Page 57 of Montana Memory

The words hit like a blow, hard and fast.

“And you believed him,” Kenzie said simply. “You made sure I got the message. That I didn’t belong. So you decided to make my life hell, hoping I’d move far away.”

A sharp, sick feeling coiled in my gut. I didn’t remember, but I knew she was telling the truth. I couldn’t stop my flinch.

“There’s no point in this,” she said.

“I need to hear it.” My voice came out steadier than I felt.

She studied me for a moment, then exhaled. “Fine. You sent messages. Not just creepy ones. Threats. Dark, twisted things meant to terrify me. And when I didn’t leave, you escalated.”

She took a step closer. Not threatening, but close enough that I couldn’t look away.

“You paid someone to throw me down in a parking lot,” she said, her voice even, like she was listing off groceries. “Pour gasoline on me.”

I sucked in a breath, horror settling deep in my bones.

“That wasn’t enough,” Kenzie went on. “You trashed my house. Tore it apart. Wrote on the walls with—” she stopped, jaw tight before she forced the words out “—animal blood.”

I pressed a hand to my stomach, nausea rolling through me.

“And then there was the rattlesnake.”

I barely heard her. “What?”

Kenzie tilted her head, something dark flickering across her face. “You broke in to where I was staying here and locked me in my own bathroom. Left a rattlesnake in there to play with me. Granted, it was devenomized, so evidently, it wouldn’t have actually killed me. But it scared the shit out of me.”

She didn’t say anything more after that, as if it was all routine.

“And the actual kidnapping.” My breath shuddered out of me, my hands shaking. “Why didn’t you press charges?”

My voice barely made it past my lips. It wasn’t a question I wanted to ask, but I had to. Because if what she said was true—if I had stalked her, tormented her, locked her in a bathroom with a snake—then I should be in prison right now.

She studied me, her expression unreadable. Then, finally, she said, “Because I believed you were just another one of Alan’s victims.”

I flinched.Victim. I didn’t feel like one. I felt like a villain.

She crossed her arms, exhaling slowly. “I know what it’s like to be sucked into his orbit. The way he could twist things. Manipulate them. And because that night at the cabin, you saved my life.”

I stopped breathing.

“Alan was going to kill me,” she said. No hesitation. No doubt. “You stopped him. He had already tased you and knocked you down. Then you surprised everyone when you got back up and jumped on his back. He was coming after me with a knife. You fought him, hard. Then he laughed cruelly in your face and injected you with that drug. Took away your whole life.”

My stomach clenched. I pressed a hand against my ribs, but it did nothing to steady me.

Kenzie tilted her head, her voice softer now. “I don’t know if that makes up for everything else. Maybe nothing does.” She let out a slow breath. “But it was enough for me. That, and if it weren’t for you, I would’ve never met Jensen, the love of my life. I would’ve never found my way to Garnet Bend and the people who have become family to me.”

“It’s got to be hard for me to be here in Garnet Bend.” My voice was barely above a whisper, but in the quiet of the arboretum, it felt louder. “Do you want me to leave?”

Kenzie let out a slow breath, her gaze flicking away for the first time, like she was searching for an answer she wasn’t sure of yet. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I have to think about it.”

She wasn’t saying yes, but she wasn’t saying no either. I didn’t blame her. I was a walking reminder of everything she’d been through.

Kenzie had a life here. A future. She was with Jensen, and she deserved to build something good, something untangled from the past I’d forced her to survive.

I nodded, my throat tight. “I understand.”

Because I did. It was one thing not to have pressed charges, but it was another thing entirely to be okay with me being herneighbor.

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