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The horse yanked away, trying to rear up and back, but Lucas held firm. Across the distance I heard the murmur of his voice, calming and gentle. Not even a flash of temper.
You could tell a lot about a person by the way they dealt with animals, and Lucas didn’t send up any red flags.
Had I expected something different? Nothing I’d seen so far had given me any reason to think that Lucas could turn violent.
The part of my mind that I hated whispered, You thought the same thing about Nathan.
It was true, and it was a lie. If I was honest with myself, I’d ignored signs in favor of being in love. I hadn’t seen any signs with Lucas. Yet. I wanted to know that the man who’d offered me shelter wasn’t going to turn on me.
He worked with the horse for a while, walking him around the field and letting him have some space out of the barn while still forcing him into human proximity. It was a good idea. But inevitably the horse became too jumpy, and Lucas turned back to the barn with him.
Before he reached the path that would take him out of view, Lucas turned, looked directly at me, and waved once.
Shock rolled through my system, and I was suddenly aware of everything at once. The breeze on my skin and the rustle of leaves and the smell of hay and manure in clean air. He didn’t linger and was gone before I could take my second breath.
He’d known I’d been there the whole time. So why hadn’t he let me know earlier? Why hadn’t he called out and asked me to join him or try to talk to me? Force me out of hiding?
The answer rooted me to the ground. It was the same reason that he hadn’t pushed me to talk the other times I’d seen him. Somehow, Lucas knew that I needed space—that I needed to hide. And he didn’t judge me for it or try to change it.
Terror clung to my insides and washed down my spine. Being seen for what I was, that was more frightening than being chased by a madman.
But at the same time, so deep I couldn’t locate the source, there was relief.
Chapter 6
Lucas
The ceiling of my bedroom was one of the most familiar sights in my life, and I hated that. I’d been staring at it for at least an hour, waiting for my heart to calm and the surrounding air not to feel so dangerous.
But it wasn’t any use. My mind was now on alert, and things kept jumping out of the shadows.
Fuck.
I sat up, scrubbing my hands across my face. The sheets clung to the sweat from the dreams, dragging across my skin. I’d really thought I was past this.
I hadn’t had one of the fucking nightmares in a long time, but the past few days... they’d been happening again. A big regression—that’s what Rayne called it. She’d probably tell me that something had made me more sensitive to my past, and it was bringing all this shit up.
Didn’t matter that I’d thought I’d dealt with all of it. And it wouldn’t matter. Working here and through all of my issues many times, it would still keep coming up. And unfortunately, I knew what was bringing it back.
Evelyn.
I started my nighttime routine for when this happened, walking through my house and turning on every available light. Shadows were not good right now.
This time, I’d lasted longer than normal. When I’d woken up with the sound of machine guns firing in my ears and the phantom weight of Emmett in my arms, I couldn’t stand the darkness. In the early days of living in this house, my power bill had been through the roof, with all the lights on nearly every night.
The other guys never said anything. They all had their own demons.
All the lights were on now, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Tonight, I craved air, and even though outside meant more darkness, I knew my mind well enough to know that forcing myself to stay here would only make it worse. So I dragged on sweats and a T-shirt before heading outside.
The clock told me it was after midnight. But it wouldn’t be the first time one of us had wandered the ranch in the middle of the night. Jogging down the stairs from my porch, I headed away from my house and into the darkness of the nearby field.
The weight began to lift off my chest, cleansed with the cool night air. And I could finally bring my mind back to the problem at hand.
Evelyn.
I reframed the thought. She wasn’t a problem, but she was clearly affecting me. And in a way, it all fit together. The deep, roaring instinct to protect her hadn’t lessened even though I currently had to do it from a distance.
I’d let her watch me earlier this evening because I’d known she felt safer from that distance. But that didn’t mean it was easy to stay away. And given the dream I’d just had...
