A thousand dire recollections of her three-year ordeal chased one another through Cantara’s mind. Her head throbbed and her limbs trembled as she was swept back in her imagination to the dank prison that she had thought would become her tomb. She had spent the past month living in a bubble, unsure of her history, her identity—unsure of anything except the unshakable certainty that she was supposed to be with Raoul and Zeke. Now that she remembered the cold hard reality of how she’d gotten a second chance to be with them, she belatedly realized that ignorance had been bliss.
“Come on, darlin’,” Raoul said, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her out of the lake. “Let’s get you warm and dry. You’re shaking like a goddamned leaf.”
Zeke produced a towel from his saddlebags and rubbed Cantara’s limbs briskly with it. “Let’s get your circulation going again, sweet thing,” he said. “Then you can tell us what you remember. It might help to talk about it.”
When her body was dry, Raoul helped her back into her clothing and Zeke set about towel-drying her hair. She was incapable of helping herself and stood compliantly where she was while they took care of her. The initial shock of recollection was wearing off and, at first reluctant to speak of the horrors she had endured, she now wanted to share them with the only two people in the world who could possibly understand.
The two men whom she loved unconditionally. The only family she now had. The only family she would ever need.
“Better?” Raoul asked, gently kissing her brow as he took her hand, sat down on the grass, and pulled her down with him.
“Yes, I think so.”
“That’s good.” Raoul’s reassuring smile helped her to emerge from the pain of recollection. “You remember your family now.”
It wasn’t a question, and Cantara merely nodded. “It feels like I’m grieving for them all over again,” she said, wiping away an errant tear.
“I imagine it must,” Zeke said, stroking her arm. “But the special thing about you is that you didn’t want revenge, like the majority of people in your situation would have.”
“Like my brothers did?”
“Right. You could see the futility of violence, wanted to try and put a stop to it. You were absolutely determined to make a difference. That takes real courage, especially when so many people tried to dissuade you.” Zeke paused. “Us included.”
“I should have listened.” She looked from one to the other of them, tears streaming down her face. “I thought you were dead,” she said bleakly. “Which meant my life was over, too, because I couldn’t imagine living without you, even if I could get past the guilt.”
“Oh, darlin’!” Raoul pulled her into his arms and she found sanctuary against the solidity of his granite chest. “We thought the same thing about you.” He nuzzled the top of her wet head with his lips. “Do you imagine we would have stopped looking for you if we thought there was even an outside chance you were still alive?”
“No, I’m sure you wouldn’t have, so I guess that means I’m glad you thought I was dead. You never would have found me, and would probably have gotten yourselves killed in the hunt. You know how volatile things are on the West Bank.”
“We know,” Zeke said. “But it wouldn’t have stopped us.”
Cantara didn’t quite know how she finished up there, but she was now sitting on Raoul’s lap. He and Zeke were still naked, which didn’t appear to bother them, and Zeke pulled her legs over his groin, so they each had a part of her to touch with their skilled fingers, to comfort, to caress. Now that they had taken control over her body, showing her through their fierce desire to protect her just how much she was loved, Cantara’s mind felt better able to face her memories. They were just memories. They couldn’t hurt her now.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“We followed you, as agreed, but sensed from the get-go that something wasn’t right,” Raoul replied. “But it was too late to turn back because we had no way of pulling you out. That was stupid. We should have insisted on a failsafe of some sort. Anyway, they had you and we weren’t about to let you out of our sight.”
“But we rode that damned motorbike straight into an ambush,” Zeke said. “They knew we’d be following you, knew what we were to you, and planned to take us out. We couldn’t figure out why at the time. Now we know it was personal because Salim wanted you for himself, it makes more sense.”
“I’m so very sorry,” she said, shaking her head against Raoul’s chest.
“It’s not your fault, darlin’,” Raoul said. “We were taken, held for a week, but we managed to break out. We dealt with the guards and the head honcho guarding us and managed to get back to base. But we only escaped after we’d been shown a video of you…” Raoul choked on the words and took a moment to compose himself. It was Cantara’s turn to comfort him by gently caressing his face with the tips of her fingers, running one of them across his lips until he expelled a soft sigh and continued talking. “You were tied to a chair. A man approached you. He had his back to the camera so we never were able to identify him. Anyway, he slapped you so hard that you fell to the ground.”
“Which must be how you fractured your skull,” Zeke added. “There was so much blood. It killed us to see it, but we couldn’t show any reaction to that damned psychopath who was holding us. We were denying all personal connections to you, you see, but he didn’t believe us. Then we saw you laid out, eyes dead and staring, on a bed. It damned near did our captors’ work for them and finished us off then and there.”
“They tortured you,” she said on a whisper, fresh tears flowing. “All because of me. I can’t stand it.”