She gasped out loud, gripping the cold wrought iron arms on the chair before she realized it was Cormac. Her heart raced, pounding inside her chest. Damn. Noises that startled her had been one of her biggest phobias to overcome since that night in the forest.
But he gripped her shoulder with a strong, warm hand. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He came to stand in front of her before sitting on his haunches and gripping her cold hands. “You know you shouldn’t be out here in the open. You okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine. Just needed some air. Bears are unusually warm creatures—especially females—which is why Florida’s out, in case that was your dream retirement spot,” she joked. Hoping her voice sounded as light as she’d tried to keep it.
“Good to know. I was never much for sand in my shorts. Plus, I know I don’t look like it, but underneath all this hair on my face, I’m a little pasty.”
Teddy snickered, trying to relax.
“So who’s Dennis?”
And there it was. The big lead elephant in the room. She had no choice but to tell him. They hadn’t touched on their prior relationships at this point, so she figured it could wait until they took the life mate thing off the back burner, but with Dennis loose…
Clearing her throat, Teddy gripped his wide hands, calloused and warm. “He’s my ex-husband. He just got out of prison for assault and battery.”
Cormac’s face darkened as his eyes searched hers. “You were married?”
“For two years, until I knew better.” Two hellish years she’d spent coddling him, making excuses for him, allowing him to berate her, belittle her and, in the end, verbally lash her at every turn until his verbal abuse turned into domestic violence.
Tilting her chin up, he asked, “Were you going to tell me?”
She sighed, the cold air escaping her mouth in a puffy cloud. “Eventually. This wasn’t something I purposely kept from you. I’ve gotten good at my mental block where Dennis is concerned. And he wasn’t even a concern until tonight. I just didn’t think I had to say anything yet, seeing as we were putting everything life mate on the back burner.”
“So just a quick question before we go any further. If I’m your life mate, why did you marry Dennis?”
“Well, one, because I wasn’t sure I believed the legend, and two, in the beginning, he was a lot of fun. Charming, funny…”
“And then?”
“And then I became his punching bag. At first he just verbally beat me down. Gaslighted me every time he had the chance, leading me to believe I was crazy. Then it became physical and that’s when I left.”
That last night with Dennis before she’d finally thrown in the towel would always be an ugly reminder of how not to end a relationship. She’d asked for a divorce, and he’d almost choked her to death.
Cormac’s hands stiffened, the muscles in his forearms flexing. “He hit you?” His voice rang with the kind of disbelief only a man with true integrity would.
“He almost killed me,” she confessed, squashing a sob.
The road to recovery since that night had been long. The physical journey had been a snap. It was the mental trip she’d gone on that had knocked her for a loop and left her scrambling to regain her life, in the way an act so violent can do to you.
He brushed her hair from her cheek with the back of his hand, his next question gentle. “Okay, so I know this is going to sound like a ridiculous question in the midst of something so difficult, but how could he have almost killed you if you self-heal?”
“There are so many things you don’t know, I forget. When Dennis came after me because I’d filed for a divorce, I was on a bounty. He tracked me and found me out in the forest, and then beat me to hell and back. Broke my ribs, my collarbone, fractured my pelvis, and yes, those are all things that would self-heal, but when he kicked me over the side of a ravine, I was knocked unconscious. Your healing slows when you’re down for the count because you need to concentrate on the healing. I dropped about a hundred feet and landed on a sharp rock, and punctured my lung. If my brothers hadn’t found me when they did, I would have bled out.”
“Jesus Christ,” Cormac hissed, kneeling in the snow and pulling her into a tight embrace, his arms secure and warm around her. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to say any more. Just forget I asked.”
Curling her head into his shoulder, she squeezed her eyes shut. Not because Dennis evoked tears anymore, her eyes had long since dried out over him. But because they didn’t need this added stress in an already strained situation.
Still, that wasn’t the only reason. She didn’t want to remember how hard it had been to trust herself again, her instincts, her ability to judge another’s character.
“This really screws up everything, huh?”
Cormac set her from him and gave her a look of confusion. “What?”
“Now I’m not just looking over my shoulder for one bad guy who wants my head on a platter, I’m looking for two.”
Gripping her shoulders, he narrowed his eyes in the darkness. “And you think that’s somehow your fault?”