Chapter 21

21

“Do you think your brother would chaperone if I wanted to take you out to dinner?”

The voice came out of the darkness behind her, and Chantal almost jumped out of her skin.

She knew exactly which of the brothers had broken the rule and snuck back into the living room where she and her friends had all crashed.

“What are you doing down here? You were told you had to stay out of this part of the house.” He didn’t have on a shirt. All those perfect muscles were exposed, tempting a woman to touch him right there. He had a tattoo on his left pec, right over his heart. She couldn’t see well enough in the low light to identify what it was. Her fingers—stupid fingers!—curled with the urge to touch.

“I thought I heard something outside, so I wanted to check the doors again. I’m… a little jumpy lately.”

“So am I. I didn’t want to wake them up.” She’d talked to a counselor at the Barratt. Melody Beck Barratt, whose husband owned the hotel, knew Charlie’s wife and was good friends with Charlotte, had arranged it. Melody had stopped by Chantal’s room to talk to her about trauma, and what it could do to a person. Melody had told her about W4HAV, a local women’s charity, and suggested she make an appointment with the counselors there.

Charlotte volunteered there. She’d seconded the recommendation.

The counselor had told her nightmares were common. She definitely hadn’t lied. “I had a nightmare.”

That was all she had to say. Then strong male arms slipped around her waist, and Chantal found herself lifted off her feet. Held so close against those perfect muscles. Her entire insides heated in an instant. She hadn’t exactly fallen asleep easily earlier, either.

His fault. She’d been lying there trying to analyze him.

“What are you doing?”

“We’ll both go outside. Prove we can. And we’ll talk. I don’t think we’ve really talked yet. There are… things I want to say to you.”

She just nodded. She’d known this time was coming.

Something had shifted between them out there. She had been wholly dependent on him for those hours. Had been forced to trust him out of necessity when she hadn’t really ever trusted him before.

She still wasn’t sure she trusted him now, either.

Maybe with her life, certainly. But… emotionally?

It was hard to trust him now. Six years of battles were hard to forget. Still… she hooked her arm around his neck and sighed.

“Talk to me,” he said as he carried her through his living room.

She let him. Why was she letting him carry her right now?

She waited until they were past the sleeping bodies sprawled everywhere before she answered. Until they were in the little seating area by the back bay window that looked out over his mother’s rose garden. Only the moonlight shone out there now. The darkness made it feel like it was just her and Gene in the world right now, even with a houseful of other people so close.

“I remember you carrying me. I remember being so afraid. And knowing you were there. But… I don’t really remember much after.” What she remembered mingled with what she didn’t. It probably always would. And… it would haunt her. What had almost happened. How out of control of her own life she had been then.

And how Gene had just… been there. The moment she had needed him most.

“There really isn’t much to remember. After we left the shack, we just kept walking. Until you couldn’t walk anymore.”

“And then you carried me.”

“I carried you.” He lowered her to one of the loungers. The big one. The lounge chair large enough for two. “I’d have carried you a thousand miles if I had to.”

Somehow, he’d grabbed a thick blanket from inside. It didn’t surprise her at all that he lowered himself right next to her. Then she found his arm going behind her shoulders, and he was turning her. Chantal rested her head on his broad chest and just… felt him breathe against her. The blanket cut the night chill, and he was pressed against her…

She wanted to cling. And that wasn’t like her at all.

It felt surreal out here like this, with the scent of him surrounding her. The sound of the night around them.

“A part of me is afraid it isn’t over,” she finally said. “That Charlie was wrong, that someone else is still out there. Watching.”

“I trust your brother. But yeah, things still feel a bit disconnected. But I’m glad of one thing.” He trailed his fingers up her arm lightly.

Chantal had no idea what she was doing there, cuddled up under a blanket, with him like this. This was Gene .

Gene was dangerous to a woman’s well-being in ways that only a bad-for-her man could be.

This man… this man had no relationship staying power. But for the first time since the abduction, she didn’t feel like the world was spinning out of her control. “What is that?”

“I finally saw what I have been missing for years. I’m sorry I was such an ass. About Mandy and… everything else since. I think I may have used anger… especially at the people I cared about who got too close… as a wall. Especially since Carly. I think I just… saw you as a threat.”

“I’m very threatening.” Maybe she was joking, but… oh, she didn’t know what to do with him now. A part of her seriously wished Genny would just pop up like a little Genny-in-the-box and send him running. Then she wouldn’t have to press through.

She should stand up. Go back into his living room and crash out on the end of the sectional, right there next to the queen mattress Genny had ordered her identical brothers to pull out of one of the bedrooms. It was where Aubrey and Ayla slept now. She should surround herself with her friends—protect herself from him. Somehow.

“You are. You’re the kind of woman who would demand everything from a man. I don’t know that I’ve ever been able to give that. Before. I think I can now. I’ve realized a few things. Things that… hell… when we nearly lost Greer when she was nine, I… changed.”

Her breath caught. She remembered. She’d been almost sixteen. Everyone remembered. A former foster son of the Hillers had shown up drunk and high and angry. He and his friend had tried to take thirteen-year-old Genny and nine-year-old Greer. To hurt them in ways she didn’t want to think about.

As revenge.

The Hillers had fired them the weekend before for stealing.

Grady and Gunn, who had been almost nineteen, had been there. Gunn had been able to yank Genny away. To punch the guy who had his hands on her, but Greer had been too far away. Grady had tried, but those monsters had gotten Greer into their car.

And driven away.

Grady had tried to follow in his truck.

Gene had been coming up the drive in a flatbed truck. There had been nowhere for him to pull aside. They’d collided head-on, and Greer had been thrown from the much smaller car.

Greer had been in a coma for days, and it had taken almost two years for her to fully heal. She still had a limp and scars… and pain. Pain that would never fully go away.

People in town had blamed Gene. Said the poor foster boy had been so innocent. Until Grady, Gunn, and Genny had told what had really happened, and the police had believed them.

The man who had been driving, the one whose idea it had been, was in jail. His best friend had also been thrown from the car. He’d been killed instantly. Genny thought Gene still believed that day was his fault.

“It wasn’t your fault. Any more than it was Grady’s for not being able to get her away like Gunn did with Genny.” She’d talked to Genny about that day, and about her brothers’ trauma. Genny’s trauma. “Any more than it was Genny’s fault for not being the one they took away. She struggled with the guilt of that for a long time, too.”

“It was definitely not her fault. Hell, she was just an innocent kid!”

“And you were just driving home from the hardware store, Gene. It was no one’s fault but the men who tried to take them in the first place.”

“Logically, I know that, but for the longest time… I didn’t let anyone close. Not truly close. Because…” He pulled her over his chest, so suddenly she gasped. She wore a thin T-shirt. She had a sports bra beneath that. She felt him pressed against her. He adjusted the blankets over her shoulders, surrounding her with his warmth.

It had been a long time since a man had held her like this. Since she had wanted one to. But Chantal didn’t really want to move away.

Her hands rested on his pecs. He had a beautiful body, built through hard ranch work every day.

She would really like to touch him.

Everywhere.

That thought had her cheeks flaming. She was glad they were sitting beneath the moonlight and he couldn’t see. This was Gene.

“Because?”

“I was afraid I’d fail them like I’d failed my sisters. I was supposed to protect them. And I didn’t. It took me a while to see that there are some things I couldn’t control. Hell, maybe it was becoming a parent that did it. But I know that I am truly sorry for damaging the relationship that was there between us after Mandy.”

“Let’s be honest, there really wasn’t much of a relationship between us. You Hiller boys… tended to avoid us girls like the plague, remember?”

“Yes. Purposefully. And that is something I am going to regret for a long, long time. If I hadn’t been so stupid six years ago, we might have found ourselves right here a hell of a lot sooner than now.”

He scooted her closer.

Then his mouth was pressing to hers.

Without hesitation. Bold, confident, hungry.

Chantal’s hands spread on his chest, feeling him against her. Gene wanted her, and he was letting her know that in the most elemental way possible.

Chantal fought the urge to panic completely.

She had never prepared for him.