Page 59 of Recurve Ridge

I was under no illusions that the other men weren’t as brutal in their own way. The whole situation should have made me run for the proverbial hills, but I hid within their walls instead. Robe and Jon went about their days oblivious to the dark glances both Miller and Will shot my way, though each had his different reasons. Tension grew every time Will stood close to me, but other changes tweaked the dynamic of our odd group.

After Alan’s return, the fragile trust I’d brokered with Miller dissipated as though it had never existed. He refused to speak to me again, though his glares were gifted to me on a regular basis. All training stopped. Robe provided emotional distance between us despite remaining physically close, his usual sentinel self without the comfort, leaving me once again an island in a sea of wary mountain men. Alan caught my eye more than once, watchful and knowing. His smirk told me I hid nothing, even if the rest of the household remained oblivious to my plan to stay sane.

Those days fast transformed into one lost week and then another, each running into the next until I couldn’t remember which month we were in. Spring set in, and I woke one morning to a bird call I didn’t recognize and bright green foliage that took over Robe’s corner of the world. Even the air smelled warmer from where I sat at the small table in the kitchen by the window. Robe still tried to get me to talk about who hurt me, but the more he probed with targeted questions on details he shouldn’t have known, the more certain I became that someone had searched me on the internet or whatever they used for communications out here—a log TV, for all I knew.

On rare occasions, I wondered if anyone had looked for me. The UK girls I never socialized with, the family I never called, who disapproved and wouldn’t want me back anyway. All I didbeforewas work long hours six days a week for Gideon and then sleep through the next day. Rinse, repeat.

Over and over again.

Like in a toxic relationship, he stripped away my hours until family and friends faded, leaving only him in my future. And now, I didn’t have that either.

My island shrank by the day, shared by an intense style of brotherhood that irritated me, drove me nuts with their overprotective streaks, and gave me anxiety attacks when they didn’t turn up after dark. But they weren’t the only things that went bump outside the cabin.

Determined not to be afraid of him, I confronted my old boss’s shade as often as I could, walking in the forest beside Robe, knowing he provided a safety net if I crumbled. The more I reflected on my prior life, the more I recognized my situational blindness, both then and now.

No visible office leapt out at me within the house, though a single locked door I’d tried too many times to count denied me entry. Not that I had many chances to try, given Miller’s renewed mistrust. I began to understand the men I coexisted beside, adding tiny fragments of each of their personalities to my new, somewhat tarnished, armor.

Things I liked started to turn up on the nightstand beside Robe’s bed. An e-book reader arrived filled with my TBR from home, then a mug of chicken soup. A hairbrush and products to tame my curls that I suspected came from Robe’s sister were neatly packed away in the bathroom. Pain medication, contraception, and tampons neatly packaged in a basket containing glitter indicative of Alan’s flair were a welcome relief and right on time as my stress-delayed monthly finally made an appearance.

Finally, a potted orchid arrived.

I nearly cried, running my fingers over the leaves and watering it stupid until Will crept in and took my plastic cup away with promises to bring it back when the plant recovered from my overzealous affection.

Each night, Robe slipped into my borrowed bed, clothed in whatever he wore that day, his huge frame wrapped around me as I slept. When the nightmares became too much for him to handle alone, Jon joined us. The first time, it had seemed odd, but my sleepy head accepted the peace offering. The two huge men sandwiched me between them, providing me with a barrier from my demons in a restricted space that somehow appealed to the new broken me. Their combined presence beat my night demons away, allowing me a dreamless, restful sleep.

Alan spoiled me with music and dancing during the day, while Jon helped my body heal with lotions and taught me gentle stretches. The bruises, long faded, were etched soul deep. Just because I couldn’t see them any more didn’t mean they weren’t still a part of me. Invisible scars ran the length of my body, and aches hit me at random intervals on nights when I slept in Robe’s too-large bed alone.

Those were the nights I suspected he wasn’t in the house at all, though when I asked, he would lie to me and say he slept with someone else. It wasn’t his eyes that gave him away but rather Miller’s, the hard man’s yellow gaze sliding away, his jaw ticking until he left the room in his typical style.

I didn’t push, too scared that Robe might finally say my tenure in the cabin was up. What I wanted and the reality of being shoved out on my own clashed in my head, and so I remained silent—and scared—until he returned to me and I slept again.

Bless Will for his good cheer and enthusiasm, the kid with his own demons who wanted to help everyone. After the months I’d spent in the cabin, I’d ingrained myself into their lives, and they were mine.

Most of them, anyway.

Then came the crux. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to face what and who resided in the darkness outside the invisible barrier of Robe’s home. I couldn’t walk through the door on my own or return to work. I didn’t want to find out who hadn’t looked for me, or their reasonfor not making me the focal point of a search party.

What Ididwant was for my picture to feature on the back of a milk carton like a loved child, something I never could claim to have been. That would never happen for one simple reason, no matter how my head told me to at leastpretendto want to be found.

Gideon would never allow it.

15

MARI

Hair clungto my cheek where I’d drooled on myself overnight. For a hard man and a harder bed, the damn thing eased tired muscles with the type of luxury reserved for royalty. On the nights and mornings I woke alone, I wondered where Robe slept while I occupied his bedroom. If he’d shared another’s bed.

When that happened, a huge part of me wished he’d crashed with me.

Shoving my hair back off my face, I stumbled to the bathroom and threw cold water on my flushed skin. I didn’t need the change in temperature from outside to wake me up; the icy tank water did its job just fine. Throwing an extra layer on filled my need for comfort. Those thin layers of thermals were pretty much what I lived in now.

The cold mountain air differed from the bite of a British winter even as the spring climate drifted into being. There, a permeating cold reigned. Bitter and icy on wet days, chilly winter sun offered a facade of heat in clear weather. Here, the breeze kissed my skin with a fresh chill still, absent the numbing bolt of my initial traipse through the woods. Here, I could breathe.

Thinking about home didn’t have the same sense of loss as before, as though my perception had shifted. Still, the ache of knowing that Mom and D—my family would never take me back remained. I couldn’t process that and buried the thought deep to avoid having to deal with it yet again.

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

I might as well wrap my previous life in police tape and lock it away. And I couldn’t go back. Nope. No way was I doing this right now.

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