Bent Not Broken (A Cedar Creek #1) (27 page)

“You already know I’m not close to my dad. What I haven’t told you is that I was never close to my mom either. Life at home wasn’t good. So not good that when I met Kyle and he gave me attention, I soaked it up. He took me out to dinner and museums, bought me gifts, treated me like a princess. And I ate it up. Every single second I spent with him I was grateful, grateful that my knight in shining armor had found me and took care of me, loved me. I didn’t realize that the way he demanded my time and complete attention wasn’t healthy. My friends did and they warned me, but I blew them off, thinking they were just jealous of what I had, which was exactly what he wanted me to think of course, what he told me to think, actually. I was stupid and in love and just stupid. After a while, my friends stopped trying and I saw them less and less until I had lost contact with them.” I paused as I remembered how close I had been to my friend Amber and how I had pushed her away until she had no choice but to give up.

“I moved in with Kyle after he graduated. He was a year ahead of me and had started working for a big company in the city. When I wasn’t at school, I studied at home or often times just waited for him to come home from work, since he didn’t like me going out when he wasn’t with me. Then I had an assignment that made me partner up with a classmate, and we met at a coffee shop to talk about the project. Kyle texted and called me a few times, but I didn’t want to be rude to Simon, so I turned off my phone. That wasn’t such a good idea. Kyle came to the coffee shop, mad as hell, and dragged me out of there. When we got home, he started laying into me, accusing me of cheating on him, calling me a whore. He was yelling and throwing things, completely furious and out of control. I couldn’t understand why he would think that and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. He just got more and more enraged. It was scaring me. Watching him lose control like that was when it clicked in my head, when I realized that my friends had been right, what they meant when they said that something was off about Kyle. Growing up like I had, you’d think I would recognize it, but I didn’t until it was too late. And growing up like I had, I should have known that losing my temper would only make things worse, but I was so hurt and mad and disappointed in myself and my stupidity that I didn’t think and told him I was leaving him. That’s when things really got out of control and he started hitting me. He had never done that before, had never shown any signs that he would get physical like that with me, or I would have left. I swear, Cal, if I had known he was abusive, I would have left.” I stopped. Tears were filling my eyes and I had to take a few deep breaths to control them. Cal’s other arm came around me and he hugged me tight, which I took as confirmation that he believed me. I needed him to believe me, needed him to believe that I never saw it coming, that if I had, I would have left. I felt his lips brush the top of my head, then I finished my story.

“He beat me so bad that I lost consciousness. When I woke up, he was gone. It took me a while, but I crawled to the phone to call an ambulance before I passed out again. I was in the hospital for a week. My body was bruised all over and I had a few broken bones. A female officer talked me into pressing charges, and Kyle was arrested and went to jail. When I was released, I left the city, didn’t look back, just got in a car and drove off aimlessly. Until I hit Cedar Creek. I fell in love with the town when I had lunch at
Tom’s
and saw how nice and funny everyone was, found the bookstore, then my house, and stayed.” So lost in my memories, I hadn’t realized that Cal’s body had turned rock solid under mine and his fingers had ceased stroking my skin. I lifted my head off his chest and turned it to look up at his face. At the sheer rage I saw there I stopped breathing and froze solid with him.

Shit. Was it too much? Did he think I was an idiot? That I was weak for letting someone play me like that? That I had been too stupid to see? Or worse, that I had seen it and done nothing about it? I hadn’t even told him the worst of it, yet, that I had lost my baby, that my naiveté and stupidity had resulted in the death of my precious and innocent baby. That I was guilty of letting my baby die. That I had killed it.

“Cal?” I asked hesitantly on a whisper, my fear clear in my voice.

“Give me a minute, baby,” he said on low growl. His arms squeezed me so tight that it was hard to breathe.

“Okay,” I breathed, then watched him fighting for control. Very slowly, the rage was leaving his eyes and his tight hold on me loosened enough that I could breathe again. One of his arms left me as his hand came up to cup my cheek. He lifted his head off the pillow to touch his forehead to mine, closing his eyes. After a minute of holding me like that, he brushed his lips against mine before he rested his head back on the pillow, but kept his hand at my cheek, keeping me in place.

“Never,” he said in a firm voice, confusing me.

“Never what?” I asked him. I was still whispering, not sure what exactly was going on.

“I would never lay my hands on you like that, would never strike a woman, beat her, put her in the hospital. That’s not in me.” His voice was still growly. He was trying to make a point. A point that was unnecessary to make.

“I know, Cal.”

“You never have to fear me,” he kept talking as if I hadn’t spoken, “no matter how angry or upset I get, I will never put my hands on you like that. I know I have a temper, but swear to God, baby, I don’t have that in me.” His eyes were penetrating and unwavering, underlining the seriousness in his voice. He was trying to put my mind at ease, making certain I understood that I could trust him, and I fell in love with him a little bit right there in his arms, in my bed, open and vulnerable to him.

My heart skipped a beat at the realization of being in love.

I leaned further into his body and repeated, “I know, Cal.” He held my eyes for a few more seconds more to ascertain the sincerity of my words, then closed them again and took another deep breath, his body relaxing fully into the mattress. I took that as the sign that he was back in control, kissed his chest, then put my cheek opposite his hand back to his chest and relaxed into him, my fingers resuming to play with his chest hair, while his thumb softly caressed my cheek.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Cal said quietly after a few minutes of silence. “It should never happen to any woman, but especially not a woman like you. There is an innocence and pureness about you that takes my breath away, Ivey. You’re not only full of light, you are good to the core. Hurting that…It pains me to even think about you being hurt like that. Of someone trying to take that innocence away, of trying to turn that goodness into bitterness.”

Wow. That was a nice thing to say.

He wasn’t done.

“I agree. Macy was right. He didn’t win. And I’m fucking grateful that you are the kind of woman to overcome something like that and come out the other side. Strong, so fucking strong, to come out of that with the goodness and pureness still intact inside of you. I am so fucking proud of you, baby.” He said on a squeeze, his lips brushing the top of my head once again.

God, that felt good.

So fucking good.

Again, Macy had been right. Letting my guard down and trusting a good man was so worth it.

She was absolutely fucking right.

Cal

As far as Cal was concerned, this past week had been absolutely fucking great. Ten years ago, when he had seen Ivey for the first time, he had known that the promise of her had been big. But he had no idea just how big. And every single day this past week, she had blown him away at how easily she threw that promise out the window and surpassed it.

Now that she had let her guard down fully, he was amazed at the awesomeness that was Ivey. There was not one single thing he did not like about her. From her sweetness to her passion to her attitude to the way she was with Tommy, he loved it all. So it was no wonder that he was already head over heels in love with her after this short period of time. He had known that she was it when he started it with her, but what he hadn’t known was, just how quickly and completely he would fall in love with everything about her.

All her walls had come crashing down. He had been surprised and shocked, that when he had demanded her complete trust with her body, she had ended up giving him more, so much more than he had thought she was ready to give. Thinking about how she had called him
baby
in that sweet trusting voice of hers was still sending chills up his spine.

That had felt damned good.

When Bane had given it all to him that day, he had known and understood immediately how hard it would be to get her to fully let go, if that was even possible. How hard it would be to convince her that trusting him would not end in hurt and pain. And he had known that proving himself to her would take time. So he had been immensely pleased, but shocked, that that same afternoon she had given it all to him.

And since then, their lives had been fucking phenomenal.

Every night he went to bed with her in his arms after making love or fucking, sometimes both, and every morning he woke up with her cuddled into his side, then made her fall apart with is fingers or his mouth on her, sometimes both, and more often than not she would reciprocate in the shower. Nothing had ever been this good for him.

Not the sex.

Not the time spent outside of bed.

Nothing.

The couple of times he had attempted to date a woman instead of just fucking her, it hadn’t lasted more than a few weeks and had always ended in drama and games. With Ivey, there was none of that. He doubted that she even knew how to play those games women play.

Every single minute he wasn’t with her, he missed her, like a lovesick teenager.

And every single time he thought of her body and what he would do with it that night, his cock grew rock hard within seconds, also like a lovesick teenager.

But he didn’t question it.

It felt too good to question.

And he didn’t give a shit if everyone in town knew just how far gone he was. As long as he knew Ivey would be in his and his son’s life and in his bed, he didn’t give a shit about much else.

It still pained him and enraged him when he thought about her fuckwit ex-boyfriend. He had almost lost control when she had told him in her whisper soft voice, how it had taken her awhile to crawl to the phone, after that asshole had beaten her, to call an ambulance, how he had beaten her so bad she lost consciousness twice.

The rage inside him had been so hot he had almost come out of his skin. The only thing that had stopped him from tearing Ivey’s bedroom apart was her reaction to his rage. There had been fear in her eyes when she had looked up to him. Making that look disappear and reassuring her that she would always be safe with him had taken priority over venting his fury.

Never again did he want to see fear in Ivey’s eyes.

Those beautiful eyes of hers should only ever shine with laughter and happiness, with passion and mischief and attitude, but never again with fear. Never again.

The fact that she hadn’t told him about her pregnancy and that she had lost the baby as a result of the beating worried him. Also, she had hinted at being beaten at home as well, but hadn’t gone into detail at all. He knew there was still so much she wasn’t telling him, probably more than Bane had discovered.

He wondered why she hadn’t.

But he couldn’t push her, couldn’t let on that he already knew most of it. He would have to wait and let her tell him in her own pace. He had confidence that she eventually would.

Coming out of his thoughts, he turned into the long driveway that would lead them to the farm. It was Sunday, and Tommy and he were picking up Ivey’s new puppy. He didn’t like leaving Ivey on a Sunday, since it was family time and he wanted to spend that time with her and his son even if for five hours of that time they were at
Serendipity
, but he had wanted to surprise her, so Tommy and he had come up with a scheme to drive out to the farm without her knowing.

Even Macy was in on it. He had called her to ask her to close
Serendipity
tonight after they surprised Ivey with the puppy at the bookstore. Eventually, he would have to talk to his woman about hiring someone to help her with the store. He knew she loved it, that owning her own store was a dream come true for her, but in the long run, he wanted her to be free on Sundays. Free to spend Sundays with her family.

And as often as possible besides.

He was also itching to put a ring on her finger and plant his babies in her, but he would have to be patient and wait at least a few months before he dropped that bomb on her. Tommy was cool with it, as Cal had known he would be. He had actually been the one who had brought it up just this morning after they had dropped Ivey off.

“You know, dad, Ivey should just move in with us.”

“You want her to move in with us?”

“Yeah. Or we could move in with her. Her house is cool and home-y.” Tommy was right. Ivey’s house was cool and definitely felt like a home. And it was totally her. All feminine and soft with a little bit of sass.

The perfect combination.

That would be something he’d have to think about. He could see the three of them living there. And it would be easy to build an expansion big enough to accommodate their future children as well. He wanted at least two. Possibly three. So maybe expand the ground floor to add a bedroom and bathroom for Tommy, and maybe two more bedrooms upstairs.