Page 57 of Handling Skylar
I choked on my fear and revulsion. Trying to back away, but his unrelenting hold was like iron, his face thrust against mine. He leaned in, his eyes going to my mouth, the light in them lascivious and unbalanced at the same time.
“I’ll let you go to the bathroom if you give me a kiss.” The longing in his voice made me sick.
I wanted to spit in his face, but I knew that he would blow up and maybe lose any affection, real or imagined, he had for me. My rejection would set him off. I fended off the disgust and dread. He’d killed five people, my gut clenched with hatred at this person who had taken away everyone I had loved. I could only pray he hadn’t harmed Jake. There was nothing, except his perceived love for me to keep him from killing me.
“All right, Adam, but I need my hands free so that I can hold you the way I want to.” I kept my voice even with just a tinge of breathlessness and knew I’d gotten an advantage when I saw the hunger in his eyes. I’d been the object of his worship for eight years. I needed to work that. I smiled, trying to imagine I was with Jake and it worked. I immediately relaxed, and Adam made a soft sound that rippled over my skin like crawling spiders.
He stared at me for a moment, his feverish eyes, the unhinged look of him spurred me on. He had terrible plans for me, least of all taking me away from Suttontowne to this cabin in the woods he kept babbling about. I had no intention of becoming his victim. It was fight or live as this man’s slave until he tired of me and killed me. I had no intention of becoming a statistic. I was going to survive.
For moments that felt like days, he stared at me as if he was trying to read my mind. But I kept my face soft and neutral. “Please, Adam,” I pleaded, trying to still the twist of nerves in my stomach. “I promise I won’t do anything but show you exactly how I feel about you.”
He smiled, his delusional mind seeing what he wanted to see. I let go of my pent-up breath on a sigh. He reached for my wrists and worked at the bindings. When my hands were free, I slid my palms up his arms to his shoulders. With an explosive movement and with all the force I could muster, I brought my knee up into his groin. As soon as he cried out and doubled over, I reached for the bedside lamp and smashed it over his head. I bolted for the door, my breathing harsh in my lungs, fueled by terror. I ran for the stairs feeling as if I was in quicksand and everything was happening in slow motion. When I heard him bellow my name, my heart jumped, adrenaline drop loading into my bloodstream. My hands slick on the banister, I rushed down the stairs, my eyes hitting the front door. Freedom!
I reached for the door knob and twisted it frantically. The door didn’t budge. It was locked. Oh, God.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Help! Someone help me!”
He grabbed me from behind in a choking grip, cutting off my voice and my air. As the room dimmed, all I thought about was Jake and how much he meant to me. How much I—the door burst open and Jake stood there with the Outlaws.
Four big, beautiful men, dressed to the nines, towering over Adam’s spindly form. Blue eyes blazing with threat and protective glints. A wall of muscle barreled toward me as Jake growled my name, forces of nature, their fists clenched and mayhem in their eyes.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Adam cried out and released my neck and I stumbled toward Jake, choking. They were on him, beating him into submission as Jake pulled me against him, and I clung to him, bursting into wrenching tears as if each successive breath I would need to live was him.
***
Two weeks later.
I huddled in the warmth of my sheepskin jacket standing on the outskirts where my brother and parents had lost their lives because of a maniac who had fixated on me. It was now occupied by a beautiful stone and wooden ranch house, cherry red barns, horses and cattle grazing in the nearby fields, the fencing all pretty, white and new.
That night came back to me in full force. But it wasn’t Adam Myers and his brutal treatment of me that I remembered. It was Jake looking like he would kill Adam with his bare hands that resonated with me.
The sheriff had arrested him, and Adam, blubbering like a baby, had confessed to everything—the murders, the arson, his obsession with me. Still in shock, heartbroken and sick with guilt, I’d told a devastated and worried Jake that nothing had changed. I had to get away from the memories that were killing me by slow degrees.
I’d had no intention of going back, no matter how tormenting my thoughts were of Jake and how much I missed him.
I crouched down, the charred remains of my past had all been swept away and something beautiful and prosperous had replaced it.
No, I hadn’t thought I would go back.
Then the package from Jordan came in the mail. When I’d opened it, I couldn’t believe what was inside. It had brought me to my knees and Jake’s card had twisted me up so hard, I was still reeling from his words.
Ah, Jake, a swell of suffocating emotion waved through me. Who was I kidding? I was the only one who was fooling myself. I was so in love with him that I was darned scared to admit it.
That precious gift and two words he’d said had set me on this road, brought me back here to where the nightmare had all started.
I reached for a handful of soil and let it sift through my fingers. I could hear my father’s booming voice, see my mom’s beaming face.This here soil is where you came from. Don’t forget that, baby girl. But this dirt isn’t our legacy. No, honey. It’s all that came before and all that will come afterward. That’s the kind of thing you can take to the bank. The spirit of us all will prevail.
Here I thought nothing lasted forever, but I’d been wrong. It was what you built in your life that lived on in generations to come, I realized, fighting a swell of tears, my throat tight and painful. I closed my eyes against the steadfast knowledge that I was a blending of my parents. In my body their genes lived. In my heart, their love remained and in my head, memories of them would last a lifetime.
It was my turn to make my mark and build my own legacy where I would keep them alive forever. Emotion welled and my tears spilled over, tears of understanding, of letting go and hanging on as I rubbed the grit of the soil between my fingers. I’d see them in my children’s eyes, the essence of them stamped in living memory. I wanted to take that journey with no one other than Jake Sutton. Living without him wasn’t an option. I struggled with it every day. The scandal in Suttontowne might be minimized without me there, but, suddenly, I decided that outside forces wouldn’t dictate to me ever again how I was going to respond.
I was going with my heart, head and gut. Jake was the man for me. Would be the only one for me. I loved him and I was going home…home…to tell him that.
Chapter 17
JAKE
I’d shut myself up in Sky’s house, the lingering scent of her both tormenting and comforting to me. There wasn’t a minute of each day that hadn’t passed without me thinking of her. I wanted her back, the torment of losing her, of that bastard driving a wedge between us, adding a tormenting layer to all the pain and agony of losing the people she’d loved. I understood her guilt.
