“Leave my friends out of this. You’re the one who sent them away. Not me.”
“But first you sent yourself away. Didn’t you? As far from the scene of the crime as you could get. Why Alaska, Brenna?”
“I came to work at Memory Ranch.”
“Not because you needed a cover? How long have you known Matt Sanders? Did you know him when you still lived in Florida?”
“No, this has nothing to do with Matt, and you know that.”
“I do, do I? Well, do you know he was present at the scene of an arson back in 2017? That somebody died in that fire?”
This caught Brenna off guard. “What?”
“And does he know you killed your father?”
Brenna’s head spun. Matt said he’d never hurt anyone—joked about it even. Could what this pushy investigator was claiming be true? She glared at him even harder, wishing Buddy would step on the man’s foot and crush it.
He nodded and tapped on his phone again. “So you’re both liars and you’re both murderers. Seems like you two are a match made in heaven.”
Brenna had a hard time catching her breath as the world continued to spin around her. She needed to talk to Matt, but no. He’d lied to her. In wake of this new revelation, she didn’t trust herself to talk about the night of her father’s death any longer. Her head was too foggy, and with her luck, Will Hardy would confuse her further and convince her to confess to motives she didn’t have and crimes she didn’t commit.
He cocked a smile at her, knowing he had her cornered—cornered but not trapped. “Not going to say anything else?”
“I have nothing else to say to you,” she said coldly, then put her foot into the stirrup and threw her leg over Buddy’s back.
The man stepped back out of the way as she started to walk the horse out of the stable. “Sure, run away, but just know that I’ll be back.”
Brenna didn’t listen to another word as she kicked her heels in and let Buddy take her away. She couldn’t believe she’d ever thought her nightmare had come to an end the night her father died. And she couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to trust someone who had never deserved it in the first place.
Perhaps if she ran fast enough, all the pain would fly away with the swirling snow and raging winds that filled the sky. Perhaps if she ran far enough, she’d finally get away from herself.
Chapter 20
The cold stung Brenna’s eyes as she let Buddy race down the trail as fast as his legs could carry them in this kind of weather. The heavy snowfall combined with the already thick blanket coating the earth made the trails slick with slush, but Buddy’s footing was sure. Even in her darkest moment, she would never do anything to risk injuring the horse who had become her most honest and constant friend.
“Why does everyone make it their mission to hurt me, Buddy?” she shouted into the swirling wind. “The moment I start to trust again is the very moment I learn that I can never let myself be close to anyone ever again. Well, anyone besides you.” She laughed bitterly, leaning forward in the saddle and letting her body relax as the trees flew by in a blur. She let the tears roll down her cheeks, not even caring that they would likely freeze into little icicles.
The investigator would be back with more questions, ready to break her in any way he could. The worst part was Brenna wasn’t even sure she knew what the answers were anymore. Everything that had happened that night was a blur, and now the seeds of doubt had been planted about her mom’s insurance policy. Why would they even need to hire a P.I. to look into things a full year after her father’s funeral?
“Just keep going, Buddy. Take me as far away from all of this as we can go.”
Together, they raced over the open trail with the snow starting to come down harder, leaving wet streaks on her cheeks that covered the falling tears. The cold flakes were like a balm to her battered soul as they touched her skin. She knew she should turn around and head back before the snow got too heavy, but she also couldn’t risk running into the P.I. again—or worse, Matt.
He’d seemed so kind and gentle, patient with her, but all the while he’d been harboring an even darker past than he’d let on. He had set a fire and killed someone, and he was never going to tell her. People couldn’t change, after all.
Her father had beaten them mercilessly for years. He never became kind. Brenna struggled with letting others in, but she would never make that mistake again. And Matt was a criminal in the past and a liar now. Maybe he even still dealt drugs behind her back. Maybe everyone knew and secretly laughed at Brenna.
Yes, Buddy was the only friend she needed now. If they just kept running, they could find a new life where no one knew their names or histories. She could start over. Be more careful this time. Maybe if she ended up far enough away from her home in Florida and from the ranch in Anchorage, the hurting would finally stop.
After another hour or more of riding, Brenna suddenly realized the snow had fallen so thick and fast, all of the usual landmarks she used to mark her trail were now buried beneath a fresh layer of white. The ground was completely white. The air was completely white. She and Buddy were the only speck of color for what was probably miles. She’d been so preoccupied by her feelings that she’d forgotten to be safe.
She stopped Buddy and just sat for a few moments, staring ahead into the falling snow as it swirled around her in a mass of confusion, flakes going in every direction. It matched how she felt inside with her thoughts in a messy, senseless jumble.
And, like the snowfall, her thoughts wouldn’t stop pummeling her, either. Could she think clearly enough to get her and Buddy home safely? She’d never forgive herself if something happened to this sweet and generous horse because of her carelessness.
“All right, let’s go home.” Brenna needed to be confident for him, otherwise they’d both panic. She pulled on the reins to turn him around, moving him through the increasingly deep snow around them. But no matter how hard she tried to find them, Buddy’s tracks were buried almost the second he put them down. The only thing breaking up the continuous wall of white were various copses of trees, which she could only see once they were very close. She didn’t know which trees lined the trail and which were part of the forest. She had no idea which direction to go, how to get them out of this mess.
But it was up to her to figure it out.
“It must be this one, Buddy,” she said, nudging his side with her boot and tugging on the reins decisively—even though she had no idea if her directions were right.
“I’m sure this is the way we came,” she said anyway. Her voice wavered as the wind slammed into her, chapping her cheeks and chilling her bones. How could she not have realized how bad of an idea riding off during an impending snow storm would be? The combined effect of the wind and snow made it impossible to see in front of them, but she had to keep pressing forward. Their lives might depend on it.
Brenna yanked off one of her mitts off and reached into her pocket for her cell phone. If she could get a hold of Liz, maybe she could give her some better directions or even bring a snow machine out to find her. Her stiff fingers groped about furiously, but her pocket was empty. She’d left her phone in the kitchen, forgetting to grab it between making her confession to Matt and Liz and going outside to meet Will Hardy.
It served her right.
And if it had just been her stuck out in this storm, maybe she would have given up trying right then and there.
But she couldn’t do that to Buddy. Maybe the horse’s instincts would kick in and he’d find the way back for her. She could only hope that he knew what to do. He was an Alaskan horse, after all.
They continued to work their way slowly across the fields, the trails, whatever ground they came upon. The wind picked up more and more with every step they took. Brenna pulled her collar up higher to try shielding her cheeks from the piercing sting of the air. She’d never been so cold in all her life, and even now the chill dug deeper and deeper into her body.
No one kne
w where she’d gone, and she had no idea how long she could be out in these temperatures like this. She only had her jacket, mittens, and hood to keep the cold out.
Maybe if she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Buddy’s neck, she’d get some warmth from him. She had to do something because with every passing second, the chattering of her teeth grew louder and more violent.
But, no. It was not enough. Not when she was already so cold.
She needed to get down from his back and find some shelter from the wind, if only for a moment, if only for a little while.
She searched anxiously for a group of trees or anything she could use to shield herself. Finally, an extra-large pine came into view, and she leaped down from Buddy with great relief…
Until she landed on what should have been soft ground. Her legs were so frozen over already that they wouldn’t hold her up, causing her to fall into the deep snow. Still, she had to fight. She dragged herself over to the tree and leaned into it, letting it provide some shelter from the bitter wind whipping all round her.
As she tucked her legs up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them to try and keep herself as small as possible, she started to cry again. When she’d run away from the ranch in tears, she’d wanted to just get lost and not ever be found again.
Now that was exactly what had happened, and she’d never been so scared in all her life.
Chapter 21
Brenna could hear her mother sobbing, shrieking, begging for him to stop—but his cruelty was unrelenting that night. He was on top of her, bashing her face in with the gun, blood going everywhere. Brenna was frozen in place, only able to watch as he beat the life from her. Spit flew from his mouth and his knuckles turned white as he squeezed her windpipe.
Suddenly a fire lit inside her, and the lapping flames freed her arms and then her legs.
“Get off her, you disgusting piece of garbage,” Brenna yelled as she flung herself at him and knocked him to the ground.
But he still had the gun. He fired. Missed. Let a new bullet into the chamber.
“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!” She kept saying the words over and over as they struggled for control of the gun.
He sneered at her, his eyes full of rage. “You girls have never appreciated anything I do for you, and I’m done putting up with it.” His words hissed out between his clenched teeth as he pushed her and she fell back.
She had to keep fighting. She wasn’t going to let him win.
Not this time. Not any time ever again.
Over and over, the bullet fired on loop. Brenna squeezed the trigger. Blood blossomed from his chest. He crumpled lifeless on the ground.
Rewind. Repeat.
Again, and again, and again.
But this time he wasn’t dead. He reanimated like some kind of zombie, got up again, told her she was going to pay for this. He grabbed her by the arms and held her in a prison of flesh and blood, ready to exact his final revenge.
“No! No, let go! I hate you!” she screamed, but it was no use.
He shook her harder and harder still.
“Brenna!” a desperate voice called from somewhere in the distance, but it didn’t belong to her father.
Her eyes flew open, and she saw Matt’s face close to hers as he held her in his arms.
Wait, wasn’t she supposed to be mad at him about something? She couldn’t remember.
Was her father still nearby, or had he really died? She didn’t know.
“Brenna, it’s me!” Matt shouted over the wind. “You’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you.”
She tried to move into his arms but her body seemed frozen to the spot. “Matt. I’m so cold.” Her voice was weak. She didn’t even know if he could hear her.
He stuck his flashlight in his pocket and reached out to her, easily lifting her into his arms.
She groaned as pain shot through her body.
“It’s okay, Brenna. Just let me carry you. I’m going to get you warmed up,” he promised. Matt held her tight as he stumbled through the snow toward Buddy and another horse that he must have been riding on his way to find her.
His eyes were burning with determination. He seemed so strong while she was so weak. “If I prop you up in the saddle, can you hold on and wait for me to get up behind you?”
“I can try.” Her voice didn’t even sound like her own.
Matt hefted her up onto his horse’s back, and she slouched forward to hold on the best she could. His hand stayed on her leg, offering support as he hopped up behind her. Immediately, he pulled her back against him and wrapped his arms tightly around her.
This was it. She’d really been rescued, but as Matt kicked his heels in and called out to Buddy to follow, she had a hard time remembering how she’d ended up stranded outside and alone in a snow storm.
The longer they rode, the more she felt the beginnings of strength return to her limbs. Not enough—never enough—but she could at least speak and feel the searing pain that threatened to rip her apart.
“Poor Buddy,” Brenna moaned. “He must be frozen.” Her teeth chattered as she spoke, and the sound was strangled as she sucked in the cold air.
“Don’t worry about Buddy. He’s fine. Actually, he’s the one who saved you. He found me as I was searching for you and brought me here. I don’t think I would have found you in time, otherwise.” His voice cracked. Maybe he was crying, but she couldn’t look behind herself to check. She wasn’t strong enough yet, and perhaps it didn’t matter, either.
She had so much more to ask, so much more to say, but she couldn’t remember what. The howling of the wind drowned out her thoughts. The sharp sting in her extremities made it hard to focus on anything but the pain. If she was so cold, then why did it burn?
Perhaps she would feel better if she just closed her eyes for a few seconds and allowed herself to rest…
Brenna’s eyes shot open. Somehow they were the only part of her that didn’t hurt. Everything stung, burn, tingled, and ached, but at least she wasn’t cold anymore. When she’d been trapped in the storm she had feared that even if she survived, she would never feel warmth again.
She struggled to sit up, but her body seemed to be just as weak as it was sore. Without realizing it, she moaned aloud as she fell back against her pillow.
“Brenna, are you all right?” Matt appeared from the edge of the room outside her vision and came to sit down beside her. “Do you need anything?”
Brenna pulled her eyebrows together in confusion as she tried figure out where she was and how she’d gotten here. Oh, great. Her brain hurt, too.
“Matt, why are you here? What’s going on?” She begged him for answers, realizing then that she trusted him to make sense of all this, that he was the one who had rescued her from the snow.
“After you lost consciousness, I got you back to the ranch and called for an ambulance to get you to the hospital. We tried warming you up while we waited, but you never woke up. Not until now. You’ve been in the hospital overnight.” He stroked her arm as he spoke to her. His touch didn’t hurt—it felt comforting. It felt right.
“You stayed with me?” she squeaked, noticing now that the blackness of night had been replaced by the brightness of a new day. The threatening white of the snow had transformed into the protective blankets that encased her, brought warmth back into her bones.
“Of course, I did. I wasn’t going to leave you here alone. They did some x-rays because we weren’t sure if you’d fallen from Buddy or what had happened. They said they’d come and talk to us once you woke up.”
Matt’s concern was evident in every part of his body. Had he forgone sleep while he waited for her to awaken from hers?
Brenna squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to recall what had happened and why. “No, I didn’t fall,” she revealed to them both. “I just got down to try and get some shelter from the wind.”
She fought through the pain to hoist herself into a sitting position so they could talk more easily. �
��Will they let me go home today?” she wanted to know.
“I don’t know, but I’ll stay with you until they do.” Matt reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.
Both of their heads turned toward the door as a doctor breezed into the room. “Ms. Barry, you had us all quite worried, but it looks like you’re even tougher than we’d hoped.”
Someone else had called her Ms. Barry recently, but who? The memory pricked at the edges of her consciousness, but she couldn’t bring it into full focus.
“You did suffer from a mild case of hypothermia but we were able to get your body temperature warmed up quickly,” the doctor continued, flipping a page on his chart. “Your x-rays revealed that nothing was broken…this time.”
Matt’s smile fell away as he looked to the doctor in confusion. “What do you mean this time?”
The doctor glanced at Brenna, waiting for her to give her consent for him to say more. But it was okay, right? Matt already knew about the abuse. None of this should come as a shock.
Did he know about her role in her father’s death, too? She thought maybe she had confessed, but couldn’t remember when or how he’d reacted. The fact that he was here with her now, that he’d rescued her last night, had to be a good sign.
When she nodded her approval, the doctor referenced the chart in his hands and said, “I’d say from the look of Ms. Barry’s scans, she’s had quite her share of broken bones. There are a lot of healed fractures and old breaks that are visible in the x-rays consistent with the signs of extended, prolonged physical abuse.”
Brenna’s eyes fell to the sheet pooled in her lap. She knew Matt would be upset, and she didn’t want to see it. She hurt more than enough already.
“How many broken bones?” Matt didn’t even attempt to conceal his anger as he demanded more.
At one time, she’d have lied as her father had trained her to do. She’d tell them she’d been in a car accident, that she’d misremembered and Buddy really had thrown her from his back. That’s the kind of thing she’d always said before whenever anyone asked questions, but she didn’t need to say it now. Her father couldn’t hurt her anymore, and perhaps the truth would finally set her free.
The Strongest Love Page 10