"The woods," he responded tiredly. "They're quiet."
If he’d said the last part in confusion, I would've tested his blood sugar again right away, but his words held more of a disappointed quality to them. "That they are," I agreed. "That's why most people come here. To get away from the noise of their lives."
Up until that moment, the man, Lex, had kept his eyes closed. He chose that moment to lift his head and open them and I found myself struggling to breathe, though I had no idea why. His eyes were the color of storm clouds. Storm clouds that were shot with light and dark shadows at the same time. The pointer finger on my right hand began tapping as if I held my camera in my hand. I couldn't say what was more disturbing—that I wanted to photograph him or that I wanted to do more than just that.
Okay, yeah, I did know what was more disturbing. It was the latter. There was no reason to reach out to touch his forehead, but that was what I wanted to do anyway. And I still had that weird need to feel his hair.
"Is that why you're here?" he asked.
I wasn't expecting the question. It would've been easy enough to make up some blasé response, but I couldn't make any words clear my lips. Instead, all I could do was sit there and stare at him while he stared at me.
"How are you feeling?" I finally found the wherewithal to ask.
"Tired," he admitted.
"Yeah," I responded. "You're going to feel that way for a while." When I found myself doing the weird staring thing again, I said, "How about I go look for something for you to eat?"
I didn't wait for Lex to respond because I was already on my feet. As I made my way back to the kitchen, I glanced over my shoulder to see Brewer nudging Lex's hands with his nose. Lex pulled his hands back at first, but then tentatively reached forward. My dog was a smart cookie and learned things quickly, so this time he waited for Lex to come to him and when he did, Brewer didn't move. That seemed to give Lex the courage to run his hand over the top of Brewer's head. My dog's tail flipped happily back and forth as he reveled in Lex's touch. I nearly stumbled when I realized I was actually jealous of my own dog.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I sought sanctuary in the small kitchen and took several minutes to find Lex something to eat. I settled for a granola bar I found in the cupboard. I also grabbed the orange juice container and a bottle of water before returning to the living room. Brewer had his head completely on Lex's lap. The husky was in seventh heaven as Lex's long fingers stroked over his soft fur. I found myself standing at the end of the couch staring at the pair. Why in the world was I wishing I could somehow trade places with my damn dog?
Lex looked my way, which got me moving. "I've got some OJ and some water," I mumbled. "Which do you want?"
"The water, please," Lex responded.
I stepped toward him and said, "I'd like to test your blood sugar again. If it's still low, you can drink some more juice and that should help get it up."
Lex nodded. I handed him the bottle of water but he didn't reach for it. "Here you go," I said. I had no particular desire to get too close to him until I figured out what the hell was going on with me. Something about the guy clearly just rubbed me the wrong way. While I was glad I'd been there to help him out, I was eager to get out of there so I wouldn't have to dwell on why it was so damn hard to keep my feet rooted in the same spot.
I was so caught up in my own thoughts that it took me a moment to notice Lex's hesitation to reach for the bottle I'd extended to him. I stepped closer, thinking he couldn't reach it, but then he stuck his hand out straight in front of him.
Problem was, I wasn't in front of him. I was a good two feet to his right. But his hand made no move in my direction or that of the water bottle. Heat traveled along my nerve endings as the ugly truth settled in my bones. I stepped forward and made sure to put the bottle of water in Lex's hand. He took it and murmured what I assumed was his thanks. I didn't want to believe what my mind was telling me, so I extended the granola bar and said, "Here's a granola bar. Should help you get your strength back and stabilize your blood sugar."
This time, I stood directly in front of Lex. But just like before, when he reached for the snack, his hand came nowhere near it.
It took every ounce of self-discipline I had to not make a sound. I placed the granola bar in Lex's hand and then stumbled over my next words. "I'm just going to go check the generator. I'll be back in a sec." I turned away before even giving Lex a chance to respond. I was sure he murmured something that sounded like "Okay," but I just kept moving because I was in too much of a state of shock to do anything else.
The truth hit me like a ton of bricks when I stepped outside. A cornucopia of emotions ran through me all at once. Surprise, pity, shock, and ultimately, sadness. The first three emotions made sense because anyone making the discovery I'd just made would feel the same. But the sadness I was feeling was so much more than that. It was bone-deep regret for the man inside the little building. The man who was not only dealing with a terrible disease with lifelong consequences, but who was also condemned to do it in the solitude that came with being blind.
I was on autopilot as I got the generator going, though I wished I wasn’t because it meant all my thoughts were on Lex and his situation. I wanted to ask him what he’d been thinking coming to a place like Fisher Cove with no one to support him, but it wasn’t my place. But I also knew I couldn’t just walk away from him. As I re-entered the cabin, I began preparing my argument for why the man should just go back to wherever he’d come from but as soon as I reached the living room and saw Lex lying on the couch with eyes closed and a soft snore falling from his lips, I knew I wouldn’t be making any speeches about being reasonable. Instead, I moved back to the couch and sat down next to his hip so I could test his blood sugar again. It was stable enough that I knew I could leave him and he’d be okay.
But I couldn’t find it in me to move. Then my eyes fell on the bottle of alcohol on the coffee table… and then the scrap of paper next to it. And just like that my blood ran cold and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t going anywhere.
At least not alone, anyway.
Chapter Three
Lex
He knows.
I wasn't sure why that was the first thing I thought of when I woke up. I had no clue where I was, what time it was, or what was going on, but the one thing I did know was that the man I'd callously dismissed the previous day was now privy to my biggest secret.
I had no one but myself to blame, of course. After all, I'd been a fool to think that I could somehow take care of myself in a strange cabin in the middle of nowhere. It was just another candle on my birthday cake of humiliation.
The diabetes on its own had always been a challenge, but throw in my failing vision and my life had become a nightmare. I'd made use of every app and technological advance in the field of at-home diabetes care so I could continue to monitor my own blood sugar and give myself the daily injections I needed to stay alive. But when the telltale blurriness had started to cloud my sight, I’d been terrified of anyone finding out the truth. I’d spent the last year avoiding any face-to-face meetings with my family under the pretense that I was traveling for work, and only my personal assistant, Angie, knew how quickly things had gotten bad in that time.
Well, that wasn’t quite true.
King knew.
But, like Angie, I’d sworn him to secrecy. My brother’s obvious devastation and rage that his little brother was going blind had been the reason I hadn’t been ready to tell the rest of my family. It had taken hours of conversation and ultimately downright pleading to get King to agree to keep my secret. I’d assured him that I was taking steps to ensure my personal safety, though that hadn’t been quite true.
Or at all true, really.
I'd known that coming to the isolated woods of Northern Maine would be a risk, but I just hadn't cared. And last night when I’d been at my lowest, I hadn’t cared about anything.
The thing that
I did need to think about at the moment was where I was and if my unlikely rescuer was still around or not. I'd never actually made it to the bed in the master bedroom the night before, so I had no way of knowing what the mattress felt like. But I was definitely lying on top of a mattress now. I sat up and tried to feel around for the nightstand. The one thing I'd noticed the first day when I'd explored the cabin was that the nightstand in the master bedroom had felt smooth. The wood had had a lacquered feel to it whereas the nightstands in the other rooms had felt rougher beneath my fingers, leading me to believe the furniture in the master bedroom was either new or just fancier.
I reached my left hand out only to find that there was no nightstand at all. In fact, there was only solid wall beneath my hand. None of the bedrooms in my cabin had had beds that were pushed against the wall.
Damn.
Frustration welled within me because I already knew what it meant. Before I could dwell on it, I heard the click-clack of something sharp on hard floors outside the room. There was a soft knock followed by a creaking sound. An instant later, the entire bed bounced when a heavy weight landed on top of it. I let out a less than graceful yelp as something wet ran the length of my cheek.
"Brewer!" I heard someone call.
Not someone… him.
"Brewer, off," the man repeated. I'd managed to figure out that the very sloppy kiss I'd been given had been administered by a large dog, presumably the same one that had pressed its nose into my hands at my cabin. The large animal flopped down across my lap instead of getting off the bed like it had been ordered to. The weight of the animal would've been suffocating if there hadn't also been a certain comfort in it. I couldn’t make out the animal’s color other than to determine it was light rather than dark, but I loved how silky its fur felt between my fingers.
"Brewer," the man said again, his already deep voice going even deeper in warning.
"It's all right," I said. I cast my eyes downward so I could pretend to focus on the dog instead of having to search out the room for the man's shape. He already knew I was visually impaired, but I didn't really want to announce it since it wasn’t something that was open for discussion.
Visually impaired… Yeah, right. You're fucking blind, Lex.
"How are you feeling?" The question was standard and safe, but I wasn't interested in either of those things. I wasn't interested in anything other than getting away from the strange man who now knew something about me that my own family didn't. Well, most of my family.
"Where am I?" I asked.
"My place."
I didn't mean to be an asshole, I really didn't. But when I was raw and couldn't follow my first instinct to flee, I had a tendency to try and get the person I was with to be the one to walk away. Every relationship I'd had with a man since I'd been in my early twenties had been that way. And every single guy had walked.
Every. Single. One.
Okay, so that wasn’t quite true. There had been one guy who hadn’t walked away, though I wished he had.
"And your place is?" I prodded.
"A few miles from the cabins you're renting," the man responded. I heard the emphasis on the word cabins, but I ignored it. "I'm Gideon, by the way," he added.
Gideon.
I automatically found myself wondering if he looked like a Gideon. The polite thing to do would've been to introduce myself or at least thank him for what he’d done. But instead I asked, "What am I doing here?"
I knew my rudeness had hit its mark when Gideon’s next words came out clipped. "I brought you here so I could keep an eye on you. The cabin wasn't exactly a good place to recover from your close call."
The reminder of something I already knew only served to irritate me further. "I'm ready to return to the cabin," I said as I eased the dog, Brewer, off my lap and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. My head spun as soon as I did it, but I pushed through the feeling of being off balance and tried to stand.
That was when I realized I didn't have any pants on.
What the—
"Not just an asshole but a stubborn one too," Gideon muttered.
For some reason, his comment stung, even though it was exactly the perception of me I wanted him to have. It would help me to keep him at arm’s length. "Where are they?" I asked as I ran a hand across my chest. The material was way too soft and thick to be the dress shirt I'd been wearing.
I was greeted with nothing but silence. It was all I could do not to call out and ask him if he was still there. But I wouldn't show him that kind of weakness. He'd already seen way too much of that. If I'd learned anything from my brothers when we'd been kids growing up in the foster care system, it was to never show your enemies any weakness.
No, Gideon might not have been an enemy in the traditional sense, but I didn't know the man, just as I didn't know what his motive was for helping me. Until I figured that out, he was, in fact, my enemy.
"They're in the dryer."
I didn't miss the anger in his voice. I hated the sliver of longing that went through me when I remembered how gentle his voice had been when he'd been urging me to drink the orange juice. "Would you mind getting them for me?"
"Yeah, I would," Gideon responded. I heard what sounded like wood scraping against the floor and I wondered if he was sitting down. The room went absolutely silent, which I abhorred. There was no way I could tell where Gideon was or if he was still even in the room. That fact made me feel vulnerable and helpless. I tried looking around the room to see if I could make out his shape, but there were too many variations of light and dark to make out much of anything. Add in the blind spots I had in each eye and it was impossible to pick out any distinct shape. My breathing began to tick up the longer the room was quiet. The only sound I could make out was the light breathing of the dog lying next to me on the bed. I took a gamble that Gideon had left.
My legs felt shaky as I stood. They also felt cold. At least I still had my underwear on. The sweatshirt I was wearing brushed against my thighs. Since it wasn't my shirt, I had to assume it was Gideon's, which meant that the man was at least a few inches taller than me. He was also more heavily built if the roomy fabric was anything to go by. I wasn't keen on walking around in my underwear, but I was even less keen on being stuck in a place with a complete stranger. I put my hands up in front of me and began taking baby steps. My hope was to find a wall which I could then follow to the door. I had no clue what I would do after that, but if I was lucky, I could figure out a way to get my clothes back. That, at least, would maybe put me on a more even playing field with the mysterious man.
"Careful, there's a chair about four steps in front of you."
I stopped abruptly at the sound of Gideon's voice. So the jerk was still in the room. I felt tears prick the backs of my eyes as I realized how much amusement he must be getting from watching me wander around like a helpless infant. I tried to remember my brother Con's breathing techniques to bring my emotions under control, but all I could consider was that I was trapped in a place I had no hope of escaping without asking for help. And worse, I was now completely disoriented and had no clue in which direction the bed lay. So I was stuck standing before a complete stranger in my underwear and his shirt.
Point to Gideon. He’d played me perfectly. Not that it was too difficult since I couldn't exactly see any of the moves coming my way.
"Where are my clothes?" I snapped impatiently as my panic began to increase. I'd spent years and years working to overcome the anxiety attacks I'd had as a kid. In my professional life, my love of the business I'd been building had seen me through moments exactly like this. There had been a million things I'd been terrible at when I'd been a kid, but video games and strategy hadn't been among them. So it hadn’t mattered if it was some cocky developer or arrogant business associate I’d been dealing with; I'd instinctively known how to play the hand I’d been dealt. But in this kind of situation, I might as well have still been that little kid standing in front of whatever foster family had deign
ed to take me in and listening quietly while someone else made all the rules and I was given the ultimate ultimatum.
Fall in line or pay the price.
I hadn't had the physical strength or the courage that King and Con had shown every time they'd had to deal with the ins and outs of the foster care system, so I'd always fallen in line. And even when I'd followed every rule, I’d still paid the price. I'd learned then what an unfair place the world was and I'd sworn long before I’d turned eighteen that I would never let anyone put me in that kind of position again.
But here I was, letting someone do exactly that. I wanted to believe it was just because of my failing vision that I couldn't find the courage to tell Gideon to fuck off, but deep down I knew it wasn't true. I was at his mercy. He knew it and I knew it. Even if by some miracle I could get my clothes back, then what? I couldn't make out the individual fingers on my hand, so how the hell would I be able to find my way back to my cabin? Maybe I could get lucky and find a phone, but who would I call besides my brothers? It would take King or Con or Luca hours to get to me. And I didn't really believe Gideon wanted to hurt me. At most, I figured he wanted a little bit of payback for my rude treatment of him the day before.
So I made myself stand there and accept whatever he would throw my way. I went into my head and tried to bring up memories of some of the better times I’d spent with my brothers. The times where we hadn't had to fight to stay alive in a system that hadn't given two shits about us.
Despite the promise to myself that I would stand my ground, I flinched when wood scraped over wood and then the floorboards beneath my feet began to creak. I willed myself to focus on pulling in one easy breath after another, but when a dark shape began to form in front of me, something in my brain shifted and I automatically stepped back.
And kept stepping back.
"Hey, stop—" I heard Gideon say, but I was too busy scrambling backwards in search of the corner of the room. It would be the only place I could protect at least the front of my body. My back would be able to withstand the blows. I knew that because it had before…
Foreseen: Lex (The Four Book 2) Page 3