Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

“You fucking cunt,” he sneers at me. “You want to fight back now?”

His hand goes for my waist and I know I don’t have much choice in the matter. I will fight back whatever way I can, even if it hurts me.

I bring my head back and slam it forward, headbutting him.

It doesn’t work as I planned. It hurts like hell and I’m screaming in pain, my head spinning, but he’s pushed back a few feet and it’s just enough for me to make for the door and rip it open.

I run out into the hall and to the front door and then I’m out on the street and I’m running and running and running.

It takes a few seconds to feel the cold April air and the fact that I’m in boxer shorts and a tank top, with bare feet. But it doesn’t matter. I will keep running until I’m free, I will keep running because that’s the only thing I can do.

I don’t even bother stopping and knocking at any of our neighbors’ doors. They’ll only call the police and my father will get the call. What the fuck good will that do.

My feet are bleeding from glass and rocks by the time I make myself stop.

Headlights appear at the start of the street. I’m at least four blocks away, but I’m not taking any chances. I pull back into the shadows and hide in the bushes until the car goes past.

It’s a cop car.

My father’s.

I watch, holding my breath, as he turns a corner and disappears into town.

Then I turn around and start running back to my house.

I can’t even feel anything by the time I get in.

I don’t even bother trying to find my phone. I pick up the landline in the hallway and dial Shane’s cell.

It’s past midnight and I know he’s sleeping, doing shifts with Mav and Hank and Dick during the calving season, but he still answers almost right away.

“Hello?”

“Shane?’

“Rachel? What’s wrong? Why are you calling…oh it’s your home number. What’s—?”

“Please come get me. Don’t ask questions, don’t tell anyone. I’ll be on the swing set at the park behind my house. Please hurry.”

I hang up and grab my hooded coat from the foyer, slip on a pair of boots, and I’m out the door, running quietly up the street to the park.

I don’t let myself fall apart. Not yet. Now is not the time.

I sit on the swings but I don’t swing. I don’t move. I stay in the shadows and hold my breath and watch.

Minutes crawl by. Somewhere in the distance there’s a police siren and I don’t know if I should be relieved or not. Maybe my father will be torn away for a while. Or maybe he knows where I am and he’s coming for me.

And then, just when I think maybe time isn’t on my side, a pair of headlights shine and dim as a truck pulls to the side of the road. I’d recognize the sound of Shane’s truck anywhere, the truck he stole from Fox and ended up working his ass off for, for years.

“Rachel?” I hear him call out quietly.

I start running toward him and jump inside the passenger seat.

He looks me over, bewildered, his eyes shining. “What the fuck happened? Are you okay?”

I try and swallow but it’s next to impossible. I can only nod frantically.

“Rachel?”

“Please take me home. Shane, your home. Please.”

He watches me for a moment.

I finally look at him, pleading. “Please!” I cry out, my voice breaking.

He nods and starts driving.

In minutes we’re far from my parents. Then we’re far from town. Then we’re crossing the bridge over the river and it’s only then that I feel I can breathe again.

“Rachel,” he whispers again, hand grasping mine as we pull up to his house. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Everything passes in a blur. I can’t catch my breath, no matter how safe I feel.

Shane leads me up to the tiny guesthouse where he’s been living, and I’m grateful at how far removed it is from the main house and the worker’s cottage, thankful for the privacy.

He helps me inside, sits me down on the couch, wraps me in a blanket. His dog Fletcher, a gangly puppy, sits on the handmade rug at my feet, while Shane puts on the kettle.

He doesn’t say a word to me, which I appreciate. He just seems to know.

He makes me tea with a big splash of rye in it and hands it to me, taking the spot beside me. Close but not too close. He doesn’t want to crowd me, doesn’t want to pressure me. He just needs me to know that he’s there. He brims with patience, with love.

God, I’m not sure I deserve the love of this man.

Finally, after I’ve had a few gulps of tea, he leans over and tenderly brushes the hair off my forehead that now throbs red with pain.

“He did this to you,” he says, his voice tight as he stares at the mark.

I look at him in surprise. “Who?”

His jaw is set so hard I’m afraid it might snap off. His eyes are wild and he’s trying so hard to control himself. “Your father.”

He knows. He’s always known.

I take a moment, trying to breathe. “I did this,” I manage to say.

Shane stares at me so fiercely I almost shrink in my seat.

“I headbutted him,” I clarify, trying to sound strong and proud but my voice is shaking and I’m shaking, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel solid again.

I watch his Adam’s apple as he swallows. “Rachel,” he whispers, licking his lips. “I…how long has this been happening?”

Shame floods me from head to toe, but I can’t keep it in anymore. Not anymore.

“Years,” I tell him, staring at Fletcher as he breathes at my feet, in a deep sleep. “He…uh…I don’t know how to start. Where to start. I don’t want to say…”

“Rachel,” he says again, his voice cracking as his hand holds mine. “Please. I know this is hard. But you have to tell me. You have to. Everything.”

I close my eyes, trying to find the strength. For so long I’ve kept all of this hidden, locked away in a box inside of me. A place that no one else could find, a place I hoped wouldn’t taint my life. But little by little, it leaked. Everything I tried so hard to hide and bury, it leaked like blood from a wound, staining everything I did.

Now Shane sees it all over me. I can no longer pretend that this isn’t destroying me from the inside out, that I’m not living one huge lie.

And so I tell him. I tell him that my father started sexually abusing me when I was twelve, and though it didn’t happen all the time, it was enough. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was telling me I was nothing more than a mangy dog, ready to be sent to the pound at any moment. He told me that I wasn’t fit to be a part of the family, that no one loved me, no one rooted for me, no one believed in me. And no one would believe me. He really drove that part home. That he was someone and I was no one. Just a slut. A whore. Someone that shouldn’t have been born.

I saw the abuse spread to my mother in small doses. I saw him hit her and she’d stay home from work to hide the evidence, or he’d start hitting her in places no one could see. I don’t know what else he did. I don’t know if the attention I got was unique.