by Noelle Adams
“Thank you,” Holly said in a soft, shaky voice. She was looking behind them again. The bridge was perfectly straight and perfectly flat. If the sedan had started to catch up, they would have seen it.
“You’re welcome. He was just a jerk though. Some people are like that.”
“I know.” She took a long, ragged breath. “Some people are worse than jerks.”
Cade was slammed with a flood of tenderness, anger, and possessiveness—all dissolved together into a feeling he’d never experienced before.
He wanted to save her from everything—not just the asshole riding his tail.
He wanted to fix her, to mend the damage, to make it possible for her to finally heal.
But he had no idea how to do any of that.
The sedan was nowhere in sight as they finally got off the bridge. The road widened to eight lanes, and Cade veered to the right, taking the first side road he saw and winding through several backroads so there would be no chance of seeing the asshole again.
He didn’t actually expect anyone to be pissed off enough to sustain the behavior, but road rage did happen, and he wasn’t going to risk Holly getting upset again. She was still pale and shaking.
When he saw a drugstore, he pulled over into the parking lot and opened the windows again. They were near the beach, and warm salty air came flooding into the car.
Holly closed her eyes and breathed deeply, and he knew she was trying to relax, find herself again.
He waited without a word, only feeling better when the color returned to her cheeks and her breathing evened out.
After several minutes, she opened her eyes and gave him a little smile. “Thank you.”
“You already said that. You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do. You were trying to help me. I know you were, and it means something to me.” Her eyes were huge and silver and so full of her he couldn’t look away.
He swallowed over a strange pressure in his throat, wondering why he was so moved by her appreciation. It had just been a little thing, after all. It shouldn’t make him feel like he was someone far better than he’d ever known himself to be.
“You were amazing,” Holly added, still gazing up at him.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Yes, you did. The way you passed that truck…” She gave a little laugh. “Are you sure you’re not a secret agent?”
He laughed, feeling a wave of pleasure at the compliment and that same wave of the deeper feeling, the one he’d never experienced before.
Like Holly was his special duty.
Like Holly was his to take care of.
Like he would do anything he needed to do to make sure she always was his.
Thirteen
Holly had never felt like this before.
It was like she was in a free fall—every string holding back her life had finally snapped, and nothing was stable or familiar anymore. But she wasn’t alone in it. Cade was there with her, holding her hand, not letting her go.
And so she wasn’t as scared as she should have been. She wasn’t lonely. And she was almost—almost—excited.
Never in her life had she felt like this—scared and thrilled at the same time.
The emotions were so hard to handle that she suddenly couldn’t sit still anymore. “I want to get out,” she said.
“I can drive us down to the beach if you want.” Cade’s beautiful eyes were still resting on her face with that look of mingled concern and tenderness and protection.
She swallowed hard and shook her head. “That’s okay. We can just go into the drugstore and get a drink or something.”
Under normal circumstances, she never would have suggested they enter a store full of strangers, but she was feeling different now. Brave. Driven by something she didn’t understand.
And Cade was with her.
He stifled an expression of surprise and pleasure at her suggestion and just nodded before they got out of the car.
Her breath was coming out quickly as they entered the store, but he was holding her hand in his. Despite her lingering fear, she loved Cade like this. He seemed intensely alive—bristly, alert, and protective. She liked it even more because she knew he was protective of her.
The drugstore wasn’t very crowded, so it wasn’t too difficult for them to walk inside, head to the drink cooler, and pick out flavored water to drink.
He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her toward him, as they were waiting in the short line at the counter.
He was worried about her. She could feel it in his body. It was so incredibly strange—that someone would be so anxious… for her.
“I’m okay,” she told him after burying her face in his shirt for just a moment. “I’m really okay. I’m not going to fall apart or anything.”
He studied her closely, his face relaxing just slightly. “What do you want to do when we get back to the car? Do you need to go back?”
Part of her did want to go right back home, but that would be a defeat. She’d gotten this far. She didn’t want to just give up.
“No. I know I had some… some problems on the bridge, but I think I can do this. I want to see the lighthouse. Is that still okay?”
His arms tightened around her. “Of course it’s okay. I’ll take you anywhere you want, Holly. I’ll do anything you need me to do. Just tell me.”
It felt like her heart was too big for her chest, and ridiculously her eyes burned a little. It sounded so much like he meant it.
Like he would really do anything for her.
“I want to see the lighthouse. Then maybe we can go somewhere quiet and not around a lot of people, if you can think of somewhere.”
She knew he would think of some place good. Cade seemed competent in everything. She’d never met anyone as smart and strong and capable as him.
“I’ll take care of it,” he murmured, brushing a kiss into her hair.
She knew he would.
Two hours later, Holly was sitting on a bench by herself in the large botanical gardens in Norfolk, watching Cade talk on the phone near the edge of the lake, too far from her to hear his voice. They’d driven to see the lighthouse, but the beach had been crowded and there was a lot of traffic in the area, so Holly hadn’t wanted to stay long.
Then Cade had thought about the gardens, which weren’t very far away. He’d driven them there, paid their entrance fees, and parked in the visitors’ lot. There weren’t very many people here yet since it was a weekday and the gardens had just opened. Holly felt a lot better as they walked around the visitor center and found a path that led through the gardens. They passed several more popular spots until they found a bench in a secluded nook near the lake.
They’d sat for a little while, Cade’s arm wrapped around her, and Holly had been happy and relaxed again until Cade had gotten a call.
He’d glanced at the caller ID and then walked away to answer it.
Because she was used to sitting alone for long periods of time, she wasn’t bored or restless. She enjoyed the peaceful setting—the friendly trees that surrounded the bench, the still, sunny waters of the lake, the thick clouds that blew across the sky. There were birds and squirrels all around, and she had a good time watching their antics. It wasn’t completely quiet. She heard planes taking off and landing at the nearby airport, and occasionally a visitor to the garden would walk by on the path. But it was still a good place to be.
Her eyes kept returning to Cade standing by the lake, still talking on the phone. His posture was stiff, and his neck and shoulders looked tense. His features were intently focused on whatever he was saying.
He’d been so happy and relaxed, just yesterday. He’d been letting down his guard with her. But something seemed different about him now, and it was evident just from the way he was standing.
She wanted to know what he was talking about on the phone.
Finally he lowered his phone and came back over to where she was sitting.
“Who was that?�
�� she asked when he sat down beside her.
He gave a half shrug. “No one important.”
She frowned and pulled away when he tried to wrap an arm around her again. “Well, it was someone, and the conversation made you all uptight. Why won’t you tell me?”
He sighed and slouched back against the bench. “It was my agent.”
Her stomach gave a little twist of sympathy, as she understood the reason for his change of mood. “Oh. Was it a bad conversation?”
“Not really. My agent is really decent, and she’s tried to be patient with me. But for obvious reasons she wants me to get going on my next book.”
“But it’s not always that easy, is it? I mean, I don’t know much about writing, but I’d think you have to have inspiration before you can really get going.”
He chuckled and reached an arm out for her again. This time she didn’t resist, letting him pull her against him. “That’s a tempting thought,” he said. “And it’s easy to make yourself believe it. But writing is a job like any other job. Sometimes you have to do it even when you don’t feel inspired. Sometimes you just have to push through.”
“At least you know what you’re going to write. How’s the research going with those murders in Maryland?”
He sighed, a slight tension shuddering through his body before it dissipated. “Okay. I’m making some progress.”
She wondered why he looked so stiff and concluded he must not be very excited about his new book topic. He seemed disillusioned about the whole prospect of writing, and she hated for him to feel that way.
“I’m sure you’ll get inspired soon. I still think you should write something different—something smaller, more… more beautiful. Maybe the change would give you the inspiration you need.”
“But then no one would want to read it.”
“I would.” She shifted enough to look up at his face. “I’d want to read it.”
His expression softened as he gazed down at her, and then he leaned to kiss her softly, gently. He murmured, “I wish I could write a book just for you.”
She smiled against his lips. “I wish you could too.”
They relaxed into silence, still wrapped up in each other. It was beautiful here—in a different way than her beach. She loved the sound of the birds, the sound of Cade’s heart beating against her ear. She loved the warmth of the sun on her skin, the warmth of Cade’s body pressed up against hers.
She’d never imagined she could feel safe and happy like this somewhere other than her home.
Maybe she’d changed.
Maybe knowing Cade had changed her.
Maybe things could change and still be good.
Maybe things could get even better.
She was so full of these reflections and recognitions that she wanted to answer them in some way, she wanted to feel even closer to Cade.
Instinctively she knew how she could do it.
“My mom was raped,” she said, completely out of the blue.
Cade’s whole body tightened dramatically. “What?”
She couldn’t believe she was saying this. She couldn’t believe she was telling anyone one of the secrets she’d always kept guarded, one that had always shaped the very restrictive boundaries of her life. But she said it again, “My mom was raped.”
His body felt different now, although he hadn’t moved his arm from where it was cradling her against him. “By whom?”
“By… by a man who came to Cape Charles one summer. She liked him. At least she thought she liked him. But he raped her.”
“Did she report it?”
Holly shook her head. “Things were different back then… with rape, I mean. And she’d spent time with this guy willingly. She’d thought she liked him. People knew that. And he didn’t beat her up or anything. He just forced her to have sex. She didn’t fight back as much as she thought she should have. She… she didn’t think anyone would believe her.”
Cade’s body was getting tighter and tighter. “It’s very possible she was right about that. How long ago was it?”
Holly swallowed hard over the aching lump in her throat. “Twenty-five years ago.”
He reached down to tilt her face up so he could see her expression. His eyes were grave and utterly sober. “Was he your father, Holly?”
“He wasn’t my father,” she bit out, almost choking on the words. She’d started to shake, although she had no idea when that had happened.
“I mean biologically.”
“I don’t tell anyone.” Her tone was stilted because she suddenly felt like she’d reached some sort of precipice, and the slightest step would send her tumbling off.
“I’m not just anyone, am I? Holly, please.” He reached over to take her hand, holding it in tightly in his.
She didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want to tell anyone. She didn’t want it to be true, to be voiced by anyone in the world.
But she couldn’t seem to stop her mouth from finally saying the words, “He got her pregnant, but he was never my father.”
It wasn’t right that she would speak the words out loud, here in a shady alcove of a garden, where birds were chittering above them in the branches. They were words for another time. Another place.
Cade nodded, evidently understanding the distinction she so deeply needed to make between a father and the man who had gotten her mother pregnant.
With her.
“I’m so sorry that happened,” he murmured roughly.
The words he spoke weren’t nearly as important as the way she felt the reaction in his body. He felt how bad it was, how hard it had been to say, how wrong it was that it had ever happened.
How, if things had been right in the world, Holly would never have been born.
She wasn’t crying. It was such an old pain that it no longer made her cry. It lived with her every moment. She knew it as well as she knew her name.
After a long moment, Cade asked, “So was… this man the one she was always so afraid of?”
Holly nodded.
“Would he really try to come after her again, or was she just afraid?”
It was a logical question. Cade was always logical. Of course he would want to know if her mother’s fear was grounded on something real. But it felt like an insult to her mother to question whether she had any real reasons for her fear.
How could anyone know what it was like, unless it had happened to them?
“My mother thought he would come after her. She believed it until she… she finally left.”
“So that’s why she left you? Because she thought he would come after her?”
“She thought staying would leave me in danger.”
“But why would it?” Cade’s voice was slightly urgent now, as if he desperately wanted to understand. “Why would he come after her again if he’d already… taken what he wanted?”
Holly had told him this much, so she might as well tell him the next part of the story. She took a shaky breath and admitted, “She stole money from him.”
“What?”
“He was a… a criminal or something. I don’t know the details. But he had a bunch of money he’d stolen, and she… she took it.”
“She stole from him?”
Cade’s voice was slightly surprised, and she took it as a judgment. Feeling defensive of her mother, she pulled her hand out of his. “He raped her. He left her like trash afterward. So she took something from him—something he cared about.”
“I wasn’t criticizing her, Holly,” Cade said quickly. “I promise. I don’t blame her at all.”
Holly relaxed because his tone was convincing—like he might actually understand. “She was… damaged. The rape really tore her apart. She’d been a virgin beforehand, and she was never the same afterward. She took the money because she knew it was the only thing he really cared about, and she wanted to take away something of his. But it was a lot of money, and it helped her get by.”
“That’s what you’re still living on?”
“Yes. It was a lot of money. Her parents owned the beach house, and she inherited it when they died, so we could always live fairly frugally. But she was always so afraid of him coming for her, even after years passed and he never did. She never stopped thinking he would come for her. And me.”
“And so she just left you?” For the first time, Cade sounded faintly outraged, as if leaving Holly was the worst thing someone could do.
Ridiculously, it made her feel better. “I told you. She was damaged. She didn’t think she had any other choice.”
“Okay.” Cade wrapped both of his arms around her again, pulling her close. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I’ve never told anyone.”
“I know.” He kissed her hair a few times, as if he couldn’t help himself. “I know what a big deal this is. Thank you for telling me.”
She felt shaky and emotional but not as broken as she would have expected.
Shockingly, she almost felt better, more whole, than she had even an hour before.
“To tell you the truth,” she murmured hoarsely, “it wasn’t as hard as I thought.”
They stayed on the bench for another hour until both of them were relaxed again, all the angst of their conversation finally softening as they sat together in the quiet spot.
Finally Cade asked, “Just tell me when you want to go back.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for the tunnels again yet,” she admitted, wishing she wasn’t so weak, wishing that telling Cade the truth as she had could really, finally fix her.
“We don’t have to go now. We can even wait until tomorrow if you want.”
She was surprised by this suggestion, so she looked up. “What would we do?”
“Whatever you want. We could hang out here until evening. Then we could go back to look at the lighthouse again when it’s not as crowded. Then we could get a hotel room if you want. I know it wouldn’t be like your home, but it would just be the two of us. Or I can drive you home later. Whatever would make you feel better, Holly.”