Nothing worked. Writhing, straining, flailing, scratching, and searching for escape—a wild, rabid animal. A rat caught in a trap, a lizard brain. No, less than that: an amoeba without conscious thought, just an instinct to survive. All the pushing and pulling only served to land her on her rear, hard, until she scrabbled away—the last resort for a woman buried alive. She’d scrape her hands to the bone if need be.
It was his voice—that goddamned voice—that eventually got through to her. “Uma, baby. Uma. Uma, I got you. I got you. You’re okay. I got you.” A litany of slow, patient words spun like a finely woven web, one layer at a time. They slipped and slid over her and clung, wrapping her in their warmth before they finally got through.
Ivan.It was Ivan. She was on the floor, in his arms, big and warm and safe—her cocoon. “I’m here, baby. I’m here.” He rocked, and shewasa baby, a newborn in his grasp.
One hand moved to her face, comfortingly rough, while the other cupped her ear. So tender and sweet. How could all those hard edges feel so very soft?
He kissed her. Forehead, the corner of an eye, cheek, mouth. Gentler touches than a man his size should be capable of. His breath warm and familiar. She tasted toothpaste and salt on his wet lips, as though someone had been crying. Not him, surely?
“Come here,” he said, pulling her into his lap, and she wanted it so badly, that closeness. She wanted more of it.
His eyes were whiskey and ice. A stranger’s eyes. His voice she knew intimately. She’d memorized the feel of his calluses against her soft places, the smell of him, but these remarkable eyes were still unfamiliar after the time they’d spent blindfolded and in the dark.
“I got you,” he whispered again, and she let him take her weight.
After maybe ten minutes, Uma took a deep, shaky breath in and unstuck her face from the crook of his neck.
“Morning.” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Morning.”
“Mornin’, baby,” he said, his voice so gentle it almost broke her heart.
“Nightmare.”
“Figured.”
“I…um…I’ve got to pee.”
With the tiniest huff of what might have been a laugh, he nodded, slow and unsure, before releasing her.
“Need company?” He managed to make it sound almost lascivious, which was a feat, given…well, everything. And she was so thankful for that. His humor, his seemingly endless support.
“No. Thank you. But I wouldn’t mind something for my breath.”
He stood and helped her up, handed her a tube of toothpaste, and sent her out.
She headed toward the shelter of the line of trees, ignoring where the drive curved back up to Ms. Lloyd’s place. She’d have to head back there shortly, although she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to go to her next laser appointment, didn’t want to do anything but stay here with Ivan. Even if peeing outside in the freezing cold wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time. One reason for him to move into the big house, with its perfectly good kitchen and electricity and running water. Oh, and heat.
Then again, there was something about his cozy, little space that suited him to a T. Man at his most elemental. She picked her way toward the edge of the woods, the hangover of her dream disappearing into chilly practicality, and it occurred to her that he’d been completely naked when he’d held her: hale and hearty and shamelessly nude in the crisp winter morning. Whereas she had gone to sleep fully dressed. Even here, without a single witness, in the great outdoors, she squatted under an oak tree,incapableof glancing at her own body.
Because of Joey. All because of Joey.
She stood and pulled up her pants, let her eyes take in the landscape in a way she hadn’t before. The big, white house, pointlessly empty. Farther along, the forge, with its chimney puffing out smoke like an industrious little train, so busy, so full of life with its mini herd of cats eating beside the door, and the man inside…flesh and bone and so much heart. And beyond it, past the fallow fields, loomed the Blue Ridge Mountains: timeless, beautiful. Permanent.
They’d be there forever, those mountains.
Forever. Unlike Joey and his stupid ink.
Not his. Mine. My ink. My skin.
He’d wanted to make his mark on her? Well, she was done letting him. Today. Right now. Done.
With a sure stride, she returned to the forge and opened the door to a welcoming waft of heat. Always warm in here, always inviting. And there he was, Ivan, his eyes just as enveloping, only they offered so much more than heat.
She paused on the threshold and, at his smile, moved toward where he lay in the bed. Patiently waiting.
“You okay?” he asked, half sitting up.
“Yeah.” He made as if to say something else or shift or stand up, and she stopped him with a hand, palm out. “Hold on. There’s something…” She swallowed. Mouth dry, she tried again. “I need to show you something.”
