He handed her the trekking poles, indicating the door with the duffel bag he’d picked up.
The moment the cool breeze touched Leila’s face, she felt so much better. The day was beautiful. Not too cold, certainly not overly hot. There was no fog swirling through the trees, just a million shades of green surrounding them. The house was in a very small clearing, the towering trees and thick brush several feet back from the cabin.
“Rubin and I like to see what’s coming at us,” he explained.
“What if you get trapped in the cabin?” She couldn’t imagine, but if someone did sneak up on them, they would have a problem disappearing into the forest.
“Three escape routes, Warrior Woman. I’ll show them to you when we go in this evening.”
She liked that they were going to be outside for several hours. They walked slowly along a faint trail toward the destination Diego clearly had in mind.
“You said you mostly healed animals before you did surgery on me. Tell me about those animals and how you came about helping them.” She not only loved the sound of his voice and wanted him talking to her, but she wanted to know everything there was to know about him. She knew he loved animals—probably more than he did humans.
He matched her pace. She was a little awkward using the trekking poles. It wasn’t something she was used to, and she needed to establish a rhythm. More than anything, she was weak, and that made her cautious. She didn’t want to fall on her face and have Diego decide it was too early for her to be outside. His voice would distract her and keep her moving even when she felt a little out of breath.
“The first time I ever healed an animal was my sister Lucy’s pet rabbit. We weren’t allowed pets, but she’d found some baby bunnies all alone. All of the babies in the nest were dead but one. Most likely we had eaten the mother, but none of us told her that. Lucy managed to keep that one alive. She really fought for that little thing.”
He matched her steps for a couple of minutes in silence and then strode ahead of her. She could see two camp chairs placed side by side in a small opening facing the trees. He set the duffel bag down and came back to escort her.
“You were telling me about the baby bunny and your sister Lucy.”
He took the trekking poles from her and helped to lower her slowly into one of the camp chairs. “My sister Lucy liked to sing. She was a ray of sunshine dancing around the house. Even when she did chores, and she did a ton of them, she danced and sang. She put that little baby rabbit in a sling around her chest to keep it warm. You have to understand our mother thought singing and dancing was a sin. A big dark, black, ugly sin. That meant Lucy would have to be subjected to an exorcism, according to our mother. She said Lucy had the devil in her and it needed to come out.”
He paused and looked down at Leila. She hadn’t considered that he was that much taller, but he seemed to tower over her. His features were once again hard, giving him that brutal edge. His mouth looked almost cruel. His look alone set her heart pounding, but she refused to look away. She looked beyond the intimidation to the rage inside him. And it was rage. Deep.
He didn’t look away from her, even knowing what he was revealingto her. He let her see the killer in him. That was there in his eyes. She could have sworn she saw flames leaping behind those dark angry eyes.
“Tell me,” she whispered, reaching out to place her hand gently over his wrist.
His first instinct was to jerk away from her, but he didn’t. He continued looking down at her with the eyes of a savage predator. She refused to look away or be intimidated. She absolutely knew she was the safest person in the world from him.
“Tell me, honey,” she encouraged.
“My sister was sunshine and light. She was one of the few bright spots in our home, and yet because she dared to sing or dance, our mother had to do her best to extinguish her light. I could barely stand by and watch the things our mother did to her, all in the name of what was holy. Lucy didn’t utter a single word no matter what was done to her.”
Leila found herself holding her breath. She knew something terrible was about to be revealed. Diego’s expression didn’t change. His voice remained low and without inflection. Still, she knew, and air caught in her lungs and burned.
“It wasn’t enough for her that she hurt Lucy. Our mother ripped that little rabbit from the sling Lucy made, and she flung it across the room toward the fireplace. It hit the pipe and landed on the floor. Before our mother could stomp on it, I snatched it up and was gone. I was fast, really fast, and once in the forest, even Rubin wouldn’t be able to find me if I didn’t want to be found.”
“You knew she would punish you.”
“I’d stopped giving a damn what she did to me a couple of years earlier. In any case, Rubin blocked the doorway, giving me even more time to get under cover. The rabbit was in bad shape, with two broken bones. I wasn’t going to allow it to die. I knew I could heal it. I felt a well of heat and energy rising when I put my handsover the little body. Weirdly, I could see inside the rabbit’s body just by laying my palms over it. I could easily map out every bruise and every broken bone.”
“Was it scary to realize you were seeing inside the rabbit? I think that would have both elated and horrified me.” Leila couldn’t imagine making that discovery or knowing what to do with it after she found out she was able to look inside a creature.
His gaze swept the trees and along the ground, then he took a seat next to her. She noticed he did that often. Searching for tracks, always alert to his surroundings. She had always thought she was wary, but Diego was clearly a cut above her when it came to vigilance.
“I can’t say I was horrified. I was overcome with the need to fix everything wrong. I could feel heat rising in me, radiating through my palms. It was difficult to control the temperature, and I was fearful of killing the baby rabbit myself. It took time to figure out how to use that energy to heal the bruising and the broken bones.”
She didn’t understand the sorrow in his voice. It didn’t show in his expression, but his dark eyes had taken on a haunted quality. She couldn’t help herself. Uncaring that he might reject her, she stood, swayed only for a moment, and took the couple of steps to his side. She straddled him, sitting fully on his lap, half expecting him to push her off. It was just that there was too much pain in his eyes. Comforting him was a compulsion impossible to ignore.
Diego looked shocked. He hadn’t expected her to notice his distress, let alone react to it. She had the feeling no one had ever made an effort to comfort him. Or no one had cared enough to see he needed it. She leaned into him and brushed a kiss over his lips.
“Did the rabbit die?” She nuzzled his throat and then laid her head against his chest. She wanted him to tell her what had happened next to cause that look in his eyes.
“No.” He cleared his throat, and his arms circled her with unexpected fierceness. “No, the rabbit lived. It’s just that Lucy…”
He trailed off and buried his face between her shoulder and neck, sending a million goose bumps rising on her skin. She shivered and burrowed closer. Diego’s arms tightened to steel bands. He brushed a kiss on top of her head.
