Page 25 of Disappearance at Angel's Landing
Branch let that sit between them, and she hated his silence. His distance. It made the grime coating her skin burn and itch, but there was nothing she could do to wash it away. After a few minutes and seeing that she’d finished her dinner, Branch shoved to stand, tossing his water bottle at his feet. “I need to assess your injuries.”
It was easy to paste her practiced smile back on and slip into that protective layer she’d created to block out all the bad. Spreading her arms wide, Lila leaned back to get a better view of his face in the last offering of sunset. “Have your way withme, Ranger Thompson. I promise not to bite. Unless you’re into that.”
“You were nearly killed.” A scowl contorted his face, a sucker punch straight to the gut. Ah, there he was. The grizzly bear had returned, and everything they’d been through together suddenly didn’t seem so bad.
That was okay. She was used to people running the other direction once they realized she was more than they’d bargained for. She’d just wanted things to be different with him. “In my defense, I was left unsupervised.”
His fingers splayed across her skin, right over the ring of gauze on her arm, but he was careful not to prod or poke anywhere that might hurt. The lines between his brows deepened as he unwrapped her like a delicate piece of china. Or the way she unwrapped her first helping of Cherry Garcia. Either way, heat spread under her skin at his touch. “Did you pick up anything that might identify the killer?”
Right. This wasn’t personal. He’d made that very clear by keeping his distance unless absolutely necessary. Like making sure she didn’t bleed out in the middle of the desert on his shift. “Does his astrological sign count? Because that man is definitely a Sagittarius. Egotistical, impatient, boastful. Pretty sure him and Ted Bundy would’ve gotten along well together.”
He didn’t have an answer for that. Pain flared up her arm, and she tried to drag herself out of his touch, but Branch held on tight.
“He didn’t really introduce himself, but in my head, I called him Covid.” Lila tried to even her breathing, but it was so much harder when a six-plus mountain of eye candy insisted on groping her.
Branch’s mouth twitched at one corner. So…he wasn’t entirely as unaffected as he was trying to be, which only pissed her off more. The break in his composure didn’t last long as heraised his gaze to her throat. To the ugly, thick scar she couldn’t bear to look at in the mirror. He brought his hand up, his thumb brushing the underside of her neck. “The kerchiefs.”
It took her a second to realize he was talking about her attempt to hide her shame from him and the rest of the world.
“Who hurt you?” Those three words again. That was all it took to shake the dragging haze of exhaustion free.
Her skin boiled under his touch, and Lila couldn’t take much more. She pulled free of his hand, not bothering to rewrap her wound. Probably a stupid choice, but her choice all the same. Her poor heart slammed against her ribs at the concern in his voice. The anger on her behalf. Compared to the bruises on her ribs and the massive headache telling her she hadn’t had enough to drink while running for her life, she’d take another bullet graze than face this conversation. She headed back for the tent, not really sure where else to go. It wasn’t as though she could just run for the hills. Those hills had a killer in them. One who’d already gotten too close. “No one.”
“Lila.” Her name on his lips pulled her up short. Had he ever called her that?
As much as she hated the idea of him joining in the other rangers’ Barbie games, she wasn’t sure her heart could handle him seeing past the persona she’d designed. Through the smiles and the makeup and the pink kerchiefs. There was a reason she felt safer as Ranger Barbie. Most people—Risner, Sayles and all the other rangers, hikers even—made their assumptions and avoided taking the time to look deeper. Like the glitter she’d applied on her cheeks would infect them. Herpes of the craft world, for the win.
But Branch said her name as though he intended to do just that. Become infected. Dig deeper. And she was scared of what he might find. Would he still want to meet her for coffee afterthis investigation was over? Would he be able to look her in the eye when he learned the truth? How truly broken she really was.
“Barbies don’t feel pain, remember?” If only that were true. The memories that had held her captive more so than the man with the gun threatened to resurface.
A hand clasped over her mouth. Threats in her ear. The weight of her attacker in a room where she should’ve been safe. It wasn’t that night that gave her nightmares or had led her to pasting on the smiles Branch seemed to see right through. It was everything that happened afterward, and at the lowest point in her life, stripped of everything and everyone she’d ever loved, she’d stretched out a hand to find something to hold onto. In a mess of blood and hopelessness in the very room where she’d been made a victim over and over again, her fingers had folded around a Barbie doll from her childhood. And she’d felt…happy. For the first time in years, she had something good in her hands.
It only made sense to carry that feeling with her to fight back the demons closing in. “Nobody hurt me, Branch. I did it to myself.”
Chapter Eighteen
In this new concept called caring, Branch was finding quite a few things to hate. Mostly the changes in himself.
He’d waited outside the tent while Lila had changed into a new set of clothes, presumably wanting to be free of blood and grime after she’d helped irrigate the wound at his temple. He’d waited as her movements slowed. Waited as the night grew cold and her breathing grew even. He hadn’t been able to face her.
Nobody hurt me, Branch. I did it to myself.
The jagged scar across her neck was unlike anything he’d ever seen. At least not on a person still walking the earth. The moment he’d dragged her from that damn cave and into the open, it’d stared back at him. Crystallizing a deep need to destroy anyone and anything that’d had a hand in marring her perfect skin. He hadn’t trusted himself to get near her, afraid all that rage would burn her if he got too close. So he’d set himself up on the opposite side of camp, to protect her, but he’d only managed to feed the hollowness in his chest to the point he couldn’t breathe.
Except there was no one to fight.
She’d done it to herself. Why? What could’ve possibly happened to convince her the only choice she had was death?
Branch pocketed the protein bar wrapper, not really tasting the ingredients. His senses had dulled in the time he’d been separated from Lila and had gone mute since she’d zippedherself inside the tent. Damn it. What he wouldn’t give to go back to pretending she didn’t exist. To shutting himself away from the rest of the world and avoiding this new rip in his heart that focused entirely on Lila’s well-being.
His skin prickled as temperatures dropped. Branch kept his attention on the mouth of the canyon, waiting for the next threat to make another move. The killer had escaped the cave. A quick search for the gun turned up empty.
And it was only a matter of time before his body failed him. He’d driven it to the edge too many times today. Surviving the landslide, searching for Lila, luring a mountain lion with jerky and then fighting off a killer. Worse, at some point, he’d come to accept he wouldn’t witness Lila’s smile ever again. That he’d lost her. The pinch in his chest had yet to get the message she was alive and breathing on the other side of the stretch of canvas between them. Some part of him was still back in that cave, seeing her unconscious. Unmoving.
Something had split open in him then. Pieces of the man he used to be had surfaced with all the rage, and hell, it scared him the lengths he would’ve gone to get one more second, one more death threat, with her.
Or do you only think you know her?The killer’s parting words had seared into his brain and refused to give him respite. They’d surged with every hyperaware glance in her direction, every move she’d made tonight, every word out of her mouth.
