Shelter Me: A Shelter Novel (12 page)

"He tells me everything," Meghan informed me smugly.

That wasn't true—I saw the denial in Jared's eyes that she was refusing to see. But that didn't mean she wasn't smart enough to put two and two together, if not tonight, then soon.

She smirked, as though reading my mind.

How long had she been hanging out by the door, listening to our conversation? Long enough, I felt, to have way too much of my private information. "We're done here," I announced to him. I took a step toward her and she moved back behind Jared, which had me smirking this time.

Sometimes, violence was the answer—the only answer.

To an outsider, we could be talking about anything, I supposed. I kept my voice level, my expression neutral so as not to give anything away in front of the crowd mere feet away. Whether or not this would fool Ann Maslow, who I noticed watching us through the doorway, was anyone's guess, but she wasn't stupid. This was how gossip started, and whether or not the gossip put me at the center of Jared's book or in his bed, it didn't really matter. I was standing between Jared and Meghan, and I was obviously angry.

Jared followed my gaze to Ann and he immediately put on his publicity face. Meghan locked her fingers around his biceps and smiled too as he said, "Ann, are you enjoying the party?"

"Very much. I didn't mean to interrupt—"

"Bullshit," I muttered into my drink, and I'm sure she heard. Meghan glared at me for not playing along but, as everyone knew, I wasn't good at that.

"But I knew I'd have to corner you to get any kind of exclusive quote," Ann finished with a glance in my direction. "I didn't know you and Ryn Taylor knew one another."

I glanced at Jared. We hadn't come up with any kind of cover story. I knew the truth was always better, but in this case, the truth was way too damaging. "We just met tonight. Brayden thought I'd enjoy this party," I said brightly, then raised my drink in a toast-like fashion to Jared. And then I downed it and walked away.

I had bigger things to be scared of than Ann Maslow. So did she—she just didn't know it.

* * *

I
walked away
from the three of them—they deserved each other—and I immediately ran into Lucas. He'd been waiting just outside the room holding a plate of food, and I wondered if he could sense the tension.

If the look on his face was any indication, the answer was yes. But all I could do was lean on him and say, "This has been such a shitty day." But then I looked up into his dark blue eyes and added, "Except for the shower."

"Let's get out of here and take another one, then," Lucas said, and began to steer me out of the apartment.

"Hey, wait up, Ryn."

Lucas and I both turned at the sound of Jared's voice and then Jared was handing me a copy of his book. "I'm so glad you came. I think you'll enjoy it. Really."

He walked away before I could say anything. I wanted to drop the book on the floor but I needed to read it, had to know what I was up against, so I clutched my new, made-up past against my chest and let Lucas take me home.

M
y head was spinning
. I could barely breathe, but I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other and let Lucas guide me out of Jared's building and into his car. I was still clutching Jared's book to my chest, hating to touch it but unable to let it go.

"What the hell’s going on with you, Ryn?" Lucas was asking. When I looked at him, he'd reached over me and pulled the seatbelt over my arms, and the book, since I hadn't been responding.

Maybe I was in shock. I nodded, or at least I think I did. Lucas stared at me for another long moment and then he took off. I didn't bother to ask him to take me to my apartment. He wouldn't—not with the state I was in, and it didn't matter, really. As long as I had the book, which I had to read immediately. I needed to know what I was up against.

I closed my eyes and conjured up the vision of Meghan threading her arm through Jared's. What if Jared told Meghan about my past? And even if he hadn't, it wasn't that much of a leap for her to put two and two together, not after she'd seen my interaction with Jared.

"What's got you all fucked up?" Lucas asked finally, once he'd settled me inside his apartment. I barely remembered him leading me inside or sitting me down at the table, but here I was, still clutching the damned book.

I swallowed hard and put it down on the table between us. Lucas frowned and stared at it and I knew I'd have to spell it out, at least a little bit. "The premise…the seventeen-year-old girl with amnesia. He said it wasn't based on anyone he knew, but he's lying."

Lucas's expression hardened. "Jesus Christ. That fucking bastard. This book…this is about you?"

"I don't know how much. Jared said he made up a past for me, so not entirely," I managed. But I couldn't deny that the story was based on the past—or the lack of—I'd told him about, however loosely. He'd taken liberties, but it wouldn't take much to connect us…and anyone who did some digging would discover my life seemed to begin at age seventeen. Yes, Susan and Arnold did their best to fashion a past—I was adopted post-Katrina after being orphaned, and my records were destroyed in the hurricane. I became a fault of the system, a child who fell through the cracks, thankfully into a wonderful situation.

And suddenly, I wanted to tell Lucas Caine everything, and more than I'd ever wanted to tell Jared. Back then, I'd been stupid, thought we'd gotten close because were both artists. Because we'd had great sex.

"I trusted Jared. I was young. Stupid. In love."

He pressed his mouth into a firm line. "He's an asshole."

"Yes. And I expected too much from him. It's my fault too."

"Tell me what I need to know to keep you safe."

"What makes you think my past is something I need to be kept safe from?"

"Why else would you be so torn up over Jared's book?" He stared at me. "Do you not remember anything about your past?"

My mouth went dry, my throat tightening painfully even as I managed, "Not even my name."

He frowned. "When do your memories start?"

"How much time do you have?"

"For you, Ryn? The rest of my goddamned life."

* * *

F
ortified
with a full bottle of whiskey, water and an ice bucket, Lucas sat with me in his big bed, with the lights low enough so I could talk without seeing every change of expression on his face. I knew he wouldn't pity me, but just in case…

"Brayden knows about this. And Susan and Arnold, they took me in, after…" I trailed off, realizing the only place to start was at the beginning. Lucas remained patiently waiting, watching me. "My first memory is waking up in the hospital. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know why I was there. I didn't know anything. I should've been terrified. Maybe the pain meds took the edge off." The whole experience of those first weeks was hazy. "I remember feeling like wherever I was, I was much safer than where I'd been." And there had been comfort in knowing I could trust my gut, even in those very early stages of 'Who the fuck am I?'

After a while, that question became less important than the fact that whoever I was might be what was holding me back from living the way I needed to. It ultimately forced my hand.

"At first, the doctors thought I was taking too much pain medication and that was messing with my memories. They knew I'd suffered a trauma—a brain injury—but from what they told me, it shouldn't have affected my memory."

"But obviously, something did," Lucas said quietly.

I nodded. "After about a week, the doctors consulted a shrink, and they began sharing with me how bad my condition was when I was first brought in. What had happened to me." I took a shaky breath and told Lucas about the surgeries that had been performed on me. "They placed my age at seventeen. They were corrective surgeries to my face. Plastic surgeries. To this day, I'm not sure if I was beaten so I could have reconstructive surgery on purpose or…" I shrugged.

I didn't know what to think, and I never delved too deeply on this part. It was too disturbing to know that the person looking back at me in the mirror wasn't someone I could ever hope to recognize.

And that maybe that was the point. "I have scars," I managed.

He swallowed hard, reached out his hands as if to feel for them without realizing he was doing so. When he did realize it, he pulled back, but I caught his wrists and tugged his hands forward…brought his fingertips up to stroke the thin, well-healed scars behind my ears.

"How…" He cleared his throat. "How different did you look?"

"The doctors aren't sure if I had a full reconstruction or not." I just shrugged. "It's not like I remember." He was still gently stroking the sides of my face behind my ears and all I could do was continue. "I was still healing, but since I was young…well, they didn't know how long I'd been healing for, you know? I was out, but they didn't know if I'd been kept drugged to stay out or if I'd been in a coma and the drugs were on board for other, life-saving purposes, or if the drugs and the surgery caused the memory loss. Hell, they can't even tell me if I painted before the memory loss—they think my talent might've been brought on by a traumatic brain injury. I had a ton of rehab in the hospital, with physical, occupational and speech therapy, but because of where the injury was, and my age, I made rapid progress. The weird part was coming back to society and knowing general things—like knowing about the television and how to drive a car—but not knowing about my own life. The doctors weren't sure if my memory loss was because of the TBI or if it was a kind of hysterical amnesia, but they kept telling me that if they had to guess, it was always the latter. They surmised that whatever happened to earn me the TBI was so horrible that my own brain wanted to protect me from it." I stopped my sudden tirade and drew in a deep breath.

He leaned his forehead in to touch mine. "Trouble, Ryn. So much fucking trouble."

"I know. I'm sorry."

He assured me, "I'm not."

I managed a small smile before continuing. "I was in the hospital for a while. A month, I think. No one was sure what to do with me. Missing Persons had no records of me, and I got the feeling that the police were wary of digging too deeply. And the US Marshals got involved."

He looked at me sharply. "Are you in witness protection?"

"No. I mean, not really. I was given a past, but there wasn't any reason for them to take me on. And I was already aged out of foster care, technically, but one of the marshals knew this woman who helped with cases of women who needed help. I was a lot different than the women she usually took in, but Susan didn't care."

I told Lucas about Susan and Arnold. Working at the café. The urge to paint that was immediate, even in the earliest stages of healing.

"I was drawing on everything. Napkins."

"I can see that."

I told him about my apartment in the Catskills. About meeting Brayden years later through Susan. And then I told him about Jared.

At seventeen, I was healed and alive with my art, a wild girl, barely restrained by circumstance. Susan and Arnold knew their hold on me was tenuous and they balanced it well. I'm sure I kept them up nights. I took chances—I was part hermit, part party girl when my art released me for those brief periods of time.

But Jared…he'd come into my life during a period of uncertainty, when Brayden was beginning to sell my paintings for some good money. For a twenty-one year old who'd never had anything like it, the entire experience was odd. I was a paid artist. A recognized one.

I hadn't expected Jared to be jealous, but honestly, he had been. I'd expected too much from him—his first deal had been good but mine had far exceeded his, and after I'd spilled my guts about my past, he was gone.

I'd never expected to have to stand across from him, his book—my life—in his hands. And look what he'd done with it—exposed it to the world. The old feelings rushed back—they were all about how bad he used to make me feel. How inadequate. How had I ever thought I'd been in love with him? Or worse yet, that he loved me? He loved to put me down and for the months we’d dated, that's all he'd done.

I'd blamed the artistic temperament. The book he was writing was taking everything from him. It had always been all about him and nothing that he'd done for me.

The differences between him and Lucas were in such stark contrast that I was sick to my stomach just thinking about it…and when I thought about how badly I'd treated Lucas for a while there. Lucas not only seemed to understand the artistic temperament, but he accepted it.

"I'm a big boy, Ryn," he told me after I'd apologized again. "You don't have to apologize for doing what you love. That's what keeps you happy. I want you happy."

I want you happy.

Jared only seemed happy when I was crying or yelling. He'd fed off it like an emotional vampire, letting it fuel him—when he'd upset me enough so I couldn't paint, he could write. It was all so obvious now, but back then, I was so desperate to make him happy. He was my amazing, tortured artist. My soul mate.

Even though I knew he wasn't the man from my pictures…

Lucas interjected. "I'll make sure Jared keeps his mouth shut."

"How?"

"Let me worry about that. Let me worry about everything," he told me and as much as I wanted that, I couldn't let it happen.

"You don't understand."

"He wrote about personal things from your relationship," he stated.

I hadn't even thought about that. "Well, maybe." Probably.
Asshole scumbag.
"But it's not that simple."

"He wrote about you. How many more confidences could he break?"

I sighed. "I'm more worried about Meghan. If she and Jared are dating…well, she might've overheard me talking with Jared."

"I'll make sure she doesn't pull any shit," Lucas assured me.

I didn't want to know how he'd do any of what he was promising. Or how, since by tomorrow night, the book and movie news would be everywhere, plus the books would be in people's hands. Jared was a minor celeb of the moment and there would be questions, people digging through his past…finding our connection.

My life would never be the same. I'd known that, but I'd never expected this, my secret exposed by someone I'd been so intimate with.

It was horrifying, soul destroying and trust destroying.

At the time, I'd thought I could trust Jared with anything. My instincts I prided myself on had served me so wrong, betrayed me, failed me so badly, how could I ever think about believing my gut ever again?

And yet, the man who sat next to me…I'd put so much faith into him so quickly. "I'm sorry to bring you this kind of trouble."

Lucas ran the back of his knuckles over my cheek. "I'm sorry to bring up the danger aspects. To sound angry about them. I get that you can't live in a bubble. But you're not well protected."

"Not really, no. But living with a security team wouldn't be living, Lucas."

"I'm sure you've tried different ways to recall your past?"

"Beyond just giving it time? Not really. I tried hypnosis once and it failed." And I wasn't sure if I was grateful or disappointed by that.

He sighed. "Do you think that Susan and Arnold know more than they’re telling you?"

"Sometimes. But…"

"Maybe they’re protecting you. And themselves."

"Yes," I agreed. And I was equally—and fiercely—protective of both as well. I'd sacrifice my memories for their safety, since Susan especially put my life before hers for so many years. She never came out and told me that, but I knew in my heart it was the truth.

"So you know, in your gut, that there's some reason you need to be protected?" he asked slowly.

"Yes," I whispered. "I've always known that."

"So you've knowingly put yourself in danger by coming to New York and showing your paintings," Lucas said angrily, making me blink myself back to the reality of the future.

"Yes."

"Tell me Brayden's not aware of this." When my only answer to his question was a wince, he muttered, "Jesus Christ, Ryn."

"Brayden's been protecting me for years. He's still protecting me. We figured that if I became well known, it would either bring my past forward or drive it far back into the shadows."