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Chapter Three
Adam
I tossed and turned as the list of jobs for the following day played on a loop in my head. I had a busy day of checking and repairing fences, and a couple of my heifers were about to give birth. I was lucky to have a great foreman and team of ranch hands, but I never expected them to carry out work I wasn’t prepared to do myself.
I sighed, punching my pillow and trying to get comfortable, but it was no use. Thoughts of Belle sleeping in the next room kept infiltrating my mind.
Seeing her today had floored me. She was breathtaking—a far cry from the kid who’d followed me around the ranch like a little puppy, watching, learning, asking a million questions. She’d never known her father, and Jolie’s maternal instincts had been sadly lacking. Cora had always been the glue that held our dysfunctional family unit together.
Until Robert had come along with his charming smile and smooth talk, married Jolie, and swept her and Belle off to Medicine Bow, a good three hours away. Cora had been devastated. She was a keen judge of character and had seen right through Robert’s fake charm to the narcissist lurking beneath.
But Jolie was blind to his faults. Much as it had broken Cora’s heart, she’d known she had to let her daughter walk her own path and be there for her if—or when—it all went tits up. I didn’t think any of us could have imagined just how badly things would end, though.
I’d found Cora on the living room floor, sobbing, her phone still clutched in her hand after learning of Jolie’s death. Robert had found her collapsed in the bathroom, a bottle of prescription pills scattered around her. The coroner had ruled her death as a clear case of suicide, but Cora blamed Robert. He may not have killed her with his own two hands, but Cora was convinced Jolie had taken her own life as a result of his abusive behavior.
That had been two weeks ago. Cora had rushed to Medicine Bow to be with Belle, leaving me in charge of things here. When she’d called to put her proposition to me, asking me to marry Belle, my first instinct had been to say no. After all, I remembered Belle as the skinny teenager who’d left here four years ago—the girl I thought I’d merely tolerated with her endless questions until she was gone, leaving a hollow space I hadn’t expected.
But here we were, legally married, if only in name. It didn’t feel as bad as I’d thought it would. In fact…
“No! Stop…please…!”
The panicked cry jerked me from my thoughts. I was out of bed and headed toward Belle’s room before I had time to think. Another cry had me picking up my pace and entering her bedroom without knocking.
Moonlight poured into the room, falling on the woman lying in bed and turning her blonde hair to silver. Belle was in the throes of a nightmare, the bedclothes tangled around her long legs.
I moved to sit on the side of the bed, shaking her gently. “Belle, wake up. You’re dreaming.”
Her eyes flew open, clouded with fear and pain that had my protective instincts on high alert. Next thing I knew, she’d scooted back against the headboard, her knees drawn up to her chest with her arms wrapped around them.
“Adam?” she rasped, blinking rapidly.
“It’s me. You’re safe,” I assured her. “You were calling out in your sleep.”
Belle took a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry, I thought—” She clamped her lips together.
My eyes narrowed on her pale face. “You thought what?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied, shaking her head. “It was just a bad dream.”
Wrong answer.
“What did he do to you, Belle?” I asked through gritted teeth.
Her eyes met mine, swirling with all kinds of emotions. She knew exactly who I was talking about. “He just…roughed me up a little,” she whispered. “A few months before…Mom died, I came home to find him pinning her up against the wall. He had his hands around her throat. He was shitfaced. I tried to pull him off, but he backhanded me, split my lip,” she said, touching her fingers to her mouth at the memory.
“When he saw the blood, it seemed to bring him to his senses. He broke down, said he was sorry, and begged for forgiveness. I pleaded with Mom to leave him, to come back here, but she said she loved him, that his drinking was a sickness and that he couldn’t help it. It was a conversation we’d had many times before. I never understood why she stayed, but as long as she did, I did, too. I couldn’t leave her alone with him. At least when I was there, I could run interference. I was so scared that he was going to really hurt her one day. I never thought that…that she would…”
Belle’s face crumpled, and she dropped her head into her hands, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
I wanted to break things. Starting with Robert’s face. I hated that another man had put his hands on Belle, that he had physically hurt her and Jolie. Even more, I hated that I hadn’t been there to put a stop to it. Had Cora known how bad things had been? She couldn’t have—there was no way she would’ve left Jolie or Belle at the mercy of Robert if she’d known he was physically abusing them.
I moved closer, scooping Belle up in my arms. She came willingly, burrowing into me as she cried. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you,” I said roughly, smoothing my hands through her hair.
Belle’s blue eyes were drowning in tears as she lifted them to mine. “Why are you sorry? You don’t owe me anything, Adam. I’m just the pain in the ass kid who followed you around twenty-four-seven, bugging you and asking a million random questions,” she said, a wistful smile tugging at her mouth. “Besides, I didn’t tell anyone how bad things were,” she added, her smile vanishing as she confirmed my earlier suspicion. “For almost four years, I watched that man reduce my mom to a shadow of her former self. Loving him sucked every last drop of fight from her, but I never thought she’d take her own life. How did I miss it?” she asked, lifting tortured eyes to mine.
I cupped her cheek in my hand, smoothing my thumb across the silky skin. “You didn’t miss anything, Belle. It’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” Her eyes were tragic.
