Page 51 of Wanting Wentworth

“Your knees are scuffed up and you’ve got a goose egg growing on your forehead,” I tell her, answering her question even though she didn’t finish it. “Not to mention your knuckles are split from going Tyson on that motherfucker.” Stooping a little, I put myself in her line of sight. Doing my best to temper the frustration in my tone, I sigh. “I just want to clean you up a little while we try to figure out what to do next.”

“Why do you even care?” she asks, glaring up at me. “You probably think I got what I deserved.”

“No one deserves what that asshole was going to do to you,” I tell her honestly. “No matter what.”

For a second, she doesn’t say anything. Just stares up at me, her expression a jumbled mess of apprehension and puzzlement. Finally, she looks away. “The first aide kit is in the cabinet behind you.”

Pretty sure she’s lying and that she’s going to make another break for it as soon as I turn my back on her, I open the floor-to-ceiling cabinet behind me. On the shelve, just below the spare towels, is a large red, zip-up bag. Snagging it, I turn toward the sink again to find Kait where I left her, watching me with the wary expression of a wild animal, injured and brought in from the cold.

Setting the bag on the counter next to her, I unzip it to find the sort of first-aid kit that resembles an ER crash cart. Rifling through it all, I flick her a quick glance. “You want to tell me what the hell is going on, Sunshine?” I ask, setting aside a bottle of antiseptic, a few gauze pads, and some bandages.

“It’s not that complicated,” she tells me, hands folded in her lap, gaze stuck to the cabinet I just raided. “Brock wanted to have sex and I didn’t.”

When she says it, I feel the muscles in my jaw flex so hard my teeth instantly start to ache because whether she realizes it or not, she just confirmed that I stopped her fiancé from assaulting her and I suddenly wish I had killed him.

Closing the case, I move back to the cabinet to retrieve a couple of hand towels and a washcloth. Back at the sink I turn it on and wait for the water to warm up. “Does that happen a lot?” I stick the washcloth under the warm stream, trying to figure out how and why she’s so calm about all this. Her fiancé just tried to rape her. He hit her. She should be hysterical right now.

“No.” I catch a small shrug in my peripheral while I shut off the water and ring out the cloth in my fist. “I’ve never fought back before.”

It’s like a bomb goes off in my head, the sudden pulse of it setting off a high-pitched ringing that fucks with my vision. Bleaches it white before washing it in red while my heart pounds, pumping blood into my extremities on a rush of rage-filled adrenalin that scares the shit out of me because I’ve been angry before but never like this.

If he were here, there would be no I wish. No I could or I want. If Kait’s fiancé was here in front of me, I’d beat him to death with my bare hands without hesitation.

Dropping to my knees in front of her, washcloth in hand, I look up, free hand hovering above her knee. “I need to—”

Her fingers unlace themselves in her lap and settle on her thighs, pulling and bunching the skirt of her dress just enough to uncover her knees.

“Thanks.” I mumble it while I apply the warm, wet cloth to her knees, gently wiping away dirt and dried blood while I try to focus on the task at hand instead of hunting her fiancé down in the woods and snapping his neck. “Is he going to come looking for you here?”

“No.” If Kait can hear the hopefulness in my tone, she doesn’t say anything. “This is Luke’s place. No one would think to look for me here.” she says like it explains everything. Several seconds of tense silence pass between us before she speaks again. “Brock and I went out in high school—I was a sophomore. He was a senior. When he first started paying attention to me, I was over the moon…” I can hear it in her tone. How ridiculous it all seems to her now. “I mean, everyone assumed we’d get married but—”

Finished sponging the layer of dirt-caked blood off her knees, I throw the washcloth into the sink next to her. “Why would everyone assume that?” I ask, looking up at her, angrier than I have the right to be at the prospect of it.

My question pulls her gaze down to mine and furrows her brow like it might be the stupidest question she ever heard. “Because I’m a Barrett and he’s a Morris.”

Making a neutral sound in the back of my throat, I nod my head while I reach for one of the gauze pads and rip it open. “Okay,” I say because, believe it or not, I get it. Arranged marriages aren’t as uncommon as everyone would like to think, especially in the circles my mother socializes in. Money marries money, Wentworth—that’s just the way it is. I don’t know how many times my mother has said it to me over the last several years. While the subject has never come up, I know that, sooner or later, she’ll start pushing me to get married and fully expect it to be to someone she deems appropriate. I guess billionaires and cattle ranchers aren’t all that different.

When I don’t argue with her or ask her what she means by it, Kait’s brow furrows a bit more before it smooths. “Even though everyone assumed that it would, it was still exciting when it actually started to happen.” Watching while I squirt antiseptic on the pad, her mouth twists itself into a bitter smile. “He asked me to his senior prom. My mother drove me all the way to Helena for a dress because everyone was going to Great Falls and she just knew Helena would have a better selection… she was so excited.” The last of her words end on a sharp hiss when I apply the antiseptic soaked pad to her scraped knee.

“Shit. Sorry,” I tell her, instantly reminded of the last time I apologized to her. In the kitchen when I had her trapped against the kitchen island, my stiff cock twitching and jerking against her stomach while she ran her hands over my chest. Her mouth—

You just rescued her from a sexual assault and you’re thinking about the time you dry humped her in the kitchen? What the fuck is wrong with you?

When she goes quiet, I look up from her knee to find her staring down at me, those cheeks of hers stained pink because she knows exactly what I’m thinking about. I become acutely aware of the fact that I’m kneeling in front of her, her dress hiked up on her thighs just enough to give me a glimpse of the shadowy V between them.

Seriously—what the fuck is wrong with you?

Clearing my throat, I force myself to focus on her knee again. “Prom? I say, prompting her to finish her story while I rip open a large, square bandage.

“He picked me up. Made a big show of giving me a corsage—some gaudy thing his mother picked out. Didn’t even match my dress—while my mother took pictures of us in front of the fireplace and my father watched from the doorway.” Her mouth twists bitterly. “That’s the only time I can ever remember him smiling at me.” Lifting her hand from her skirt, she runs her fingertips across her cheekbones while she looks up and away, focusing her gaze on the shower stall on the other side of the room. “We stayed at the dance just long enough to take pictures and be seen by the chaperones before he said, let’s get out of here, Kaitydid. There’s something I want to show you.” Looking down at me, she gives me a faint, brittle smile. “We didn’t even make it to his truck—I lost my virginity against the side of someone’s flatbed.” My expression must tell her exactly what I’m thinking because she shakes her head. “I didn’t fight. I didn’t say no. I just let it happen because I thought I was supposed to. Because I thought I was lucky. Because I’m a Barrett and he’s a Morris and I was convinced that he was my future. The best I could ever hope for.”

Unreasonably angry over something that happened years before I even knew she existed, I focus my attention on applying the bandage to her other knee. Standing, I turn my attention to her split knuckles. Wetting a clean washcloth, I give them the same treatment as her scuffed knees. “I’m assuming, since we’re here and you’re telling me all this, that something happened to change your mind.”

“We went together for two years—and by together, I mean I followed him around like a dutiful little pet, allowing myself to be used and belittled and treated like property until I caught him fucking my best friend in the back seat of his truck at a rodeo in Clayton.” Looking up at me while I work on her hand, she gives me a small, sardonic smile. “When I told him we were through, he laughed at me and said we’re done when I say we’re done. You really think someone else is gonna want you after I tell everyone what a whore you are? When I slapped him in the face, he slapped me back—more than once and hard enough that there was no hiding it. When my father asked what the hell happened, Brock told him that he caught me in the bed of some truck with a bull rider from Bozeman, that it wasn’t the first time he’d caught me cheating and that he finally lost his temper.” Hands joined in her lap, I look up from them to find her watching me, waiting for my gaze to find hers. “My father believed him. Told me I got what I deserved while Brock made good on his promise. In less than a day after I broke up with him, I was the Barrett Valley slut. That was three years ago. Before last week, Brock and I hadn’t spoken more than two words to each other since. He’s left me alone and I’ve stayed out of his way. Let myself start to hope that I could get out of here. I started taking college classes online. Applied to nursing schools, as far away from Montana as I could possibly get. It started to look like I was going to make it. I was going to get away from him but I was wrong.” Turning her hand over in mine, she stares at her palm like she can read it. Like maybe if she stares hard and long enough, it’ll tell her how this is all going to end. “Last week my father told me that he and Brock’s father had reached an agreement—the same day you showed up, as a matter of fact.” She gives me one of those small smiles. “I lost my freedom on two fronts. Not the best day I’ve ever had.”

“Damien said your horse stepped on your laptop. That you quit school because you couldn’t access your classes,” I say, repeating what my brother told me last week.

“It was an accident,” she tells me, her tone slightly defensive like I accused her horse of doing it on purpose. “I took it as a sign that I’m fighting a losing battle. That I should just give up.”

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