by Claire Adams
“Is your beard new? I don’t remember you having one that night.”
Nate glanced at me briefly and then back to the road. I was staring at him as I tried to remember more from that night he rescued me. I felt the memories, but I just couldn’t get to them. Then tears suddenly started to stream down my face. I wasn’t crying out loud, but the tears just started to come as I looked at him. I couldn’t help it.
“I was just off a job then. I was clean shaven,” Nate said as he glanced at me again and then back on the road.
He wasn’t fazed by my tears and didn’t seem interested in comforting me or talking about them at all. That was perfect for me. I didn’t want to talk about the tears; I didn’t understand why they were even there. I wasn’t particularly sad at the moment, but something about Nate and the memories I had deep in my mind made my body sad. Maybe one day I’d remember everything about that time, but for the moment, I didn’t want to know.
“Do you have to go to work again soon?” I asked.
What I really wanted to know was if he’d be shaving that beard again. I wanted to see him without it, I wanted to see if it would trigger anything else. But I was willing to wait. There was no hurry to flood my mind with memories. Because I also remembered feeling very attracted to Nate when he had rescued me. It wasn’t something I shared with anyone except for my counselor because I thought it made me seem like a hussy or something. But I fantasized about Nate rescuing me, and the two of us going off into a back room to make love.
My fantasies about Nate weren’t as frequent as my nightmares about my time with Stephano, but I certainly had thoughts of him. My body reacted with lust at the memories of some of the dreams I had had about Nate and what he looked like naked and what his hands would feel like on my body. It was quiet a delicious fantasy, actually.
“Four weeks.”
“Ah, okay. Cool. I’ll try to stay out of your hair while I’m here. Thanks again for letting me stay.”
“Yep.”
And just like, that we were silent again for the rest of the drive to his place. The trees along the road were tall and evergreen. It seemed like we followed them for miles and miles before Nate finally turned off onto a side road and made his way through the forest.
His house was certainly secluded. I doubt he ever had people just stopping by; it was probably hard for people who knew where to find him. There hadn’t been any labels or street signs on the road. I was positive I wouldn’t be able to find my way back to that spot if I ever wandered off. In every direction I looked were huge, green trees, and in some spots you could hardly see through to the sky.
As we pulled up to his cabin, it was bigger than I had expected. In my mind, I had pictured a small, two-bedroom shack. But in reality, his cabin was very large, with at least 1,500 square feet and a wraparound porch. I could tell almost instantly that Nate had much more money than he let people know. His Jeep was almost brand new and his cabin was made with real logs instead of prefabricated knock offs. I liked him even more for not flaunting what he had.
His brother Chase certainly didn’t make a big fuss about the money he had, but he didn’t hide it like Nate did. Chase owned a beautiful home from what I saw in the photos Jordan had sent me. They had a pool and more room than any two people could use. Their remodeling alone was going to cost them more than most people made in ten years. But it was their money and their life. But I liked how Nate used his money. He didn’t flaunt it, but he used it for quality items; that would be my philosophy if I ever had money.
“I didn’t know what all you would have and what you would need. I bought a few things, but we can go to the store tomorrow if you’d like. Just let me know,” Nate said as he grabbed my bags from the back and walked into the house.
He left the front door open for me and I followed behind him. It was clear he wasn’t going to wait for me. But I didn’t really need him too. I’m sure if he had waited for me, I would have told him he shouldn’t. I was a little wishy washy and I knew it, so I tried to keep my comments to myself as much as possible.
The living room was beautifully furnished and the kitchen as well. Each item in the rooms seemed to be specially picked out to suit his style. They appeared to be high quality pieces of furniture and probably cost much more than it looked like they did. It was impressive that he even had a sense of style. Most men I knew back home only had apartments with essential furniture, never any style to them at all.
“Thanks again for letting me stay,” I said as I stood at the doorway to my room.
“No problem. That’s your private bathroom. I have one in my room that I use.”
Nate set my bags on the bed and barely looked at me as he turned to leave. As he crossed through the doorway, I reached out for his hand and touched it slightly as I nodded my head toward him.
I wasn’t really sure why I had reached out for him like that. It had just been one of those touchy feely kind of days for me. Hugging and touching people really wasn’t something I did on a regular basis, but it felt right for me at that moment.
“Thanks.”
He simply nodded back and continued toward the room at the end of the hall. I could still feel the touch of his skin. He was an interesting man, and sexy too; if I hadn’t had so much going on with myself at the moment, I certainly would have had some sort of sexual attraction to him outside of my fantasies. But my mind and body were too wrapped up in the crazy healing that was going on inside of me. I couldn’t imagine ever feeling the kind of attraction toward a man like I once had, not in real life. Maybe I never would feel that again. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. For the time being, I had to just concentrate on getting myself as close to normal again as I could.
Being at Nate’s house was going to give me the opportunity to really take time for myself and practice everything I learned throughout my time at the treatment facility. Instead of having staff around to remind me of the skills I needed to practice, I was going to have to do it all by myself, but I was ready for it. It might be a bumpy few days, but I was determined to work forward and find my happiness in the life I was given. I just hoped I would be able to do all that moving forward as quickly as possible; it was tiring feeling so helpless all the time.
Chapter 4
NATE
“You need to take her with you guys, Chase; I can’t handle her,” I said the minute I got into my bedroom.
“What are you talking about? What happened?”
“She’s sick Chase. She crumpled onto the ground when I talked. It’s not good for her here. I’m not good to be around her. You know me. I yell. I say stupid shit. I’m going to bring her to you guys in the morning.”
“Just a second.”
I could hear Chase talking to Jordan in the background. I wasn’t exactly sure what they were saying, but I assumed it was a discussion about what a jackass I was and how I already wanted to give Ana back to them. But I didn’t care. I saw that utter fear in her eyes when I came up behind her at Shady Meadows. It wasn’t anything I wanted to see again. The idea that something I had done had made her that afraid was horrible, and I wouldn’t do it to her again.
“Nate, what happened?” Jordan said as she came on the phone.
“I walked up behind her at the treatment center and said something and she crumbled onto the ground like I was going to murder her. She’s not going to do well here. I’ll bring her to you guys tomorrow.”
“Nate, is she all right now? Is she shaking or crying?”
“No, she wasn’t at all. She did cry on the way home.”
“But not now?”
“No.”
“She’s fine, Nate. Let’s give it the night and we can talk about it tomorrow. Just give her some space.”
That was exactly what I was trying to do. Just stay as far away from Ana as possible so I didn’t do anything else that made her afraid. I had dealt with a lot of guys with PTSD, and none of them had been so bad that my voice alone sent them into a meltdown. With the guys
and myself, it was always loud noises or smells that triggered us. I thought I would be able to help Ana, but I didn’t know what to do and I wasn’t going to be responsible for hurting her.
Before I could protest anymore Jordan had hung up and I was left on my own again with Ana. She seemed so fragile, like she was going to break at any moment. There was no way I could be around her. I was nervous to say anything because I didn’t want to scare her or make her cry again.
Women were delicate creatures and I loved them dearly. I loved the softness of their skin, the way their bodies looked as they walked, there were so many things about women that were so lovely. But I didn’t like making a woman feel bad and I really hated that I had made Ana afraid like I had. Of course, I didn’t know I was going to scare her like that, but it still made me feel horrible.
Oh, there were so many times in my life that I had hurt women. Not physically, of course; only an absolute asshole would physically hurt a woman. But I had been young and carefree with women’s emotions and I had hurt them. But the kind of hurt that comes from an emotional breakup was nothing like what I had seen in Ana’s eyes at the treatment center. She had real hurt in those eyes, hurt that I didn’t want to go near.
I closed the door to my room and was perfectly content to sit in there and not come out until the morning. Both my room and Ana’s were plenty big enough to stay in without needing to leave for anything else but food. I would just give her as much space as possible so she could relax and wouldn’t have to worry about me or anything else that was going on.
When Jordan and Chase said that Ana was coming to stay with me, I went and bought a recliner and television for her room. I also purchased all the fluffy, girl products I could find at the drug store, so hopefully she would have everything she needed to be comfortable.
I hadn’t taken care of a woman ever in my life. Even when I dated women, I didn’t usually let them live with me. Sure, they sometimes stayed over for a night or two, but my girlfriends always had their own places and knew I wasn’t about to invite them to stay with me. In fact, I didn’t often have a woman in my life that would even stay over with me. I liked my space, and most women didn’t like coming all the way out to the woods to just hang out with me.
Women and I only worked on a small scale. I loved women, don’t get me wrong. I really loved women, but they have a level of emotions that was hard for me to deal with. I couldn’t even deal with my own emotions, so I certainly didn’t want to have to deal with the extra emotions that women had.
With each deployment my ability to deal with shit got worse and worse. I had my way of doing things and it was the only way I liked to do things. I liked to get up in the morning and make my eggs, three egg whites and one full egg. I drank my coffee and read the digital version of the New York Times. Then I’d go work on my projects around the cabin for the afternoon and so on. When it came to weekends, I used to go into town and visit the clubs with Chase, but neither of us had done that in a while.
When I was away on assignment, I didn’t get to do my routine, but that was because we had a job to do and that was all that mattered. Job assignments could take anywhere from two days to two months, but most of them were somewhere in between. It was hard to have any sort of dating life or real relationship when I never knew just how long I would be gone.
There was always alcohol involved when I had to be around people though. It was too hard to deal with the shit that people had going on if I didn’t have a large amount of alcohol in my system. But man oh man did I enjoy the women. I would even say they were addictive to me.
The way a woman smelled was extremely primal to me. When I had stood behind Ana and just before I spoke to her, I smelled the soft, floral breeze that came off of her. If I closed my eyes, I could still smell it. And when her hand touched mine, I thought for sure I was going to step in close to her and kiss her. My body could hardly resist.
Ever since I had first laid eyes on her when Chase had sent me her picture and asked to help find her, I’d felt something toward Ana. The milky white of her skin was filled with much more color than when I had first picked her up and carried her out of Stephano’s house, though. That night, I thought I was carrying a corpse for a moment, until she wrapped her arms around my neck and looked up into my eyes. I couldn’t forget those eyes.
Her grayish-blue eyes were glazed over by the drugs she was on, but I saw her look at me with an intensity that I could only describe as extreme. I felt her body in my arms when I dreamed sometimes. Her lifeless body barely hanging onto me as we ran out of Stephano’s house in the middle of the night under gunfire. She was lucky to be alive.
“Shit,” I heard her quiet voice say as a loud crash happened in the kitchen.
I hurried out there to make sure she was all right and found an entire drawer from the refrigerator had fallen out and broken onto the ground. There were milk, eggs, and numerous other foods all over the floor, with Ana standing over them and looking very confused.
“I’m so sorry,” Ana said as she looked around the room for something to clean up her mess.
There was blood dripping from her hand and it was shaking. She hadn’t even noticed that her hand was cut badly and bleeding all over the place.
“Let me see that,” I said as I grabbed the kitchen towel and took a big step over the mess of food all over the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Ana said quietly as she looked down at the ground.
“It’s okay. Are you all right?”
I took a deep breath in and could smell her flowery scent as it came off of her. It took everything I had in me not to close my eyes and just inhale deeply so I could smell more of her. I had read about people being attracted to someone based on their smell, but I hadn’t thought it was true until I was around Ana. There was a visceral attraction to her that went beyond what she was wearing and how she looked.
“I’m sorry,” she said again as her hand shook in mine.
She wasn’t looking at me and I felt like she wasn’t even really there with me. She was off in her head. I had seen that look from my guys that I worked with, and I had probably even had that same look in my own eyes plenty of times before. Ana was lost in her own thoughts and that wasn’t anything I wanted to mess with.
From my experience, it was best to let someone who had severe PTSD deal with their thoughts without interrupting them unless they were doing something dangerous. Their mind had to learn how to work through things and how to build on the skills it already had so they could process things better the next time they came up. It was a long process, but no one else could do it except the person who was suffering from PTSD.
“Let me clean this,” I said quietly as I brought her around the kitchen and we walked to the bathroom in her room.
There were stacks of things I had purchased for her at the store, but I knew I had a first aid kit under the sink. I held her hand in mine and continued to apply pressure to the cut as I used my other hand to pull out the antiseptic spray and Band-Aids.
Ana’s eyes continued to look down at the ground and I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through her head. She had been through so much, her body and mind just needed to rest. I was going to get her cleaned up and then get her to bed so she could sleep.
“What were you doing in the kitchen? Are you hungry? I can make you something,” I offered as I cleaned her hand and bandaged it.
She didn’t answer me. She didn’t look up from the ground and she didn’t seem to even realize I was standing there with her. Ana was in a full, dissociative state and it had lasted at least five minutes that I knew of. That was a long time for someone to stay in such a state.
People with post-traumatic stress syndrome tended to have periods where they would disassociate from what was going on in front of them and flash back to something else. I had them all the time, but they seemed to happen to me less and less over the years. I was aware enough that I knew what situations I would have them more in. Anytime there were gunsh
ots, I had to be vigilant to try and avoid having an episode. Luckily, my episodes only lasted a few seconds and I was able to quickly bring myself back to the present time. But Ana wasn’t having as much luck.
“Let’s get you to bed,” I said quietly as I walked in front of her and guided her to her bed.”
She lay down and I left her there while I went to the kitchen to make her something to eat. That must have been what she was out there for and I really didn’t know when the last time she had eaten was. I made up a ham and cheese sandwich and grabbed some juice and chips for her before I set them next to her bed.
By the time I returned to her room, Ana was curled up in a ball on top of her bed with her eyes closed. I didn’t dare wake her up; she probably needed her sleep. Her eyes were closed and I grabbed a blanket off the bottom of her bed to put it over her to make sure she would be warm for the night. The house got very cold sometimes at night, and even though I really liked it like that, I didn’t know if Ana would feel the same way about the cold.
“What are you doing in here?” she screamed at me as she sat straight up in her bed and pushed herself back into the corner.
Instantly I dropped the blanket and took three steps back to give her the space she needed. I didn’t answer her right away though. She needed to learn how to manage her disassociation, and that meant she was going to be confused as she tried to figure out what was happening.
“Answer me,” she continued. “Why are you in my room? Get the hell out of here!”
As she screamed at me, she pointed toward the door and then noticed the bandage on her hand. Slowly she looked at her hand and then at the sandwich I had placed next to her on the nightstand. The confusion on her face was horrible and I wanted to tell her exactly what had happened, but I knew it would be no use. She wouldn’t remember any of it.