AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I love everyone here, and I’m grateful I have so many people who have my back, but I’m going to have to make the decision that feels right for me.” She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, trying to look tougher than she felt. “And right now, I just need to take a walk, and think for a few minutes without so many voices weighing in.”
“I’m coming with you,” Bubba said, standing up. “I won’t bother you, I’ll just—”
“Thanks,” Mia said. “But I think Sawyer and I need to talk.” She turned to look down at Sawyer, but he was already standing by her side.
“Lead on,” he said, his jaw tight. “A walk sounds good.”
As Mia stepped off the porch, her father started to say something, but Gram shushed him before asking in an artificially chipper voice, “Who’s up for day old BBQ? I saw some brisket in the fridge that was crying out to be cut up and slapped on a roll.”
Mia led Sawyer away from the house, along the dusty trail through the mesquite trees and down the hill toward the east side of the valley, where fifty acres were fenced off for private family use, and no hunting guests were allowed. Almost everything on the ranch was brown this time of year, except for these trees and the land at the bottom of the valley near the river. When she was a kid, Mia had loved to bring a book and her hammock back here, find a pair of trees, settle in for a long day of swaying in the breeze, and disappear into someone else’s adventure.
Even back then, she hadn’t craved adventure for herself. She’d been happy with her life and her family and her home in Lonesome Point. She’d loved making people laugh and injecting some fun into the day-to-day routine, but she’d never craved drama or suspense in her own life. The fact that she was now on a list at the L.A. Victim’s Services office still seemed like a bad dream.
But it wasn’t a dream, and it was time for her to make sure Sawyer knew the whole nasty story before he signed on for more than he was prepared to handle.
“I don’t really know how to start, so I’m just going to jump in,” Mia said, keeping her eyes on the trail ahead, finding it easier to talk without looking at Sawyer directly. “I met Paul the summer in between my first and second years of graduate school. He worked part time as a docent at a museum I loved. I went almost every week, anyway, but once Paul caught my attention I made excuses to go more often. He was a good-looking guy, but it was more than that. It was just… It was intense between us, before we’d even said a word to each other. I know that sounds crazy, but the way he looked at me…it made me feel special. Like something more fascinating than art.”
“You are more fascinating than art,” Sawyer said. “You’re alive. Changing and feeling and thinking and…being Mia. I’d rather look at you than a painting any day.”
Mia winced, his romantic words almost painful to hear. She wished so badly that Sawyer had been the first man she’d ever fallen for. She wished she could hear a man say something sweet like that without thinking of how Paul had used his way with words to manipulate her, and make her doubt herself long after she should have trusted her gut and gotten as far away from him as she could.
Mia sighed. “Thank you, but it’s still embarrassing. I was acting like a teenager who’d read too many vampire novels. But at the time it felt like I was caught up in this unstoppable thing. Like a rip tide, or gravity, or…a black hole.” She shook her head as she batted a low-hanging branch out of her way. “Knowing the way things ended, I’d like to say I sensed something was off from the beginning, but I didn’t. I loved feeling like the center of Paul’s universe, like the most beautiful, fascinating, sexy woman in the world. Even his jealousy made me feel special, at first…”
Mia let the words drift away, not wanting to confess any more of this to Sawyer, but he needed to know how it all ended, not just how it began.
“About three months in, I started to resent the way Paul got angry every time I went to hang out with my friends, but I ignored it. Things were still good when we were alone, so I started saying no to my friends, and spending more time with Paul.” Mia crossed her arms, heart beating faster as she neared the end of the story. “But the more time I gave him, the more he wanted. He was jealous of everything—my friends, my schoolwork, my job, even the time I spent talking to my family on the phone. Nine months in, I caught him checking up on me, following me to appointments I had written on my calendar to make sure I was going where I said I was going.”
“Crazy,” Sawyer muttered beneath his breath.
Mia nodded. “Deep down I knew he’d gone too far, but he twisted everything around. He convinced me that I was the reason he felt insecure, because I flirted without realizing it and dressed too provocatively and was too friendly with people I didn’t even know.”
Sawyer grunted, making it clear what he thought of that.
“Yeah, I know,” Mia said with a bitter laugh. “Looking back, I can’t believe I swallowed that load of crap, but at the time I’d cut myself off from all my L.A. friends to be with Paul. He was all I had, and I didn’t want to admit how bad things had gotten. And I think a part of me knew that breaking up wasn’t going to be easy.” Mia twined a curl around her finger and tugged. “Around the time I caught him following me, I read a newspaper article about a woman whose husband had shot her when she tried to leave him. I remember thinking…that could be me. I mean, I only thought it for a second, but that should have been enough. I should have ended it right then, but I didn’t.”
Sawyer’s arm went around her shoulders, offering support. His touch was always like that, a touch that gave pleasure and comfort. Now that she knew what it was like to be with a man like him, she couldn’t believe she had tolerated Paul’s clinging.
“It wasn’t until a month later that everything blew up.” Mia took a deep breath, determined to finish this as quickly as possible. “I had tickets to a concert that I’d bought months before. I’d planned to go with two of my guy friends from my study group, but I knew Paul would freak if he found out. So I lied and said I was going to a girl’s night at my friend Kerry’s. When I got home from the concert, Paul was sitting in the dark in my apartment. He’d figured out where I’d gone, and was waiting to confront me.”
Mia swallowed hard before forcing the rest out. “That was the first time he’d ever hit me, but when it happened, I wasn’t surprised. A part of me had seen it coming, and that made me hate myself as much as I hated him.”
Sawyer stopped on the trail, so Mia did, too, but she didn’t turn to look at him.
“The next day, I hired a lawyer and filed a restraining order, but it was too late,” she said, the words pouring out like a flood. “I’d let it go on too long, and Paul refused to accept that it was over. He kept calling and texting and following me, no matter how many times I told him I never wanted to see him again. Finally, I decided to go out on a date with this guy from work, hoping that seeing me with someone else would get through to Paul, but it only made him crazier.”
Her heart beat fast in her throat and a cold sweat began to bead on her skin beneath her tee shirt. “He broke into my apartment one night while I was sleeping. I woke up with his hands around my neck. I fought him off, but if he’d been a little bigger, or I’d woken up a few seconds later…that would have been it. I would have been another dumb dead girl.”
Sawyer captured her shoulders gently in his hands, turning her to face him. “But you know none of that was your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Mia shook her head, keeping her gaze on the opening in the trees behind Sawyer, where the trail opened up, granting a peek-a-boo view of the valley below. “But it was. I knew better. I wasn’t raised to be a victim. I was raised to respect myself and to know better than to think some guy obsessing over me was love. I just…” She shrugged before adding in a whisper. “It makes me feel ashamed.”
Sawyer cupped her cheek in his hand. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You trusted someone, and they betrayed your trust in the worst way, but that isn’t your fault. You ended it, and tried to get your life back on track. The only one to blame here is the crazy bastard who hurt you.”
Mia shifted her gaze, chest tightening when she saw the warmth in Sawyer’s eyes. “You don’t think I’m a pathetic idiot?”
Sawyer’s hand slipped into her hair as he moved closer. “Does it look like I think you’re an idiot?”
Mia shook her head, her heart still pounding, though she didn’t know if it was the story she’d finished telling, or the emotion on Sawyer’s face that was responsible. “No, you look like you care about me.”
