Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Rae

O h, God. This was not going to be fine. Nothing about this would ever be fine.

The screech of something being brutally murdered outside the cabin ripped me from my sleep. I shot up in bed, shoving my sleep mask up to my forehead as the sound came again, loud and shrill, like someone's soul being physically ripped from their body and dragged to hell.

In my disorientation, I forgot where I was, expecting there to be more mattress when I flung myself across the bed for my phone and ended up stumbling over the edge onto the floor. The sound came again as I pushed to my feet and rushed across the room, crashing straight into a wall I hadn't expected to be there.

"What the hell is that?" I cried out to no one as my heart threatened to beat right out of my chest. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, crawling around the pitch-black room and feeling blindly for the end table. I finally found it and managed to get my phone, flip on the flashlight, and drag the white beam across the unfamiliar space as the person being butchered to death outside continued to scream.

"Oh my God," I panted, my breaths coming so fast I thought I was hyperventilating. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I'm going to die out here!"

I crab-walked away from the single window in my new bedroom, trying to escape the noise, until my back hit the wall. Pressing deeper into the corner, I curled into a tight ball as I panned the lights over every inch of the room. Finally, the fog of sleep let go completely and I remembered where I was.

I was in hell.

All the reassurance Rory had offered me, the words that had worked to calm my nerves before I crawled into bed hours ago, was gone in the wake of that terrifying racket coming from outside the cabin. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Should I call the police? Would they even come all the way out here in the middle of the night?

I checked the time on my phone, seeing it was barely after midnight. After unpacking what I could fit in my new home, I'd taken Rory's suggestion and cleaned—something I had never done before—in the hopes that it would help to make the cabin feel more homey. The cleaning supplies had been right where Rory said, and I had spent the next three hours scouring every inch of the tiny space, scrubbing away what felt like years of dust and cobwebs. I might have lost my mind a little bit when I found a dead rat in one of the lower cabinets, but I sucked it up and managed to get the tiny carcass outside before I threw up everywhere.

I had to admit, I'd been pretty damn proud of myself after putting in the hard work. I even worked up a sweat, something that only happened during my sessions with Zelda, my personal trainer back in L.A.

There hadn't been any wine like I'd hoped, but I found a bottle of bourbon stuffed in the back of one of the cabinets that I decided to celebrate with—until the first sip I took nearly melted a hole right through my throat.

I threw together a peanut butter sandwich from the meager findings that had been stocked for me, then soaked my sore muscles in a hot bath. All that scrubbing and dusting, the sweeping and mopping, had worn me out, so after a bit of self-pampering with a calming sheet mask and a bit of guided meditation from an app on my phone, I went through my nighttime skincare routine and crawled into bed. It was barely after nine, but the weight of everything over the past few days had finally taken its toll, and I was out before my head had a chance to hit the pillow.

Now I was wide awake, adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream, and I knew there wasn't a chance in hell I would be getting back to sleep tonight. Not with the grisly murder happening right outside my window.

The sound came again, and I clamped my hands over my ears, squeezing my eyes shut tight as I prayed that whatever was dying out there would get on with it already. I didn't want to wake Rory and have her think of me as some worthless, helpless socialite who couldn't make it a single night without the silver-spoon lifestyle I'd been living up to this point. It was how most people looked at me, if I were being honest, and it was a reputation I'd earned all on my own. Not that I was happy about it.

I wasn't exactly roughing it out here. I had air-conditioning and electricity. There was clean, running water. I had food and a roof over my head. Hell, there was even Wi-Fi, so I'd been able to stream my favorite shows on my laptop. It wasn't like I was living in a van down by the river or something, but the longer I stayed in this cabin, the more my privilege showed. The more I realized I had taken everything my parents had given me for granted. I'd taken them for granted.

Resolve steeled my spine. I was a grown woman, for Christ's sake. I could take care of myself. I didn't need to run to someone else every time things got hard.

The screeching came again, but instead of continuing to cower like a big baby, I pushed myself to my feet. My knees wobbled a bit, but I held steady, inching my way toward the door. I ran the instant I cleared the threshold, rushing to the kitchen in search of a weapon. There were no large, sharp knives, no ice pick. As I slammed cupboards and drawers in search of something to defend myself, my heart pounded against my ribs so hard I was afraid it was going to bust right out of my chest.

Whatever was outside didn't seem disturbed by the racket I was making inside the cabin, because it was still screaming. Finally, my hand wrapped around the handle of a big skillet in one of the lower cabinets, and I yanked it out, letting out a yelp when I lurched toward the floor against its weight, nearly smashing my toes with the damn thing.

"Jeez," I grunted as I used both hands to pick it up. "This freaking thing's heavy." I heaved it upward, using all my upper body strength to wield it like a baseball bat as I started toward the front door. "You can do this, Rae," I assured myself, my voice sounding muffled against the blood rushing in my ears. "You got this. You are a strong, independent woman." I inched toward the door. "You once made it through an entire hot yoga class with a hangover after a weekend at Coachella and didn't puke until it was over."

I pulled in a fortifying breath, then slowly counted to three in my head. Just as the screeching started again, I yanked the door open and, with a battle cry that was so loud it made my throat hurt, I ran out into the night, brandishing my weapon like a sword.

I made it to the gravel driveway, stopping as the jagged edges of the small pebbles jabbed the soles of my feet, and looked around for the culprit. The noise started again, drawing my attention upward toward the tops of the trees that surrounded my cabin. "What the hell is happening?" I shouted into the darkness.

The sound came again, and I finally spotted where it was coming from. My arms dropped, the cast iron skillet bumping hard against my thigh. Sucking in a massive lungful of air, I closed my eyes, dropped my head back, and bellowed out my frustration at the weird looking bird up in the tree that had just taken about seven years off my life. Seven good years that I had planned to enjoy. "You've got to be shitting me! "

The screaming bird replied with another shriek before blinking its big round eyes.

I heaved out a sigh and slumped forward, my shoulders sagging in defeat. "Yeah, you win this round, asshole. But you screw with me tomorrow night and, I don't know what kind of bird you are, but I'm eating you."

It squeaked, almost like it understood my threat. I turned on my heels, the adrenaline leaving my system in a rush as I started back toward the cabin. Only, before I reached the porch, I looked up, noticing the sky for the very first time in all the chaos.

"Whoa," I breathed out, my chest depressing as all the air whooshed from my lungs in a single gust of breath. I had never seen so many stars in my life. It looked like a midnight canvas that had been speckled with white paint.

It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. Almost worth the screaming bird scaring the life out of me.

I blinked, so overwhelmed by the beauty above me it made my eyes burn. The first tear that broke free and slid down my cheek was like a dam breaking. Everything that had happened over the past few days came crashing down all at once, tearing a ragged sob from deep inside my chest. Once it started, I couldn't get it to stop. Standing outside the dinky little cabin I now lived in, I let it all out. I cried for the girl I had always wanted to be but failed to live up to. Then I cried for the girl I had become instead, a version of myself I didn't like. I cried for all the shitty choices I'd made, not just recently, but over the past several years. I cried for my mom and dad who I had hurt with my careless behavior. I cried because I felt so out of place and because I wasn't sure I could do this. I didn't know if I could make it out here on this ranch. I wanted to, so badly. I wanted to prove to my parents that I was better than the person I'd allowed myself to become. Hell, I wanted to prove that to myself .

I didn't want to be someone nobody in my life took seriously. I wanted to actually accomplish something.

My shoulders felt heavy as I moved inside, closing and locking the door behind me before padding through the dark house back to my room. Curled up beneath the covers, I flipped the lid to my laptop open and cued up the next episode of New Girl .

The last thing I remembered was Schmidt getting his penis broken on the show just as the sky outside the window starting to lighten with the rising sun. I must have passed out because the next thing I knew, I was rattled awake by someone beating on the front door of my cabin. I jolted out of the fitful sleep I'd managed to fall into, noticing the sun was spilling through the window and my laptop screen had gone black, most likely from a dead battery.

The banging started again, warring with the dull throb in my head. My eyes were swollen and tender from my earlier crying jag, and I was sure I looked an absolute mess as I untangled myself from my mass of blankets and moved through the sun-lit cabin. My mood was sour from lack of sleep, and whoever was banging on the damn door was about to get an earful. Only, as soon as I pulled it open, the words that had been on my tongue dried right up, along with all the saliva.

The rugged cowboy standing on the other side was so damn hot he short-circuited my brain. Every idea I had in my head about what my ideal man would look like went up in a puff of smoke. My tastes had always leaned toward clean-cut men who either dressed in suits or like they were about to spend the day on the golf course. It was how most of the men I associated with in Los Angeles dressed.

But the man standing in front of me just then, the one revving my engine in a way it had never revved before, couldn't have been more different from my typical type. From his dusty boots to his faded Wranglers to his chambray shirt that looked bleached around the collar from sweat, this dude screamed I know how to use my hands better than all those city boys you used to know . It was a look that had me clenching my thighs against the ache that had suddenly formed.

This man was built like a brick house from long, hard days of manual labor, not from some fancy gym. I was willing to bet he'd never set foot in a gym in his entire life. He didn't need to, he blew every gym rat I knew out of the damn water.

Dark blond whiskers coated his hard, square jawline and surrounded full lips that looked surprisingly soft. His nose looked like it might have been broken a time or two, but that only added to his overall ruggedness. His eyes were shaded from the cowboy hat on his head, but I was still able to make out the rich brown color—as well as the fact that he was staring me down with a look that was far from pleased.

"H-hi. Hello."

Then he spoke, and the fantasy that had been forming in my head as soon as I opened the door withered and died right there on the vine.

"Don't know how things work in your world, Hollywood, but we don't have the luxury of sleepin' 'til after ten around here."

"Um . . . sorry? "

"Get dressed and meet me at the barn. You have fifteen minutes."

With that order, he turned on his boots and stomped off, leaving me wondering what the hell was going on.