“Stop being an asshole, Ben, and just take care of the girl. I’ll be in touch.” The line went dead and I shook my head at his words. I couldn’t stop being an asshole. That’s what I was. I’d worked hard at it, been conditioned to be the best asshole I could be by the king of all assholes. Those instincts and automatic responses didn’t fade away overnight. They were far too ingrained into who I was.
I held the phone out in Echo’s direction and asked her, “Do you actually have someone you need to let know you’re all right? You’re going to be trapped up here for a few days and I’m sure your family is worried about you.”
She looked at the phone like it was a venomous snake ready to strike. “No one knows I’m here. I took two weeks off work, packed a bag, and left. My parents haven’t spoken to me since I found Xanthe and my little brother is dealing with his grief in his own way.” She sighed and shifted under the quilt that still covered her lap. “He lives in Arizona and is kind of a New Age spiritualist. Last I heard, he was on his way to Sedona to seek solace and commune with nature so that he could send Xanthe’s soul to the other side peacefully. He doesn’t even own a cellphone. The only person I keep in touch with regularly is my best friend’s five-year-old son, Hyde. After she died, I helped him find his father, who recently adopted him. He’s a good kid, sweet, and his dad is all right too. They both like to check up on me here and there but I didn’t tell them I was coming because one, or both, would have tried to talk me out of it.”
I let my extended arm drop and blew out a low whistle. “You lost your best friend as well as your sister?”
She blinked, long and slow, and when her eyes lifted to mine, they were glittering with unshed tears. “I did. I buried them six months apart.”
I’d never had anyone to lose other than my mother and I hadn’t lost her; she let me go when she realized the kind of man I had decided to become. I couldn’t say I blamed her, and at the time, I was so drunk on power and privilege that there was no way I could feel the pain of being forgotten and abandoned. Here, looking into this woman’s wounded eyes, I could suddenly feel all the sharp and jagged points of that loss tearing apart my soul.
I gave my head a shake to clear it of the foggy memories and new regret. “Well, can I get you anything? It’s late and I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept since the sound of crunching metal and breaking glass woke me up. I want to make sure you’re good, then I’m going to crash.”
I put the cell in my back pocket and ran a hand over my hair. There was only one bed in the cabin and she currently had control of it. There was an old army cot outside by the woodpile. It was going to be covered in snow and ungodly uncomfortable, but it would have to do. I’d never been one to sacrifice my own comfort for the needs of someone else, but the new me couldn’t imagine asking the poor girl to share the bed and there was no way in hell I was asking her to give it up for the cot.
She lifted a nervous hand and moved some of her very curly hair off of her face. I liked her hair. It was a pretty, rich brown that had a life of its own. It was big, wild, and untamed. I’d liked the way it twisted around my fingers and coiled around my wrist when I was cleaning her up. It was also amazingly soft and silky. Women, where I came from, didn’t feel like that. Everything about them was hard, processed, shielded. Nothing was real. Everything about Echo was unvarnished and true.
“I do need something actually.” I lifted an eyebrow as she fidgeted nervously, fingers picking at the material of the quilt. “I really have to go to the bathroom and I don’t know if I can make it there under my own steam. The room sort of tilts sideways when I move too fast.”
It was something simple, something I should have asked her if she needed help with well before now, especially after she guzzled down all that water. I wanted to kick myself for not being better at this whole knight in shining armor thing. I’d spent too long as the dragon, scaring the villagers, and doing the evil king’s bidding. Rewiring my brain to work the way any normal man’s did was going to take much longer than a day or two, apparently.
“Sure, I’ll help you. Just let me know if anything hurts and don’t expect five star accommodations. The bathroom is even more barebones than the rest of the cabin.” I guess the feds figured anything was a step up from a prison cell, so all I got was the bare minimum.
She pushed the covers off of her long, pale legs and moved to swing them over the side of the bed. All she had on was one of my flannel shirts and a pair of my wool socks. All her clothes were torn, shredded, and covered in blood and mud from the accident. I knew she was naked underneath that thick material and the vision of her shapely, well-toned legs did nothing to help the sudden tightness behind my zipper. She had the prettiest, most milky white skin I had ever seen and right now there was far too much of it on display for my comfort. My fingers tingled with the realization that they were going to be touching it very soon.