Page 60 of Savage Escape

Her shoulders slumped the tiniest bit, and she frowned and then turned towards the door.

“I put some towels and extra clothes in there for you. If you get dizzy or feel like you’re going to faint, sit down. Don’t overdo it, Caden.”

“All right. All right.” Caden nodded absently and frowned at Reid as she hobbled out the door. “I understand.”

Nathan watched her exit with a stupid grin on his face. Reid had a certain effect on people. Socially inept he may be, but when he wasn’t doing awkward things, he was making people feel like being where they were and who they were was the easiest thing in the world. For that, Nathan decided he wouldn’t strangle him.

“You know she’s leaving, right?” After a long moment of silence, Reid turned his attention back to him and Nathan frowned at the confidence in his brother’s voice.

“Maybe.” It was a strong possibility, but she’d most likely stay for a couple of weeks. Long enough to heal, at least.

“As soon as she gets what she wants... she’s gone.” His words were stated so matter-of-factly that Nathan didn’t register what they actually were until they’d sunk in and put him on the defensive.

“Reid, there’s nothing she wants from me.” What the hell was he saying? Was he accusing her of something? Nathan growled and Reid rolled his eyes and looked ten shades of exasperated.

“Sex.” Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Well, maybe.” He couldn’t help but grin again. As soon as they got a moment alone, Nathan planned to have her naked and going mad.

“No, not maybe.” Reid shook his head and frowned like he was being purposefully stupid. “Sex is what she wants from you. She doesn’t want to stay because she feels too vulnerable here. She’s scared of us and of you. Give it up to her and she’s out of here.”

“She’s not scared of me.” No way in hell was Caden Quinn scared ofhim.

How many times had the woman charged at him without an ounce of fear? Women who were scared didn’t seek out men just to beat the hell out of them. Okay, so she’d never actually soughthim out, but she’d never run from him without standing her ground first.

“Not that kind of scared, you idiot. Gah, never mind.”

20

CADEN

Still damp from her lukewarm shower, Caden followed the vacuum cleaner tracks down the hall and into the living room. She was breathing heavily and leaning most of her weight on the portable IV pole Reid had insisted she take with her. The shower had all but depleted her. It felt good to be clean.

Caden halted in the living room, struck by the sight. A recliner that looked well-reclined sat beside the puffy sofa that sat in front of a big TV. Framed pictures and portraits and drawings hung on the walls. Bookcases lined the far wall. Flowers and pretty curtains made everything look... surreal.

Fuck, everything had been so surreal since the moment she’d come to.

Sure, she’d seen living rooms before, but she couldn’t shake the otherworldly feeling. It looked like every other living room she’d seen, but there was something about it that just screamed “We’re not in Kansas anymore”. She couldn’t pick out the difference that made this particular living room feel so much different from all the other ones.

It was like she was stepping into a place of fiction that had come to life. Nathan had talked about his family, but she nevercounted on meeting them and being forced to acknowledge their existence as real living beings. They were real, his mother was real, and just as he’d described her. The place and people she’d built in her mind were real, and that was disorienting as fuck.

The place she’d called home for her formative years had a small living room that was the polar opposite of the one in front of her. Terror and guilt and rage had seared that place into her memory. She hadn’t thought of it in a long, long time, but suddenly it was shining bright in her mind’s eye.

Brown rough carpet that felt more like sandpaper than anything cloth-related, one lonesome recliner that smelt of beer and stale smoke, white walls gone grungy and stained from catching bottles that had been aimed for her head, and a TV that, when it wasn’t sitting in the pawnshop, sat in the dust outlined square on the bedside table that acted as an entertainment center.

She’d been weak, pathetic Ava in that living room. She’d been dead for two minutes and thirty-seven seconds in that living room. Quinny had stayed dead in that living room.

Then there was the first foster home. Formal and foreign. The furniture was all angles and squares. The walls were white and bare. The second and last foster home had been less angular but more foreign. Ezra had liked it, but they’d left before the scuzz-bucket of a foster dad could do more than leer. The places they’d squatted and eventually rented weren’t big enough to have living rooms. After that, it was all barracks, dorm rooms, safe houses, and hospital rooms.

This was a living room that housed a happy family. It was like stepping into a slightly messy national monument. Caden blinked a couple of times, trying to shake the dreamlike feeling.

The front door was hanging open. A black cat was sat in the middle of the doorway, blocking a sad-faced dog’s entrance. A fly buzzed in and then back out again. Another cat, this one smallerand orange, pounced on the black cat’s flicking tail. A deep belly laugh drifted in through the door, followed by some garbled words that Caden could only assume were curses. The sight of the open door reassured her a wee bit. She could leave whenever she wanted.

What exactly was stopping her from waltzing out that door and hopping on the nearest plane and getting the hell out of Dodge?

Nathan Savage and his ridiculous smiles were what.

It wouldn’t hurt to stay just long enough to bed the man. (She had to think up a better moniker for the dirty deed.) Or maybe it would hurt. Maybe the family were all just lulling her into a false sense of security. Maybe they’d called the authorities already.

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