“Janet is their stepmother. Gary was their dad.” At times it felt like Denver looked into her, like he already knew her every secret. It could have been intimidating but instead his concentrated attention felt like a balm. “You said he’s dead now.”
“That’s what they told me.” He pulled her closer until her body pressed into his and she either had to rest her cheek against him, or tip her head back to maintain eye contact.
She chose to cuddle closer.
“Gary knew what they did to you?”
This was the difficult part, what scared her the most and sometimes still gave her nightmares. “He caught them trying to get into my bedroom.” She hated thinking about it, definitely didn’t want to talk about it, but she needed Denver to understand so he’d let it go. “They did that a lot, accidentally busting in on me in the shower, in my bedroom.” None of the locks in the house were secure. It took little ingenuity to open any door and she’d forever been fearful. “More often than not, I took a two-minute shower when none of them were around.”
Whenever Carver drank, she found a place to hide—even if it meant staying out all night.
And that experience had its own terrors...
Denver muttered a low, foul curse. “What did Gary do about it?”
Hoping he wouldn’t notice, she squeezed in as close to him as she could get. “They tussled. That happened a lot, too. He’d belt one of them, they’d shove back. Same with Janet.”
“They hit their stepmother?”
“They had massive brawls.” And she’d known if Janet accepted the violence without leaving them all, she herself wouldn’t be exempt. “The fights were endless. That night it happened against my door with a lot of shouting. Carver...accused his dad of looking at me, too.” She appreciated it when Denver’s arms tightened. “Their voices dropped and, I don’t know, I felt like I had to hear what they were saying. I crept to the door to listen.”
She could still remember the exact words Gary had muttered to his twisted sons.
“You heard what he said.”
The words would forever be trapped in her brain. Nodding, she repeated, “She’ll be eighteen soon, so lock that shit down until then.”
Denver stared in stunned disbelief.
“Carver argued with him.” As she’d later learned, he didn’t want to wait—and wouldn’t. Carver wasn’t known for denying himself once he’d set his sights on something.
The fight between father and son had been brutal, which maybe explained why Carver both hated her and wanted her.
An evil combination.
“Hey.” Denver smoothed back her hair, tipped up her face. “You’re here now, with me. No one is going to hurt you.”
“I know. I wouldn’t let him. Like I told you, I’m not a scared kid anymore.”
Brushing his thumb over her chin, he murmured, “Such a hardass.”
“No. But I’m not a wimp, either.” At least, she hoped not. Certain things, things she would not talk about right now, still had the ability to freeze her in terror.
“Carver’s father should have protected you.”
She shrugged with acceptance. “I guess because the state wouldn’t pay for me after I turned of age, Gary considered me fair game.”
Denver’s hands tightened on her in a gentle but unbreakable hold. “I’m glad the bastard is dead.”
She shared that sentiment. “I left a few days after that.” But it hadn’t been soon enough.
She wouldn’t go into how she’d managed to get away, the cruel nightmare that made it clear she either had to leave, or pay the consequences.
She said only, “I didn’t stick around to finish high school.”
“Knowing you had a very limited grace period left, it’s smart that you didn’t.”
All the mean tricks and torment had been bad enough, but what Carver had planned out... Feeling defiant, she raised her chin. “I was nineteen before I got my GED.” But by God, she’d gotten it. “I later got my associate’s degree through an online college.”
Denver rubbed her back, kissed her forehead, and then abruptly set her away from him. “You thought I knew them, that I’d go along with that warped shit?” The words were gentle, but his burning gaze scoured her face. “You actually thought that? About me?”
She shook her head in denial, but they both knew she had. “Not until you mentioned them and then it was just like a...a knee-jerk reaction or something.” She’d worked hard to put the Nelson family out of sight and out of mind. “I hadn’t even thought of them in so long, but when you said their names it came flooding back in on me.” Meaning it as an apology, she said, “It leveled me, Denver, thinking you would do that.” Because he was important to her when no one else had been.