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Damnit, I missed her like all hell. And I had no idea how to fix this thing, for her or for us. If she even wanted me. But what was happening to her was beyond abusive.
“Yeah?” Trav tapped the granite with his boot and backed up a step. “I’ll trust you.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. “Now you know about the cave.”
“Mmm. Not everything is what it seems.” He stared at the turbulent water, then back to me.
“Meaning?” I was fast getting sick of Travis’ cryptic answers. “Be straight with me, for God’s sake.”
“Don’t call on him. He might answer,” Trav said softly, running his hands through his hair.
“Fine,” I snarled. “You wanted to find out about your damn hut. Here we are. No sticks and mortar building, but the way someone–my girl–is accessing your land.”
“Yes.”
I growled low in my throat. “You won’t do anything to help her, will you?”
“I won’t endanger my own family because I shoved my nose into someone else’s business. I have the peoplehereto protect, Kyle.”
“She’s being abused, asshole!”And you fucking knew.
“Listen to what I’m saying,” he snapped. “You’re so hung up about her being hurt, but I can’t help her there. If she’s onmyland, I’ll move heaven and earth to protect her. Within my own boundaries,” he stressed.
I stared at him as the penny dropped on an emotionally deficit and very exhausted bank. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I get it.” He sluiced his hand through his dark curls, dampened by the waterfall’s spray. They sprang back up no matter how he tried to smooth them out. “It takes everything out of you, falling in love. Ruins your fucking world and rearranges everything.”
I swallowed hard. “That how you fell for Rachel?” I glanced at his wedding ring.
The plain gold band full of scratches glinted in the reflected light. He’d never taken it off, at least as far as I knew.
“Something like that. She was...a handful.” He grinned wryly. “In the best way. But Sienna is different. Now you know why we were all so protective of her.”
“I understand you can’t risk who you have here.” I scuffed a boot on the granite. A tiny pebble broke loose and skittered across the cave’s floor, echoing like tiny footsteps. “I get why, Trav. But maybe you could have laid it out for me a little plainer? I’m a fairly simple man. But she– she isn’t.” Nothing about Sienna was simple. Not the way she saw the world differently, or her convoluted and seriously fucked up family. “I can’t let her be hurt like that anymore.”
“You might not have to.” Trav nodded over my shoulder. “I’ll be outside. A long damn way outside,” he muttered.
I spun on my heel in time to witness a flash of something pale disappear around the single corner between the ridge above and the cave.
“SIENNA!”Her name left my lips on a roar that rent something apart deep inside me.
She might be faster than me, but I was determined. I caught her ankle as she leaped for the hole I fell through in a superhuman effort, and she crashed against my chest. Reacting on pure instinct I spun her in my arms and backed her into the cold cave wall, caging her in between my forearms and my body.
“Running somewhere, wild child?”
“Get away!” Her eyes widened as she shoved at my chest, but I held firm.
“No. We need to talk.” I lowered one hand to her face. Her eyes squeezed tight and she flinched, turning to hide in her shoulder in anticipation of the blow Jamie conditioned to, the fucking bastard. I gentled my fingers, catching her jaw firmly but gently and turned her back to me. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You should.” She shoved at my chest again, but I didn't budge.
Nothing on this earth could move me away from her unless the mountain itself grew legs and pulled us apart. Knowing this damn mountain, it actually might, and I didn’t put those words into action.
“I didn’t know what was happening to you,” I whispered, stroking her cheek soothingly.
