But he couldn’t let down his guard. Couldn’t shake the image of that chain around her ankle, especially with the raw wounds she’d obviously sustained trying to get free.
His throat worked. He’d almost lost her.
“I should have been here,” he said roughly. “Should have trusted my instincts about him. Should have—”
“You found me.” Her hand cupped his face, forcing him to meet her eyes. “You found me, and you brought me home. That’s what matters.”
But as he pulled her close, feeling her heartbeat against his chest, Decker knew it would be a long time before he stopped seeing that cabin in his nightmares.
A long time before he stopped being terrified of losing her again.
Chapter Seventeen
After Decker patched her up with so much care that it brought tears to her eyes, they lay together in their bed, his arms wrapped protectively around her while afternoon light filtered through the curtains. Willow felt safe here, cocooned in his warmth, listening to his steady heartbeat beneath her ear.
Then it hit.
The panic came out of nowhere, slamming into her chest like a freight train. Her breathing turned shallow and rapid, her hands started shaking, and suddenly she was back in that cabin—smelling chemicals, feeling the chain digging into her ankle, hearing Cal’s voice explaining they were meant to be together.
“I can’t breathe!” She tried to pull away from Decker’s embrace even as part of her wanted to burrow deeper into his safety.
“Hey, hey, I’ve got you.” His voice was calm, grounding. He loosened his hold on her, giving her space but he didn’t let her go. “You’re safe, love. You’re home. Just breathe with me.”
But she couldn’t. The tears came hard and fast, her body shaking with sobs she’d been holding back since the moment she’d woken up in that cabin. She thought about the veterans in the therapy program, the ones who dealt with this kind of terror every single day. PTSD and flashbacks, the weight of trauma that never quite left.
“I need…to be…strong.” Her words came in halting bursts through her tears, and she hated how weak she sounded.
“You need to be what you are in this moment.” Decker’s tone was gentle. He stroked the hair off her face “Nothing more.Nobody expects anything of you, Willow. You don’t have to put on a brave front for anybody. Just feel what you’re feeling.” His voice changed, became almost desperate. “God, I wish Rhae was here. She’d know exactly what to say.”
But his touch was steady and his presence unwavering. He held her while she cried softly, whispering reassurances, letting her fall apart without judgment.
“I was afraid I’d never see you again,” she finally whispered against his chest when her tears subsided.
“You doubted I’d come for you?”
“No.” She pulled back enough to meet his eyes. “I doubted you’d get there in time.”
The pain that flashed across his face made her wish she could take the words back, but they were true. She’d known he would come—had never doubted that for a second. But the four hours that Cal left her alone had felt like an eternity, and he’d been so unstable, so unpredictable.
Decker wiped away her tears with the roughened pad of his thumb. “I will always get there in time.Always.”
The certainty in his voice finally broke through the panic. Her breathing slowly steadied, the shaking gradually subsided, and she let herself believe him.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of rest and recovery. Decker and her sisters-in-law brought her trays of food she barely touched and hot tea that soothed her raw throat.
When she woke from fitful naps convinced she was back in the cabin, Decker was there with endless patience to soothe her.
Her brothers came in and out, carrying the scent of snow and horse as they kept themselves busy doing her chores. Each time one of them came in, she saw the worry on their faces, and they never left without making her laugh in some small way.
Navy visited in the late afternoon, climbing onto the bed to show Willow her doll and chatter about seeing “da hossey.”
“You saw the horsey?” She drew the child into her lap to cuddle. That got Navy babbling again.
Finally, they curled up together and fell asleep. When she woke, Navy was gone, carried away by some family member. And Decker…
Decker never left. He sat in the chair by the window when she slept, the tapping of his fingers on the laptop keys as he worked occasionally filtering into her dreams.
And he was there instantly whenever she reached for him. She knew he was being overprotective, that eventually they’d need to find some normalcy, but for now, she was grateful she wasn’t alone.
