Page 11 of Montana Silence

“Mara?”

I looked up to find Daniel on the stairs. I hadn’t even heard him come down them, which was a sure sign I was feeling better. The Resting Warrior men tended to be more silent because of their training, but I nearly always heard them.

Daniel didn’t look happy. Not angry either, just…troubled. “Come up to the office for a second? You got a piece of mail, and it’s a bit strange.”

My eyebrows rose. Weird. I didn’t get mail. The very small amounts I did get were the standard junk mail sent to anyone with a pulse. I didn’t sign up for much, and my name wasn’t on anything official when it came to Resting Warrior. Most everything I did was via email, but even that…I didn’t do often.

I followed Daniel up to the office. It was getting a little out of hand, stacks of paper on his desk and piles of mail. I made a note to come in here and do some dusting the next time he left the lodge. The man probably wouldn’t care if there was a hole in the roof while he worked, but it was my job to keep the place clean, and I was going to do it.

“One of the boxes I picked up at the post office today. It didn’t have your name on it, just the Resting Warrior main address, but when I opened it—” he shrugged “—seems pretty clear that it’s for you. Is everything all right?”

He gestured to a box sitting on one of the chairs, and I frowned. It was a relatively small square box and nothing I immediately recognized. Had I ordered something? On super-rare occasions I ordered something online and had it delivered, but I couldn’t remember doing so recently.

The flaps had dropped shut, and I pulled them open.

I froze.

A pile of white silk lay in the box. Shapes were embroidered on the thin, sheer fabric. Flowers and smaller symbols I didn’t want to remember. Things that represented a man—and a group of men—I never wanted to think about again.

I reached out and picked up the pile of fabric. My hands didn’t feel like my hands at the moment. They belonged to someone else, someone who was only moving because she had to.

The thin band went around your forehead…

Bile burned low in my throat, sickness threatening. I would know this veil anywhere, because I’d seen it every day for almost a year. Embroidery like this took time, and I’d done everything in my power to make it take longer. All the women in the cult were tasked with making the dress and veil for the brides of honor. The woman—

The girl. Not one of them had been a woman. The girl was chosen to marry him and, by extension, every man in the compound. To be shared however they wished.

It was anhonor. They insisted. Only the best and the purest were chosen, and when the dress and veil were complete, the marriage was formed. The only piece of color on the frothy confection of fabric was my name, sewn in red on the inside of it.

I looked at Daniel, and he was studying me with concern. What did he think this was? They didn’t know. Not about this. What would they think of me when they knew what I’d been chosen for? What kind of person makes it seem like she’s perfect to be married to twenty men? Was that how many there were? More? I couldn’t remember.

Whatever peace I’d found in the last few minutes was gone. I needed to go. I needed to be away from here. And I couldn’t tell Daniel about this. I needed—

My thoughts ground to a stop again. Where did this come from? He was in jail.Malcolm was in jail. Wasn’t he?

Icy dread poured over me like someone had dumped the entire body of Flathead Lake on my head. I tossed the veil back into the box and shut the top like it was a live snake I was trying to contain. “I—”

Only tightness in my chest. Speaking felt like unleashing poison. But he had to let me go. “Need to go.”

“Mara, if you need help—”

I snatched the box. “Rayne,” I managed the name before I grabbed the box and sprinted for the stairs. Even the therapist who partnered with the ranch didn’t know everything, but she knew enough to understand. I just had to get to her.

“Mara.” Daniel’s voice called behind me, and I shook my head. I couldn’t stop. If I stopped, it would all catch up to me, and I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

Who was I kidding? I wasn’t handling it. At all.

“Mara.” Daniel’s voice was firm, and I looked over my shoulder. He wasn’t following me. “Take a different truck than normal, please. The guys were working on the one you prefer this morning.”

I blinked. That wasn’t what I thought he’d say. I was sure he’d call me back and demand to know why the hell a wedding veil had shown up at the ranch with my name sewn into it. But he just nodded when I chose a different set of keys. “Be careful.”

Careful.

Nodding, I pushed out the front door and down the steps to the truck, tossing the box on the bench seat and making it slide as far away from me as it could be without falling out the other side.

Apparently careful was what I hadn’t been, if the veil was showing up here. But more than that, was he out? It was all I could think about. Did they let him go without telling me? They wouldn’t do that, right? The man was in jail for a sex crime. With minors. It had been nearly twelve years since the conviction, which meant he was supposed to be in jail for another twenty-three.

Not a day went by that I didn’t think about the number and feel relieved by it.

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