23. Scar

SCAR

D rake's entire demeanor changes within the span of a heartbeat. His body stiffens. He drops my hand as if stung. Most damning of all is the slight shifting away from me.

"I'm sorry." I hold up a hand, feeling as if I've made a terrible mistake. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

Drake turns away. His shoulders hunch, and he draws into himself.

I stretch out a hand, but pull back, afraid to touch him. This is what I was afraid of, me pushing when I should just shut the fuck up.

He takes in a deep breath and then another. His head tilts back until he stares at the stars. I remember doing exactly the same thing not too long ago.

I don't dare breathe; too afraid I made a horrible mistake.

We sit in silence for a moment while I rub my hands against my jeans, needing to do something. I'm about ready to jump down to the ground when his entire body relaxes.

"It was a long time ago."

"I shouldn't have said anything. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I don't want any secrets between us. Katie was a big part of my life."

"Katie?"

"My wife."

His wife?

A fist tightens around my throat, choking me while my heart takes a nosedive, plummeting so fast that I can't help but tremble.

He's married?

Too terrified to ask anything else, I try to still the trembling of my body. I swallow a few times, trying to reopen my throat and force a few words out. I finally manage the impossible feat.

"I didn't know you're married." My voice is tight and unsure.

Wounded.

If he's married, why the hell is he out here with me? How could he fuck me if he's married to another woman?

I don't know whether to be hurt, enraged, or something else. It's as if my mind stops and finds itself incapable of processing any other thoughts.

Drake turns toward me. When he speaks, an aching loneliness fills his voice. "I was married." He takes my hand in his and gives a little tug. "Abby, look at me."

I would, except I don't want him to see the tears tumbling down my cheeks.

Drake hops off the tailgate and spins around to face me. He places his hands on my knees, and with gentle pressure, forces my knees apart. He wedges himself between my legs, then he grabs my upper arms and gives me a little shake.

"I read you like an open book, city girl, and that thing going on in your head is not what this is."

"What's going on in my head?"

"You think I'm cheating on my wife, messing around with you."

Damn, he can read me like an open book.

"Let me fill in some of the details and answer your question." He releases my arms and takes the pad of his thumb to wipe away my tears.

"I was married to Katie. Past tense."

"I'm sorry. I jumped to conclusions." I scrub away my tears.

"I saw that, and I have to wonder why." His head cocks to the side. Thoughts churn behind his eyes. "Did someone hurt you?"

In more ways than one, but I don't answer. I can't. Not without opening up a can of worms about Scott.

Intensely jealous, if I looked at another man for any reason, Scott took his anger out on me. I learned not to give Scott any ammunition to use against me. Each of my visits to an emergency room came after such an event. I used to keep count, but then I stopped.

Drake seems to take my silence for what it is: me not wanting to dive down that rabbit hole. I wet my lips and swallow past the lump in my throat.

"What happened with Katie?"

"An unfortunate series of events." His posture changes, tightening for a second, vibrating with rage, and then suddenly relaxing again. "It's how I got the scar."

"I thought you might have gotten it in the military. My uncle said you're ex-military."

"I am, which is where the unfortunate part of the story comes in."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"Honestly, I don't like thinking about it, but I want you to know. Heck, I want you to know everything about me." His stony expression cracks and a boyish grin lights up his face.

I wait for him to continue, letting him tell me at his own pace. Storm clouds churn in the darkness of his eyes as flashes of anger reveal something else. I don't know what Drake did in the military, but I have a sinking suspicion I can guess at it.

"I married Katie when we were young, before I went into the military. We tried really hard to have kids, but deployments and the stress of my job made that challenging. Within a few months of getting out, Katie got pregnant. We were so excited."

I place my hand on his arm, knowing his story doesn't end well. My gut churns and my chest tightens in anticipation of what he's going to say. I already know I don't want to hear about his pain, but there's no way around it now.

"She wanted to surprise her parents in person, so we packed up the car and headed to Oklahoma. We were strapped for time and cash. I pushed through the night, hoping to make it in one day. We didn't have enough money to get a hotel room. When I pulled into a gas station to fill up, I wasn't thinking. Which isn't like me. I'm trained to be aware of my surroundings at all times, but I let my guard down. Like Katie, I was excited."

My grip on his arm tightens as pain fills his expression.

"Katie got out of the car. She needed to use the restroom. That's when the men attacked."

"Oh, Drake…" I definitely don't want to know the end of this story.

"When they grabbed her, I reacted, doing what I was trained to do. I took them out one by one. Only the third man had a knife and a hold of Katie. I rushed him when I realized what he was about to do. He slashed her throat and then my face."

"Oh, Drake." My heart breaks for him. "I didn't mean to make you relive that."

"It's been several years. Some days, it's surreal. Other days, it hurts. Bert's been telling me it's time to move on for years now. You should've heard him go on and on the night I brought you to his house."

"I had no idea." I cup the side of his face.

"Katie died and took our unborn baby with her. The three men didn't make it. There was an investigation, but fortunately, it was all caught on tape, and that's the story about my scar."

He wears the constant reminder of his wife and unborn child's death, on his face. At a loss for words, I cup his face. Leaning in, I kiss him softly.

Gently.

Drake holds perfectly still, then leans into my touch. Taking my hand, he slowly draws my fingers over the long gash which marks him from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth.

The scar tissue is tough, rubbery compared to the skin of his face, and heartbreaking. I break off the kiss and we do nothing other than simply stare at each other for several long moments.

Then, he suddenly shifts gears.

"There's supposed to be a meteor shower tonight. What do you think about looking for shooting stars?" He climbs back into the truck, smoothing out the blankets and punching the pillows.

I join him, scooting beside him, then lie down. His fingers curl with mine as we watch the heavens and try to forget the past.

He shared what must've been the worst moment of his life while I still hold onto a secret of my own. It was hard enough to open up to my uncle about the abuse, and I'm not happy with why I felt comfortable telling him. A part of me knows he won't be around long. My secret will die with him.

I'm ashamed of that part of my past. Wracked with guilt that I, a smart woman, fell victim to abuse. I never understood why women stayed with their abusers, and it took me far too long to realize I became one of them.

But there's fear, and then there's fear .

No one can understand the terror I lived with day in and day out.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know, there's a snort and a huff right by my ear. It smells like half-digested grass.

Pungent comes to mind.

My lids open and it takes a second before I focus. The hot breath of a cow chewing its cud brings a toe-curling scream to my lips. Its placid gaze takes me in as it flaps its ears, making the tag in its ear flutter.

Then I realize the truck is surrounded by cows. Dozens and dozens of heifers surround Drake's truck.

"What the fuck?" Drake wakes beside me and stares at the herd in confusion. "How the hell did they get here?"

"Are you asking me?" I point to my chest as Drake jumps out of the back of the truck. He lands right between two of the heifers and places his hands on his hips. "Need a hand down?"

I look at him as if he's a crazy man.

"There's no way in hell I'm getting out of this truck."

"They're not going to hurt you."

"I'm perfectly fine where I am."

I don't care what Drake says. There's no way I'm jumping down into a herd of cattle. I don't care that he says that they won't hurt me. My brain is screaming that they'll trample me.

Drake scratches his head and pushes cows out of the way as he stomps to the fence. I stand in the back of the truck peering over the cows as he picks up what looks like an end of a piece of barbed wire. He glances at the ground, moving between the posts.

"What is it?" I strain to see what he's doing.

"Someone cut the fence." He turns back to the cows. "That's how they got out."

Drake marches back to the truck. He pushes a cow away from the passenger door and leans inside, where he grabs his cellphone.

I stay in the back of the truck as Drake makes several calls. He finally shoves the phone into his back pocket and looks around.

"What do we do now?" This is so far outside my wheelhouse, I feel completely useless.

"We round up the cows, get them back on the other side of the fence and wait for help."

"Help?"

"Yeah, we've got to mend that fence."

"How did it break? Did the cows do that?"

He looks at me like I'm an idiot. "Cows stay well away from barbed wire. They didn't do this. Someone else did."

"What does that mean?" An unsettled feeling overcomes me. There was nothing wrong with that fence last night. Which means…

"Someone cut it while we were sleeping." Drake's brows tug together as his expression darkens. He walks up and down the gap in the fence, looking for something.

All I see is churned earth, turned over from the hooves of the cows. I know what he's looking for. Drake's looking for signs of who might have done this.

My hand flies to my belly as the butterflies take flight. Unlike before, that's not a rush of excitement, but rather fear.

I hope to God whoever did this isn't who I think it is.