Sworn to Protect. Kimberly Van Meter

sent him? She couldn’t imagine her best friend would betray her this way but, Great Spirit help her, she didn’t know what else to think.

      “Have you eaten?” he asked.

      She thought of the piece of toast she’d forced down, was it yesterday? Or maybe it was the day before that? She answered, “I’m not hungry.”

      “When was the last time you showered?” It’d been a while. She could smell herself and it wasn’t pretty, but there was a small comfort in her own stink. Perhaps if she smelled bad enough no one would come near her. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Never mind. I think I can figure that one out on my own. Come on, it’s time to get up and get moving again,” he announced, the grim tone telling her he wasn’t looking forward to the prospect, either.

      “Not today,” she answered, clutching a pillow to her belly.

      “Yes, today,” he countered, his firm control back in full swing. He’d always been such a bossy jerk, she noted almost distantly. “First things first, a shower.” Because you smell, is what he hadn’t said but she heard anyway.

      “I don’t feel like it. Maybe tomorrow,” she said in the hopes of sending him on his way.

      “Today,” he repeated, going to her bathroom to start the water.

      “Go to hell,” she muttered, but there was little heat and he called her on it.

      “Say it like you mean it or don’t waste my time. Now let’s go,” he said, his stance hard and unyielding, like a drill sergeant with an unruly private. “It’s time to get back into the swing of things and that starts with a shower. We’ll work our way up from there.”

      Her eyes stung. Why wouldn’t he go away? “You’re cruel. Don’t you understand I can’t just yet?”

      If there was a softening in his gaze, it was gone in an instant. “You’re giving up. That’s not the Iris I know.”

      She closed her eyes. “That girl is gone.”

      “No. She’s just buried under the layers of stink you’re marinating in. Now, either you can get out of that bed on your own accord or I can haul you out. It’s your choice, but you’d better do it within the next three seconds or I’ll make the choice for you.”

      “Go…to…hell.” This time she added more heat as anger started to thaw the frozen tundra filling the landscape inside her.

      He offered a harsh smile. “That’s more like it but I know you can do better. Time’s up.” He approached her and she shrieked as she surmised his intent. She kicked at him but he managed in one fluid movement to rip her sheet from her body and toss her over his shoulder. She screamed and pounded his back, tears blinding her. Panic built until it threatened to choke the air from her lungs. She inhaled a sharp, painful breath, her mouth working to produce sound but something from her blank memory of that night broke loose and strangled her vocal cords until only a soft mewling escaped her lips.

      “Don’t do this,” she gasped, kicking her feet, but he held her securely, thwarting her best efforts, that were pretty pathetic given how weak she felt from not eating or sleeping. “Sonny…please…” she whispered, tears flowing down her cheeks to land on the carpet as he carried her to the bathroom that had filled with steam. “I can’t…”

      “You can,” he disagreed, depositing her in the shower, still clothed in her sleep shirt and underwear. She gasped as the water pelted her. It was at once scalding and soothing. She sobbed, flashes of memory coming to her from that night. She’d sat on the floor of the hospital shower after Mya had examined her, watching as the water washed away the blood and dirt but could do nothing to remove the pain and degradation. She’d remained in that shower until the water ran cold but by that time she’d become numb. That’d been the last time she’d showered. She shuddered as great, racking sobs shook her body. Sundance seemed on autopilot and was unmoved by her total breakdown. He grabbed the shampoo and squirted a modest handful into her shaking hands. “Start with this,” he instructed. “I trust you can handle the rest.”

      And then he left, closing the door behind him. She stared at the green glob in her palm as if it were her enemy. But in truth, the enemy was the sentinel outside her door, demanding she put herself back together.

      Damn you, Sundance. I hate you.

      If only that were true…maybe none of this would’ve happened.

      Her breath hitching painfully in her chest, she began to scrub until her scalp ached but just as she knew that night…nothing would ever take away the stain of what had been done to her.

      Nothing.

      Chapter 3

      Sundance hands shook as he shoved them through his hair, listening as the water continued to fall in the shower. He knew he was taking a chance pushing her like that, Great Spirit help him, he’d felt each quake of her body against his as true panic had caused her to kick and scratch against his touch. Seeing her shrink into herself, trying to disappear, tore a fissure of wrath and helplessness inside him. But he couldn’t allow Iris to fade into nothingness. So if it meant being the coldhearted bastard who forced her to stay with the living, so be it.

      Releasing a short, tight breath, he surveyed the room she’d turned into her prison cell and wondered how Iris had managed to live in such conditions. The stale, closed-in air was enough to send a normal person running for the window, which was exactly what Sundance did first. Throwing open the window, not caring that it was a little brisk outside, he started pulling the blankets from the floor to take them to the washing machine. He’d been here with Mya enough times to know the layout of the house but he never imagined he’d find himself actually doing Iris’s laundry. Up until recently, he hadn’t found much use for Iris aside from her being his sister’s best friend.

      But things had changed. He wasn’t quite sure when or how but they had. Before he’d had time to deal with his feelings, Iris had been attacked.

      He made quick work of throwing everything in the washing machine and then returned to make the bed with fresh sheets. Having grown up with alcoholic parents, the responsibility of running the house had often fallen to Sundance. Well before most friends his age, he’d known how to cook, clean and drive. He’d just finished when steam escaped from the door as it opened.

      Iris emerged from the bathroom, her long blue-black hair lying limply against the deep, rich burgundy bathrobe, her stare red-rimmed and accusatory as it bounced from the freshly made bed and back to him again. “Why’d you come?” she asked, her lip quivering. She clutched the lapels of her bathrobe closer to her neck as if trying to ensure every square inch of skin was under lock and key. Her desperate movements only accentuated how she’d changed in the course of one damned, ill-fated evening.

      Iris had always been proud of her womanly curves, now she was doing everything she could to cover them.

      “You can’t hide in your house for the rest of your life,” he said gravely, meeting her stare for stare, though what he saw reflected in her eyes made him ache for the loss of something he’d never known he’d wanted.

      “I’m not hiding.”

      “Mya says you haven’t been to work in weeks and you never leave the house. I’d call that hiding.”

      “I’m using my vacation and sick days.” She swallowed, looking away. “I’m…regrouping.” Sundance took a step forward, compelled to reach out to her in some way but she returned the distance between them by taking a faltering step backward until her back bumped against the wall. A hard knot lodged in his chest.

      “Iris…” he started but she shook her head.

      “I’m fine. It’s fine. I just need to be alone for a little while.”

      She wasn’t fine. Any fool could see she was the opposite of the word. Mya had to see her friend was drowning. Why wasn’t she making more of an effort to draw Iris out? Surely wilting and withering