Safe at Last (Slow Burn 3)

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said in a low, embarrassed voice.

It was true. Yes, she had planned to leave, but not before making a much-needed trip to the bathroom. And in hindsight, she’d been stupid to think she could manage the task of escaping on her own. Better to wait and ask Wade to help. God, where was he? Why wasn’t he here?

Zack’s features softened and then he slid his arm around her waist and anchored her to his body.

“Here, hold on to me,” he said. “I’ll help you. Why didn’t you call the nurse?”

She flushed as a surge of guilt swept over her. Then she was disgusted with herself. Why should she feel guilt? So what if she’d planned to leave without him ever knowing? Yes, she’d planned to disappear, and if possible never see Zack again. It hurt too much to look at him and think of all that could never be. Of what used to be and what she lost.

A different kind of hurt assaulted her. More aching and piercing than the worst bruises she suffered. For so long she’d shut herself off from pain, betrayal, of feeling anything at all. Her life had been hollow. Devoid of any emotion. Because allowing herself to feel was opening herself up to a lifetime of pain and regret.

A sob welled in her chest, in the deepest part of her soul, and she quickly stuffed it down, forcing the cold nothingness that she kept herself permanently enveloped in to come back. She couldn’t allow a single crack. No opportunity for past hurts and betrayals to haunt her.

It was far better to feel nothing at all.

“Gracie? Are you all right?”

Zack’s worried, anxious voice jerked her from her self-battle. She blinked to see that they were standing just inside the bathroom.

“Do you need help?” Zack asked gently.

Heat stained her cheeks. She was mortified. She shook her head even as she pushed him away.

“I’ll be fine,” she said firmly.

He cast her a doubtful look but didn’t argue, thank God. Nor did he insist on leaving the door open.

“I’ll be right outside. Holler if you need me,” he said softly.

She’d die before ever asking him for anything.

As she slowly and painfully completed her business, her mind raced with how to get rid of Zack. She would ask Wade for help. He was her friend—her only friend. But maybe she’d been a fool to trust him. The first person she’d trusted or remotely allowed close to her since . . . Zack.

If only she’d been awake when Wade left. She could have immediately left and been gone before Zack returned. She should have known better. Not only Zack, but people from his security company, not to mention hospital guards and the police were a constant presence.

She was being released in the morning and then Zack would take her to God knows where and she had no idea what her chances of escape would be. Just how long did he intend to keep her barricaded—prisoner—in whatever place he was taking her to?

Being forced to be in his presence—alone—for an undetermined length of time was the cruelest of punishments. And what had she done?

Tears burned her eyelids like acid. She rubbed furiously at them, trying to alleviate any sign that she’d been crying. Zack’s discerning eye didn’t miss much, and he’d pick up on it right away.

She wouldn’t cry. She refused to let him make her cry again. She’d spent weeks and months doing nothing but crying, mourning the loss of something truly magical. But she had been just a girl. Sixteen. She hadn’t known better. Now, at twenty-eight, she was beyond girlish infatuation. No longer did she dream of happily ever after. She’d learned the hard way that there was no such thing.

She closed the toilet seat cover and then sank down onto it, burying her face in her hands. Maybe if she stayed in here long enough Wade would return and she wouldn’t be alone with Zack.

If that made her a coward, she could certainly live with that. She couldn’t even look at him without it nearly destroying her. She’d truly thought she’d put her past behind her. Until Zack had appeared very unexpectedly in the gallery and again in the studio. In just a few seconds, everything she’d done to survive the last twelve years had unraveled.

Twelve years of numbing herself to heartbreaking pain and sorrow. And grief.

Because even though she hated Zack for what he did, she still grieved for that sixteen-year-old girl dreaming of forever. She’d mourned the loss of innocence and of believing there was good in the world.

Ironically her horrible childhood hadn’t defeated her, having no father, having an alcoholic mother who hadn’t even remembered Anna-Grace’s existence for the most part, much less that she was her daughter.

Anna-Grace should have been accustomed to people leaving her. Of being betrayed. But not even her mother running out on her and then Anna-Grace being shuttled to her mother’s brother, also an alcoholic, and who was verbally and physically abusive, had been able to knock her down.

And when her uncle had died, leaving her homeless, Zack had come and taken Anna-Grace away.

Zack had very much wanted to move Anna-Grace in with him, but he’d known and had lamented the fact that his father despised her. It seemed no one in the world had cared if Anna-Grace lived or died. Except . . . Zack.

He’d even wanted to move in to the tiny motel room he’d found for Anna-Grace so she wouldn’t be alone, but his father had hit the roof. Zack himself hadn’t cared, but his father had threatened to withhold his financial support, which would interfere with him going to the University of Tennessee.

Again, Zack hadn’t cared. He threatened not to go to college at all, which only served to infuriate his father even more. It was only when Anna-Grace had pleaded with him to stay at home, make peace with his father and go to school that Zack had reluctantly capitulated.

He’d hated that Anna-Grace had been alone, had lived alone and had no one to look out for her. He’d tried to find a way to move her to Knoxville with him so she’d be close to him at school. So he’d never even have to come home on weekends or breaks.

But finding a place they could afford had been impossible, and there was no way for her to get to school unless Zack drove her to and from it, and with football practice that was impossible.

Anna-Grace hadn’t minded the solitude of living at the motel with only the elderly caretakers for periodic company. For the most part, she’d done her job quietly and efficiently. The kindly couple who managed the motel and restaurant had even offered to drive Anna-Grace to school every day.