Nate had worked a quiet Monday after the holiday weekend, his thoughts returning again and again to Lauren Grant. He wanted to reach out to her, but she’d made it clear she wasn’t ready for a relationship. The last thing he wanted to do was freak her out.
He deliberated the matter over and over, and finally decided to call her on Tuesday night. His call went straight to voicemail, so he left her a message. He texted her, too, hoping maybe she’d just turned her phone off in the library or something.
Was it true that the only places she went were the library and school? It made him sad to think about it—she had so much to give the world. She was like a bright light. He turned on the television, figuring he could distract himself with a game, but he had trouble focusing. Something was bothering him.
Sam sat on the end of the couch, grabbing the remote from him and finding a college game. “What the hell is wrong with you? You keep fidgeting.”
“I don’t know.” He brushed his hand across the stubble on his chin.
They watched a few more plays, and Sam said, “You’re doing it again.”
“I know. I can’t help it.”
“What’s her name?”
Nate sighed. “Lauren Grant.”
“The one from the picnic? I can’t blame you. She’s nice—and a looker—but don’t let the captain know. She was your victim.”
“I know, but it’s easy to explain how I ran into her. Ryan and I are friends, and he invited us to that picnic.”
Sam nodded. “She’s quiet,” he said, “but there’s something about her. She seems confident, yet I get the impression she’s not confident at all.”
“Yeah, I picked up the same vibe. She’s kind, beautiful, sexy…you name it, but she’s troubled. And I don’t think it’s just from the arson.”
“Troubled? Why?” Sam stuffed a few more chips in his mouth.
“She started a group for abused women at Summerhill College. I think it’s personal for her.”
Sam’s mouth still full, he managed a garbled, “Oh.” When he finished chewing, he asked, “Are you sure it’s a good idea to pursue her?”
“No, but I can’t stop thinking about her.” He bolted out of his seat and started pacing, needing an outlet for his nervous energy. The thought—something wrong, something, wrong, something wrong—kept cycling through his head. Finally, the words came out. “Something’s wrong.”
“What?”
“She’s an introvert by her own description, hardly goes anywhere other than school and the library, but she hasn’t answered my call or my text.”
“So? Maybe she’s not interested in you, hot shot.” His brother gave him a sideways grin.
“Oh, screw you. I’m going to check on her. I’ll be back soon.” He grabbed his keys and his jacket, threw his phone in his pocket and moved out to his truck, just noticing that it was starting to rain.
He drove by her parents’ house on the lake, but her car wasn’t there. While he sat at a traffic light, he texted her again. Still no answer. Where else could she be? She claimed she only went to classes and the library, and it was way too late for her to be in class.
He decided to check the library, so he pulled into the parking lot and drove through it, searching the area. There was one car still parked there, but he couldn’t tell for sure if it was hers.
When he pulled closer, the discomfort he’d felt all evening burst into full bloom in his belly. It was her car. He pulled into the lane and noticed something next to the car. A book bag or a purse. Something that didn’t belong in the middle of the road. He parked next to it and picked it up. The initials LG were stitched into it, so he threw it inside his cab. He pulled his truck off to the side, then shut the engine off.
An eerie quiet hit him. It was totally dark and deserted except for her car and the lights in the parking lot. The sound of the rain hitting the asphalt echoed in his mind as he ran to the side of her car to see if she’d made it inside.
She had not. He searched the ground as he walked away from the car, his gaze catching on something in front of him. He bent over to see what it was.
Shit. Her keys. They had to be hers. He hit the button, and sure enough, the locks engaged in her car.
He followed the sidewalk to the now closed library building—no sign of her—then turned around to follow it back. Pulling his phone out, he was ready to dial 911, but then he heard something. He retraced his steps back toward her car, just then noticing a copse of trees off to the side. As he came closer, he thought he heard a small moan.
Shoving branches aside, he saw a beaten body on the ground. His heart leapt to his throat. It was Lauren, and someone had hurt her.
He dialed 911 and gave his location. The operator’s immediate response was that a unit had already been dispatched. Hoping the unit would arrive soon, he knelt in the mud to make sure she had a pulse, silently praying that she hadn’t been badly injured. Who the hell would hurt an innocent like Lauren? The hood of her jacket was up, and she lay in a pool of mud, her phone clutched in her hand. Pushing the hood back a touch, he touched her cheek, relieved to feel it was still warm, and then reached in for her carotid pulse on her neck.
At the same moment he felt her pulse, he heard a shallow but definite breath. “Lauren? It’s me, Nate.”
The rain pelted around them, and he heard the distant wail of a siren. She picked her head up for an instant and opened her eyes, but then her head fell back again.
“Lauren? Stay with me, hon. Please?”
He cupped her cheeks with his warm hands, trying to give her his heat, anything. His training told him not to move her, but it was at war with his desire to scoop her up and take her to his truck. “Lauren? Where are you hurt?”
She opened her eyes again, a dazed expression on her bruised face. “Hurt? Where?” he prompted again.
She patted her belly. That movement hit him like a baseball bat to his head. How had he not noticed her torn clothes before? Her sweater was ripped, her bra ruined. He managed to find the zipper on her jacket and closed it up.
“Where are you hurt besides your belly?”
“They kicked me.” With a burst of energy that came out of nowhere, she pushed up to a sitting position, swinging and flailing her arms at her assailant. “Leave me be. Go away, all of you. Leave.”
She screamed and swung, so Nate did the only thing he could do. He sat in the mud beside her, tugged her onto his lap, and held her. “Lauren, it’s Nate. They’re gone, and they won’t touch you anymore. I’ve got you. I can see a police car coming into the parking lot. The EMTs will be here soon.”
She stopped flailing, turned her gaze to him, and whispered, “Nate?”
“Yeah. I’ve got you. They’re gone.”
Her head fell against his shoulder and she snuggled against him. He could feel tremors overtake her, so he just held her. “Who?” he asked, so he could kill the bastard himself.
“I don’t know.”
“One man?”
She shook her head.
“How many?”
“Six. No, seven.”
“Did you see them?” The police car pulled up behind his truck and the officer got out, gun drawn.
“Masks.” Her eyes closed again.
“Officer?” he yelled. “In the trees, but I can’t move. Unarmed. Nate Patterson, firefighter.”
Ryan Ramsay stepped cautiously inside the trees and then ran toward him. “Lauren? Is that her, Patterson?”
“Yeah, she’s in bad shape. Clothing torn, bruised face and abdomen, heart rate 110, respirations 18, shallow. Maybe going into shock. Shivering.”
“What happened?” He tipped his head back to listen to his radio. Nate heard the response: “ETA, three minutes.”
“I don’t know. I tried to call her, text her, but she didn’t answer. Had a bad feeling, so I came to the library to see if she was here. Found her bag on the ground near her car, her keys in the middle of the road. Heard her moan and came in here.”
“Why did you move her?”
“She sat up and tried to punch me,” he said, stroking her back in a soothing motion. “Fighting pretty hard.”
“Scared?”
“Scared shitless. All she said was there were seven of them.”
“Seven?”
“First she said six, then she corrected herself—seven of them, all masked.”
Ryan said, “Someone held her, she could only see six.”
“You’re fast, Ramsay. I just called 911.”
“I called it in, too. Turns out they had a call from her phone, but she didn’t speak. She texted me. I was out on a call, but I came here as soon as I saw her message.” Ryan pulled Lauren’s hood back, revealing the bruises on her face.
Ryan said, “Son of a bitch.” She had a large goose-egg on her temple. “Was she raped?”
“I noticed her sweater and bra were torn, so I zipped her jacket closed. Her pants were on. She didn’t say the word about any sexual abuse, but she says they kicked her.”
Nate wanted to say, “I’ll kill the bastards.” But he kept it to himself.
***
Lauren woke up to voices. She was in some sort of a room, but she didn’t know where. Then it all came back to her. She’d been attacked on her way out of the library. Her gaze shifted around the room. Ryan, her brother Spencer, and Nate.
Her gaze stopped when it reached Nate, her savior. His face was the first one she remembered seeing after the assault. Why had he gotten there before Ryan or the EMTs?
She didn’t care—she was just happy to see him. How she wished he’d hold her in his arms, just like he’d done in the rain.
Spencer was clearly the on-call physician tonight. He had his lab coat on, and as soon as she stirred, he hurried over to her bedside. “Lauren, can you tell me where you are?” He pulled out a penlight and shined it in each of her eyes quickly, lifting her chin to make it easier.
Her eldest brother was an emergency room doctor, so it was easy to put the pieces together. “The emergency room?” she asked. She glanced under the sheet, surprised to see she was in a hospital gown and her clothes had been removed, all but her panties.
Her brother took her hand and said, “That’s right. Nate and Ryan found you. You were attacked at the library.”
“My bag, my keys.” She gave a half-hearted attempt to sit up, but fell back when pain arched through her body.
“Don’t worry about anything,” Spencer said. “Nate has them in his truck. Are you having any pain?”
“Ask her who did it,” Ryan whispered.
“Health first, Ryan,” Spencer responded.
Ryan grumbled that he cared about both, so she focused on Spencer’s question. “My head hurts. Punched me…twice in the head.” She knew they would ask her how her pain rated on a scale of one to ten. “Six. My belly five. My hip five. Kicked me there.” She couldn’t manage to get a complete sentence out.
“Any place else? I’m sorry I have to ask you this, but were you raped?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ll order something for the pain. We’re going to keep you overnight since you blacked out. I want to run some tests. Since you lost consciousness, I want to check to make sure you don’t have a concussion. Let’s also make sure you don’t have any broken bones. Can you move everything? Do you think anything could be broken?”
Lauren wiggled her toes and fingers, then shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
He turned to Ryan and Nate. “I’m going to send the nurse in with some pain medicine. We’ll need to do some tests. Check for a brain injury since she lost consciousness, make sure she doesn’t have a broken hip or pelvis. She’s all yours, Ryan.” He kissed Lauren’s forehead and left.
Just then, Jake burst in, also in uniform. “What the hell. Again, Lauren?”
Ryan motioned for him to be quiet.
“Was she the victim of the attack at the library?”
“Yes, Jake, but I’m fine. Just a little sore.”
“A little? I’ll beat the shit out of the bastard who did this.” Jake had more of a temper than Ryan did, but it was obvious they were both worked up.
“No,” was all she could manage.
Ryan whispered, “They, Jake. Not one bastard. Seven.”
Jake stared wide-eyed at Ryan and spun around to pace. He stopped in front of Nate and asked, “Why are you here?”
“He found me behind the library,” Lauren said softly. “Jake, you’re making my headache worse. Please stop moving.” Her hand massaged her head as she rolled to her side, the bruises on her face beginning to bother her now.
Jake halted and nodded to Ryan, sending a silent message to his brother and fellow officer.
Ryan reached for her hand and squeezed it. Lauren stared up at him, wondering how her stepbrothers, both such good men, could work around violence every day. “Who were they, Lauren?”
“I don’t know. Seven men.”
“Tell me what you remember.”
“I did what you told me, Ryan. I fought them, used my mace, kicked and scratched. I tried to take pictures with my phone. You can check that, but there were just too many of them. I couldn’t fight all seven.” She reached up to tug on her hair, surprised to feel how damp and dirty it was. Bits and pieces of the night came back to her—the mud, the rain, the masks.
“You did great, Lauren. You texted me…you called 911. No one could have held it together better after what happened. What else can you tell me?” Ryan sat on a chair and pulled it closer to her.
“They said it was a message for me. They told me they’d come back for me if I don’t end my support group permanently. Rape me, hurt me.” She stared at the ceiling, doing her best to knock the image of seven men out of her mind.
“Did you recognize any of them? Voices? Anything?”
“No. They all had masks on. Left in two cars. It was just after eleven. Stayed too long. Shouldn’t have.”
“Did you have any info on the cars?”
She shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks, tears she’d tried desperately to hold inside.
Ryan looked at Nate and asked, “Can you stay until her mother gets here? She should be here soon. I wanted to go back to campus to see if there are any frats partying, see what we can uncover before they all pass out. Since Jake is here too, we’ll be able to cover the area much more quickly. With the rain, there won’t be much evidence at the library.”
“Sure. I’m not working in the morning.”
“Thanks.” He patted Nate’s shoulder and kissed Lauren’s cheek. “Your mom is coming. Nate will stay with you until she gets here.”
Jake did the same. “Lauren, we’ll find them. I promise.”
With that, her stepbrothers left her and Nate alone together in the small curtained-off cubicle in the emergency room. She turned to look at him. “You don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m staying because I want to stay, and I don’t expect you’ll be fine for a little while. You’ve had too much happen to you. I wouldn’t dream of leaving you alone right now.” He took the chair Ryan had vacated and cocooned her hand in his warm grip.
She stared at Nate, wondering why he would be so kind to a near stranger—surely he knew better than to want to date her now—but decided to accept it. But then something occurred to her. “How did you know I was there? Or did you find out I was here?” Her brain was cloudy, her memories unclear. Had he told her already?
“You don’t remember? I came looking for you because you didn’t answer my text or voicemail.”
She frowned, doing her best to bring the memory back, but it wouldn’t come. Her hand massaged her forehead, trying to summon it from the depths of her tired brain. Deciding it didn’t matter, she said, “Thank you.” She felt so cold, she didn’t know what to do. When she started to shiver, she finally turned to Nate and asked, “Blanket. Please?”
Nate glanced around the small area, then took one look at her and sighed.
She brushed away the tears that had started to fall. “Sorry. I can’t stop the tears.”
Nate shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I don’t see any blankets.” He opened the curtain, probably looking for any attending nurses who could help. She heard him talk to an aide, asking if he could move her, then he returned after the aide gave him permission. Moving decisively, he wrapped her IV cord over his shoulder, scooped her up into his arms, and sat back in the chair, wrapping his muscular arms around her. “I’ll warm you.” He rested his jacket across her lap, covering her legs as best he could.
She shuddered as Nate’s heat spread over her. The man was like a roaring fire on a cold night at the lake. Not caring what anyone thought, she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, inhaling his familiar scent, though she could tell his hair was still wet from the rain. Or was it her own hair she smelled? Nate comforted her like no other—she wasn’t sure why, but that was the plain and simple truth of it—and she decided to enjoy him. “I warned you,” she whispered, her hand gripping his shirt as if she could keep him there by that simple gesture.
“About what?”
“Being a burden.” Just the words brought tears to her eyes.
“You’re not a burden. I quite like having you on my lap, and you weigh as much as a feather. I’m sorry this happened to you, that I didn’t get there sooner.” He rubbed his thumb across the skin on her arm.
“Me, too. Now I’ll be worse.” Three attacks. Would she ever be able to put them behind her?
“I don’t understand.”
She heaved a big sigh. How could she explain it? “I want to hide from it all. That’s why I don’t go anywhere. Didn’t want to put myself at risk…and they hurt me anyway.”
“You can’t stop living your life.”
“But I will. Now I’ll be afraid of the library and worse…”
“Worse?” He rubbed his hands across her forearms, left uncovered by the short-sleeved hospital gown.
A patient care assistant came in with a basin full of warm water and a washcloth. She seemed a little caught off guard to find Lauren wrapped up in Nate’s arm, but she recovered quickly and pointed to Lauren’s face. “For the dirt. I’ll wash it off.”
“No,” Lauren barked as she lifted her head. “It…it hurts too much.” In truth, she could not stomach the thought of having a stranger touch her. She’d try on her own when she was ready, but she just didn’t care at the moment. The dirt could stay put for now. The woman stood there staring at her, waiting for her to comply or suggest some sort of solution, but she was just too weary to do anything. To say anything.
“I’ll leave it here with a bar of soap. You can do it yourself if you’d rather. But you should get the dirt off those small cuts. Oh, and your nurse said she’ll be in with your medication in a few minutes.” She left and drew the curtain closed behind her.
Lauren’s head fell back onto Nate’s shoulder.
He picked the cloth up and dipped it into the warm water. “Here. I’ll help you.”
She lifted her head and let him. True, she could do it herself, but decided she’d rather have him do it since he had offered. Strangely, she trusted him to do it. Peering into his gray eyes, she said softly, “This is above and beyond the call of duty for a firefighter.”
He chuckled, squeezing the excess water out of the cloth. “Maybe, but I don’t have anything else to do tonight. The football game was boring. It was college, not my favorite to watch.”
“Who’s your team?”
“The Bills, of course. They don’t play until Sunday. Do you watch football?” He ran the cloth across her forehead first.
“Yes. My stepfather is the biggest Bills fan of all. And my mother’s become a fan, too.”
Nate had the gentlest touch possible. He used the warm cloth to wash her face, down her neck, even her hands and her arms. It felt so good to let him take care of her. To let someone else bear the burden for a moment. She’d been alone for such a long, long time.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” He rinsed the cloth again, then worked on the back of her neck, something that caused her to moan with pleasure.
“Tell you about how scared I was or how nasty they were? Or should I tell you how hard it is to stand near a man I don’t know for fear their hands will reach out and do what any of those bastards did to me? They groped and pulled and punched and shoved and pinched me, and I was powerless to stop them. I tried everything Ryan and Jake showed me…”
“And?”
“The mace. I even got a few of them with it.”
He set the cloth back into the basin and ran his thumb across her bottom lip. “So you hurt them, too.”
“I did.” She did her best to recall any other details. “You know, I think I kicked a couple of them.”
“Well done,” he whispered, an inch away from her mouth. Somehow it wasn’t frightening that Nate was this close to her. She wanted him to kiss her. As if he could read her thoughts, he gave her a chaste kiss and then pulled back so their lips were almost touching. “You fought well. Two or three big men couldn’t control you. Few people could have done better.”
She brought her hand up the side of his neck, barely touching him. She actually touched the pads of her fingers to his skin, willingly, and he kissed her again. He tasted wonderfully and strangely familiar, and familiar was something she needed more than anything right now.
The nurse from before came in and said, “Dr. Grant asked me to bring this in for your pain. Can you state your name and date of birth, please?”
She did, and accepted the pill while the nurse poured a glass of water for her from the pitcher on the side table. “Thank you,” she mumbled just before she let her head fall back on Nate’s shoulder.
“Here’s the call bell if you need anything.” The nurse set in on the table next to her so it was within reach.
“Wow, you have your own brother taking care of you? That’s nice.”
“You know how it is in small towns. This hospital is small, so he’s probably the only attending doctor tonight. He likes being on call. Says he likes being the expert.” She smiled, pleased that Spencer was working tonight. He was very good at respecting her privacy, too. She peeked out through the break in the curtain to see if she could catch sight of him.
That was when she noticed her mother standing in the hallway crying.