Page 12 of Recurve Ridge

Inappropriate, asshole. Someone else fucked with her, and she doesn’t need an outlaw brute humping logs in her path to get a taste of the girl in our midst.

Focusing on turning my anger to revenge, I let the protector in me take root. I should have been used to betrayal by now, but I surprised myself every time I brought home a stray to add to my collection.

When I had laid her down in my bed and taken stock of the damage on that first day, it required every ounce of my control not to tear the house apart for the rage flooding my system on her behalf. Marks covered her body. Some originated from hands, while others came from blunt trauma. We were damn lucky hypothermia failed to make the list from her mad dash to escape her demons. I had cleaned the passed-out girl as best I could, my gaze impassive as I removed the gunk and grit from her fragile form, distancing myself from the gorgeous woman who deserved better.

I hadn’t checked deeper than skin level, but I bet I’d see worse if I looked between her thighs instead of merely washing her with gentle hands and keeping my eyes averted. A rape kit was laughable; Gideon and his boss had the local sheriff and cohorts paid up a decade in advance. She’d be lucky if she didn’t end up with an extra cache of bruises and trauma if I sent her down the mountain. And so, I cleaned her.

No woman who had suffered what she did deserved to wake wearing the filth of her abuse. Shame shone from those eyes the moment the dull light in them faded. Telling her she couldn’t go back to whatever life she was living previously sat high on my priority list, but that didn’t mean I looked forward to breaking the news.

Letting her fall back into overwhelming despair would be the grossest neglect. I had existed in the shame-filled realm long enough to know intimately how that ruined a soul. I’d do anything to save hers. I needed to know who hurt her, and I wanted to make her safe by removing her aggressors from the face of the earth. My little rescue project unknowingly created the perfect distraction to put a pause on my inability to return to the world.

A world that hated me enough that I had removed myself from it in the first place.

Perhaps my chance at redemption had arrived after all.

4

MARI

I wokeseveral days after I landed in my mountain man’s cabin in a stiff bed with a hard pillow beneath my head, and it felt like heaven. A long sigh grazed swollen flesh on its way out of my throat. Everest and his men left me alone because I silently demanded it, but I knew the end of my grace period was almost up. I couldfeelit in the pensive air that filled the cabin like the hush in the hour before dawn. Still, the warm air within the structure allowed me to breathe free and easy, and for that, I was grateful. My gaze flitted about the unknown room, seeking out the shapes obscured by the dim light, but nothing nefarious moved there.

My body’s apparent recoverysomewhatsuggested an extended rest period. My nerves should be jumping and my heart pounding, or so my head informed me as I languished in someone else’s bed when my feet itched to tear through the forest and escape. To escape…

And go where?

I didn’t have any answers my mind liked.

Silence surrounded me, though not the strained sort. For the first time in unknown hours—days—I reveled in a sense of quiet as the panicked, primal instinct to run retreated, the sense of peace that followed distinct from the blood still rushing in my ears.

Pushing all thought aside, I sank into the mattress. Warmth pervaded every limb, weighing me down in a cloud of safety and protection. A heavy quilt covered me, scented like the woodland area that surrounded the cabin. That smelled likehim.

And so did I.

My eyes popped open.

Assault. Cabin.

Wild man.

Everest.

The room rocked, my senses swimming as I fought back the urge to puke as a memory slammed into me. At the speed of a sloth, my body caught up with my brain’s message. I gripped my arms in curled fingers, my torn fingernails scraping at hands that no longer touched me, and found my skin smooth.

Skin I hadn’t dared to touch in the last days, skin that didn’t feel like my own. Too many times I dug my nails into my legs, wanting to tear the flesh from my body, but didn’t have the strength. And so I took the bowl of watery soup I barely tasted when the knock came at my door, ate as I was commanded, and then cried until salt crusted my eyes and I slept again.

This time when I ran my hands over my body, the urge to rend my flesh from my bones and inhabit someone else’s carcass like a shell was absent. This time, I felt like…

Me.

Silky and clean, like someone had spread lotion all over my body.

I blinked at the wooden ceiling, womaned up, and peeked beneath the covers.

The grime and filth that had covered my body from my horrendous streak through the mountains was gone. Someone had washed me, cleaned me, and put me in a hard bed that gave me no doubt about who owned it. I still didn’t know his name apart from the one I’d labeled him with, even though he knew mine. My own fault. I couldn’t face anyone right now. Myself most of all, but that also included dealing with anyone who would start asking questions I didn’t want to—couldn’t—answer.

Everest my mystery man would remain until I had a chance to thank him and find a way off this mountain. The place might have been Mordor for the distance it put between this hidden world and civilization. Because sure as a Sunday roast, I wasnotin civilization.

Just give me a blue check dress, some small dancers, and a scraggly dog.

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