“So, how did you and Mason meet?” Samantha asked instead, easily steering the conversation away from last night’s activities. “Clay said something about the two of you being friends since your freshman year in high school.”
“We did meet our freshman year,” Katrina replied, preferring this topic to the other one. “We didn’t have any classes together, and I didn’t know who he was until he came to my rescue one day when I was walking home from school and three older boys started bullying me.”
Samantha’s eyes grew round. “What happened?”
Recalling the day, even though it was over twelve years ago, came easily. It had been the second week of school, the temperatures soaring into the high nineties, and she’d worn a zip-up jacket to hide the cuts she’d recently made along her arm. Some had been scarred over, and some had been fresh wounds, but she’d been self-conscious enough that she’d always worn something with long sleeves, despite the weather. She’d lived in an apartment with her mother and Owen in a not-so-great neighborhood, where the kids were ruthless and mean and never missed an opportunity to torment someone they perceived as weaker than them.
That afternoon, she’d been their target, and an easy one at that. She’d been walking home all alone after school and taken a shortcut through the park. But as the three boys approached her, then circled around her and started making cruel comments about how stupid she looked in a jacket considering the heat, Katrina had known the situation wouldn’t end well. When she hadn’t responded to their nasty taunts, they’d knocked her backpack off her shoulder to the ground, and while one of the boys held her arms back, the other had two unzipped the jacket and pulled it off.
She’d been wearing a tank top beneath, but Katrina shivered as she remembered how exposed and vulnerable she’d felt, and how afraid. Especially when the older boy had started looking at her in that way she’d come to recognize from her stepfather. As the boy had stepped toward her, the sickening feeling swirling in her stomach had escalated, and tears had burned the backs of her eyes. She’d wanted to run, but couldn’t since all three of them were surrounding her, leaving her no easy escape.
“Leave her alone,” she heard some other male voice shout out.
The leader of the gang glared at someone over Katrina’s shoulder. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m about to be your worst nightmare,” the other kid replied confidently as he finally came into Katrina’s view. “Give her back the jacket.”
The creep in front of her jutted his chin out belligerently. “Fuck you, man.”
Her savior was tall and lanky, and even though he looked younger than the other guys, he was clearly unafraid as he closed the distance between himself and the other boy. Without hesitating, he pummeled the kid in the face, so hard that he stumbled back and landed on his ass.
Instead of coming to their friend’s aid, the two other boys immediately backed out of the way, and the one holding her jacket dropped it to the ground as if it had suddenly caught fire.
The guy still on his ass put his hand up to his nose as blood spurted out of his no
strils, his eyes round in shock. “Jesus Christ, I think you broke my nose, you asshole!”
“You’re lucky that’s all I did,” her rescuer said insolently, his body tense and his hands still clenched into fists at his sides as he narrowed his gaze. “Consider this a friendly warning to leave her alone. If any of you so much as look her way again, let alone touch her, I’ll break your fucking kneecaps.”
One of the other boys put his hands up in a placating gesture, obviously trying to absolve himself of his friend’s callous behavior. “We were just playing around, man.”
“I don’t give a shit what you were doing,” he snarled at them, his temper rising again. “Leave. Her. Alone. Now get the fuck out of here before I change my mind and take out my anger issues on all three of you.”
With a grumble and choice words muttered under his breath, the kid on the ground got up, and the trio walked away. The guy now standing in front of her wasn’t any bigger than those other boys, but he was obviously street tough and didn’t take crap from anyone. The fact that he hadn’t hesitated to punch the main guy spoke volumes to his aggressive, bad boy, I-don’t-give-a-shit personality.
He scooped up her jacket and turned to face her, his features softening a fraction. “Guys who pick on girls are fucking assholes,” he said, his concerned gaze meeting hers. “Nobody is ever going to mess with you again; I’ll make sure of it. Are you okay?”
She lost her breath along with the ability to speak, and could only respond with a jerky nod. He was gorgeous, with dark, unruly hair and the bluest eyes fringed by the longest black lashes she’d ever seen. And his lips . . . they looked so full and soft, despite that he was a guy. His shirt was old and worn with holes, as were his jeans and shoes, which told her that he came from a family who didn’t have much, either.
His fearless actions on her behalf had stunned her, especially since no one had ever defended her before—not even her own mother. His good looks sent her heart aflutter. But it was his vehemence against guys who bullied girls that had her falling madly in love with him right then and there. Until he broke the magical spell by reaching out and skimming a warm, gentle finger over the scabbed cuts all along her arm.
“What the hell happened to your arm?” he asked with a frown.
She instinctively jerked away from his touch. Embarrassment flooded through her that he’d seen the grotesque marks on her skin and now knew just how disfigured and ugly she was. “It’s nothing,” she said tersely and went to grab her jacket.
He moved it out of her reach, his brows creasing deeply. “It’s not nothing. Who did this to you?” he demanded.
She didn’t know why, but she was compelled to answer him. “I . . . I did it to myself.” And why did he even care?
He didn’t push for more answers. Not right then.
Instead, he said very quietly, “I get it,” and she knew in that moment that he really did understand her kind of deep, emotional pain, because he’d been there, too. “Maybe someday you’ll tell me about it.”
After that day in the park, no one had messed with her again. Word had spread around school that Mason Kincaid would kick anyone’s ass who dared to harass her. They’d spent a lot of time together, and he’d become her best friend. Her protector. The one man in her life she trusted without question and who knew things about her that no one else did.
And yes, she’d eventually confided in him about her stepfather, and he’d shared his own horrible family situation. That he had a drug-addict prostitute for a mother who was in prison at that time, and that he’d suffered abuse of his own at the hands of one of his mother’s boyfriends. But at least he’d had his brothers, and they all took care of one another. She’d had no one except him.
They’d formed a strong, unbreakable bond, despite Mason’s wild and rebellious personality, and despite the fact that she’d spent the past twelve years watching him with other women while loving him from afar . . .