Return to Me (18 page)

He’d seen her nude, when they made love and whenever he put the salve on her injuries. Samara knew she had nothing to hide, but right now she didn’t want his help. Perhaps it was a control issue. For now, she just wanted solitude.

“I’ll be fine.” When he looked doubtful, she added, “You can stay by the door and if I need you, I’ll call out. Okay?”

Though he nodded and closed the door behind him, she could tell he wasn’t convinced. That, more than anything, gave her determination. She’d needed his tender care the last couple of days, but it was time to recover and regroup. Time for strength, and at some point soon, time for action.

Ignoring the dismal surroundings of the decrepit facilities, Samara stripped. She avoided looking at her body as she eased into soothing water. Beside the tub, Noah had set out a towel, along with soap, shampoo, conditioner, and a razor. She leaned back into the tub, closed her eyes, and allowed the hot water to seep into her bones. Cleansing, healing, soothing.

Noah paced back and forth in front of the door. She’d been in there for half an hour. He’d called out several times to make sure she was okay. The last time she’d reassured him, there had been a definite snap in her voice. Hearing her irritation pleased him beyond measure.

The last two days, she’d drifted in and out of consciousness. When she woke, he’d done his best to ply her with liquids and food. Her appetite had been almost nonexistent, but with a bit of coercion he’d gotten some nourishment in her. That she’d let him get away with bullying her was just another indication of how weak and vulnerable she’d been.

He hoped that was about to change. She’d need to be strong to face what lay ahead. He wanted to know what happened, what she’d been through. Part of him felt selfish and evil for making her relive it, another part told him she needed to tell it. Cathartic release a part of the healing process. This wasn’t an optimum time for counseling, nor was it the right setting, but he had another reason for needing to know. If she’d heard or seen something, no matter how seemingly insignificant, that information might be vital.

The truck would most likely arrive within the next couple of days. Which was why he needed Samara to talk and needed to assess her condition. What he planned wouldn’t be pretty, but it was necessary.

Samara needed to be long gone before the other girls arrived. She’d already been through too much. Putting her through further trauma went against everything within him. Getting her away from these bastards was his first priority.

The bathroom door opened and Samara emerged. The bruises on her face stood out green and blue against creamy, pale skin. The welts on her body were healing and had turned to ugly, narrow bruises. The medicated cream he applied two to three times a day had fought any infection from all the numerous cuts and scrapes she’d sustained, including her feet. Every time he looked at her, rage engulfed him. He had a good idea of how she’d gotten all her injuries, but he still wanted to hear it from her. And he still didn’t know if she’d been raped.

“Feel better?”

Lips, still chapped and bruised from abuse, tilted in a reassuring smile. His chest ached. Damned if she should be trying to make him feel better.

“Much better … thanks.” Wearing the clean T-shirt he’d loaned her, she wobbled to the bed. Despite the knowledge that she was struggling to gain control, his arms reached out automatically to carry her. He checked himself before she saw his mistake. He had to give her space. Time, unfortunately, was no longer something he could give her.

“Mara, we need to talk about what happened.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Moving carefully, not wanting to have her feel threatened in any way, he approached the bed and sat down. Her body, warm, slight, and delectably made, tempted him. He snarled at the unwanted desire. The time for that had come and gone and would be no more. Hell, after what she’d been through, he didn’t know if she’d ever be able to have a sexual relationship with a man again. Though everything within him rebelled at another man touching her, more than anything he wanted Samara to have a normal life. To be safe and happy. The thought that this experience might prohibit that filled him with gut-wrenching guilt.

He should never have involved her in this operation. But he had. Now he had to figure out a way to help her deal with it.

“Sometimes it helps to talk about it. Get the anger, pain, and humiliation out in the open.”

Shuddering violently, she shifted away from him. Noah stilled her with his hand on her arm. “I need to know. … You may have inadvertently picked up some information.”

“I didn’t hear anything. I was too scared. It’s all a blur. … I barely remember …”

“You remember more than you think you do.”

Wounded eyes, filled with tears, tortured and seared him. “I can’t, Noah. … I just can’t. You don’t understand what’s it’s like … how it feels to be so helpless and vulnerable. All those vile, hideous things they said to me. Not knowing if they were going to rape me. Wanting them to stop, but knowing if they stopped one thing, something even more horrible might take its place.”

Easing her into his arms, he pulled her head to his chest. “I promise you, no one will ever hurt you again. I’m sorry this happened and I’d give my life for it never to have happened. But the fact is, it did. Now, we need to deal with it and go on.”

She jerked away, glaring in accusation. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who was violated … treated like garbage. Pinched, slapped, stripped, beaten, and …” She looked away. “There’s no way you could understand what it’s like to be so vulnerable, helpless … so incredibly powerless.”

Noah pulled her into his arms again and rocked her. “It will get better. … I promise.”

“Rationally, I know it will. It has to. I’ve counseled women who have been physically and sexually abused. I know what I’m supposed to do … what I’m supposed to feel. Knowing and doing …” A slow shake of her head. “It’s not that easy.”

“I know but—”

“But nothing, Noah. You can’t know until you’ve been through it yourself.”

Stiff and still, he barely breathed. Then, with a long sigh, ragged with understanding, he spoke in a cool monotone. “I was sixteen years old when Mitch raped a girl from my school.” His shoulder lifted in a small shrug. “I had a crush on her and she’d paid attention to me. Mitch never could stand me having something he didn’t have. Always wanted what he thought I had or wanted.”

As if unable to sit still, Noah stood and turned toward the window. He blew out a snorting laugh. “Back then, I was Michael Stoddard. And believe it or not, considered the bad twin, with the dangerous reputation. Mitch was known as the good one. When Rebecca told her parents, her parents called the sheriff. … I was the one they came for.

“Rebecca’s parents refused to let her testify. She knew it was Mitch, though he’d done his best to make her believe it was me—even wore my clothes. No one believed her. Said she was too traumatized to know the truth. The sheriff was convinced they had their rapist.

“I was sentenced to two years. My lawyer thought it was a damn good deal.” Another pause and then, “My first night, I remember sitting in my cell. … I’d always pretended to be tough, while all the time, I was just a scared kid. But I knew it could no longer be an act. I had to be tough for real. My mental pep talk lasted all of five minutes … then the cell door opened.”

Samara forced herself to stay seated, barely breathing.

“Two of the inmates decided to give me a demonstration of what my victim had gone through. First they beat the hell out of me. The whole time I was thinking that someone would come and save me … never happened. When they got tired of that, they slapped tape over my mouth and took turns.”

Dead silence followed his tragic statement. Samara hadn’t thought she could hurt any more than she already did. … She was wrong.

When he turned back toward her, fierce determination blazed in his eyes. “That’s why I know you can overcome it, Mara. It won’t be anything you’ll ever forget, but it will be something that will dim … eventually.”

“What happened after that?”

A shrug. “They left. I cleaned myself up and the rest of the night, I made plans.”

“What kind of plans?”

His mouth lifted with a hint of wry humor. “You name it, I planned it. From killing everyone who’d had anything to do with what happened to me, to getting out and killing my brother and father.”

He stayed silent for so long, she was afraid he wouldn’t share any more. Finally, his voice rumbled across the room. “Of course, I didn’t do any of those things, but I did become the tough guy I needed to be to survive. When there’s a new kid on the block and he’s already been broken in, they come at you like vultures, thinking they can get an easy piece. I showed them I’d never be that easy again.”

Her heart bled for him, because no matter how much he denied it, the hurt inside him still lingered. What would he have been like if he hadn’t been forced to be who he was? Was that young man still inside him? The sensitive, unworldly, and kind person he probably was before he’d suffered such a trauma?

“After that, it got easier. Most everybody stayed away from me. I probably would have gotten out in a year or so. … I didn’t know until I got out that Rebecca finally convinced her family it wasn’t me. They worked like hell to prove it’d been Mitchell. Nobody wanted to believe them. My dad had too much clout with the sheriff and the judge, who also happened to be his best drinking buddies.”

“Your father wanted you in prison?”

“Mitch was his favorite.” He paused. “They had a lot in common.”

By that she figured he meant his father had done pretty much the same things Mitchell had done. “What about your mother?”

“She left home when I was a kid. Couldn’t take the abuse anymore.”

“You said you probably would have stayed in prison a year. What happened?”

A genuine grin kicked up his mouth and despite their topic of conversation, her heart lightened.

“New kid came in. Same thugs decided to break him in. I broke it up. Got more time tacked on for beating the shit out of them. The extra time was worth it.”

“What happened to those men? Were they ever punished for what they did?”

He shook his head. “Not by the law, no. One of them was found dead in his cell one morning. Somebody had gutted him in his sleep. The other one died from a burst appendix a few months before I was released.”

Samara blew out a ragged sigh. She’d never been happy to hear about anyone’s death, but she couldn’t help but be glad the bastards who had hurt Noah were in hell, where they belonged.

“How long were you there?”

“One thousand, one hundred, and eighty-two days … little over three years.”

“How did you finally get out?”

“A minister came by once a week. Of course, I didn’t want to hear anything he said, since my father pretty much trained me to hate anything to do with religion. But he was a good man … the best I’ve ever known. We’d just sit and shoot the breeze. I began to trust him … told him a few things. He ended up helping me get out and helped me set up LCR.”

“What was his name?”

“Milo.”

A memory caught her … something Eden had mentioned. “He was the man who was killed last year?”

“Yes.”

So there was more than one reason for Noah to want Bennett. “How did Milo help?”

He shrugged. “In more ways than I can count, but one of the most important was his advice. He told me I had two choices. I could let what happened ruin my life, or I could make a difference in others.”

“So you made a choice to rescue people?”

“I made a choice to help victims instead of being one.”

And in that moment, Samara knew she loved him. Probably had from the beginning but had fought almost as viciously as he had to prevent that from happening. Now she knew that with every fiber of her soul, this man was the love of her life. There was a quality inside Noah that had remained unsullied and pure … the part he hid from everyone. Noah was a true hero, though he’d deny it to the death.

After the heartrending account of his trauma, hers no longer seemed as scary or horrendous. Scooting back on the bed, she held out her hand for Noah to join her. Crossing the room, he sat beside her, took her hand in his, and kissed it.

She blew out a sigh, determined to stay as factual and unemotional as she could. “I woke up in the trunk of a car. My arms and legs were tied together. I didn’t know where I was, or who had me. Finally, they opened the trunk and threw me on the ground. One of them untied me, because the other one said he liked to see them try to get away.

“I lay there for a few minutes while they talked about what they were going to tell Mitch about what happened. One of them—a man named Richard—picked me up and slung me over his shoulder. While they walked, they talked about not being able to taste the goodies. One said I looked so young, that I was probably still a virgin. The other one said he should have said something earlier and he would have let him have me.” Samara swallowed thickly. “He said no, I was too skinny, but he wouldn’t mind getting the girl with the big breasts they’d picked up a few weeks ago.”

“They say her name?”

“Lara.” She saw the recognition of the name in his eyes. “You know about her?”

“Met her brother recently.”

When he didn’t say anything else, Samara continued, “They brought me here and dumped me on the ground. When I heard Mitchell’s voice, I knew it sounded familiar … but not. Then, when I saw his face …” She closed her eyes. “God, I couldn’t believe it.”

“I didn’t think it was something you needed to know, because I never intended for you to get anywhere near Mitch.”

“I know, Noah, but seeing him, with your face and the pure evil in his eyes. … It was terrifying.”

He picked up her hand and kissed it again, apologizing once more.

“Anyway, they brought me in and threw me on the floor. When Mitch asked me about Noah McCall, I told him I didn’t know any Noah.” She laughed softly. “He said they heard me scream ‘Noah.’ I told him I said ‘no,’ not ‘Noah.’”

“Smart girl.”