Montana Secrets (10 page)

With his hands on her arms he gently tugged her closer, then, in a surprisingly lightning-fast move, brought her the rest of the way so he could press his mouth to hers. “Not quite,” he murmured against her lips.

His mouth was firm and warm. His tongue hot and wicked, seductive, as it sought access. She resisted, but then he gently nibbled her lower lip, and she gasped in surprise. He pressed the advantage, the kiss sweet and deliciously enticing at the same time.

Momentarily helpless, she leaned into him as Seth rubbed and caressed and kissed her with a skill she could associate only with him. He teased her with his tongue, soft, questing forays into her mouth to remind her of days gone by. He made a sound deep in his chest, a mix between a groan and a growl, and used his hand to angle her head more to his liking.

Oh, the man could kiss. A distant part of her mind registered the
clink
of the plastic razor falling
to the floor. She didn't care, though. Once the razor was gone, her hand fell to his shoulder and heat seared her. Seth's fingers slid into her hair, massaging, nudging her head this way and that with tiny movements that allowed the sensations spiraling between them to soar.

He ran his callused hand down her neck, over her shoulder, down her arm to the fullness of her breast.

And she remembered.

Tension made her stiffen. Fear overcame her, smothered her, as her mind confused the pleasure she received at Seth's touch with pain and a darkened bedroom. Pretend trips to town where her stepfather pulled off into the woods and—

She heard a whimper and vaguely recognized it as coming from her throat. Her fingers dug into the flesh of his shoulders, desperate to hold on to the sweet, pure passion of Seth's kiss a bit longer, but it didn't work. With the feel of his hand against her breast, the images intruded again.

She tore her mouth from his and jerked away when her stomach pitched wildly. She scrambled backward, away from Seth, away from the past, hot, dizzy. She gagged. Icy cold sweat drenched her body and made her quake.

Earl had told her, warned her.
Taunted
her. Said he was the only man she'd ever have because she'd never be able to let another—

Grimacing when her stomach rebelled again, she had to fight down bile by swallowing repeatedly. Earl was there, always there, looking at her, touching her.
Raping
her.

But for a moment she'd experienced desire from Seth's touch.

Not shameful, not abusive, just…desire.

“Don't run away from me, Grace. Come on, sweetheart, talk to me—”

She shook her head back and forth, her hair swinging with the motion and falling over her shoulders in a loose wave. When had he removed the band?

“Seth, you can't ever,
ever
do that again.”

She could feel his eyes on her as she fought to breathe, wrapping her arms around her stomach, trying to make it stop hurting, trying to make herself invisible.

She licked her lips and released a soft moan of frustration when she tasted Seth. Remembered heat mingled with the fear and she winced at her body's confusing responses. How could she be so frightened and so—so
aware
of Seth at the same time?

“Grace?” Seth rolled himself closer to her, searching her face for answers. “Honey, come here. Sit down. Talk to me. What's wrong? Why are you shaking?”

She lifted a hand and rubbed her fingers against
her temple and forehead, struggling for calm. For distance. “Seth, I mean it—”

“You kissed me back,” he argued, daring her to deny his words. “It was sweet and hot and sexy. You liked it until…until I touched you,” he said deliberately.

“Don't.”

“You liked it, I could tell.”

She closed her eyes in unmitigated shame.

You're a whore. You like it when I do this. You like it!

Step after step she retreated until her back hit the door. “As your therapist—”

“I want more than a therapist.” Seth moved closer. “I want you. I've always wanted you. Please,
talk
to me.”

She ran a hand through the hair falling over her cheek and shoulder and pushed it back out of her face, wincing when her fingers caught in a tangle.

“Here.” Seth held her hair band out to her and she stared at it blankly. Their fingers brushed when she snatched it and shoved it onto her wrist, ignoring the perceptive expression on his face stating he knew exactly what she thought, what she'd felt.

“Honey, you don't have to be afraid of me.”

A tremor ran through her. She wanted to run, get out of his room and hide somewhere until she calmed down, but the adult in her, the one who'd had
session after session to learn to cope with this moment, demanded she stand and fight.

You have to face the past to move beyond it.

“I don't want you pawing me.”

“Pawing you?” His features changed, became even more tender, and tender on Seth was a hard thing to ignore.

“I didn't
paw
you. I touched you and for a moment you liked it—until something happened.” His gaze sharpened. “What were you thinking about then?”

She shook her head mutely.

“Did it have anything to do with your dream last night?”

Her
dream?
She choked out a laugh as she shook her head again, denying his words, denying her thoughts.

“I hear you, honey. Night after night, I've listened to you. You whimper and cry out. Wake up screaming and terrified. So much so you can't even stay in your room. You roam the house trying to escape whatever's bothering you.”

The air rushed out of her lungs. “This—this isn't proper behavior between a patient and therapist.”

His voice was filled with determination. “I wouldn't call arm wrestling your patients for therapy privileges exemplary conduct, either. Or locking them out of their rooms.”

“Seth—”

“I already owe you one session. Come on, talk to me and I'll give in. You can work me until I drop—all in the name of therapy.”

“My dreams are none of your business.”

“You want me to cooperate?”

Now he was blackmailing her? His tone dared her to neglect her responsibilities. Dared her to talk to him. To be honest. “Why are you doing this? I don't need a patient pretending to be a shrink.”

“Ever talk to anyone about your nightmares? How long have you had them?”

She leaned her head against the paneled door behind her. “Give it up, Seth. Please.”

“Who hurt you?”

Her eyes locked on his as Seth rolled closer and lifted his hand to touch her. She flinched backward, her head banging against the door. He murmured something soothing, then brought the fist he'd captured to his lips and placed a gentle kiss on her knuckles.

“Let me go.” Her mind knew better than to tell. She'd held it in for too long, guarded her secret too well. “Let it go,
please.
You can't turn back time or change the past,” she challenged desperately. “It won't change anything between us.”

“No…but maybe it would help you.”

She yanked her hand out of his grasp and turned,
tugging on the doorknob. Seth's wheelchair blocked the way, but she managed to open the door enough to slide a leg through.

She hated her past. Her memories. Herself.

“I'm not asking these questions to hurt you, honey. But I am asking you to take a risk like I'm taking a risk.”

She stared at him, half in and half out of the door. “What are you risking?”

“I risk getting my hopes up that I'll walk again when there are no guarantees. I risk you walking out of my life
again.
”

No words came. Not even denials.

“Have you ever considered what it would be like to tell someone what it is you're keeping bottled up inside? Ever think about how nice it would be to let your secrets go and not have to worry about them anymore because they wouldn't have a hold on you?”

Dear God Almighty, yes.

“Earl Korbit couldn't have been an easy man to live with. He kept his distance around town, but when he did come in, he got drunk with his buddies and left trouble behind.”

She laughed, husky low.
Trouble
didn't begin to describe Earl.

“He played with a rough crowd. They probably hung around the house, too. Did one of them hurt
you?” His voice lowered, barely a whisper, raw with emotion. “One of them hurt you, didn't they? One of them raped you.”

Tired of the questions and the battle, exhausted by the tension, Grace found herself nodding.

T
HROUGH THE ROARING
in her ears, Grace vaguely heard Seth's vicious curse. It didn't matter, though. She squeezed the rest of the way through the door and raced down the hall to the front of the house, all the while ignoring his bellows to come back.

On the porch steps, she pulled the hair band off her wrist and captured her hair into a ponytail, desperate to get away.

“Grace, what's wrong? Where are you going?” Maura called from somewhere behind her. “Are you all right?”

She waved a hand, unable to turn around because of the tears blinding her. “I'm going for a run,” she choked out.

“But you'll freeze in this wind! And it'll be dark soon!”

Freeze? She was burning up inside. She shook her head and kept going. Down the long driveway, past the barn and outbuildings, farther and farther
away from the house. All the while wishing she could pack up and leave.

Maybe she was like the others. When push came to shove, Seth had proved to be a master at getting rid of his therapists.

What right did he have to question her?

Her thoughts raced too fast for her to concentrate on any particular one so she focused on emptying her mind instead. Her breath formed white puffs in the air around her as she pushed herself faster. Harder. Her legs pumped out an impossible rhythm she didn't have a prayer of maintaining.

After a mile she told herself she needed to turn around and go back. She kept running.

At two miles the images in her head began to take shape and she gasped for breath, remembering the threats. The slaps.

The pain of Earl pushing himself inside her.

She dug deep and kept going. Every stride longer than the last. She was stronger now, able to fight back. And she'd survived.

She'd done what she'd had to to live through the horror and keep her promise to Brent. She'd kept her mouth shut so she and Brent could stay together and not abandon each other the way their mother had abandoned them.

Then Earl had died and she'd been freed,
spared,
but by then it was too late. The damage had been
done, and she'd been pretending all these years. Pretending to live and breathe. Pretending nothing was wrong and she'd recovered. Pretending to be strong. She was twenty-seven years old and never had a real relationship except for Seth, and she'd handled that so badly.

Since then there'd been a handful of dates who'd called her cold because she'd never let them get to her. Never let them get close. And the one time she'd tried—

She shuddered, remembering her companion's horror when he'd been getting into things and she'd shoved him away in time to hurl on the apartment floor.

Grace groaned and continued to run, unable to go any faster but determined to distance herself all the same. Then she simply stopped, gasping in pain as her body pitched forward onto the road and she threw her arms out to catch herself. Fire pierced her hands as the gravel cut into her skin, but it was nothing compared to the hurt in her heart. A burning blaze she couldn't escape no matter how hard she tried.

She rubbed her palms together to ease the pain before wrapping her arms around her stomach. She'd go for a month, sometimes two, in peace. Then she'd come home from school and find Earl drinking, waiting. He'd stare at her, watch her every move with a look on his face—

You don't tell. Somebody finds out and you'll be sent away because you ain't mine. Brent'll stay, though. He'll stay here with me, and what'll happen to him without you, Grace? Think things will be easy for him?

“No,” she whimpered.

You're not my daughter. Your slut mother assured me of that. But you look like her and act like her. You even talk like her. She liked it like this, and so do you.

“No.”

This is our secret. I'll kill that pathetic whelp of mine you love so much if you tell. I'll kill him and make it look like an accident. All you have to do is keep quiet.

“No!”

Grace reeled where she sat. Curled so tight she couldn't breathe through the vise around her chest, mentally fighting the battle she'd lost too many times to count. Her stomach churned and rolled. She pitched sideways in the road and vomited.

 

S
ETH STARED AT THE BOWED
head of his niece and frowned. Lexi had taken a good look at him when she'd walked in the room behind Maura, but after she'd smiled in response to seeing his shorn hair and missing beard, she'd begun to pout and refused to lift her chin from her chest. He felt like a monster. Mainly because that's all he'd been to her since coming home from the hospital.

He ran a hand over his face, still surprised to find it smooth, and thought of the woman responsible. He hadn't meant to drive Grace away. Quite the opposite. He wanted her to trust him, confide in him.

Weeks ago he feared never walking again, but now his fear had changed. Grown into something else. What if Grace left?

“Any sign of her?”

Maura shook her head. “I called Jake so he could look for her on the way home. Hank, too, in case she ran in that direction. Roy was in the bunkhouse. He said he'd take a walk and see if he could find her.”

“Thanks. Let me know if you hear anything.”

“You yelled at Grace.”

Seth's heart ached at Lexi's accusing tone. In response, Maura gently pushed Lexi forward, and Seth looked up in surprise when he realized she was leaving.

“Maura…”

“You're on your own, Seth. You're good at arguing with women and sending them running, so you explain it.”

He stared at her, somewhat shocked to find his normally timid sister-in-law angry enough to bring up the past. What had Jake told her about his and Arie's last words?

Obviously not the truth.

Maura retreated into the hall and closed the door
behind her, leaving Seth to fend for himself. He smiled. “Yeah, sweetheart, I did. But I'm sorry about that and want her to come back, but until she does, I wanted to talk to you. To try to explain why I've—” he paused and cleared his throat “—why I've been so mean to you.”

“You don't like me no more,” she said simply.

Seth inhaled deeply and sighed as he waved her closer. Lexi took a couple of steps, but no more.

“That's not true. I love you, Lex. I love you so much I…I didn't want you to see me because it made me sad to see you sad.”

She ducked her head low again, her fingers twisting together into a knot.

“You understand?”

Lexi began swinging back and forth while standing in place, the full skirt of her purple corduroy dress twirling around her calves. “You still like me?”

Seth smiled and closed the distance between them, careful to move slowly so as not to scare her. He grasped Lexi's tiny hands in his, noting the dimples on her chubby little fingers had mostly turned into knuckles sometime in the past year.

What other things had he missed because he was too busy feeling sorry for himself? Fighting anyone who tried to help him and pushing away the people who loved him most? He owed it to Lexi to get bet
ter and be the example Grace reminded him he was. He also owed it to himself.

“I loves you, Lex,” he murmured, deliberately adding the “s” because the first time she'd told him she loved him, she'd done the same. They'd said “loves” instead of “love” ever since.

“I loves you, too, Uncle Seff.”

Six little words. How could six little words mean so much? Things were going to be different. Starting now. She loved him, despite his yelling at her, despite his treatment of her, she still loved him. Amazing.

“I know you do, honey, and I'm so sorry I hurt your feelings. I'm going to be better from now on.”

Lexi looked up at him, eyes wide. “You got your breath back?”

Seth paused at the strange question. “What do you mean?”

Lexi bit her lower lip. “Grace said when you was ready to try to get better it was like getting your breath back after you fall down. That you had to wait till you felt better 'n' then you'd try. Did you get it back?”

Leave it to Grace to understand. “Yeah, baby, I guess I did. But now we need to talk about something else. I hear you've been running around and not telling people where you're going.”

Head back down, Lexi nodded. “I scared Grace bad. She cried.”

And now he knew why. Seth nodded, struggling to find the right words, his jaw so tight it was a wonder his teeth didn't shatter. It was a sick world when kids had to be warned about things like personal safety. Something Grace knew first-hand.

“From now on I want you to
always
let an adult know where you are and what you're doing so one of us can come with you and keep an eye on you.”

“But you don't go out 'n' play anymore.” She smiled shyly, peeking up at him from beneath her lashes. “If you come I'll wait for you to catch up.”

This time the lump in his throat threatened to choke him. He'd wasted such precious time. “Step on my feet and climb up here.”

Lexi grinned from ear to ear and placed her booted feet on his. Seth frowned when he thought he sensed pressure, then shook his head at his imagination. He knew it had been a rough day when he imagined feeling again.

But maybe the sensations were real? Either way he wasn't sure. He certainly wasn't going to mention anything and get his hopes up.

Lexi scrambled onto his lap, giggling as she threw her arms around him. He returned the embrace, then swung his wheelchair around in a circle and laughed as Lexi squealed, long and loud. Heaven above, he'd missed that sound.

“Do it again! Do it again!”

He pressed a kiss to Lexi's forehead. If only Grace were here to see him getting his “breath” back. He owed her, needed to thank her for getting him to realize what was most important.

He turned his wheelchair around until it faced the window. Outside, the driveway stretched into the distance, empty. Where was she?

Better yet, when she returned, what would he say to her?

 

G
RACE CAME UPON THE CABIN
by accident. Chilled to her core, she staggered toward it, remembering Maura telling her about the key hidden under the flowerpot. She'd stay for a bit. Warm up and stretch out the cramps in her legs.

She shivered again and another cramp in her calf made her groan. She was close enough to the house she could have gone there to shower and warm up, but she wasn't ready to return yet. Not when her thoughts were so torn and jumbled, her emotions raw and exposed.

Finding the key, Grace opened the door and her breath caught as she pushed the weathered wooden door wide. There were paintings everywhere. Hung three and four high on the walls, over the mantel, set atop the sparse furnishings. They even lined the narrow stairs that led to the loft Maura had mentioned. And all of them were gorgeous.

Some bright and colorful. Some black-and-white sketches. Gallery-quality. And all the product of Seth's extremely talented wife. The one he wouldn't discuss.

Without really wanting to, Grace stepped inside and shut out the wind, hugging herself for warmth until she saw a throw tossed over the back of a love seat. She picked it up and wound it around her shoulders, sneezing twice from the dust.

Several crocks held a multitude of brushes ready to be used. Paint-spattered towels were neatly folded and set aside. A container kept charcoal pencils orderly. The drawing beside the box of pencils drew her attention and she stared at the cowboy for a long moment, studying Seth's lean form as he worked with a colt. The drawing's angles and planes captured Seth's masculine grace and magnetic pull. Drawn by a loving hand.

Determined, Grace tore herself away from the sketch and studied the others. Animals, landscapes, portraits. Rather than having a particular leaning, Arie was talented at capturing every image she attempted.

Grace's lips twisted. She drew stick people.

So why are you comparing? You shouldn't be and you know it because there
is
no comparison.

Frowning, she turned and made her way to the stairs, following the myriad of images up to the loft
where a twin-size bed was shoved up against the far wall. Paintings covered every available space there, as well, the most precious piece being one of Lexi.

The portrait had been painted when the little girl was only a few months old, dressed in angel wings and a smile, a white blanket covering her hips. It dominated the others, hanging above the bed without anything crowded around it.

The wind whistled and a
bang
sounded, startling her until she realized it was the porch swing hitting the outside wall of the cabin. Grace looked out the tiny loft window and noted dark clouds lining the distance.

She had to go back. She didn't want to cause anyone upset or worry, but how would she ever face Seth again?

Grace pulled the throw tighter around her shoulders as she made her way back down the stairs. With one last glance around the cabin, she left, careful to make sure the door latched and the key was back where it was supposed to be.

Another shiver coursed through her and she had the strangest feeling she was being watched, a fact proved true when she stepped off the porch the same time Roy Bernard walked out of the shadows beneath the pines. Grace stopped, her entire body tensing in unease.

“You all right?”

“Fine. I was just heading to the house.”

“I'll walk with you.”

“No, that's not nec—”

“You too much of a snob to walk with me?”

“It's not that at all, it's just…I'm not very good company at the moment.” She stepped forward with a purposeful stride, hoping to escape the cold and Roy as quickly as possible.

“Earl used to talk about you.”

Her ankle twisted on a rock as she misstepped.