Her eyelids flutter, and tears tumble down her cheeks. “I tried to escape once. I ran for miles,” she swallows a sob. “It was so dark and cold. Everything hurt. They…caught me. God. Dragged me back. Tied my wrists…to a…a horse!” Her voice breaks, her entire body shuddering with each sob.
“Fuck me,” I mutter. “Grace, I will find them, and I’ll drag them by their balls until they’re beggin’ for me to put an end to ‘em.”
She won’t look at me. Her gaze is still fixed on the screen.
I shut the laptop, severing the connection to the TV. “That’s enough for today.”
Her eyes are glassy, and I’m not sure she can see or hear me. I scoot closer, snap my fingers, and Belle—who’d fallen asleep in front of the hearth, jerks her head up. In seconds, she’s crawling into Grace’s lap.
“Oh, God.” With a shudder, Grace wraps her arms around the dog and buries her face in Belle’s thick fur. “How could anyone be so cruel?” she sobs.
I don’t have an answer for her, so I do my best to hold them both until Grace’s tremors fade away.
I knock on Grace’s studio door. She closed herself in here hours ago, while I kept scanning the footage as the popcorn went soggy next to me. I can’t get her question out of my head.
“How could anyone be so cruel?”
Her scars are so deep, so thick, she must have been dragged behind that goddamned horse for hours. For what?
“Come on in,” she calls. Thank fuck her voice doesn’t sound as shaky as it did earlier.
She sits cross-legged in the chair, sun on her face, looking…almost at peace. Her sketchbook is open on the drafting table, with the beginnings of a vague, male face on the page.
“Who’s that?” I ask, rubbing gentle circles over her upper back.
Grace sighs. “The man who gave me…these.” She holds out her hands, and the sun turns the thick scars almost silver. “I can only see his eyes. The rest…I’m just guessing at.”
I ease the pencil from her clenched fingers and set it on the drafting table. “Then take a break for today.”
“I can’t. They’re still…out there, AJ. What if I stop right before I remember their names? Or why they took me? Or?—”
Her left hand spasms on the page, smudging the curve of the asshole’s jaw.
“Shit!”
I take her hand, my thumb skating over her wedding ring. “You’re still healing, Grace. Workin’ yourself into exhaustion ain’t gonna help. Why don’t you rest for a bit?”
“I’m not tired. Or…not sleepy, anyway,” she says, a hint of defiance in her voice.
If I let her keep spiraling, she’ll still be digging for memories when the clock hits midnight.
“Okay.” I brush my thumb over her knuckles, then bring them to my lips. “If you don’t feel like resting…how about you let me take you out instead?”
Her brows lift, surprise flickering across her face. “Out?”
“A date,” I clarify with another kiss, this one to her palm. “You remember that picture from the Punch Bowl? You told Parker it looked like fun. I reckon we could both use some fun.”
She hesitates, chewing on her lip. “That’s…so public. What if?—”
“I’ve got you.” I keep my voice even. Calm. “I’ll be carrying, and there will be plenty of people around. Anyone after you would be a damn fool to try somethin’ there. Even if they did…they ain’t gonna get to you without going through me. And I’m an ornery sombitch when I want to be.”
She laughs, though there’s still a hint of fear in her eyes.
“If we go now, it won’t be too crowded. Just enough noise and people and life to remind us what a normal Friday night feels like.”
“Normal,” she echoes, testing the word. Then, finally, she smiles. “I think I’d like normal.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
