Bent Not Broken (A Cedar Creek #1) (39 page)

“Cal,” I whispered again, in horror this time.

He pulled me back against his chest. “Shh, baby, it’s okay. We’ll get you cleaned up.”

“It’s not my blood,” I kept whispering.

Cal’s arms around me tightened when he said, “I know, baby.”

“Is he…did I… is he…dead?” I stuttered, not sure I wanted to know the answer, but knowing I had to find out. Cal kept holding me tight.

“No, baby. He isn’t dead. You got him good, but he isn’t dead.” Okay, that was at least something. I wasn’t sure if I was able to handle killing someone with my bare hands. Even if it had been self-defense and that someone had tried to rape and if not kill me after, had at least planned and threatened to beat the shit out of me. I took a deep shuddering breath as I pressed my body closer into Cal’s and his arms around me tightened even more, cocooning me in his warmth and making me feel safe again.

Safe enough that I started talking in a quiet voice.

“He was going to rape me. Said that I was his and he needed to remind me of that fact. Needed to reclaim me. My dad…” I swallowed, then continued on a whisper, “my dad didn’t care. He just told him to let him know when he was done, I guess so he could beat me after, I don’t know.” I stopped and realized that Cal’s body was rock solid under mine, and the air in the SUV had turned heavy, which made my body tense as well. It took him a few moments, but Cal relaxed slowly, making me relax with him.

“I’m so proud of you, baby,” he whispered against the top of my head. “So fucking proud of you. You fought him. You didn’t give up. You didn’t let him win. Thank you, baby, for not giving up. Thank you for keeping yourself alive.” I lifted my eyes to Cal’s.

“I couldn’t. If he had touched me—” I let that sentence hang as an involuntary shudder ran through me. I couldn’t even think about everything that could have happened. Anguish flashed through Cal’s eyes, then disappeared and was replaced by gentleness.

“I know, baby. I know.” He kissed my forehead once and looked back into my eyes.

“You ready to let them see to you and talk to the cops?” I wasn’t. But I knew I had to be.

“You’ll stay with me?” I asked hopefully.

“Always, baby,” Cal replied instantly and firmly.

“Then I’m ready,” I said on a small, shaky smile that I didn’t really mean, but earned me a proud smile in return.

Epilogue

I was rounding the corner into the living room and stopped to watch. No matter how many times I had the pleasure to watch my step-son who was like a son to me with my baby daughter without him knowing I was watching—though he was never embarrassed to be sweet with her, no matter if people were around to see it—I had to stop and drink in the sheer beauty of it.

They were sprawled out on the carpet in front of the fireplace. Our living room was much bigger now than it used to be. Shortly after Cal and Tommy had moved in with me, we had decided to build an addition to the house, so that Tommy could again have his own bedroom/bathroom suite on the main floor. We also added a game room and bought a new pool table and made the living room twice its former size. It was gorgeous. I had been in love with my house before, but now it was simply breathtaking. With the bigger living room came a new fireplace, and Cal had given me what he knew I missed about being in his house, which was the stone front all the way up to the ceiling as well as floor to ceiling windows to enjoy the view. The addition downstairs also meant an addition upstairs that added a new fabulous en-suite bathroom to the master—I didn’t have one before, since my old beauty was really old from before people had en-suite bathrooms—which had made me really happy, since running across the hall to use the facilities was getting old, as well as two more bedrooms that Cal said we would be filling with our sons and daughters. So now the big old farmhouse I had fallen in love with at first sight, was our massive old farmhouse that I knew I would grow old in with the man I loved and that we would do our damned best to fill with beauty and laughter.

Or more beauty and laughter.

And that’s exactly the beauty I was watching lying on the carpet right now. My beautiful eleven-month-old daughter Sophie was sitting on her fat diaper bum between Tommy, who was on his back, and Stella, who was on her stomach. One of her tiny hands was fisted in Stella’s fur at the gruff of her neck, her other tiny hand was resting on Tommy’s thigh. Her eyes were big and round and on her big brother as she was concentrating and listening to him reading her a story. Tommy’s hand that was not holding the book was playing with Sophie’s little toes on one foot.

This happened a lot.

Both Tommy and Stella had claimed Sophie as theirs almost the second she had left my womb. I didn’t mind this, since it meant that my daughter was surrounded by people—and animals—who loved her and doted on her. And yes, a dog can definitely dote on a baby. No joke. Stella was Sophie’s shadow. Wherever Sophie was, Stella was—and vice versa. When Tommy was home, it was the same. Wherever Sophie was, Tommy was—and vice versa. It was rare to not see the three of them sitting or lying down together somewhere in the house, enjoying each other’s company in a quiet way. Cal grumbled about this a lot, especially when he wanted to spend a few quiet moments alone with his daughter, these moments turning out to be only a few seconds before either Tommy or Stella or both interrupted them. This always made me giggle, and since it happened a lot, I giggled a lot. In fact, my life was filled with so much beauty and I was so happy that I laughed and giggled a lot in general.

During the early days and weeks and months after the kidnapping, both Bennett males had stayed close, keeping an eye on me, a finger on my pulse. They were reassuring me that I wasn’t alone and could always count on them to be there for me, just as much as they were reassuring themselves that I was still there, alive and safe and well. It was sweet to say the least and made me feel loved and cherished and protected.

After I had talked to the police and the EMT had checked me that day at the cabin, Cal had taken me to the hospital to have x-rays done.

“As a precaution,” John, one of the EMTs, had said, since they were concerned about that blow to my temple. It turned out to be a mild concussion, and Cal had to wake me up several times throughout that first night to make sure that it wasn’t turning into something worse. Other than that I had three bruised ribs, a cut lip and a black eye. No broken bones.

Betty had picked up Tommy from school while Cal and I had been at the hospital and had taken him to
Lola’s
where we were going to pick him up. After we went back to Cal’s house, where I could shower and put on a new change of clothes. The nurse at the hospital had given me scrubs to change into after I had frantically tried to rip off all my clothes. But I had needed a shower to get rid of all the blood that covered my skin.

When he first saw me Tommy’s jaw tightened and his face got hard. Tears had pooled in his eyes. Then he walked up to me, took my hand, gave it a tight squeeze before he let it go, and went straight behind the counter to make sure I got my coffee and a big chocolate chip cookie. Watching him take care of me in his own way brought tears to my own eyes, and I had to take a deep breath to keep them from spilling over.

That effort was wasted when I heard Betty murmur, “My boy. Recognizes the light when he sees it and moves to take care of it.” Her eyes slid from her grandson to me and she winked, hence me loosing the battle with my tears and ending up in another crying fit.

We didn’t go back to my house for almost two weeks. First, it was Thanksgiving and Cal’s family descended on us, which kept my mind busy for a few days. When Cal had brought up the move that weekend, though, I had balked at going back, afraid I would see Kyle in every corner of my house.

“No, Cal. I can’t,” I whispered in fear, my eyes wide.

“You’ll have to go back eventually, baby. I’ll be with you. It’ll be okay,” Cal tried to reassure me in his calm and quiet voice. I shook my head frantically.

“No.”

“Baby—,”

“No, Cal. I can’t.”

Cal had conceded to my panic and had agreed to give me time as he rocked me in his arms.

But after two weeks, he was done giving me time and took me to see someone to talk about my fears and work through them. I had been mad at him at first, since he had taken it upon himself to find a therapist for me and making an appointment, something I told him I had wanted to do myself.

“Baby, it’s been two weeks. You’re scared of your house. You haven’t made a move to find someone, so I did. It’s done,” he stated, reminding me of what he had told me the night after my kidnapping. We had been talking about our fight, about how betrayed I had felt when I had found out that he had known about my past and lying about it all along. In a quiet but firm and unyielding voice he had informed me, “I get where you’re coming from, baby, but you gotta get that I’m a man and as a man it is my job to take care of my woman. Your job is to trust that I do that, however that comes about.” He had used that to explain to me why he had kept me in the dark about the fact that he had hired a private investigator to look into me and find Kyle for him.

“I needed to know why you were reacting the way you were, baby. I needed to understand it, so I could help you through it, while at the same time navigating
us
through it.”

“Okay. I get that. But still, you should have told me that you knew. That day at lunch when you came to my house and I gave you my trust and then told you about Kyle, you should have said something, Cal.”

Cal took a deep breath before he said in a low voice, “I was scared, baby. Scared that you wouldn’t understand and run for the hills. I knew what I had in my hands and couldn’t stand the thought of you leaving. I told myself I needed my hooks in you more before I talked to you. I knew you were still holding something back and thought I should wait for you to tell me about the miscarriage and about your parents. You hinted at your bad childhood, but never gave me more. But you’re right. I was selfish and stubborn and should have at least tried to talk to you about everything. I realized my mistake today when you told me you were trying to figure out how to give it all to me. When you left… Christ, baby, it hurt so much when you left. I was coming after you to explain, to make you listen and work things out. I was fifteen minutes behind you. If I hadn’t let you leave like that, if I had made you stay—”

“Hey, stop it. I don’t think you could have stopped me even if you had tried harder. I would have just gotten madder at you for not giving me the space I was convinced I needed. What happened today is not your fault.”

He cupped my face with his big hands, carefully avoiding my bruises and touched my lips with his. “I’m sorry, baby,” he breathed there.

“Okay,” I breathed back.

Cal closed his eyes and whispered, “Thank you,” as he kissed my bruises softly, starting at my temple, “thank you for being brave,” moving down my face, “thank you for not giving up,” and ending at the corner of my lip, “thank you for making sure you’d come back to me.”

My breath hitched at the beauty of all that.

“I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too. So much,” I hiccoughed as silent happy tears ran down my cheeks. Cal stared into my eyes lovingly.

“I need you to promise me something, baby. Next time we have a fight, you don’t run away to lick your wounds. No time away from me to think things through. We talk. We work it out. Then we move on. We don’t run and we don’t give up. Ever. This is it. You and me. Together. Until we die.”

I nodded and whispered, “I promise.”

Cal smiled. Then, “And I meant what I said earlier. My ring is going on your finger this Christmas.” He was back to being bossy. My body shook with silent and relived laughter as I said, “All right, honey.”

“All right.”

The result of our quiet and gentle, but serious conversation was that we promised each other not to keep any secrets. Unless of course, Cal thought he had no other choice to take care of me or protect me in his way. But I was okay with that since he was doing it to take care of me and only had my best interests at heart. Hence him finding a therapist and setting me up. In time, I learned to trust that and loved that he loved me like that, and now that I accepted that love, the intensity of that it was sometimes overwhelming, but no less beautiful.

A few weeks after I started seeing my therapist, Cal and Tommy and I moved into my farmhouse together, just before Christmas. I had a few sleepless nights, but Cal’s strong arms and gentle words helped me put that behind me. Then, two days after Christmas, the whole family flew to Vegas, where Cal and I got married at a fancy resort. When we got there his mom and I went on a shopping spree so I could find my wedding dress and all the trimmings, Cal rented himself and Tommy a tux and four short hours later we were married. We stayed true to ourselves and kept it easy and casual. It was beautiful.

Everyone involved in my kidnapping was locked up in a penitentiary. Gina was charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Her stupidity of falling for Kyle’s lies didn’t help her much at all. Kyle had hooked up with the bitch weeks before he had taken me. He had been smart and had gone for the easiest target when he had found out where I lived and had come to Cedar Creek to get his revenge. Gina had believed Kyle’s lies to the nth degree, going so far as to take turns with him to watch me and figure out my schedule to find the right time to get to me. That was how they knew I would be alone at my house that day, since it had been a Monday. That whacko bitch confessed that she had wanted me out of the way. She was so delusional that she thought after Cal realized she had protected him from me, he would be grateful and jump into her waiting arms. Stupid bitch. When Cal heard, he had curled his lips in disgust and had shaken his head in disbelief.