“Not everyone is like that.”
“Of course not. But too many are, and I’m sick of them, frankly. All this talk of personal responsibility that people toss around overlooks a very important fact.”
“Which is?”
“That your personal responsibility doesn’t end at the tip of your own nose. Or at your own front door.”
She bit her lip, then ventured, “You’ve thought a lot about this.”
“I spend a lot of time thinking about responsibility. My own. Accepting it. Then deciding what it should have been all along.”
She longed to ask him what had put him on such a personal private quest, but didn’t dare. There was a darkness in this man that she could feel all the way across the room. It lurked in his gray eyes like a ghost. Maybe it was best not to know.
He picked up his mug again and sat back, sipping slowly while minutes ticked by.
“Any family?” he asked abruptly.
“Me?”
“You.”
“No. I oh, do you want to hear the whole story? It sounds like a cliché.”
“A lot of life is made up of clichés. Tell me whatever you don’t mind sharing.”
She looked down and realized her hands were twisting together. She forced herself to separate them and lay them flat. Then she shrugged a shoulder, ignoring the ache. Apparently Kevin had hit her there, too. Not that she remembered, there had been so many blows.
“My mother died of an overdose when I was four. Nobody knew who my dad was. So my grandmother took care of me until she died of a heart attack when I was thirteen. After that it was foster homes. Six of them. I don’t think I was easy to deal with. And there’s nobody else.”
“You made it through high school, though?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. I always wanted to go to college, but I had to take care of myself and kept putting it off and then … well, Kevin …” She bit her lip again, unable to meet his gaze.
“Tell me about Kevin. About the beginning.”
She hesitated, unable to imagine why he wanted all this information, but reluctant to tell him it was none of his business. He’d rescued her in the middle of a blizzard where she probably would have died except for him. That gave him a right to know, she supposed. Especially since he was still helping her.
“Kevin was okay at first. Really nice. It was a long time before I realized that I was tiptoeing around all the time because of his temper. It took me even longer to realize he couldn’t hold a job for more than a month or two, and finally I gave up even trying to tell him to look for work. So I did something stupid.”
“And that was?”
She drew a long breath. “I started skimming my paycheck.”
“You what?” He sounded utterly disbelieving. “How can you skim your own paycheck?”
“I got a raise and didn’t tell him. I’d go to the bank and split the deposit, put the extra money into a savings account. I meant to save for school.”
“And you didn’t tell him.”
“No.”
He sighed. “That’s a warning sign in huge red letters. But I suppose he had you so intimidated by that point that you didn’t even recognize it.”
“Not really. I just did it. I didn’t exactly think about all the reasons I felt the need to. When I look back, I feel stupid.”
“No, don’t. You have no idea how many people, doing the best they can in whatever situation they’re in, look back later and think they were stupid. It’s never stupid. It’s the best you can do at the time.”
“Thanks. I still feel stupid.”
“So let me guess. He found out about the savings account.”
She nodded. “That was the first time he beat me.”
“And then he was oh so apologetic, swore he’d never do it again and took the money.”
“Yeah. Like I said, stupid.”
“Stop saying that. It’s amazing how manipulative these bastards can be. It’s like they’re born knowing how to get what they want. So okay, that was the first time the line got crossed. And it got worse, right?”
“Yeah. With time. Until finally he broke my arm and left my face such a mess I couldn’t go to work, and my boss actually came to the house. He took one look at me and dragged me to the hospital, then called the cops.”
“Ah, a responsible person arrives on the scene. Amazing.”
In spite of herself, she felt the unbruised side of her face lift in a slight smile. “My boss was a good man.”
“I agree. So Kevin went to jail?”
“That time.”
“But he got out.”
“Of course. Less than two years later.”
“I think I can pretty much write the rest of the story.” He sipped his coffee and closed his eyes for a moment. When they opened, they held an ice that should have frightened her, but somehow it didn’t. Maybe she was too tired, too battered. Maybe she just couldn’t rustle up any more terror.
“Take my word for it, Kay Young, as long as you are in this house, that man will not lay a finger on you.”
Deep inside she shivered, because she believed him, because she feared the kind of protection he was capable of providing. Special Ops? Yeah, he could protect her.
“I don’t want you to get into any trouble on my account,” she blurted.
He smiled, but not pleasantly.
“I won’t,” he said. “Trust me, I won’t.”
She dozed off again, and when she woke, she felt disoriented. Not because she didn’t recognize the cabin or the fireplace, or Clint sitting across the way in his chair reading. No, it was something even more basic than that.
Almost before she opened her eyes, she asked, “What time is it? What day is it?”
He looked up from his book. “It’s Friday, December twelfth and it’s just after one in the afternoon.”
“Five days!”
“Since he took you?”
“Yes.” She looked around, trying to center herself somehow. “What state did you say this was?”
“Wyoming. Conard County, Wyoming, to be more precise.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Sorry. It’s like things are jumbled.”
“That’s normal enough, I suppose. How’s your head feel?”
“The headache is almost gone.”
“Good. That’s probably why you’re trying to sort things out.”
“I didn’t know he had me so long.”
“No?”
“No. He kept me in the trunk a lot. He didn’t feed me. He hardly gave me any water.”
“He would be wise not to come near you while I’m around.”
She looked at him, amazed by the calm way he spoke, as if such threats were commonplace in his world. Not a ripple of emotion showed on his face. Oddly, while his obvious self-control was horrifying in a way, it also reassured her far more than a display of anger would have. Far more.
Outside,