After the Rain (The Callahans) (8 page)

“Okay,” she said, stepping away from him as quickly as she could. He stared at her briefly, before turning and reaching for his own helmet. Then he climbed onto the bike and waited for her.

She just stared at him—and at the seat behind him. It was close.
Very close
. She would basically be glued to him. Her heart began to pound wildly.

“Just climb on and wrap your arms around my waist.” He tossed a glance over his shoulder at her. “Keep your legs away from the tail pipe. Burns like hell.”

She still didn’t move.

“Kylie?”

“Yeah?” she heard her voice say.

“Are you afraid of me?”

She knew he was looking at her so she avoided his face and remained quiet.

“What can I do to make this easier?”

The words made her look at him. He had removed his sunglasses and his blue eyes were intense as they stared at her. An uncomfortable silence followed until she finally shrugged her shoulders.

“You were pretty close to me at the lake, Montana. This isn’t all that different.”

She knew she was acting irrational again and she hated herself for it. This was the kind of problem she’d had with Paul—an inability to deal with normal touching.

“Just give me a minute,” she decided, knowing she needed to take this step, and taking it with him was the only answer.

“Take as long as you want.”

She stared at the motorcycle for another minute, before walking over closer to it. She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms, her eyes roaming over his shoulders. He still had his holster on and she wasn’t sure how she felt about the gun.

“I’d take it off but technically I’m on duty. It’s safe,” he said, reading her mind. Then he smiled easily. “I promise I won’t shoot you or anything.”

She had to smile at that. Letting her hands drop from her arms, she forced herself to reach out and grasp his shoulder. She let him help her swing her leg over the back of the bike. The intimacy of their positions wore on her, fleetingly. Her legs clasped his hips.

“Okay?” he asked, quietly.

She nodded, slowly getting used to things. Being close to him was as nerve wracking as she had thought. He smelled good, for one thing. Like something spicy and fresh. The scent immediately went straight to her head and she stiffened.

“Put your arms around my waist,” he told her over his shoulder as he started up the bike.

She did what he instructed, careful to avoid his gun at all costs. She was surprised at how comfortable she felt behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist tightly. The contact wasn’t really terrifying at all.
Unnerving
, but not scary.

The bike started with a roar and a moment later, they were off. As each mile went by, she grew more comfortable, eventually, to the point where she didn’t think twice about shielding her face from the wind, by burrowing her head against the back of his neck. She was actually disappointed when he brought the bike to a stop and turned off the engine.

“So what do you think?” he asked, pulling his helmet from his head and turning to look at her.

“Wow,” was all she could say, smiling from ear to ear. Suddenly, she noticed their surroundings. She had known they’d climbed a rather steep hill but she hadn’t paid as much attention to the environment as she should have. The view from where they were parked was breathtaking. She could see the entire valley and the hills above, where the sun was beginning its descent.

“Pretty amazing, huh?” He climbed off the bike and set his helmet down, before reaching over to help her undo hers. Their fingers meshed and for a moment, neither of them moved. Her heart pounded erratically and she froze.

“I’ve got it,” he finally said, untangling their fingers and pulling the helmet from her head.

She quickly got up and climbed from the bike.

“This is a classic make-out place. I bust kids up here all the time.” He motioned for her to follow him closer to the bluff. When they neared the edge, where only a wire fence stood between them and a fifty-foot fall, he sat down, motioning for her to sit next to him.

She did, wrapping her arms around her knees as she stared out at the land before her. “I would never want to move away from here if I were you.”

“It’s pretty addicting,” he agreed, resting his hands behind him and crossing his legs at the ankles. “Just like anywhere else, when you get used to something you take it for granted though. I rarely have time to come up here and just take everything in.”

“The proverbial
there’s always tomorrow
?”

He grinned. “Yeah.”

They watched in silence, both soaking up the peace and quiet.

“What are you thinking?” he finally asked.

“That I didn’t realize a place like this existed.”

“City people miss out on this kind of peace.”

That was for sure. She rested her chin on her knees as she stared out at the world below. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” he said, easily.

She still avoided his gaze, knowing that what she was about to do was the biggest step in her healing that she had ever taken. “What did Faye tell you about me?”

“She didn’t tell me anything,” he said, without hesitation.

Kylie wondered whether to believe him or not.

“Maybe you should just tell me what you’re so worried about me finding out and then we can go from there?”

“I’m not worried about you finding out anything.” The lie rolled off her tongue, easily.

His silence spoke a thousand words.

“I get the feeling that you already know.” The words were soft and for a moment, she wondered if he’d even heard her.

“I can tell you what I sense if you want. Or you can just tell me what happened to you.” He sat up straight and bent his long legs, letting his hands dangle between them. “I’m a cop and I’ve seen a lot of stuff, Montana. Trust me, nothing will shock me or make me think any differently of you.”

She felt her insides clamp, her adrenaline beginning to pump, nervously. In eleven years, she’d never trusted anyone enough to talk about what had happened to her on that night, so long ago. She’d never even considered telling Paul what had really happened, which was most likely the reason he’d finally given up on her and cheated.

“Faye and I hung out all the time when we were young. Did she tell you that?” she finally asked.

He nodded.

“She had braces so she had to go to the orthodontist a lot. When she wasn’t around, I would go hang out with our friends myself sometimes. A couple of them lived in a different part of town….” Her mind began to wander and she grasped a quick hold on reality to keep her sanity. She felt herself starting to tremble, so she took several deep breaths. “I’ve never talked about this with anyone.” For some reason she needed him to know that. “Not even Faye.”

She heard him shift, felt his hand on hers a moment later. She looked over at him as their fingers entwined. She couldn’t see the eyes behind those glasses but she knew they were looking at her, intently. Somehow, that gave her the guts to go on.

“I shouldn’t have been out after dark. My mother would have picked me up but I didn’t call her. She didn’t like the kid I was hanging out with.” She dropped her gaze to the land below the bluff, which was a hell of a lot easier than looking him in the face. Then she said quietly, “I didn’t think walking home alone was that big a deal. You know how it is when you’re young. Bad things only happen to
other
people when you’re fourteen.”

The words obviously slapped him in the face because he tensed and let out a hiss of breath.

“I don’t know exactly what happened—only that I was walking and then someone grabbed me from behind. I was so shocked that I didn’t fight at first. Then I fought so hard I thought he might kill me just to shut me up.” The words suddenly began spilling out. All the anguish and shame—the terror—finally came to a head.

“I thought if I could just get away, I could find my friend and get help. I thought everything would be okay,” she babbled on, feeling the beginnings of that all familiar hysteria. Her fingers clenched his tightly. She felt the tears swarm into her eyes and the shame of her reality began to surface.

“You don’t have to say anything else,” his voice said, softly.

“I need to.” She breathed in deeply, quickly letting go of his hand and swiping at the tears that had spilled down her cheeks. She knew she had to finish the story before she lost her nerve.

“He forced me into his car. He had a knife at my throat the whole time. He drove me somewhere—I’m not sure where, but it was dark.” She shook her head. “He attacked me. I tried so hard to get away—to fight him. But it was no use. The harder I fought, the more he hurt me. So finally, I just gave up and let him do it.”

9

This time, Trey didn’t mask his reaction. He let out a vile curse. He’d known she’d been raped. It was there on her face the night she’d had the panic attack. And he’d had a bad feeling the attack had been brutal. But he’d imagined nothing of the magnitude she was talking about. She’d been fourteen years old! Practically a baby.

“I told you that you wouldn’t want to hear it. I told you it was ugly.”

He swore again. “Kylie, you couldn’t have done anything to stop it. You were just a kid.” He wanted to touch her but he knew she wouldn’t welcome the contact. Not in the state she was in. The demon she was finally battling was brutal and she needed to face it on her own. He waited while she forced air in and out of her lungs.

“Have you ever felt like you were going to die?” The question came out in a solemn whisper.

“I’ve had some bad situations,” he admitted, dangling his hands between his knees again. “I’ve been shot twice. Stabbed once.”

She sniffled, still avoiding his gaze. “Were you scared?”

“I don’t remember thinking much at the time. I blacked out with both gunshots and beat the shit out of the guy who stabbed me.” He smiled halfway when she looked at him to see if he was serious. “I was scared, Montana. There’s nothing wrong with fear.”

She slowly reached up and gripped the shoulder of her tank top, carefully moving the material down so he could see an ugly line of scar tissue that ran from her shoulder blade across her chest. “I have three of these. This isn’t the worst one.”

He felt an overwhelming sense of anger toward the monster who had hunted down the fourteen-year-old child she had been and taken away her innocence. Instead of showing his anger to her, he sat up straight. “Want to see mine?”

She sniffled again, and let her shirt fall back into place. After a moment, she nodded.

He reached for the shoulder holster, removing it briskly and setting it on the ground beside them. He pulled his T-shirt up and pointed to a round scar on his abdomen. “That was the first gunshot. Fortunately, it missed all my important organs.” He let the shirt fall and pulled the collar aside, tossing his sunglasses on the ground next to his gun. He watched her view the round pucker on his shoulder, in awe. “This was the second gunshot; a clean exit through the back of my shoulder. Unpleasant though. I didn’t get help for a while on that one.”

“Do you want to hear the rest of it?”

He heard the softly spoken words and immediately his shirt snapped back into place and he dropped his hands to his lap. The truth was, he didn’t want to hear any more. With every word she spoke, he began to realize exactly why she was the way she was. It bothered him as a man and it bothered him as a cop. But he knew she needed to get it out. “If you want to tell me about it.”

She finally met his gaze. “When it was over he dumped me on the side of the road in a ditch.”

He inhaled, painfully. “I’m sorry, baby.” He knew the words were lame, yet they were all he had to offer her.

“I was glad he let me go. I remember being unable to move at first and thinking I would die at any minute. I knew I was cut up and I knew I’d lost a lot of blood….” She shook her head. “But there was this damned voice inside me that told me to get up, so I did.” She shivered, her hands reaching up to rub her arms. “I pulled myself out of that ditch and I crawled as far as I could, before I finally passed out. When I woke up, I was in the hospital.”

He knew he shouldn’t, but he had to ask. “Were you able to identify the guy?”

She hesitated, and he knew the answer before she said it.

“No.” She wiped her cheeks again, taking a deep breath. “The cops showed me picture after picture but it didn’t do any good. I was face down half of the time and the other half I was too delirious to see.” She hiccupped again, her eyes staring straight ahead at the now setting sun. “I wouldn’t leave the house after that and I wouldn’t talk to anyone—not for two years. My mom had to home school me and doctors had to come to the house to see me. Faye used to come over after school and bring musical tapes and stuff with her. She would talk and I’d just sit there and stare off into space. Then one day I started talking again. I stood up and walked out the front door as though nothing had ever happened. I buried all the anxiety inside of me. It would come out at night in my dreams, which you saw first-hand, but I never ever talked about it with anyone.” She looked at him, nearly cracking his heart down the middle with the hopeless look in her eyes. “Until now.”

“It’s good that you talked about it. It’s been eating at you for a long time.”

“Yeah, I know.” She rubbed her arms again so he moved closer to her, attempting to block the breeze. He thought she might move away, but she didn’t. So they sat there, arms and legs touching, and watched the sunset in silence.

When the orange circle had completely disappeared onto the other side of the horizon, he finally spoke. “Sometimes bad things happen to good people, Montana. It wasn’t your fault and you have no reason to be ashamed.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Deep inside, I know that. I just have this problem with intimacy. That part of it makes me ashamed.”

“So maybe I can help you with that.” He knew he was taking a big step, but at the same time, he wanted to. There was something about this girl that had climbed into his soul and taken hold of his heart, from almost the first moment he’d seen her. He’d tried denying it to Faye and he’d tried denying it to himself. There didn’t seem to be any obvious reason to deny it anymore.