Ever Bound (7 page)

“No! You’ll kill him!” Annabeth’s trembling hands grappled for my shirt. “Please don’t do this!”

I tossed the rock purposely at his head. At that angle, it would only graze him. Tearing a streak of crimson across his scalp, the rock tumbled across the pine needles with a whump.

Scrambling away from me, Drew’s blood-covered face twisted in fear.

I took hold of his shirt collar, shoved him down on his back, and pounced on top of him. My fist began repeated connection with his nose as blood splattered his shirt.

“No! No, Colby! You’ll kill him!” Annabeth tore at my arms.

I hit him again in the jaw. It cracked.

Annabeth screamed, “I love you! If you kill him, you’ll never see me again.”

My hands dropped to my sides.

Though I was still, Annabeth’s small hands jerked as they worked to free my hands from Drew’s shirt collar. The little rays of light surrounding the brown irises in her eyes captivated me.

Her tear stained face. That sweet, angelic face. Her shaking hands. She was all that mattered. She led me from him in a trancelike state.

I stood motionless, mesmerized by Annabeth. Looking into her eyes was like taking my first breath of air. The anger slowly dissipated, yet another emotion replaced it.

The blood on her lip crushed my insides. I touched it, needing to feel her skin, understanding, now, why it was hard for any man not to want her. The new emotion melted the traces of the boy inside me.

“Did he?” I couldn’t finish. The foggy trance left me as I checked her over, moved her hair from the side of her face, and looked down her neck and chest for bruises, signs of injury. The thought of him fully violating her…

“He only touched me. If you hadn’t been here, I don’t know.” Her voice shook.

“I’m going to kill him.” I turned.

She grabbed my hand and laced her fingers into mine. “He’s gone. You have to let him go. You’ve done enough damage. I don’t think he’ll ever look at me again.”

“I wasn’t. Here. I should have. Been here.”

“You’re not obligated to keep me safe.” Her eyes searched mine.

A bond had formed between us. An almost indescribable connection that was unstoppable. The type that carried us forward, and all we could do was watch to see where it took us. I think, looking back on it, the connection had just been waiting for the right moment to reveal itself.

“I’ll always be here to protect you, Annabeth.” My voice was low, grave, shaking with emotion. “Always. If anyone ever touches you again, I’ll kill them. Bare hands.”

“In that case, I’ll never find a suitable husband.”

“If you don’t mind the turmoil it’d send your household into, you could make me the happiest man in the world and end that search.”

“I’m used to turmoil.” A bright light came alive in her eyes as she jumped into my arms.

Forgetting her ordeal, I allowed my lips a gentle brush against hers. With a soft moan, she surprised me by returning the kiss with an urgency I hadn’t expected. In seconds, nothing made sense, yet everything was right in the world.

In another few moments, we would have been on the forest floor doing things that were beyond any fantasies I’d ever had, but I pulled back, raspy breaths breaking from my chest.

Annabeth’s wet lips and flushed cheeks didn’t make my situation any easier.

With just one glance into her eyes, I could see she wanted my fantasies and was no better than I was in hiding it. “If I’m going to remain a respectable and honorable man in the eyes of God, you cannot kiss me like that.”

“How do you prefer I kiss you, then?” Annabeth displayed the brazenness that seemed to run in the family, but her gaze was so innocent and her tone sweet.

I took a deep breath. Here we were in broad daylight, a few feet from a heavily traveled lane, and by the mere sound of her voice, I was undone. “As you’ve pointed out before, I am a man, now. There are certain situations I know I can’t be in and stay strong. Being alone with you is one of them. We need a chaperone.”

“In two days, you’ve gone from being my chaperone to needing one for yourself.”

At that moment, she outshined the sun and put the stars to shame.

“We’d better go then,” I said, not sure from where the energy to speak came. It took all my strength to look on her and not pull her back to the floor of the forest.

I helped Annabeth straighten her dress, partly as an excuse to touch her and partly to hide what had just taken place in the woods. We stepped from the clearing in different places and met back up as if it was some random happening at the back of the rose maze.

When she was sure no one was listening, she turned to me. She clutched her school supplies nervously to her chest, when all I wanted her to do was grab my hand, or both of them. It didn’t matter. “Will you please not report this to my father or the authorities? I think you scared Drew Cobb enough to keep him away for good.”

I nodded.

“He’ll just turn it around on me, and everyone will want to know why I was alone with him in the woods in the first place.” Her chest heaved as she smiled so brightly I almost couldn’t look at her.

How could she still care? It had been so long.

She kissed my cheek.

I remained lifelessly still, staring into her eyes.

In all the last few moment’s drama, I’d forgotten that Annabeth didn’t know the truth. Sure, she knew her sister, but she didn’t know exactly how bad things had gotten. She didn’t know that I’d been…

I never in a million years imagined it’d be her I’d have to explain to.

“Are you all right? Because all that back there—I know you were in a moment of stress and that you probably don’t feel that way about me. I mean. You don’t have to feel obligated—”

Her big brown eyes widened as I grabbed her books from her hand and tossed them to the ground.

Joy swelled inside me as I pulled her out of sight of anyone at either of our houses. I yanked her to me and looked into her eyes. I had to kiss her. It wasn’t just a need. It was for survival.

My hands disobeyed all my moral principles as our lips collided. She had to know how I’d suffered watching her slip away into the clutches of someone who could never deserve her. The sweetness of her mouth disintegrated the world around me. Digging deep for integrity, I put space between us and caught my breath.

God’s words transposed themselves from my Bible into my head. “It’s not good to touch a woman lest he take her for his wife.”

I didn’t think her father would go for that without some very extensive pleading.

This would be the most difficult thing I’d ever done in my life.

“I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes. “I’m no better than Drew Cobb.”

“Don’t ever say that. There’s not another man on this planet as good as you, Cole.” Even if it had agitated me in the past, she made me a new person, so a new name was only fitting.

“Did you mean it?” With my forefinger, I tilted her head and drew her gaze into mine. I needed to know if her words of love were to stop me from committing the ultimate crime or if she really felt them.

She was silent as she stared up at me. Her cheeks flushed and her hair fell from its updo.

Had I done that? I quaked with happiness. Who cared? I was holding her. It was all that mattered.

“What you told me in the forest? I don’t think I heard wrong.”

She bit her lip and looked at my chest. “I mean, if that’s okay, I guess—”

“Surely you aren’t asking my permission to love me?” I could have crushed her in a bear hug, but she was so fragile. The strong, indignant girl who turned my bones to mush and sent my blood boiling was so small compared to the world around her. I would give my last breath to protect her from it.

“Cole Kinsley, would you mind terribly if I’ve fallen head over heels, foolishly, and quite blindly in love with you?” She met my gaze and slid her soft hand down my cheek.

And I’d only thought I’d fallen for her in the forest. I had never truly loved until that moment.

After her question, I remembered her sister. What she’d done. What she’d stolen from me and now from Annabeth.

Annabeth deserved to know the truth. And when she learned the truth, she’d think I was lying.

Nobody could use magical powers to bewitch a man into their arms. It was fairly easy to get most men into a woman’s seductive grip, so would Annabeth believe that I wasn’t like other men?

After her sister pulled one of her wounded animal routines and convinced Annabeth I had in fact seduced Grace, Annabeth would hate me.

How would I ever be able to let her go?

Maybe after a few days, weeks, months, she would love me so much that when I did tell her, she’d believe me. She’d know enough about my true character that she’d know I’d never lie.

“I don’t deserve you.” I cupped her cheek. “I could spend a lifetime staring into your eyes.”

“I honestly thought you hated me for the longest time.” She linked her arms around my neck.

“The way you yell at me all the time, I thought you hated me.” I pulled her as close as possible.

She kissed my nose, but winced. “I’m a little sore. I think I was on top of a rock in the woods.”

“I wish you’d let me kill him. I could make it where no one would ever find him.” I really could have and would have if the prospect of never seeing her again hadn’t been real.

“You’re not that kind of man. I can’t help but notice how you are with the workers. You do their chores so they can spend time with their small children. You nurse sick animals back to health, and even if one is unfortunate enough to not make it through an illness, you shed tears. Don’t be mad. That house is terribly boring. I have to have something to focus on. Who better than a perfect person to watch from the shadows. You love life. And now…”

“And now I love you. I do. I couldn’t say that a few days ago. I felt it, but every time I considered it, I think I broke everything I touched.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought you would never have me.”

“Now, I’ll never let you go.”

It was a girly thing to have your legs turn to mush, but she held me up. I couldn’t have stood if she hadn’t had her arms around me. I almost got my rear full of thorns leaning back on the wall, but she jarred me back to reality.

“If we’re going to be smart about this, we have to be more careful. We can’t be out in the middle of the yard like this.” She pulled from my embrace.

I grabbed at her arms and playfully brought her back to me. “I thought you were never going to let me go.”

She slapped at my arms and giggled. “You know what I meant. I have to get to the house before anyone suspects anything. We’re going to have to hide for a while.” She kissed my lips, jerked sideways away from my teasing hands, and dashed toward her house.

As soon as I walked in the door of my house and put my books down, Pop asked me to go to the main house to work on the rose maze. Any other day, my pulse wouldn’t have quickened, but the thought of being near Annabeth’s dwelling with good cause was exhilarating. A little too quickly, I obliged and went out the door.

With a long pair of scissors from the barn, I cut back stray roses.

It was so hot that I had to flee my shirt. It was soaked with perspiration and made me itch.

“Cole.” A young lady’s voice but not the right one.

Despite the heat, a chill broke out on my body.

“Will you please meet with me at the pond this evening?” Grace said.

“I can’t. You should be inside. Resting.” Without making eye contact, I continued my work. How dare she ask me to meet her? Much less at that godforsaken hole in the ground. I had a great weapon in my hand. I could have—

“I really need someone to talk to.” Grace clutched her skirts and dropped them beside me as her hand reached for my arm.

“I’m pretty sure you ruined your chances of talking to me when you put something in my food and tore my virtue away from me.” I backed away from the roses. The maze didn’t deserve my wrath. The piece of art was too beautiful for me to be near when I was angry.

Her skirts rustled in angry swishes as she fled. The door to the main house slammed.

* * * *

That night, oddly, the Rollins invited our family to dinner at the main house.

In the dining room, seated around the table were my mother, my father, Mr. Rollins, Mrs. Rollins and Mrs. Rollins’s sister. She and her daughter had come for a visit.

I was glad for the distraction because this had already turned out to be one of the most uncomfortable evenings of my life. I would be in the room with Annabeth and Grace at the same time.

I couldn’t turn down the Rollinses, nor could I hide under my bed. I would have preferred counting cracks in the floorboards to sweating profusely in my Sunday best while under the speculation of Annabeth’s whole family.

“Well, don’t you look lovely,” Mrs. Rollins said to one of her girls. Up till then, neither had entered the dining hall, and the long table was almost full of the guests and family members. China clinked, napkins rustled, and the servants rattled pans in the kitchen as they prepared to enter with the food.

I was afraid to look up to see to whom the rustling of skirts belonged. It was a fifty-fifty chance. I looked up.

Good thing I wasn’t a gambler.

“Thank you, Mama.” It was Grace in a big, fancy, red dress. Her cheeks were smudged with a bit of rouge and her lips matched the dress in color. She would have been alluring if she hadn’t been the spawn of Satan.

It was time to face my demons, or demon in this case. I said, a bit stiffly, “Yes, you do look nice.”

Grace tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “Thank you.”

Following her were Grace’s cousins. She didn’t bother to introduce us as they took places across the table, a few settings down.

The rich people at the table were dressed in the finest of frilly dresses and pressed suit coats with scarves tied around their necks, as if they were headed to some big ball.

Pop’s Sunday’s finest paled in comparison to Mr. Rollins’s, but he fit right in. With his napkin on his lap and his elbows off the table, he was in a deep political conversation with the master of the house as if he never had been a farm hand.