I watched her go inside, then stood there for a moment in the gathering dusk, my cheek warm where her lips had been, watching the first stars appear in the darkening sky. Three weeks since I'd brought her here broken and terrified. Now she was riding horses, writing songs, laughing at mare slobber, crying healing tears, saying "I love you" by a creek.
She was coming back to herself. Or maybe, like she'd said at the creek, she was becoming someone new. Someone stronger. Someone who knew she could survive anything because she already had.
And when she was ready—really ready, not just grateful or lonely or looking for comfort—I'd be here. We'd figure out what we could be together. What we'd maybe always been meant to be, if life hadn't gotten in the way.
For now, this was enough. More than enough. Riding fence lines through wildflower meadows, sitting by creeks older than memory, sharing silences that said more than words ever could.
Tomorrow we'd ride again. Maybe go a little farther, try a little more. Small steps toward something bigger, something worth waiting for.
I could wait. For her, I could wait forever.
But standing there in the Texas twilight, with her kiss still warm on my cheek and the memory of her saying she loved me still ringing in my ears, I had a feeling I wouldn't have to wait as long as I thought.
Chapter 11
Stephanie
His breath hit the back of my neck first—hot, slow, deliberate.
I froze.
I was in my cabin. I knew I was. I’d fallen asleep with the bedside lamp on low, the quilt pulled to my waist, the quiet Texas night humming outside.
But suddenly the air smelled wrong.
That cologne. Not faint. Not imagined. Thick and syrupy, expensive and rotten all at once, slithering into my lungs. It coated my throat like oil, made my stomach pitch so violently I gagged.
No. No, no, no?—
A voice brushed my ear. “Miss me?”
My blood went ice-cold.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The room tilted. The moonlit cabin walls bled sideways, then backward, then forward, warping like melting mirrors. The bed dipped under his weight—too heavy, too familiar.
“Thought you could hide?” he whispered, and every hair on my body lifted.
A hand—cold, greedy—slid around my throat. Not squeezing. Just claiming.
My pulse hammered against his palm, frantic and terrified, and he tightened—slow, controlling pressure that stole half my air, then more.
The sheets turned to restraints, twisting tight around my wrists and ankles, pinning me. The quilt turned to duct tape, silver and suffocating. It pressed over my mouth in a single brutal slap, sealing off any scream.
My lungs convulsed. My ribs—still bruised—lit up like someone had driven a knee into them. The pain was blinding, white-hot, stealing what little breath I had left.
Then the cabin disappeared entirely.
I was back in my LA bedroom. But wrong. Smaller. Tighter. The walls crawled inward, closing around me, squeezing until the ceiling bowed.
I tried to suck in air through my nose—nothing.
His mouth touched my ear. “You made me come all this way,” he whispered. “So I’m going to take my time.”
More hands grabbed my ankles, my waist, my wrists. An army of him. Pulling me down, spreading me out, stretching me thin.
A tooth scraped my throat. His thumb pressed harder into the side of my neck.
Black spots bloomed at the edges of my vision.
