Page 8 of Recurve Ridge

Bile coated the inside of my throat as my boss’s voice echoed around my mind, trapped in the confines where his torturous words played on repeat.

My legs trembled. Pressing my weight forward, I stole a little more of the support Everest offered, sucking his warmth into my tainted bones. He nudged me with such a tender grace that I gave in and raised glistening eyes to meet his fathomless gaze. The soul of a mountain god disturbed by a mere mortal stared back. Understanding flooded his face, something akin to awe tinged with regret. He moved sinuously for a man his size, his body twisting, his bulk threatening to consume me.

My reflexes long dulled, I became a voyeur unable to fight off the pending attack as he engulfed me in a protective embrace. Salt streamed into my mouth, bringing with it all the accumulated grit and filth from my short burst through the forest. Frombefore. I pressed my lips into a tight line, caught in his bottomless gaze that held knowledge of too many dark things.

Broken, ruined, I fell into his silent offer of safety and never wanted to leave.

I need to go home, but home won’t want me anymore.

Which left me a begging orphan beyond her depth.

“Easy, Mari.” Everest kept his hold light but firm, clearly expecting the deranged animal in his arms to bolt at the slightest hint of danger. Freeing one hand to tuck my head into his shoulder, he called out to the men behind us.

I ignored his muted words, matching my breaths to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. The regular motion calmed me, the panic that nibbled at the frayed edges of my sanity ebbing.

Enclosing my hand in his, Everest pressed his lips to my temple. His touch offered a simple comfort, a brush of skin that barely equated to a kiss, but the sweet caress gave me a moment’s extra warmth, a contrast to the grabbing?—

NO.

Unaware of my roiling internal conflict, my mountain man marched forward, towing me alongside him. A roar consumed my overstimulated mind. The edges of my vision filled with dark spikes curving inward. Hands jostled me, shifting me from person to person. I tried for logic and failed. My mind took me back to that place, pulled and tugged in every direction.

Everest’s face entered my narrowing vision, my anchor to a world I feared. Concern edged into his verdelite eyes. I made out my name on his arched lips before the world dropped out from beneath me.

This time when the darkness fell, the nightmarish creatures stayed away.

3

ROBE

“What the hellis she doing here? What the hell areyoudoing, bringing her here?” Miller ran a hand over his recently shorn head, bushy brows lowering as he offered me his customary scowl. He flicked a glance at the door to my bedroom, where Mari slept as she had for the past two days whenever I tried to look in on her.

She took to only opening said door to accept the thin soup Alan provided in a stream of endless bowls and freshly baked, buttered bread. When I tried to speak to her, the door shut in my face, though not before I caught a daily glimpse of the haunted eyes that seared soul deep in me. She was hurting, and I wanted to help, but I couldn’t until she let me.

Not that I would allow the same response from her for much longer.

“How is it that we can’t tell anyone about this little piece of hell you’ve corralled us into under strict instructions of secrecy, on pain of death and the like. Fuckhead,” Miller added under his breath. I knew he wasn’t finished. “But you get to have the girl? As per fucking always.” He didn’t bother to disguise the sarcasm in his voice, and for that, I loved him all the more.

The nugget of a man who’d followed me through so many campaigns, took bullets on my behalf, and walked away with the tinge of disgrace to his pedigree instead of a pretty set of medals folded his arms over his barrel chest and glared at me.

Jon shifted at my side, but I held up a hand. “Miller’s correct. He has a right to know what I think at this point. You all do.”

The blond woodsman’s unspoken words hovered between us, though neither of us aired them.

“I need to know.”

And he would. Keeping secrets from the men who gave up everything to stay by my side while my world imploded had never been my intent. Certainly not blacklisting the soldier who backed me every step of my downfall like a stocky, battle-scarred shield.

I didn’t doubt his judgment or his loyalty. That he mistrusted mine in turn motherfucking hurt. They’d searched for her path, tracked her back to a spot that made no sense on the edge of my land. Done everything I asked with no answers. Now it was my turn to reciprocate and earn that trust back, unless I wanted the man with the yellow gaze who glared at her door with his arms folded to storm inside and shred her to pieces both mentally and physically to do what I couldn’t.

Protect us all.

Miller took his duties seriously. A stark reminder of where my loyalties lay.

“She’s a runaway. I found her panicking and flailing in the woods, Miller. And she’s clearly been abused. Are you going to ignore that, pat her on the rump, and send her off to the next house on the ridge? Have a heart, asswipe.”

Alan Dale, stripper and my best source of information about the city that abandoned me, sent the sturdy ex-soldier on the other side of the bar a scathing look.

I pressed my lips into a firm line as Alan beat me to saying the words already formed in my head. For a man whose IQ outweighed that of the entire cohort jammed into my living area, his tact lacked his standard brand of finesse. An unusual slip for him; Alan’s ability to blend was the trump card I kept stowed in my pocket for a rainy day.

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