Page 28 of The Fence Between Us

Relaxing against him, she waited for him to do the same and felt his resistance crumbling and he finally settled against her back. The warmth of his large body curving around hers quickly lulled her closer to sleep. As she drifted off, she thought she felt him sigh into her hair, kissing her sweetly, tenderly.

When the sky was at its darkest, Skye awoke with a start, her heart thudding loudly. Her eyes darted around the dark cabin, searching for what had woken her from the deep sleep she’d been in. The hoarse cry sounded again, part anguish, part rage, all escaping the lips of the man lying beside her. She tried to turn over, but Rabble had wrapped his arms tightly around her. She struggled to maneuver over until she faced him. His eyes, scrunched tight beneath the lids, flitted from side to side. A dream. A nightmare. He was trapped in a nightmare.

“Matthew.” She ran her fingers through his hair and down his jaw, feeling the scruff of his beard against her palm. She traced a path across his brow, but try as she might, Skye couldn’t break through the haze of sleep that held him in its grasp. So, she did the only thing she could think of that might calm him. She began to hum.

When his eyes opened into slits, they were haunted in more ways than one. She didn’t ask about his dream; he wouldn’t have told her even if she did. He had enough horror in his past that any number of things could have been plaguing him.

“You’re humming my mother’s song.” His voice broke with emotion and disbelief. “You remember her song?”

“Of course I remember.” Skye’s lips tipped up at the corners.

Rabble’s mom had been a sweet woman with a quiet voice that invoked feelings of sunny days and warm blankets. She’d drawna short-stick sometime early in life and ended up with a hateful, abusive husband and a beautiful, burdened little boy. More than anything else, Skye’s heart had broken for Rabble when that car crash took everything from him, but she’d heard Mrs. Raden sing her song to Rabble more than a few times over the years they’d been neighbors.

Skye tipped her head up, coaxing his chin down until she found his lips with her own. She intended a gentle, reassuring press of her lips to his, a kiss full of her love and compassion through that brief contact.

Before she could pull back, Matthew rolled over, pinning her with his hips. He took her mouth in a passionate, claiming kiss, one that spoke of hunger and longing as well as regret and pain. She relinquished complete control to him and his take-charge personality. She tangled her fingers in his hair, relishing in the silky softness of the strands. He kissed down her neck, and the scrape of his stubble on her sensitive skin made her shiver.

They matched each other, want for want, need for need.

Finally, finally,her heart chanted as they let themselves explore the fire that had burned between them for years without acceptance. He held her tightly through the night, his rough, reverent hands gentle on her skin. She felt safe. Cherished. Beautiful. Loved.

The morning sun rose, its warm light streaming through the curtains in thin shafts, dappled by the thick foliage of the trees surrounding the cabin. Rabble curled around Skye, his thumb rubbing soft circles on her hip as she drifted into an exhausted and sated, dreamless sleep, contented for the first time in years.

Chapter 17

Rabble

Rabble had no words for what Skye gifted him during the night, at least no words in his vocabulary. The time they spent just talking had been cathartic, cleansing old wounds that festered for far too long. They weren’t quite healed, but it was a chance to start again. When Skye began yawning, Rabble knew they both need rest.

Sleeping beside her had never been the plan. He’d slept on the ground often enough; at least he had blankets this time. When she invited him under the covers, he nearly swallowed his tongue, and he barely contained the groan that rose in his throat at the warmth of her body next to his.

Sleep came more swiftly than he anticipated, but the peace he expected to follow their conversation didn’t last. In his dreams, moments from his past blended seamlessly with fears for the future. The middle of a sandy, scorched battlefield where his friends lay in pieces. A car accident where he lay alongside his mother, her neck broken. Another crude cross he had to carve, her ashes carelessly discarded like her life had been. And Skye’sattacker chasing her from scene to scene, a sinister shadow with no face or discernable features but who left her broken, bloodied, and lost to Rabble.

But then a low, calming sound drifted to him through the horrible dreamscape. It took a moment longer than it should have for him to recognize the haunting melody. The soothing notes drifted into his dreams, wrapping themselves around his soul. He hummed the same song when he had a particularly rough day with his father and escaped to the fence, hoping Skye would already be there, waiting. She never asked about the song, not that he remembered, but that melancholy tune freed him from his nightmare. That, and the way she’d whispered his name, Matthew.

The moment his given name passed her lips, he was gone. No one called him Matthew. He introduced himself as Rabble to everyone he met, and he was okay with that. He enjoyed it, especially since she’d been the one to give him that name all those years ago.

The sun, high in the sky, headed toward the western horizon when Rabble woke, feeling well and truly rested for the first time in years. Skye still slept peacefully in his arms, and he took a few minutes just to watch her breathing, the blankets rising and falling with her steady breaths. He wanted nothing more than to keep reality away for a little longer, to keep her here, safe and wrapped in his arms, peaceful by his side.

Tucking the sheets around her, he slipped from the bed and found his phone on the folding-card table. He unlocked the screen, which lit up with several missed texts from Declan and Dash checking in. Rabble fired off a quick response, letting them know he and Skye were fine. They planned to rendezvous for a late dinner at the bed and breakfast, giving him a few more hours with Skye.

His Skye.

After taking care of his morning routine, Rabble slid back under the covers and brushed Skye’s bed-tangled hair away from her face. She shifted sleepily and wrinkled her nose before opening her eyes into slits.

“What time is it?” she groaned, stretching from head to toe, sheets slipping around her.

“Time to get up,” he murmured, despite wanting to do the exact opposite. If only he could stay in this worn-out, twin-sized bed with her all day, tangled up in the sheets that smelled of them.

Thirty minutes later, Rabble hadn’t stopped smiling since Skye finally dragged herself from the bed. She was a grump in the morning, which he found adorable. Equally, she found him annoying; she’d told him so, at least until he fed her a wild berry pop-tart and poured her a thermos of coffee. Rabble wished he had more to offer her, but the cabinets were bare, and he hadn’t exactly planned on visiting when they made their early morning journey to the cabin.

As it was, he made a mental note to thank Dash for the supplies he dropped off, along with that pizza. His brother not only had the foresight to include a few basic groceries but he also had packed a few pairs of clothing for each of them. Admittedly, he likely needed to thank Elyza for the array of supplies.

Rabble locked the door behind them as they left, and set off into the woods behind the hunting cabin. He kept her fingers laced with his own as they dodged branches, vines, and thorns. A thick layer of leaf litter covered the ground, and Rabble couldn’t help but chuckle as he lifted Skye over a fallen log and her feet disappeared in a deep pile of leaves on the other side.

“Where are we going?” she asked when they stopped for a break. She frowned, realizing her coffee thermos was empty.

Rabble passed her a bottle of water, warmth creeping up his neck. “As a child, there were two places I loved to go, under thefence and down here to the river. It runs across the back of the property and is beautiful year-round. When you weren’t home and after, well, later, I came here.”

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