Page 86 of Return of the Bad Girl (Rock Canyon, Idaho 4)

But things were getting heavy, fast. And now she wasn’t sure . . .

“Look, there’s no pressure. You don’t have to tell me.”

“No,” Caroline said abruptly. “Sorry, I’m just . . . I’m ready, okay? Just give me a minute.”

Gabe lay there quietly while Caroline collected herself and finally continued.

“There was this senator my dad was good friends with, and we spent a lot of time with his family. He had a son a year or so older than me, and when he started paying attention to me, I didn’t mind. I was flattered,” she said softly, ashamed that she had been so taken in by Kyle’s deadly charm. “So about six months after my mom’s death, I go to this dinner party with my dad. They were usually pretty boring, and I never liked most of the girls who attended, but Kyle took me to a private game room.”

Closing her eyes, she held Gabe’s hand tighter as she spoke. “I wasn’t supposed to leave the party, but it felt good to be a little bad, you know? I was excited, because out of everyone, he’d picked me to hang out with. He brought down this cherry-flavored punch that was a little syrupy, but I didn’t want to complain. Honestly, though, whenever I smell or taste that artificial cherry flavoring now, I get sick.”

Gabe didn’t say anything; the only move he made was to kiss the top of her head, which was good. Any more interruptions, and she might’ve lost her nerve.

“After a while, though, I just started feeling out of it, and when I tried to get to my room, Kyle took me the rest of the way,” she said, choking on the words as she finished. “I kept drifting in and out of it, but I remember him on top of me, laughing when I begged him to stop.”

“I should have killed the son of a bitch,” Gabe growled.

“As much as I would have loved to see that, it wouldn’t have helped, and you would have gone to prison.”

“Still, the fucker needs to pay,” he said, and the quiet that followed was lengthy. Caroline had a feeling he was wondering why she’d never done something about Kyle.

“You want to know why I never told anyone.” Gabe said nothing, and it was answer enough. Sighing, she sat up with her back to him, pulling her knees into her chest. “Fear, mostly. I was scared as hell of what Kyle might do to me or my sisters. He threatened to . . .” God, even saying the words out loud were terrifying. “The night after it happened, he threatened to do the same thing to my sisters. That if I pressed charges, he’d get out on bail, and they wouldn’t be as lucky as me, because he’d make sure they were awake for everything.”

“How old were your sisters?” Gabe asked, his voice guttural.

“Val was thirteen,” Caroline said, wiping at her watery eyes. “Ellie was only six, though.”

“Jesus, Caroline, the man is sick as fuck,” Gabe said, and she felt the bed shift as he sat up.

“Yeah, I know, but it wasn’t just Kyle’s threats that kept me quiet. I was selfishly afraid that no one would believe me, that my father wouldn’t believe me. I mean, I told my best friend and she didn’t seem to believe me.”

“Listen, no matter what anyone said to you, what that bastard did was not your fault,” Gabe said, his hand on her shoulder. “You have to believe that.”

“You don’t think I told myself that, over and over? I just felt like I couldn’t take the chance. I couldn’t let Kyle take everything from me,” she said, laying her cheek on her kneecap. “But it turns out I did that to myself anyway by letting my emotions eat at me.”

She felt Gabe move before his lips pressed against her bare shoulder. “We all do it. I did it to my best friend, Chase. He had this full-ride academic scholarship to Berkeley, and I was so jealous, I couldn’t even see straight. He was going to get out of town, and I was staying behind. I’d tried not to let it affect me, but when I caught him kissing my sister, suddenly it wasn’t just me he was deserting,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “We all do stupid shit as kids—hell, even as adults. The key is whether or not you can forgive yourself and move on.”

Turning to face him, she asked, “Have you forgiven yourself yet?”

Gabe’s expression clouded, and she almost took it back, until he said, “I’m working on it.”

Caroline snuggled into him and whispered, “I don’t know how to move on from this.”

“I think you already took the first step by talking about it,” he said, trailing kisses across her skin. “The rest will just take time.”

“Is that what helped you? Time?” she asked, enjoying his ministrations.

“That,” he said, dipping his head to kiss along her jaw, “and I realized there was something I wanted, but because of self-loathing, I didn’t feel like I deserved it.”

“Your shop,” she said as her hands smoothed up his arms and over his shoulders.

“No,” he whispered just below her ear. “You.”

Caroline jerked in surprise at his words, unsure how to take them.

“Relax. I just mean that I’ve never risked getting close to a woman because I didn’t think I deserved to be happy,” he said, his hand skimming down her arm. “But with you, I think maybe my karma is starting to turn for the better.”

Laughing nervously, she said, “I don’t think anyone has ever considered me a karmic gift before.”

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