The Strongest Steel (15 page)

But in Trent’s car, in the dark, when she had finally released control and let emotion take over, she couldn’t distinguish the man holding her from the one who’d hurt her. The pull on her hair, gentle as it had been, had confused her. And the pressure of Trent’s hand on her back reminded her of both men. Her past and present had become one jumbled mess.

She picked up her phone and then put it down, tossing it onto the thrift store table she’d refinished herself. Would he even want to talk to her? He probably thought she was freaking crazy.

Coward. That’s what she was. Trent had told her she was brave, but she wasn’t. She avoided everything. She’d avoided the aftermath of the trial by running. She’d avoided any future run-in with Nathan by hiding a thousand miles away under an assumed name. She’d avoided having to face him by sending a victim impact statement. And she was avoiding Trent now.

It was time to accept responsibility for her future. Avoiding wasn’t going to work in her new life, and there was no time like the present to fix it.

Harper gathered her work things and headed to Second Circle. Hopping off the bus a few stops early, she meandered the boardwalk, taking the time to calm herself. The sea breeze soothed her nerves. She recalled how the high-pitched squeal of the cicadas had scared her when she’d first arrived. Now the sound was synonymous with the waterfront that she loved.

There had been moments after the attack when Harper had thought she would never get warm again. The cold Chicago winter had added a freezing layer around the cold shell she’d been wearing. Therapy had been doing little to crack through the defenses she’d put up, and her body had been slow to heal. As soon as the doctors had declared her physically healthy, she’d used cash and the bus network to make her way south to warmth.

Harper lifted her face, enjoying the feeling of late spring sunshine on her skin.

The boardwalk was her favorite place. Not that she lived too close, but it was a short hop on the bus. She’d run or walk a couple of miles on Sunday afternoons, daydreaming of taking a leisurely stroll along the stunning Atlantic Ocean in the lingering light of day with someone special. A surge of warmth flooded through her as she saw the spot where she and Trent had sat to talk a few nights before. Maybe there was still hope for them.

Nerves spurred by adrenaline, Harper approached Second Circle. Lia and Trent were outside, leaning on the window, engaged in animated conversation. Her feet turned to lead. She struggled to move forward, her brief bloom of confidence wilting faster than a flower out of water.

Lia saw her and waved, causing Trent to turn to see who was there. Lia whispered something in his ear and smiled at Harper as she turned to go back into the studio.

Hoping she could say the right thing, Harper looked up at Trent. “I screwed up. I got frightened and I ran. I’m sorry.” It all came out on one long breath. Despite the fancy words she’d thought about while walking on the beach, that’s what it boiled down to. She’d panicked, and rather than face her fears, she’d fled.

The admission was exhausting, but Trent still had a look of disappointment. “Let’s not talk about this on the street where everyone can see us, darlin’.”

He’d called her darlin’. That had to count for something, right? She followed him through the studio and he held the door to the office open for her, closing it behind them.

He still hadn’t touched her. And wasn’t it ironic that another person’s touch would actually be a good thing right now? Nor had he smiled at her or given her any other signal that this was going to be okay.

Sitting down on the sofa, he continued to study her. He was waiting for more, clearly, but Harper wasn’t sure what else there was. The silence was awkward.

“I’m sorry again. I just wanted to tell you that. And hopefully you’ll still be okay to finish my tattoo.”

His silence was starting to get to her. She walked toward the door. “I guess I should go.”

“Don’t run again. Come sit next to me. Why didn’t you just put the brakes on and talk to me?”

Harper turned to walk around the office. The question had been bugging her since the early hours of the morning. She lifted the hair off the back of her neck and twirled it into a bun before letting it go again.

“I don’t know.” She paused to look at him. “I just panicked, I guess. And all I seem to do around you is freak out. I’m fed up with it. I hate that it controls me. I hate feeling like I did in the car last night. I fucking hate it! You must think I’m a freaking nut job.”

He didn’t answer immediately, not a great sign. “Not quite. Answer me this. Do you feel something for me? Did you want me to touch you in the car?”

“YES! That’s the whole point. I do … I mean, I did. It was the first time I’d felt something in forever. I’d been thinking about it all day.” Finally a smile. A self-satisfied and slightly smug, male smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“I was worried that maybe I’d overstepped the line. I was as mad at myself for manhandling you as I was at you for running. I would never force myself on you, Harper. You know that much, right?”

Finally working up the courage, she joined him on the sofa, her hands clasped together in her lap. Thank goodness for waterproof mascara.

“You didn’t. I’m the queen of mixed messages. Seriously, I suck at this.”

Tears clung to her lashes, but she willed them to stay there, tired of falling apart in front of him.

His hand was warm and comforting as he took hold of hers. “You know what I think?”

“What’s that?” she sniffed.

“That we’ll do this. You and me. It’ll be in your time, but we
will
do this. And to make it easier on both of us, you need to talk to me.”

Trent lifted her onto his lap, circling his arms around her.

“I’ll try. I haven’t told you everything yet, and I don’t know if I can.”

“So tell me when you’re ready. If you’re not ready, just tell me. I’m a patient man.”

She nodded in agreement and placed her head in the crook of his neck, letting the warmth of his strong arms soothe her.

“There’s one other thing,” he said, “and I don’t want you to take offense.”

“What’s that?”

“You seriously need to lighten up and have more fun.”

She delivered a swift elbow to his ribs before looking up again and laughing.

“I mean it. Sure, you’ve gone through some seriously fucked-up shit, but merely existing isn’t the same as living. It’s okay to laugh, to let go, and have some fun. That’s the biggest
fuck-you
you can give to the guy who did this to you. I just want to get to know you. All parts. But especially the hot, funny, sexy ones.”

A sense of relief washed over her, bringing a smile as he stroked her hair.

“There it is,” Trent said, leaning in to kiss her mouth gently. “Happy is by far your best look.”

Sitting on his lap in the safety of his office, she was beginning to believe it.

Chapter Nine

There was something very different about Harper when she walked through the studio door. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He wasn’t particularly poetic, but she looked even more … shit, something. There was a different kind of quiet confidence about her.

A smile lit up her face after she saw him. She even waved to Cujo as she walked over.

“How comfortable are you with PDA?” she asked.

“Unless it involves nudity, very.” He wasn’t really. He usually hated it, thought it lacked finesse. But for Harper, he’d
get
okay with it. If he grinned any harder, he was going to break his own jaw.

She stood up on her toes and placed his arms around her back before wrapping her own arms around his neck.

“Good,” she whispered against his mouth as she kissed him. She laughed as he lifted her just enough to take her toes off the floor and carried her into the private tattooing room.

He wondered what country music delights he would be subjected to this time. Nails down a chalkboard sounded better to him than high-pitched twang. But anything to make her more relaxed.

This was going to be a huge appointment for her. Afterward, her scar would likely be unrecognizable. The tattoo would still be a long way from finished, but enough of the outline, detail, and shading would be in place to distract the eye.

He couldn’t wait to see her in something backless, or a bikini, or nothing at all. Now there was a thought to distract him from the drivel that had started to flow out of the speakers. Yeah. Thoughts of Harper naked could definitely distract him from the hell of banjo-accompanied crooning.

*   *   *

“I’ve been thinking about our conversation yesterday,” Harper said, once the shock of the first fifteen minutes of needle time had passed.

“You think too much, darlin’.” The irritation stopped momentarily, and Harper could feel Trent wipe the surplus ink off her back.

She winced as the needles started back into her skin. It wasn’t as painful as the first session. Or maybe it was, but she was just more used to it.

“Ha ha. But seriously, I thought about it a lot this morning. I want to tell you a bit more about what happened to me. Just get it out of the way so you know. If I tell you in here, while you’re doing this, it might be a bit like an exorcism, if you know what I mean.”

“Whatever you want to tell me, I’ll listen, you know that.”

“I don’t know that I can
talk
about it. But I think I can
say
it. Like a news report.”

The needles vibrated across her vertebrae, the tiny movements jarring as Trent detailed what felt like the handle of the broadsword. She needed to explain to him, to give him a clearer frame of reference as to why she was such an emotional yo-yo. It was unfair to expect him to simply accept it.

“For sure, sweetheart. I’m your captive audience.”

The slow drone of the tattoo machine and rhythmic rubbing of her back actually started to soothe her.

She focused on the reflection the can lights made on the hardwood floor until the brightness made her eyes water.

“Nathan had started to hang out with a different crowd, partying more, doing cocaine. I didn’t like it, but I wondered whether I was just being a prude. Maybe he was into harder stuff, too—I never knew for sure. He’d borrow money. Twenty dollars here, fifty there.”

Harper rubbed a hand across her face. In hindsight it was all so obvious. He’d been able to earn enough to keep up with a coke habit but couldn’t afford the other choices he was making.

“I accidentally found out he was seeing someone else. A message popped up on his phone while he was in the shower. It wasn’t a huge surprise, as he’d been losing interest in me for a while. I wasn’t as exciting as his new friends—or her, apparently.”

Her fingers started to flare, but watching them somehow helped her keep focused. This story needed to be told, and she was not going to freak out.

“I held it together, waiting until he had gone out, and started to pack as much stuff as I could. His temper was getting worse, shorter, anything could set him off. I was going to run home. I thought I had plenty of time—when he went out he was usually gone for hours. But this time he’d run out of cash. He came home, hammered and high, to get some from me and found me stuffing clothes into a suitcase. I had no idea how bad his habit was, so you can add stupid to my list of faults.”

Trent slowly rubbed her arm as she talked, not interrupting. Swallowing the embarrassment, Harper took a few deep breaths before she could continue.

“He didn’t really ask me to explain what I was doing before he hit me, breaking my nose.”

The first tear fell. She felt her bones shattering under the force of Nathan’s fist. She tasted her own blood trickling down the back of her throat as she tried to process the shock and pain.

“I thought I was choking because I couldn’t breathe. I asked what happened, why he had done that, but he told me to shut up.” Harper’s breath caught. Trent grabbed her hand, and she was never more grateful that she couldn’t see his face.

“Next he broke my jaw—silencing me. But God, I tried to scream. I tried to shout ‘No!’ but he just wouldn’t listen. He was demented. His eyes were glazed over like he couldn’t focus on anything and he looked crazy. I thought he was going to kill me.”

Harper pulled her hand away from Trent and wiped the tears from her face. She took a deep breath, and counted to ten on the exhale.

“When I tried to get up and run, he punched my side, breaking one of my ribs before he tied me to the bed, facedown.”

The buzz of the tattoo equipment stopped.

“Don’t stop.” If he did, she’d never finish before falling apart.

“He was rambling, kept talking about how he could do anything to me. He got a knife from the chopping block in the kitchen…” She gasped, determined not to waste any more tears on Nathan. “Then he told me I would always be his bitch.”

*   *   *

Trent vibrated with rage. There was no way he could keep up the detailed line work on the intricate silver handle of the broadsword. His hands shook, the finesse required to make such small, tight patterns impossible right now. He switched machines. The incredibly fine lines the three needles he’d selected would produce were too important to screw up. And his concentration was shot.

The fury he felt at hearing the list of her injuries consumed him. He wanted to hold her. He leaned forward and kissed the base of her spine that was being left un-inked, conveying what words couldn’t.

Picking up his round curve magnum, he shifted to shading the rocks the sword was cleft into, something he could do in his sleep.

He watched the needles as he circled her skin, pausing to wipe the surplus ink away. He mentally recited the benefits of why a round curve magnum was better than a stacked magnum. Less impact to the skin, better at deflecting the skin, needles that moved more freely over skin. Anything to calm the anger still boiling inside him.

Harper rested her head on her forearms and shivered. He could see the goose bumps appear on her arms, her fine blond hairs standing up straight.

Fuck it. Switching his equipment off, he got up and crouched in front of the bed to look up at her.