Page 96 of Recurve Ridge

I blinked. My secret was the unspoken truth we’d lived with these last months. I could say the words, but caution at his harsh tone stalled me. Whatever had passed between us the night before made zero impact on the stone sentinel standing before me now.

I held to my prior conviction, my chest rising with shallow, rapid breaths. “I can’t tell you.”

I got past this. You bastard, you healed me. Don’t throw me back into that void.

Robe plucked the tea and toast from my fingers. I gaped as he leaned over me, broad arms braced on either side of my body, caging me against the bar top. A frisson spiked through me at the return to day one, like he’d just stripped away every inch of the trust and love we developed.

What I gave to him and every man here.

I didn’t know what to do with that.

Apparently he decided on his lonesome that the time for slow movements and gentle touches was done. An emotion that had nothing whatsoever to do with panic built in my throat, threatening to overwhelm me.

“Tell me, Mari,” he growled.

“Why?” I whispered, inhaling the scent of him, tucking it away in my memory. After all this time,why?

We both knew who’d hurt me. I didn’t need to say it, didn’t want to fall back into that darkness they helped me escape. My breath hitched, and Iknew.

They were sending me away.

Not home, because I didn’t have one of those, not anymore. No, he couldn’t send me home…

Because home washere.With him. With them all.

A hot flush prickled over my skin in a shiver that went straight to my heart when I could have sworn that it would never work again. My time here had meant so much more to me than the best sex of my life. When I arrived in the house, I thought I wouldn’t be able to havethatagain either.

A sense of loss swept over me, but Robe’s voice anchored me to the present.

“Because I want to know I’m going to kill the right man for you.” His rasp slid over me in a sinful, beguiling caress. His gaze darkened, filled with the heavy promise of his words.

He meant it.

And I didn’t know what that meant to me.

My mind flitted back to the hands pawing at me, fingers pinching and pulling, tearing unknown secrets from my body and then trashing them alongside the remnants of my dignity as the pinches became slaps and the pulls became beatings.

The shiver evolved into a rage of tremors that racked my body.

Somewhere above me, Robe swore. His arms wrapped around my shoulders, crushing me into the safety of his chest, but it only served to exchange one cage for another.

I squeezed my eyes shut, reliving each moment over and over, my nights with Robe and Jon colliding into my past. Breath pulsed from my lips in an uncontrollable rhythm. Nothing made it into my lungs as I pushed at him, desperate for control.

Alan dancing with me around the bar.

Will’s peace in the forest, a palmful of sweet offerings and dark promises.

Miller teaching me to knock Robe on his ass for the first time.

But the memories that had become a mantra now failed me. Invisible hands plucked at my body, filling my head with their harsh words?—

Jon’s steady hands on my body.

Robe’s mouth on mine as he slid inside me.

The fight to reclaim my treasured memories as my own and keep them separate from the mess ofbeforebent my body double of its own accord. I retched my single mouthful of Alan’s lovely black tea onto the cabin’s floorboards.

Voices murmured above me. Familiar hands, kind ones, not the hooked claws of my nightmare memories, stroked damp hair back from my face. A warm cloth cleaned my cheeks. Cool water pressed to my lips as I straightened.

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