“So, what made you finally run?” Ryder asked, a tenderness in his voice.
It made her heart soften though she knew it was stupid. He didn’t care for her, possibly never had. After the whole bigamy thing, he could never trust or think kindly of her again. Yet there was a note in his words that pierced beneath the shield she’d built around her heart.
She sat on o
ne arm of the couch and pulled on her jeans. The fire was burning bright and finally casting some heat into the room. “We’d had one of our classic fights. The last one, I’d hoped. It was on the phone and I’d decided, once and for all, it was over. I was strong enough to leave him forever.
“I’d never moved back into the house once you and I . . . well, ever since Las Vegas. I didn’t love him. Probably never had. I was done. I wanted out. If I never saw him again, that would have been fine. I knew he’d never forgive me, but I made a major mistake. I still had things at his house where I used to live, and so . . . I knew he was working at his office, so I went back to our townhouse intent on loading up the rest of my things and leaving town.”
She clenched her teeth at the memory, and heard once again in her mind, the downstairs door opening when she’d been on the upper floor in the master bedroom.
She had already stripped out the closet. Her clothes were strewn across the king-sized bed she’d come to hate. Barely able to breathe, she prayed he had just come home for a quick bite, that he hadn’t seen her car parked out back.
And then she heard his footsteps on the stairs, his tread swift and determined as he mounted the steps to the second floor. She cowered in the closet, but it was no use. He threw open the bedroom door, looked at the mess on the bed, and zeroed in on the closet. As he opened the door, a shaft of light pierced the messy interior where she was hiding between his suits and shirts.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he roared, though her intent was painfully obvious. “Leaving? Leaving me? You think you can do that? Leave me for some cheap cowboy? Steal away like a common whore in the middle of the night?” His face, the contours of which she’d once found so handsome, twisted in rage. Nostrils flared, skin flushed, cords in his neck pronounced, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her forcibly from the interior of the closet.
She swung at him hard, connected with his ribs, and then saw the hypodermic needle in his free hand. Oh God, she thought, he knew she’d returned and was ready for her.
She felt the jab of the needle in her arm and, as the room began to swim, saw him pick up the rings she’d put on the nightstand—the engagement ring and wedding band that he’d given her—that she shouldn’t have ever let him see again.
“Are you fucking kidding me? This isn’t over until I say it’s over.” The diamonds winked in his hand and then he closed his fist around the clear stones. His lips were curled in rage.
Still swinging her arms and flailing wildly, she gratefully passed out at that moment.
Anne-Marie shook her head. From that point, she remembered nothing at all until she became groggily aware. It all came back.
She felt cold air on her bare skin and a dull throb in her hand, something slick beneath her, the smell of dank earth in her nostrils. Before she could fully revive, she was kicked hard, sent spinning and rolling. The plastic tarp whipped from under her body as she careened down a berm and splashed into the murky water where she woke with the first gulp of silty water.
She knew she had to play dead, to let the slow-moving current carry her on its path. She caught glimpses of moonlight through scudding clouds, saw the ghostly roots of cypress trees rising above the water line, and knew she wasn’t alone in the sluggish water, that alligators waited, hunting. Yet she managed to slip slowly downriver, around a wide curve, and deeper into the woods, undisturbed.
She eased her way to the bank, praying that she didn’t disturb a nest of gators or step on a snake as she dragged her naked body out of the water by grabbing on to a thick, bleached root. She made her way through the soupy ground to a shack that was boarded over. She broke through a small window and found clothing three sizes too large, but dry. She quickly dressed and stumbled out to the road.
She made her way to the outskirts of New Orleans, hitching a ride with some teenagers high on marijuana.
“Anne-Marie?”
She heard and snapped back to reality and the dilapidated cabin where Ryder was still waiting for an answer. There was more to her story, of course. The most pivotal part that she hated to think about.
He was standing by the fire, warming the backs of his legs.
“I ran because he beat me, Ryder. That’s why I ran.” She closed her eyes at the admission, and though she knew she shouldn’t be ashamed, it was difficult to admit the hateful truth. How could someone who’d sworn to love her, to protect her, had vowed to be her husband for all their lives, been able to raise his hand to her, to beat her with a viciousness that could only be described as hatred?
“I put up with it for a while, believed him when he claimed to love me, begged me to come back, and promised that he would never hurt me again. He cried, and I wanted to believe him. At least in the beginning.” She saw the unasked questions in Ryder’s eyes, listened to them ricochet off the walls of her brain because she’d asked herself the same things—Why did you stay? Why didn’t you walk away the first time? Why didn’t you call the police? Why in the world did you let it happen more than one damn time?
“You didn’t tell me any of this.”
“I didn’t want you to know.” She couldn’t read what he was thinking, so she just went on. “I finally realized that he would never change so we split up. He wasn’t happy about it, but I was through being his punching bag. It wasn’t about love, it was about ownership. I was his, and though he really didn’t want me anymore, he sure as hell didn’t want anyone else to have me.” Her fists clenched at the memory. “So, I filed for divorce, met you . . . and it felt so good to laugh again, to fall in love, to . . . oh, hell, I don’t know . . . to live again without fear. I wanted it to work out with you and me. Wanted it so much.”
She blinked back tears. Refused to cry. She knew that she’d thrown herself into her affair with Ryder far too fast and her enthusiasm had more to do with breaking free of her old life than of starting a new one with him. She hadn’t really known him and had kidded herself about finding true love with a happy-ever-after ending.
Forcing her balled fists to unclench, she said, “I thought he’d sign the divorce papers, but I should have known better. Bruce Calderone doesn’t lose. Especially to his wife. My leaving meant that I’d won. At least to him. I was naive enough to think that with time, he’d cool off, see that our marriage was a big mistake from the get-go. I convinced myself that he would calm down and accept that we shouldn’t be together.”
Ryder was frowning hard, but he let her continue without comment.
“I made the mistake of returning to the house after we’d been separated for over a year to pick up some of my things. And . . . and he beat me within an inch of my life.”
Ryder’s jaw slid to one side, a muscle working under his temple. “So, what happened to him?”