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She knew what he was saying. He’d keep her safe but he also wouldn’t make a move tonight. The last part both settled and unsettled her. Shane was asleep right outside the door, and the walls were on the thin side. Noises would carry. Then there was the harsh reality of bad timing and the fact that getting involved with Holt would amount to a huge mistake.
All the right answers and items in the “no” column. Still... “I like you holding me.”
“Anytime.” He laughed. A rich, gruff sound. “Does that sound cheesy?”
“The exact opposite.”
She snuggled in, letting her muscles relax as she balanced against him. She should close her eyes and fall off to sleep. Let the poor guy grab a few minutes of rest. But even in the warm wrap of comfort a restlessness churned inside her. For the first time ever she felt the need to spill. To unburden herself.
She fought it off for minutes. Opened her mouth, then closed it and started to fight again.
“You can tell me about whatever has you fidgeting.” He squeezed her tighter in a touch so comforting.
Two more minutes of quiet passed, then... “He took me there after the divorce, to New Foundations.” The words tumbled out before she could stop them. “Mom got custody, but my father put me in a car during a visitation and drove me away. Stopped to pick up his brother and then we all kept going.”
“How old were you?” There was no judgment or surprise in his voice.
“Seven.” She kept her eyes open because closing them invited the mental images. “I remember the surroundings turning from sunshine and palm trees to miles without houses or stores.”
She’d ridden in the backseat and listened to them talk. Put her hand against the window, and instead of feeling the usual heat, coldness greeted her. Then she saw snow on the ground. She’d begged them to call her mom, and that only agitated her dad more, which started her uncle yelling. He called her ungrateful and blamed her for their move.
The drive went from talk about this big adventure where she got a new name, any one she wanted, to yelling and threatening. Her crying only made it all worse. Her uncle Walt grew angrier the longer they drove, and every time he twisted in his seat to glare at her, she cowered more.
“New Foundations wasn’t bad at first. There were other kids and all these people, and my dad kept insisting my mom would come there eventually.” Insisted until the one day her uncle told her never to ask again or he’d kill her mom. She stopped talking for weeks then. “Back then it had a different name and really was a sort of commune.”
“But it changed.”
She guessed he knew most of the background. “Was that in your research?”
“Yeah.”
She rubbed her hand over the arm banded around her stomach. Having him there, touching her, so close, settled her nerves. Made it possible to tell the story. “Things changed a few years in. My dad went from nervous and jumpy to paranoid. He was convinced the police were coming to take me away and made me practice all these drills. Learn how to shoot. My uncle seemed to encourage the mental decline and instability.”
Holt placed a soft kiss on the side of her head. “Did something happen that caused the change?”
“Looking back now, I think it was gradual, or maybe he was never well. I’m not sure.” She struggled to remember all he’d said, but in her young head it sounded wild and scary. Now she wondered if he suffered from delusions. It was as if he’d talked about being tracked and followed so many times that he started to believe it. “I’m not sure, but this new leader came in and the light feeling at the campground went away. I was probably twelve at the time.”
That was when the fear started. Her father had told her years before about her mother dying. Showed her a clipping from the paper. The new leader made her yearn for her other life, the one before. Her father loved the guy, and soaked up every word, while her uncle hung back. It caused a rift between the brothers. One she never quite understood because she did everything to stay out of Uncle Walt’s way.
“I tried to run away.” Twice, but the second time resulted in her being thrown into a hole and guarded, and she had no wish to relive that in her memories. “The days got worse. People left and the guns rolled in.”
“They’ve been up there for that long?”
She assumed that meant he had seen the storage facilities and all the weapons. “I was about fourteen when the amount of firepower started to register in my head. No one said what it was for. The adults likely knew, but I didn’t.”
“There’s enough for a small army up there now. Weapons regular citizens shouldn’t possess.”
