I wanted to weep with appreciation. “Thank you.”
The second she took my dishes, I grabbed my purse and coat and bolted for the door, not giving a damn that I was likely the rudest person Reed had ever met.
Hurrying down the street, I focused on my breaths. I zeroed in on the feeling of my lungs expanding and contracting inside my ribs and tried to make sure no movement was too quick. As I approached the motel’s parking lot, I felt for my keys in my purse and beeped my locks. Within seconds, I was in my old-model sedan.
Locking the door behind me, I gripped the steering wheel. “You’re fine. He was only being friendly.”
The burn was back behind my eyes. A nice stranger—a police officer, no less—had sent me running. A single tear slipped free, and I quickly wiped it away. Two steps forward and one step back.
But it was still progress. At least, that was what my therapist would say. Still, I hated those bursts of weakness.
“Focus on what’s next. What’s the next step?”
I released the wheel and twisted toward the file folder on my passenger seat. I’d printed out directions to everywhere I needed to go, just in case service wasn’t great, my phone died, I lost it, or—it didn’t matter. They were my backup.
Pulling out the directions to the Hartley home, I scanned the sheet. I’d already gone over it at least a dozen times, but once more wouldn’t hurt. The house was up the mountain a bit but not too high. Thankfully, there was no snow on the roads.
I shivered as a memory slammed into me.Cold. So cold, it hurt. The wind whipping against my mutilated flesh.
No. Not now. Not ever. I wasn’t going back there.
I quickly typed the address into my phone—my car was too old for a GPS—and started the engine. I didn’t give myself a chance to descend into anxiety. Instead, I carefully backed out of the parking spot and headed on my way as the navigation’s British voice called out directions.
The drive itself was stunning. I had to force myself to keep my eyes on the road and not get distracted by the scenery. It only took about fifteen minutes to make it to the driveway. A mailbox hadHartleyand the house number printed on it, so I knew I was in the right place.
Turning onto the gravel drive, I gripped the wheel tighter. When the house came into view, I sucked in a breath. It was gorgeous. All dark wood and glass, as if someone had taken a rustic farmhouse and brought it into the modern day.
There was a massive porch at the front of the house with an array of chairs and a swing. A child’s bike leaned against the steps, and a few other toys and sports paraphernalia lay around. It looked beautiful but lived in. Not like the museum Emerson and I had grown up in.
Behind the main house and higher on the mountainside was a large barn in the same dark wood. To the right of the house sat a small guest cottage that I figured would be mine if I got the job. It was quaint and well-kept, and I knew it must have a lake view.
Hope bubbled up inside me. It had been so long since I’d felt it. The sensation was utterly foreign. But I would hold on to it with everything I had.
I shut off my car and flipped down the visor. I quickly checked my teeth for chocolate—that wouldn’t be the first impression I wanted to make.
When I saw I was safe, I snapped the visor up and grabbed my purse. This was it. I squeezed my eyes closed. “Please, don’t let me mess this up.”
As I opened my eyes, I released the car door and stepped out. My boots crunched on the gravel as I headed for the steps. When I made it to the top, the front door swung open.
I had no time to prepare or steel myself. It wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. Because when I saw the man filling the doorway, I gasped. The familiar dark hair, with just a little silver at the temples. The strong, stubbled jaw. The nose that still looked as if it had been broken once.
And those eyes.
The eyes that had shown me kindness after enduring thirty-three days of brutal cruelty. The eyes that had given me hope. The eyes that had saved me.
“Blue.”
5
LAWSON
I staredat the woman on my front porch. Her presence was a sucker punch to the gut. She had the kind of beauty that grabbed hold and scalded. White-blond hair cascaded in waves around her shoulders. Plush lips parted on an intake of breath. Her cheeks were flushed, whether from cold or shock, I didn’t know.
It took me a beat to recognize her, longer than it should’ve, but she was older now. Changed.
The gray eyes did it. Ones that almost seemed silver as the sun caught her irises. They froze me to the spot.
Her face had haunted me for years. I’d wondered what’d happened to the young woman I’d found half-dead in the snow a county over. The one a madman had held.
