Her hand held fast to his. Tears from her eyes wet his arm, tearing out his heart as surely as her words were, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, but be silent and listen.
He wanted to roar.
"There was this hospital that I woke up in, they performed a rape kit and set my dislocated shoulder.
Wrapped my ribs."
Brayden ground his teeth, wanting to hit something.
"I was too afraid to stay there, so I left and kept running and kept running." She sighed, sniffled and rubbed the side of her face on his arm. "One night in Atlanta, I got fired because I tripped and dumped a plate on a customer. These girls told me I could go with them."
Her voice had softened, but she continued and he listened. "I vaguely remember a party. I don’t know what I took or why I even took it. First and last time I ever took anything that a doctor hadn’t given me.
But then, at that point, I was thinking of slitting my wrists, and the pills, I guess, were easier. Took the edge off, took the pain away."
Christ. Brayden couldn’t breathe.
"I woke up in another hospital and they were asking me all these questions, wanting to move me to a psych ward. They were trying to find out who I was and I remember being terrified they’d find out. So when the nurse left, I got out of bed. A woman, her name was Elaine, was in the bed next to mine, she undid the restraints. I’d never stolen anything before then. But I stole sixty dollars out of her wallet. I wrote her address down from her driver’s license, because I knew I’d pay her back. I even jotted an I-owe-you note. I was so careful and quiet. I remember she had these bright green eyes. She looked at me and said, ‘Honey, take the hundred behind the Visa. I’m not gonna need it, and I figure if it was bad enough to try and kill yourself over, and run out of here, then you could probably use it.’"
Her tears were hot.
"I don’t think I believed in good luck till then. Thought all my religious upbringing was just a fluke. I don’t remember getting out of the hospital, let alone on a bus. How I got to Seneca or your parents’ house, I still don’t know."
Brayden was numb. Disbelief, incredulousness muted the anger, but it was still boiling. God in heaven.
He cleared his throat. "Someone was watching over you."
She half sobbed, half laughed. "Your mom always said that. God guided a daughter to them. I never knew if I believed her or not."
Brayden did. He doubted, very seriously, it was as simple as that. Without a doubt, he knew there was more, much more Christian was leaving out.
"I lied," she said.
"About?" He took a deep breath.
"My age."
Brayden frowned. "How old are you? Aren’t you twenty-eight?"
Her head shook on his arm. "No, I lied because I was afraid I would get sent back to that house. So I said I was nineteen."
"How old were you?"
"I was seventeen and several months away from being legal. So I lied." She shrugged, or would have if he hadn’t held her so tightly. Instead, his hold only allowed her to shift. "Most girls are worried about boyfriends and hairstyles when they’re fifteen. I was worried about not making him mad, wishing I could fade into the shadows so he’d leave me alone. The day I left--it was the day after my sixteenth birthday, and he didn’t give me a car. Nope, his was a very, special gift...." Bitterness speared her voice that cracked on the end.
Sixteen! Not a word came to mind, not a single one. Well, several did, but he wasn’t about to say them to her.
Her tears fell faster and harder. Brayden turned her so that he could hold her, rubbing his hands up and down her back while her silent crying tore him apart. Suddenly, she shoved against him.
"I’m going to be sick." She bolted for the bathroom.
Brayden stood, heard her retching. There could be nothing in her stomach; they hadn’t even eaten.
Cursing, he hurried to the bathroom, wet a cloth and handed it to her, but she didn’t take it, just laid her cheek on her arm. Bending down, he picked her up and carried her back to their bed. Gently, he wiped her face, then went back and returned with a glass of water.
Her eyes were wary when they met his.
Sixteen! God Almighty! And over a year ... where? On the streets?
Her hand shook as she tried to get a drink, and he finally took it from her.
He never said a word, couldn’t think of any. What if they were the wrong ones.
Gripping the glass in his hand, he asked her, "Couldn’t you tell someone? Your brother? Your mother?
An uncle?" Surely there had been someone.
Why the hell hadn’t anyone listened to her? If his daughter felt uncomfortable around someone, he’d damn well listen and want to know why. And if she mentioned it to his brothers or her grandfather, they’d take heed as well. And whoever the bastard was would be headless and dickless by the end of the day.
She looked away from him and shook her head. "Sometimes things aren’t that simple, Brayden. Not every family is like yours."
He sighed. They never were.
Then her words started to fall into place, fitting into holes he hadn’t even realized were in the whole picture.
... a luscious body you still have...
... always there, just like before...
...still have...
... just like before....
Son of a bitch!
His fist rested on his knee. As if watching someone else, he uncurled his fingers and reached out, touching Christian’s cheek.
"I want a name."
Her eyes flashed, panic racing through them.
He wanted a name?
Of course the man wanted a name. Had she honestly expected otherwise?
She tried to look away, but his fingers held her chin, caressing her jaw.
"You’ve come this far," he coaxed. "Won’t you finish this? We can put it behind us." His voice was soft, his touch gentle, but his eyes.... His eyes raged and stormed.
Behind us? God, what a joke. Yet, he made it sound that easy, that final, that definite.
And he didn’t even know all of it. Her body shook and trembled, the harder she tried to control it, the harder she shook. Curling tightly into a ball, she wrapped her arms around her knees and put her head on them. She felt him shift and move to her.
His body was warm and hard against hers.
"I love you," he said.
The words always squeezed her heart, no matter how many times she heard him say them. And still she wondered how. Why her?
He laid back, settled them under the covers, stroking her back, her arm.
Finally, the trembles eased, her muscles loosened.
"Not long ago, you asked me why," he said. "I told you I didn’t know, but I do."
His heart beat hard and fast.
"I love your strength, your will, your courage." His voice was gruff and low.
Christian leaned up and looked at him.
"I’m not courageous. Half the time I think I’m a cow--"
His palm against her mouth cut her word off, and she watched as his eyes narrowed, the blue burning bright.
"Don’t. Do not even think it, let alone say it." The arm around her back tightened. "You are the bravest woman I know. Look at you? At what happened and look at the life you’ve made for yourself. How can you not see your own strength?"
He saw that? Christian shrugged.
"Well, if you don’t know, then don’t argue with me."
Looking into his eyes, it was hard to miss all the implications of that demanding question.
"You aren’t going to tell me his name, are you?" he asked, a muscle bunching in his jaw.
She stretched forward and kissed him, undemanding and gentle. "No."
But she wanted to. God, she wanted to.
His face pulled taut and she saw the flush of rage in his cheeks and deep in his eyes, though his voice was deceptively calm. "Why not?"
Why not indeed. If she told him it was Richard Burbanks, Congressman newly elected, Brayden would be arrested and sitting in jail for Christmas.
"Because I know you," she said and tried to move away.
He was obviously having none of that. "What does that mean? And if you know me, you know I’m not about to let this go."
No, he wouldn’t and she did know that. "I know," she agreed.
"Again, why not tell me the bastard’s name then? And save us both time and energy."
This time, she tried to smile. "One, your family would never forgive me if you spent the holidays in jail.
Tori has missed you enough." She traced a figure eight on his chest, and hoped her screaming in the night hadn’t awakened the little girl sleeping in the other room of the hotel apartment.
"So?"
As simple as that, so?
Compromise. "Brayden," she said, taking his face in her hands. "I love you, but I’m not telling you his name, not right now. I love you too much for that. This is big for me. What I’ve told you...." And she still couldn’t believe she’d told him.
The niggling thought that Richard would retaliate teased her fear.
"I told someone once," she admitted to him, looking down at his chest, away from those all-knowing eyes. "Well, more than one person. They’re all dead, Brayden. All of them." She’d thought she was done crying, but felt the ache in her chest, in her heart and soul as she tried to keep her emotions in check. "I couldn’t bear to lose you because of me. I’d simply die."
Her eyes rose to his, where anger and frustration warred in their depths, but she could, no would, do nothing to alleviate his emotions either.
She whispered, "I can’t believe I told you all this."
His stare was unnerving. She could feel the rage pulsing through his tight, coiled body. The stare held and stretched, daring the silence to continue.
"What?" she finally asked.
"Are you ever going to tell me everything?" he asked, reaching up and tucking a hair behind her ear.
Would she? Yes. She nodded.
One black brow winged up at that. "Really? I don’t suppose it’s going to be later today or even tomorrow?"
There was enough sarcasm in his words that she grinned. That hard, caustic voice usually got him what he wanted, when he wanted it. She’d seen it happen too many times to believe otherwise.
"You don’t scare me," she told him, tapping his chest.
His eyes narrowed, but she caught the tilt of one corner of his mouth. "I don’t?"
"No." Christian flopped back down on her pillow and looked at the carved plastered ceiling.
Brayden’s grunt calmed her raw nerves as he pulled her back against him. "I’m glad. I’d be really pissed if it were otherwise."
Christian rolled her eyes. "And you’re not now?"
"Did I say I wasn’t?" There was fine edge to his voice.
"No."
"All right then." He kissed her temple. "I’ll wait you out, if nothing else you’re teaching me patience."
Christian couldn’t help but snort at that.
"Yeah," he said. "That’s how I thought you’d feel. Well, good, then I won’t lie. I’ll find out the sonofabitch’s name with or without you. But I will find it out." He squeezed her tight. "Now get some sleep."
Sleep? After that? Her heart pounded in her chest. What exactly had she told him? Christian tried to replay it word for word in her mind, but couldn’t be sure of anything. Damn it.
Brayden would do exactly as he said, there was no doubt in her mind. She would just have to end it first.
Please let her end it first. There was no way she could live without the man beside her. Simply, no way.
Christmas was always a big event at the Kinncaid home. The air smelled of cinnamon, baked pies and cakes and entirely too many other things to put a single finger on. A heady, distinctly holiday perfume that lulled and contented the family as surely as the companionship or the sight of the twelve-foot decorated tree in the living room.
The day began early. Christian hadn’t been able to sleep last night. Most likely because Brayden had stayed most of the night in his room and she in hers. Tori was known to run into both their rooms to wake them up. She might want them to be married and a real family, but until they were, both she and Brayden agreed they didn’t want her stumbling onto them in the same bed. The hotel the other night had just sort of happened.
Since Brayden hadn’t been there to hold onto, her mind wandered and planned and worried all night.
Christmas. Nine years ago a house in Oregon had exploded because the people inside had dared to help her. She’d shoved that thought away and remembered happier times from her childhood, but that too reminded her of the fact her father was dead. And behind it all was Richard.
Richard.
Richard.
Damn the man. He was not going to ruin her holiday.
Christian looked over to where Brayden sat on the floor by the fireplace laughing with Aiden. The jacket she’d bought for him fit perfectly.
Brayden gave her entirely too many gifts. Her favorite was the charm bracelet with a champagne flute charm. New beginnings.
Jesslyn, Aiden’s wife, sat beside her, a baby on her shoulder. The couple had been blessed with twins, both dark haired and blue-eyed like their father. And if the attention the boys already garnered was any indication, they would be too handsome for a mother to sleep well at night. Jock Kinncaid held the other one on his massive shoulder.
"I see you two have finally come to some sort of understanding," Jesslyn whispered while she gently rocked baby Ian.
At least, Christian thought this one was Ian, it might be Alec. She had trouble telling them apart.
"Here," Jesslyn said, passing the baby to her. "You hold Ian for a bit. You might as well get used to it."
Christian took the baby. "What’s that supposed to mean?"
Little Ian gave her a gummy grin.
"Oh please. I bet you two are married before...." Jesslyn thrummed her fingers on her thigh. "Valentine’s Day. Yeah, that’s what? Two months away?"
"More like six weeks," she answered.
Jesslyn’s one-sided grin and cocked brow said it before her words. "So you two are actually planning on getting married? I notice there was no denial in all that."
A smile pulled at the edge of Christian’s mouth as she bounced the baby on her knee. For a moment she thought about what Jesslyn said. Finally, she shrugged. Who knew? First, she had to put all the rest of this behind her.
"All this darkness in your life will pass, you know," Jesslyn said softly.
Christian didn’t look away from the baby, only nodded. One day it would all be over. Hopefully, very, very soon.
"Besides, Tori told Ryan she wants a baby sister. She’s tired of being the only girl."
A fist squeezed her heart. A baby girl. That would be ... wonderful. Turning, she smiled at her friend.
And realized with a sudden jerk that Jesslyn was the first female friend she’d had since Susan.
Reaching out, she covered Jesslyn’s hand with her own. "Thank you."
"For?"
"For being my friend. I haven’t had many, so thanks."
Jesslyn smiled, her dark eyes narrowing. "Well, that makes two of us. I’m not the friendliest person around."
"You can say that again," Aiden said, coming up behind his wife.
Jesslyn rolled her eyes. "Was I talking to you?"
Christian smiled as Brayden sat at her feet, tickling little Ian’s chin until the baby gave a deep belly laugh.
Her eyes met Brayden’s and something shot between them, heavy and strong, a tug of longing.
Brayden’s eyes crinkled at their edges as he gave her a small grin. Voices shouted and laughed as more people came into the room.
"I don’t want a baby brother," Tori said, as she sat in front of the mammoth tree.
Brayden’s bark of laughter echoed with everyone else’s.
"First they have to get married, Tori Bori," Ryan, her cousin, informed her.
"I know, I know. I keep after them." Her small shoulders lifted on a shrug. "But what do I know?"
Kaitlyn Kinncaid clapped her hands. "How about we open presents?"
The kids shouted their agreements and the gifts were quickly passed around to their recipients.
Christmas music played softly on hidden speakers.
Laughter rang in the air, mixing with the rip of paper, the toss of a joke, the shout of a thank you.
Christian absorbed it all, as thankful for this family this year as she was the first Christmas she ever shared with them. With the Kinncaids, peace reigned.
"Incoming...." Gavin threw a small package in their direction, which Brayden caught easily.
Well, theirs was a different kind of peace.