I wonder what his family did on Sundays. Sundays are like a compass up here. They point to what folks hold sacred. Was his family into church, yard work, a crowded supper table, or a day out in the blind?
Why do I care?
His big hands brush over my bare shoulder and down again before I hear a distinct clicking noise, a swishing sound, and suddenly, I’m free. I’m not one hundred percent sure what’s just happened, but I figure it can’t be good given the quickness with which I’m feeling air against my back.
My breath catches, and I turn back to see he’s holding his pocketknife in his hand, the blade glinting in the soft light. “What are you doing?”
He stares toward me, eyes wide as though he’s not sure what to say. “You said you needed help getting out of that thing, so I helped you.”
“I said I needed you to help me with the buttons!”
He grins. “I did help you with the buttons.”
“No,” I groan, the dress falling off my shoulder, “you sliced the dress off me. I told you how expensive this is. Nathan might want it back.”
The giant rolls his eyes to the side. “Step out of the dress.”
“What?”
“Step out of the dress.”
I don’t want to listen, but the dress is cut open, and I’ve been desperate to get out of it since the second I put it on. Plus, I’m still wearing the horrid, too tight, awful, would not recommend bodysuit that sucks all of me in, along with the crinoline.
I should consider his demands. I’m not naked, far from it, and his commands sound an awful lot like one of the many bizarre fantasies I’ve been having.
Is it possible to already have Stockholm’s syndrome? God, maybe this is what his family does on Sundays. They kidnap people.
I should trade my aching thighs for some nervous energy, but despite the fact that he hauled me up over his shoulder, took me from my wedding, and there’s a pocketknife in his hand, I feel safe with Rhett.
I don’t know how, but my body feels it.
“Good girl,” he says, taking the puffy princess cut fabric from my hands as he makes his way to the closet. He grabs a hanger and loops the dress in place before hanging it on the curtain rod in the window overlooking the beach. The bedroom windows aren’t as big as the ones in the living room, but they still display that gorgeous turquoise lake like a perfectly framed photo. “I’m going to give you my knife and I want you to tell me everything Nathan did to hurt you while you hack this thing up.”
I glance toward the giant. “What?”
“That day we talked, you told me how unhappy you were. How you were afraid to go through with the wedding because Nathan had done terrible things to you.” He holds out the knife, worn and glinting, as though it’s taunting me. “Let it all go.”
I can’t believe I was that open with Rhett. What was I thinking? Why did I tell this stranger how unhappy I was? God, that’s why he took me. He has some sick hero complex.
Hero complex or not, nothing I said was a lie. Nathan and I had gotten into a horrible fight the night before I had that conversation with Rhett. It wasn’t the first time he’d been physical, but it was the most intense and I was shaken. I didn’t tell Rhett exactly what happened, but I was messed up in the head for sure.
“You’re okay,” Rhett says, still holding out the knife. “It’ll help.”
I read this book once about how cathartic it is to destroy things when you’re frustrated. Actually, maybe it wasn’t a book. Maybe it was an advertisement for one of those rage rooms where you go inside, suit up, and smash everything with a baseball bat. The point is, he’s not wrong. It can be therapeutic to destroy things, and it would be liberating to abolish this dress.
This dress I didn’t want.
This dress that never suited me.
This dress Nathan insisted I wear.
I take the heavy handle in my hands, noticing Rhett’s initials engraved in the wood above the head of a bird. My dad always carries a similar blade, an heirloom his father passed to him when he died. Dad’s doesn’t have initials carved into it, but it’s special to him none the less, and he takes it everywhere he goes. Heck, he had to board a flight to Dallas once, and he forgot he had the knife in his pocket. They wanted him to check it, and he wouldn’t. The man rented a car and drove all the way to Dallas instead. That’s a thirteen-hour drive, just so he could keep the knife by his side.
“Your dad’s?” I ask, staring down at the worn, wood handle.
“My grandpa’s. My dad died when I was four. Heart attack. My mom went crazy shortly after that… so my grandparents took over. It was for the best, though. My brothers and I got the best raising we could’ve. Fishing trips, hunting, and Grandma even taught us boys how to make biscuits. The secret’s in the butter.”
Listening to Rhett talk is like stepping into this place I’ve been before. It’s warm and soft, and when I’m around him, my guard drops without me telling it to. It’s like something about him echoes the places where I’ve felt safe, understood, and seen.
