I stare down at her, struck dumb that she came out here worrying about me. After what she went through, she’s checking on me?
Me?
“Darlin’, I…”
When I can’t find the words, I gather her into my lap and hold her with my face against her throat, breathing in the scent of her skin. Having her in my arms, her breath warm on my skin, quiets the rage inside me like nothing else could have.
“I wish I could kill him for you,” I tell her, my breath ragged. “I have never literallyachedto kill anyone more than when I heard what he did to you.”
Her arms tighten around me, and her voice is quiet when she speaks. “I wish I’d left him long before I did. I kept telling myself I would leave. Day after day. And I just… didn’t. I could have saved myself so much pain if I’d just walked away.”
Her heart beats a steady rhythm against my chest, the sound soothing me in ways almost nothing has before. “Sweetheart, I don’t want to imagine what it was like for you. How hard. How painful…” I shake my head. “I’ve never loved someone and watched them turn into a monster right in front of me. Don’t blame yourself for staying. I don’t. You shouldn’t either.”
I’ve never loved anyone before. There were relationships I thought were love, but they never felt like this.Ihave never felt like this before.
I want to make her smile, make her laugh, keep her safe, kill anyone who eventhinksof looking at her wrong. I want her to make me her world because in the month I spent watching over her at the diner, she became the center of mine.
“He changed so slowly at first I thought it was all in my head,” she says. “And no one could see the monster in him but me. Even now, if I were to go back to Oregon, everyone would tell me he messed up with his drinking, but he was always a good guy and couldn’t understand why I would divorce him.”
Wanting to comfort her, I run my hand up her back, fisting her hair and tucking her face against my throat, needing her closer. Needing her in a way I couldn’t have explained in the house.
Maybe that’s why I came out here. I didn’t need to wrestle this rage into a box where Maisie couldn’t see it and be afraid of it. I needed her alone, like this, to hold.
But I release a quiet sigh when a gust of wind slices over my bare arms. “Darlin’, it’s cold out here. You should be inside where it’s warm. Not out here freezing with me.”
She peels her face from my throat and peers up at me, ice-blue eyes reddened from her tears. “Is it okay if you hold me for a bit longer? I’m not ready to let you go yet.”
Her words tunnel into my heart, and all my rage evaporates into dust.
A crooked smile lifts one corner of my mouth, and I tuck a strand of curly strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear. “Funny, I need the same thing.”
With a grin, she burrows close again, and my arms tighten around her.
Maisie feels so damn good perched on my lap, the curve of her ass tucked up against my erection. I’d love nothing more than to pick her up, carry her up to my bed and spend the rest of the evening and all of tonight making love to her, but not now.
“The second you walked out of the room, I knew something was wrong.” She pulls her face from my throat to meet my gaze, lifting her right hand and pressing it to her chest. Over her heart. “I felt it here. I keep telling myself I should squash this feeling because as long as I’m here with you, you aren’t safe, but I can’t. I hurt when you hurt, and when I’m in your arms all my pain is so quiet.”
Few words have brought me close to tears. I’ve always kept my emotions locked up tight, only letting Hunter, Knox, and Elias get close enough. Hearing about Maisie’s abuse came close.
These words don’t just threaten to tip me over the edge. They nearly drag me over. Knowing Maisie has developed feelings for me. Knowing I have the ability to silence her pain makes me feel like the luckiest guy in the world.
“Are you telling me you love me?” I choke out.
Her eyes are watery, and her smile is wobbly. “I think I am.”
I crush her against my chest, holding her tight. “Fuck. I love you too, darlin’. I feel like I was put on this planet to love you.”
My spine stiffens at the sound of an approaching car.
I start to lift her so I can take her inside where it’s safe when Maisie says, “It’s okay, Wyatt. That’s the sheriff.”
I cock my head. “Thesheriff?”
She nods. “After you came outside, I talked a bit with Knox, Elias, and Hunter. I should have done this before, but I would never forgive myself if something happened to any of you because of me. So I had Elias call the sheriff to come and take a statement. I don’t know if he can file charges or anything, but I want to tell him about all the ways Derek hurt me, so if he showsup again, the sheriff can arrest him for something he should have been arrested for years ago.”
It took a lot of courage for her to tell us everything she went through. Her head kept dropping, as if her past was something she had to be ashamed of. It isn’t, and I will do whatever it takes to prove to her that she is so much more than her past.
She bared her heart to us tonight. I wanted her to tell us about what she was running from, but I had no fucking clue it would hurt her this badly. Now she wants to do it again?
