Chapter Three
Savannah stared at the front door. It loomed in front of her. Dark and uninviting. She took a step forward. Blackness narrowed her vision and she swallowed back her nausea.
This was ridiculous!
She forced herself to move closer. Stop being a wimp. All she had to do was take one step outside. Just one. It wasn’t that hard. She’d walked in and out of this house thousands of times. But now it was like there was an invisible barrier she couldn’t cross.
With a trembling hand, she unlocked the door.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
Idiot. Nothing bad was going to happen to her just because the door was unlocked.
“You can do this, Savannah. You are not going to spend the rest of your life stuck in this house. Now, get a grip.”
All she needed was some tough love. And maybe some medication—lots of medication.
Savannah opened the door, her breath leaving her lungs. She forced herself to hold the door open when all she wanted to do was slam it shut, lock it, and race to her bed where she could hide.
I’ve been hiding for weeks. No more.
Did something move in the bushes? Oh God, was someone there? They could be watching her . . . ready to take her.
Her throat constricted, making her gasp for air. Her head spun. The edges of her vision blurred and grew darker.
Knowing she was about to pass out, Savannah quickly shut the door, twisting the lock with fingers that shook. Bile gathered in her mouth. She raced into the kitchen, barely making it to the sink before vomiting. She sobbed with each violent heave. There was little in her stomach except for coffee and water, and it tasted terrible coming back up.
Finally, she sank to the floor. She drew her legs up against her chest and rested her forehead on her knees.
Shivers raced over her clammy skin.
“Damn it. Just damn it,” she muttered. She leaned her head back against the kitchen cabinet behind her.
She was going insane. She had to be, right? A sane person wouldn’t be a prisoner in their own home. A sane person wouldn’t have a panic attack just from trying to step outside.
“You need to toughen up. You need to be the wife they deserve.”
She wanted things to go back to the way they were. To have Max tease her. To see Logan watch her with that dark heat in his gaze.
She pulled herself up, wincing as her muscles protested. After cleaning up the mess in the sink, she shuffled out of the kitchen, glancing up the stairs. She hadn’t slept upstairs since she’d come home. At first, it was because walking up and down the stairs with her injuries was painful. Even being carried around had hurt, so she’d been sleeping in the downstairs bedroom.
Max and Logan had taken turns sleeping on the floor of her bedroom. Not wanting to leave her on her own but not wanting to risk hurting her by sleeping in the bed with her.
Each night she lay in her bed, trying desperately to stay awake, knowing the nightmares would visit her. She drank so much coffee, she felt sick and jittery. But nothing could erase her memory.
Once she’d healed, she’d expected them to move her back into their bedroom upstairs. But everything had stayed the same. She still slept alone in that big bed with one of them on the floor, while the other one slept upstairs.
Maybe they didn’t want to sleep with her. She wrapped her arms around herself.
Tainted. She was tainted. Stanton had done more than just beat and whip her. He’d placed his hands on her. The bile rose and she took a deep breath in an attempt to calm her bubbling stomach.
Walking into her new bedroom, she glanced around at all her stuff. Her men had moved everything in here. Her dresser, her mirror, and all her clothes.
She stood in front of the full-length mirror. She pushed her scraggly, blonde hair back from her face. She needed a haircut. The skin beneath her eyes was dark.
She was wearing one of Logan’s old sweaters. It swamped her, coming down past her knees. Had she even showered today? She couldn’t remember. The quiet house was wearing on her nerves. Logan and Max had been taking turns sticking close to home, but she knew how busy the ranch was, and they couldn’t afford to take time off.
After a bit of an argument, she’d managed to convince Max, whose turn it had been to watch her today, to go help Logan mend the fences.