Page 65 of Wilde and Untamed
He tried the door. It opened without resistance, and steam came pouring out. Keeping his gaze averted, he stepped inside.
“Hey, Rue, I found something. It’s not Maren’s notes but?—”
Rue sat hunched under the weak spray, hair streaming down her back in a sodden tangle, arms locked around her knees. Her parka and fleece clung to her in sopping layers, water pooling at her boots. She shivered anyway.
Elliot didn’t think. He just moved, dropping the box of files and going to her.
She didn’t look up when he joined her under the spray and folded himself around her. She smelled of damp wool and sharp minerals from the water, the outside cold still clinging to her like it had seeped into her very bones. But beneath it all was the faint smell of her skin, that earthy, wild, feminine scent that had driven him crazy for years—stubborn proof she was still here, still alive, and God help him, still his to hold.
twenty-four
She’d alwaysassumed grief would hit like a punch—a single, decisive blow, pain detonating across the soul, then fading into something dull and livable. Turns out, it was more like the Antarctic wind: relentless and circling, clawing its way in through any exposed seam, stripping raw what you’d meant to keep hidden.
Rue turned the water as hot as it would go, yanked off her ruined glove. Her fingers were numb, her ring finger leaking blood from where the ice had torn it. She forced herself under the spray, letting it scald her skin. She needed it to seep into every cell, to burn out the dead cold that had climbed inside her and taken up residence in place of her heart.
Maren was gone.
Maren, who’d taught her to ice climb in Banff when they were barely out of college. Maren, who’d pulled her from a crevasse in Patagonia when a foothold gave way. Maren, who called her “Reckless Rue” with equal parts exasperation and admiration.
Maren, who was never supposed to die like this.
“I should have come sooner,” she muttered to herself, to Maren, to no one at all. Water ran down her face—from theshower or her eyes, she couldn’t tell anymore. “I knew you wouldn’t have died in some stupid accident on the ice.”
She braced her hands against the tile and let her head drop forward, forehead pressed hard enough it should hurt. The water streamed down her neck, pooled briefly at her collar, drenched her shirt, ran in rivers over her boots. She waited for the shaking to stop.
It didn’t.
She wasn’t supposed to be the one falling apart. She’d built every atom of herself for survival. She trained herself on stubbornness, on comfort with discomfort.
But she couldn’t hold herself together now.
Her legs finally gave out, and she collapsed fully to her knees on the hard tile floor. The water beat down on her shoulders, her head, unrelenting in its assault. She let it come, let the heat sear her skin as the truth seared her soul.
The tears she’d been fighting since they’d entered the cold storage room finally broke free, tearing from her throat in ragged sobs that shook her entire body. She wrapped her arms around herself, hunching forward, feeling years of practiced control crumble away.
Rue Bristow didn’t cry. Rue Bristow laughed in the face of danger, jumped without looking, lived on the edge because that was where she felt most alive. But here, on her knees in an abandoned shower stall at the bottom of the world, with the evidence of her friend’s murder still fresh in her mind, she finally broke.
The grief she’d kept at bay since Maren disappeared a year ago crashed over her in waves, leaving her hollow and shaking under the relentless water. She cried for Maren, for the others who had died in this station, for the truth that was worse than any nightmare she could have imagined. But mostly, she criedfor herself—for the foolish hope she’d carried that somehow, against all odds, she might find Maren alive.
Through the curtain of water and tears, she became vaguely aware of Elliot. He was here, talking, but she didn’t look up, couldn’t bear to be seen like this, cracked open and raw. She wrapped her arms tighter around her knees as her body continued to shake with sobs she couldn’t control.
Then came the sound of footsteps hurrying toward her.
Elliot didn’t speak. He didn’t tell her it would be okay, didn’t offer empty platitudes about Maren being in a better place. He didn’t try to pull her to her feet or suggest they needed to keep moving. He simply folded his arms around her and held her tight against his chest. For once, someone wasn’t asking her to lead, to be strong, to have all the answers.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, his lips close to her ear, the words nearly lost under the rush of water.
She relaxed against him. “She was my friend. I told her not to take the contract. I told her Atlas Frost was sketchy, but she said I was being paranoid.”
Elliot’s arms tightened around her, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head, fingers threading through her wet hair. He didn’t try to shush her or tell her to save her strength. He just listened, his heartbeat steady under her ear, his breath warm against her temple.
“She was the careful one. Always had backup plans for her backup plans.” Rue’s fingers curled into his shirt, digging into the wet fabric as fresh tears spilled over. “If they got to her, what chance do we have?”
“We know what we’re up against,” Elliot said simply, his voice a low rumble she felt more than heard.
Something in his tone made her look up. Water streamed down his face, plastering his light brown hair to his forehead, catching in his eyelashes. His beautiful blue eyes met hers, andfor a moment, she was sixteen again, watching him across a campfire in Wyoming, wondering what it would be like to be loved by someone so steady, so sure.
She pressed her face back against his chest. “I should have been here,” she whispered. “I should have insisted on coming with her.”
