubbing her cheek for a moment before dropping back down to lie as warm as a blanket on her chest.
She remembered the sound of children laughing, bickering, Aunt T singing as she cooked. Pete coming home from work, roaring, “Who has a kiss for an old man?” Her lips curved for a second. “Yes. I loved it there.”
“So what happened? Why didn’t you stay?”
The hurt slammed into her like a car wreck. She tried to sit up, and the hand on her chest held her down, keeping her still. She
shoved at it again. “I don’t—”
“Go on, sprite. Tell me.”
“They moved.” She pressed her lips together as she remembered how Teresa had put her on the plane. Hugged her. Just a vacation, she’d thought. “They sent me here and didn’t want me back in the new place.”
“That would hurt,” Jake said softly. “How come?”
The comforting tone in his voice did her in, and her eyes filled. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know what I did wrong. Nobody ever lo—” But no, Aunt Penny had loved her. Morgan said so. She’d cried. Kallie blinked, confused.
And Wyatt exploded. “Son of a fucking bitch. Didn’t Pa ever talk to you?” He stomped over—her grumbly cousin—and glared down at her. “Pete lost his job, dammit.” He inhaled slowly, and the anger faded from his face. “Cuz, he got laid off, and they had four kids and you. They couldn’t pay the mortgage and had to move in with his sister. Two families in a one-bedroom apartment. On food stamps. Pa tried to give them money, but you know Uncle Pete, a real hard-ass about being a man.”
Kallie stared up at him as he shoved his hands through his hair. “They had a fight with Pa over the phone. They didn’t want to let you go, but it sounded like they were going to end up on the streets. Pa was yelling that he’d be damned if he’d let his niece starve.”
She hadn’t done anything wrong? It wasn’t me? Her lungs constricted until she couldn’t get any air. Wheezing, she grabbed Jake’s hand and heard him curse. He sat her up, an arm around her waist.
“Breathe, Kalinda. Pull it in. Slower.” His deep voice held her, made her listen, and there was air again, though her insides felt…wrong. Like her chest had filled with broken fragments and nothing lined up right inside.
She still gripped his hand so rigidly her knuckles hurt.
“No, don’t let go.” He kept her fingers in his, so strong. “Take another breath. Bad day—I’m not surprised you got a panic attack.” His easy laugh reassured her more than anything else could, and she sagged back against him. And looked up to see her terrified cousins crowding around her.
Wyatt broke first. “Jesus, fuck. Don’t—don’t ever scare me like that again.” He dropped to his knees and set his big hand on her leg. The muscles in his face were drawn. “Dammit, Kallie.”
“I didn’t…didn’t know.” She tried to smile. “I thought Teresa made Uncle Harvey take me. And you had to put up with me because he told you to.”
“No wonder you were such a mouse when you got here.” Virgil was on his knees now too, his face strained. “We wanted you, Kallie.”
Morgan’s laugh sounded more like a croak. “When Pete got a job, they tried to get you back, but you were ours.”
“Pa said not to tell you about how he and Teresa had stopped talking. He said you had such a soft heart that you’d feel bad having people fighting over you.” Virgil touched her cheek gently. “God, little bit, don’t you know how much we love you?”
In her chest, the splinters slowly merged, pulling together into a lumpy but complete whole. “I-I…” Her lips started to quiver.
“Hell, cuz,” Morgan said, his voice ragged, “the only fighting in our family has been because everyone wanted to keep you.”
“Teresa finally forgave Pa when you graduated, but…” Virgil’s brows drew together. “Is that why you never visited them on your vacations? You didn’t think they wanted you?”
She nodded, her throat too clogged to speak.
Wyatt choked out a laugh. “Well, stupid, I guess you’ve got a lot of visiting to do.”
They loved me. Everybody loved me. She couldn’t—couldn’t—A sob wrenched out of her, and she only had a second to see the horror crossing her cousins’ faces before Jake turned her, holding her like a baby to cry against his strong shoulder.
“There we go, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I’ve got you. Get it all out now, sugar.”
Her chest hurt with each horrible cry, one for each year she’d felt alone. Unloved. Abandoned.
Wanted. They’d wanted her. Teresa and Pete and Penny and Charlie. Harvey and Virgil and Morgan and Wyatt. All of them. As her tears slowed, she realized one of Jake’s big hands cradled her head against him; the other stroked her shoulders.
God, she loved him. She raised her head and bit the words back just in time. Hadn’t she learned anything?
The pang that shot through her hurt all the more because she felt whole.
* * *
After tucking Kallie into her bed, Jake had gone downstairs and talked to the brothers, suggesting counseling to help her integrate everything that had happened, from murder to family. He remembered how Logan had benefited from help, although they couldn’t perform miracles—especially with someone as mulishly stubborn as his brother.
Still shaken, the Mastersons agreed. While they were acting so agreeable, he considered pushing his claim to be part of Kallie’s life and decided he shouldn’t kick a man when he was down.
Not that they had time for a fight. The cops claimed Virgil, although before he left, he made an appointment for Jake and Logan to come in to the station for interviews. Outside the house, cops milled everywhere like a kicked-over ant heap. Ugly business, bringing a corpse down a trail at night, and Jake was pleased his sprite couldn’t see it.
But when he ran up to check on her before leaving, she was still awake. Still trembling. So he joined her on the bed, holding her and ignoring her protests.
As the minutes ticked by, he watched over her until her breathing slowed. Deepened. A warm, soft weight in his arms.
With a sigh of relief, Jake brushed a lock of hair from his little sub’s cheek. Not as pale. Her shaking had stopped. His hadn’t—he still felt as if his world hadn’t steadied yet. He’d loved women before, but not like this, never like this. Wanting nothing more than to protect her from everything that might harm her. Wanting to bury himself inside her and yet wanting only to have her sleeping in his arms.
He needed to hear her laugh though. Soon.
Chapter Fourteen
Jake had gone home by the time Kallie awoke, and loneliness had sheered through her so hard she almost started crying. Again. Shoving it back, she’d taken a shower, making it cold enough to wipe out any warm and fuzzy feelings.
She and Wyatt and Morgan had spent the rest of the day talking to the police and doing chores. Thank God for chores. She’d actually argued with Wyatt for the privilege of turning over the compost heap.
After the cops and all had finally left, she’d cooked supper despite her cousins’ attempts to help. She might have found their bumbling efforts to show how much they loved her funny if they hadn’t also made her want to cry.
Of course, all that sweetness and light hadn’t lasted long, and now they were faced off in the entry, with Morgan and Wyatt blocking her escape.
Even the night air wafting in the open front door couldn’t cool Kallie’s annoyance. She glared at the two, then glanced to her right. “Virgil?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Absolutely not.”
Three against one. What was fair about this? “Absolutely so.”
“Knock, knock.” Jake appeared in the doorway and rudely shoved Wyatt and Morgan aside so he could step in. His gaze took in the room. “Standoff at the OK Corral?”
“Something like that,” Virgil said.
Jake smiled at her, then obviously noticed the backpack at her feet. Now one more person scowled at her. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m going for a walk.”
“At night? And where were you planning to walk?”
“That’s none of your—” She stopped when he raised his chin just an inch. Damn him. “Fine,” she muttered. “I’m going back up the mountain.”
“No, you’re not,” Wyatt said loudly for the hundredth time, and Morgan echoed him.
Jake didn’t say anything. He studied her for a second, rubbed his hand over his cheek and chin, and then pulled in a slow breath. “Tell me why.”
How could she not love him? He had all the protective instincts of her cousins—that knee-jerk need to insist she stay where she was safe—but he throttled them back and asked her why—well, ordered her. But he would let her explain, and he’d listen in that way of his, focused completely on her…and waiting with relentless patience.
But would he understand? “I…” She searched for the right words and tried again. “This is my home, the mountain is”— part of who I am—“my shelter. All the years I’ve lived here, that’s where I went when I was upset or mad or…” Lonely. “But now the thought of being up there is terrifying.” She showed him the way her fingers trembled. “I need to go back, to know that I can, that it’s still my place. Now—at night. And before I think about it too much.”
Master of the Abyss Page 24